Comedian Josh Gondelman is threatened with a lawsuit after he reviews a new sexual enhancement product.

Josh Gondelman is a writer and comedian who incubated in Boston before moving to New York City, where he currently lives and works as a writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. In 2016, he made his late night standup debut on Conan (TBS), and he recently made his network tv debut on Late Night With Seth Meyers (NBC). Josh’s newest comedy album Physical Whisper debuted in March of 2016 at #1 on the iTunes comedy charts (as well as #4 on the Billboard comedy chart)  and stayed there for…well…longer than he expected, honestly. Offstage, Josh has earned a Peabody Award, two Emmy awards, and two WGA Awards for his work on Last Week Tonight. He is also the co-author (along with Joe Berkowitz) of the book You Blew It, published October 2015 by Plume. His follow-up, Nice Try, is set to come out Fall 2019 through Harper Perennial. His writing has also appeared in prestigious publications such as McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, New York Magazine, and The New Yorker.

This story originally aired on Jul. 6, 2018, in an episode titled The Science of Dating.

Story Transcript

Hello, everyone.  What a pleasure to be here amongst you and for such a good cause.  Don’t worry about learning while I’m talking because I have nothing of value to impart.  In fact, I’m going to talk about how science almost ruined my life. 

But it is a story with a happy ending.  This is a story about vanquishing a nemesis which is very exciting, and it’s hard work.  Most of the time when you want to vanquish a nemesis, it takes decades.  You got to learn how to sword-fight in a cave, find the six-fingered man who killed your father.  It’s a process.  It’s an ordeal. 

I did mine in three days.  That’s half a week.  That was pretty good, I think, not to toot my own horn.  And to increase the stakes, I will tell you that my nemesis was the CEO of a pharmaceutical company.  Thank you.  Which sounds very impressive until I tell you that he is the CEO of a pharmaceutical company that exclusively manufactured a penis-numbing spray marketed towards premature ejaculators. 

So less of a worthy adversary, I think we can all admit.  Because we’re talking about a medical scientist who, at one point, was like, “You know, you guys handle cancer.  I’m going to hook it up for the dudes who think sex feels too awesome.  Why?  No reason.  Have you been talking to Sheila?”

So it was also, I should note, the first FDA-approved over-the-counter penis-numbing spray marketed towards premature ejaculators, which means it went through a new -drug application, was approved.  Then went through a second application for over-the-counter status which is clinical test after clinical test, paperwork after paperwork, which is an unbelievable commitment to the plight of premature ejaculators and an unbelievable slap in the face to anyone with a different incurable disease.  Just like, “Screw you, Ebola!  I need to help the guys who can’t not come.  Because if I don’t, who will speak for them?”

The reason he was in my life at all is because I used to do a lot of freelance writing for women’s magazines.  That’s true.  I got an email from an editor that I worked for pretty frequently. 

She said, “Josh, will you test and write about a penis-numbing spray marketed towards premature ejaculators.” 

And I responded, as any man would, “Why would you even ask me that?  That’s never happened to me before.”

Then she wrote back explaining how much money she would pay me to do said article and experiment and I just wrote back a one-word email just, “YES,” all caps, then I had to send a second email apologizing for how fast my first email had been, how brief it was, promising future correspondence that were mutually satisfying, offering to pay for brunch.  You guys get it. 

So I pick up the penis-numbing spray from her office and I go right from there to like a third date with a young woman.  We’d been out a few times.  We’re really getting along.  Hadn’t spent the night together at that point. 

We have a few drinks.  We’re having a lot of fun and I mentioned my writing assignment. 

She said, very understandable, “I’m not into that idea at all.”  Which like of course she wasn’t.  We hadn’t had sex without performance-enhancing drugs.  She doesn’t want me coming at her for the first time with like a dead-eyed, remorseless Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men boner, deciding who lives and dies on a whim, flipping a coin on the tip somehow. 

So she says, “I’m not into that at all.” 

And I said.  “Fine.  I'll take care of this on my own,” because I'd been drinking and decided to yell the most self-righteous thing any man has ever yelled while he was leaving a date to go home and masturbate. 

That’s what I did.  I went home.  I took out my penis-numbing spray, one of the three canisters I was given.  And I used the maximum recommended dosage.  I used ten spritzes, which you know you're using a sketchy medicine when it’s measured in spritzes.  You never hear like, “Give me ten spritzes of cortisone, STAT.”  “We’re losing him!  Spritz him!”

I use ten spritzes, the most that they recommended.  I wanted to do one more.  I did.  I wanted to do one more so I could be like, “My penis goes to eleven,” but I didn’t think it was worth potentially ruining an organ on my human body, for the sake of a spinal tap reference. 

So I did ten spritzes.  I was trying to gauge whether I felt anything and I did it, which meant it was working. 

So I got to work, because I was a professional.  And I didn’t know what was going to happen.  I was a little nervous.  I was hoping that there would be enough to write about but also not so much that there were lasting effects that I'd have to explain to future sexual partners. 

So I got to it and it wasn’t awesome.  I don't know if it’s just me.  Maybe there's some other men here who can empathize, but for me, a big part of enjoying any sexual experience is being able to feel my penis, and I could not.  It was out of the question.  Missing in action as far as the sense of touch goes. 

Masturbating felt kind of like listening to a fish song.  I was 22 minutes in, no end in sight.  Just so like, “Bluu”.  Is this thing still going?  I thought the live version was supposed to be better. 

Finally, I finished.  And it wasn’t fun, like normal.  Normally, when you get to the end of sex for a man, it’s kind of like a moist firework followed by a brief apology and it’s a lot of fun but this wasn’t like that at all.  It felt like you know how sometimes you have some friends over and you bet pizza and friends leave and there's like one slice of pizza left.  And you can wrap it up in Saran wrap or you could find a Tupperware but seems like a lot of work so you just kind of like Buscemi-style woodchip it down your mouth.  It was like that but down here.  It was a Buscemi-style orgasm which is not a pizza topping I recommend. 

So that was the story.  I wrote it.  I filed it.  I didn’t think much of it.  Did edits.

Finally, it goes up on the magazine’s website and 30 minutes after it runs I get an email from the CEO of the company that made the penis-numbing spray and he was not happy with me, probably because I put all the things in the article that I just said to you out loud. 

None of those things were that that product didn’t work, by the way.  The active ingredient in this penis-numbing spray was lidocaine.  There's some scientists in here like, wow.  That’s a topical anesthetic that you use for endoscopies and some eye surgeries and some local anesthesia for other surgeries, which means my penis was medical-grade numb.  Like the kind of numb that you need someone to pick you up and drive you home after getting… although I was already at home because that’s where I masturbate, because I’m a gentleman.  Thank you.

So I felt like although it wasn’t a ringing endorsement of the product, it was certainly factual and made its efficacy known to the public. 

So I know he was mad at me.  It’s important to know also I did not read the email.  At no point.  I still have it.  But I knew he was mad because the title of the email was “This is Ridiculous”.  And I could tell from reading the little preview that popped up on my phone that the body of the email was not like a video of a pug pushing another pug in a stroller.  He's probably pretty mad.  That would be ridiculous, though.  Ridiculously cute. 

So I ignore his email entirely.  I don’t respond, I don’t open it.  It’s just there in my inbox.  I actually say out loud to no one in my apartment, “He’ll hear from me when I hear from his lawyer,” which is just a thing I heard Jon Hamm say once on television. 

So I go to bed and then the next morning I wake up to an email from his lawyer.  It’s like, “Touché, nemesis.  The game is afoot.”  Which is just the thing I heard Benedict Cumberbatch say on television once. 

So I have to get a lawyer to deal with his lawyer.  So they're going back and forth, because I can’t go to jail over this.  It’s not worth it.  I was full of remorse, I was full of anxiety, I was unhappy and I was nervous for my future. 

Our lawyers were going back and forth.  I assumed one would just call the other and be like, “Objection!”  And the other one would be like, “Overruled!” and they’d both hang up because I know nothing about the law. 

About three days later, I get a call from my lawyer who just said everything is okay.  Everything has been smoothed over.  With some minor edits to the article there's no more legal action that’s being threatened or going to take place.  I breathe easy, and I did. 

I felt very good until 30 minutes later I got another email from the CEO of the penis-numbing spray company, which I didn’t read.  But I did respond. 

“Dear, Chad,” which is not even his name.  He just had a Chad-like demeanor so I called him Chad.  I felt like I was above the law at that point.  I was running on endorphins. 

I said, “Dear, Chad.  I believe our business to be concluded and I expect no further communication from you.  I’m sorry to be brief with you but it seems like that’s kind of your thing [winky face].  I wish you nothing but the best in all your penis-numbing endeavors both professionally and I’m assuming personal [second winky face].  Good day, Josh.”

I wrote it that way for two reasons.  Because I knew I wanted to write a terse business-like email, number one, to go on the record that I didn’t want to deal with him anymore.  Our business was done.  This wasn’t communication I had asked for or anticipated in case it came up again on a legal avenue.  I could prove there's a paper trail.  

The second reason that I wrote a terse business-like email was because I knew that it would make him lose his goddamn mind and write back to me right away, which he absolutely did.  He fell directly into my trap. 

He wrote a third email to me, which I did not read, but I did respond one sentence, all caps, “I said good day, sir!” 

Nemesis vanquished.  Thank you very much.  Have a great night.  Bye.