While it is difficult to fathom a more uncertain time, there was one constant we could always believe in; Jon Hamm’s virginity.
Untouched by human life, Jon Hamm was the poster boy of the modern American virgin.
Following his well documented continental tour on the virtues of virginity, “Wake Up America and Stop Sleeping!”, and his New York Times best selling book, “It’s Not How it Looks! (And I Really Mean That!)”, it is a strange thought that it was just less than two years ago that he went public with this information.
Even stranger that it was this very publication, a student run satire rag, that he confessed this to and single handedly kickstarted what critics are now calling “The Virginmania of 2019.”
And now, Mr. Hamm has returned where it all started with news certain to make the headlines of far more reputable papers: A Boy no more, Jon Hamm has lost his virginity.
Hamm, with windswept hair and a fatherly, tired sickness on his face says “I thought it was time. It was time for me to do it and time for people to know.”
Curious about this separation, I ask him when he lost it.
“Last night.” Hamm says, as if he had slipped out a death gasp.
“I know I contacted you a few days ago about this interview. At the time, I had already made arrangements to lose it.”
Hamm adjusts himself in his seat. His head is in his hands. He is beside himself.
“I haven’t really gotten the time to process it. But that’s sort of what I wanted.”
I find him to be particularly impenetrable. There are thoughts, malformed or otherwise, he does not know how to say.
I ask him if he needs some water. He politely declines. I decide to leave him be and let him think.
Time feels frozen. Not in the grand scheme, but for me and Hamm. Part of me wonders if when we leave this house (Hamm generously agreed to do the interview in his own home) we will find the world turned to ash by a history we never saw.
Every few minutes, he starts to make a noise; somewhere between a word and a whimper before retreating back into his mind.
“I thought my whole life, sex was like tape.”
Hamm speaks.
“I thought this tape was something special. It was something you put on one special person. It wasn’t something to stick on everybody till you can’t connect anymore.”
“But now I don’t think there was ever tape to begin with. I don’t have it. You don’t have it. No one has it.”
“Virginity, now that’s a bandaid. You just rip it off. Get it over with. The redness will go away and you won’t get hurt again.”
I stare at him speechless. How could this be the same man I met less than two years ago?
In some capacity, he answers this for me.
“All the money, fame, intact virginities, they led to a big nothing. I wanted to find someone. I never wanted to be some figurehead.
“Why do you think I said that shit? To sell a book? I believed in it. But no one seemed to believe in me. All my words and beliefs boiled down to a trend.”
“The Virginmania of 2019.” Jon Hamm says with vitriol while making air quotations that look like they could bend steel.
“Then people move on to the next thing but I’m not thing I’m a person I’m Jon Hamm .”
“Everything’s for sale. My soul is no different than a fucking funko pop.”
I have never seen him get so worked up. In fact, I’ve seen no one get this worked up. I am scared for Jon Hamm.
“If we cannot have a world where we can see people as people, then do whatever you wish to me. Spit on me. Cum on me. Eat me for God’s sake. If you don’t do it, someone else hornier, hungrier, or angrier will.”
Hamm, looking like he has just been exorcised, breathes.
