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[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome to stage...

Simon Amstell.

[cheering and applause]

Hello.

[laughter]

I suppose the problem for humanity...

[laughter]

is there's a lot of people
in here right now,

and everyone thinks
that they're the special one,

even though all the evidence
points towards the fact

that it is me.

[laughter]

I don't know why we need
to feel so special as human beings.

We grasp for anything
that will make us feel special.

I was dumped many years ago
by somebody who went on to write an album.

I listened to the album thinking,

"I imagine a couple of these songs
will be about me."

None of them.

[laughter]

The worst moment for me
was seeing a picture of him online

being hugged by somebody
who had also rejected me.

[laughter]

I sat there alone, thinking,

"I don't think there's any way
that one of them is saying,

'How's Simon?'"

[laughter]

The therapist I saw for two years
thought I needed to be so special

because I was terrified of intimacy.

In our first session,
I was being quite funny,

and she said so wisely,
"It's really good that you can be funny,

but, you know,
you don't have to be funny here."

And I got what she was saying.
I carried on talking.

And then she said,

"You know,
you don't have to be interesting."

And then I was really confused and said,

"Do you want me to tell these stories
but not as well?"

[laughter]

And what she wanted was
for me to be authentic and grounded,

but I found that very difficult,
because I'm so funny and interesting.

[laughter]

What I had to learn eventually was

it doesn't really matter how funny
or interesting you think you can be.

You still can't get everyone to love you.

My dad, for example...

didn't come to the last couple
of stand-up tours that I did,

and when I asked him why,

he said, "Well, I don't think you need
my validation anymore, do you?"

And then he said
that it wasn't his sort of thing.

[laughter]

And I wasn't brave enough to ask,
"What? Comedy or me?"

[laughter]

For fear that he would say,

"Oh, no, I love comedy."

[laughter]

I realized in the end that my problem
with my father is not my father.

It's my expectation of him as a father.

I thought,
"Let's stop thinking of him as that

and just start thinking of him
as a man who ejaculated."

[laughter]

Because often when men have ejaculated,
they're tired.

You can't expect them to go on
and love you.

[laughter]

I can't just keep screaming in my head
for the rest of my life,

"If you can't love a child,
don't ejaculate in a person.

Do it out of the window."

[laughter]

If I'm to focus on anything,

it should be
on how grateful I am to my mom

for birthing me out of her body.

How can I ever thank her for that?

The best I can do is
occasionally introduce her to a celebrity,

but is that enough?

[laughter]

"Thank you for your womb.
Here's James Corden."

[laughter]

Not that my mom is perfect.

I had a memory of her screaming
at my siblings and I one morning,

"One day, you'll come home from school
and I'll be gone."

I reminded her of this,
and she didn't remember,

but she said,
"Look, I was a single parent."

And I said, "That's worse.
One had already gone."

[laughter]

In a moment of openness
on the phone recently with my mom,

she told me that
when she was pregnant with me,

my dad wasn't being that great,

and a friend of hers called Mark
took her out one day,

and he was so sweet and kind,
she thought about leaving my father

and raising me with Mark instead.

She said, "Of course, I didn't do that,
but that's why your middle name is Mark."

[laughter]

It's... it's very important not to talk
to your parents.

[laughter]

But what are these problems?
Are these problems?

I saw another therapist a while ago,
and I was saying,

"Like, you know, compared to other people,
what... what is any of this?"

And he said, "All feelings are valid."

He said, "If you lost a leg,
and the person next door lost two legs,

you will still have lost a leg."

And I thought,
"What is going on on this street?"

[laughter]

I think there have been problems.
I think there have been problems.

I had a mild eating disorder
a few years ago.

I don't know if it's an eating disorder.

I've never deliberately thrown up food,

but I have tried a bit too hard to poo.
Now...

[laughter]

Is that... Is it an eating disorder

if once, to try and get something going,
you poked a finger in? Is that...

[laughter]

It's not what you call classic bulimia,
but it's something.

[laughter]

I don't know if that bit
was worth the truth. I don't know.

[laughter]

So I hadn't seen my dad for a while,

and then I met up with him.

And his big news was
he had trained to become a hypnotherapist,

which really angered me,

because I thought,
"You can't be the therapist.

You're the trauma."

[laughter]

He then said that what would be great

is if I could introduce him
to some of my crazy friends

so he could be a hypnotherapist
to the stars.

I kept it all inside, because I thought,
"Why express how I'm feeling to you now

when I can save it all up for a show
that won't be your sort of thing?"

[laughter]

However,
through this hypnotherapy training,

he developed a kind of emotional language
that I hadn't witnessed in him before,

and we started talking
about his very cold, distant mother.

And as he told me about her,
I thought, "Oh, my God!

You are the more vulnerable one.
You had the worst childhood.

I have to find some way to love you.

How did you turn it around,
you sneaky, little hypnotist?"

[laughter]

I think maybe because of all that stuff,

I found it very difficult,
or at least it took me a long time,

to become comfortable
with the idea of being loved.

I just wasn't used intimacy, I suppose.

And then, when my boyfriend told me
that he loved me,

it was a bit like what happened

when my brother cleaned
his hamster's cage.

He'd never done that before,

and then when he cleaned the cage,
the hamster died of shock.

[laughter]

Near the beginning of the relationship,
we were in France together.

And it's really the most beautiful,
authentic relationship I've ever been in.

And there were croissants.

[laughter]

And I think it's so good

because there is this real honesty
between us.

We will talk about people
who we find attractive.

That's so different to relationships
I've been in in the past

where there was so much jealousy.

I was with someone for a while
who was so jealous

I found myself having to say,
"I really don't find anyone attractive.

[laughter]

And it's weird,
because before I met you...

But they must have all moved."

[laughter]

In this relationship, we'll talk
about people we find attractive.

We used to be a bit more sneaky about it.

Like, we'd go to see some ballet,

and we'd talk
about the magic of the movements,

but we... we knew
that what we were saying was,

"It'd be nice to take one home
and lick him."

[laughter]

And we should be able to do that
because the tickets are so expensive.

[laughter]

So, we were in France together,

and despite this being
a near-perfect relationship,

or maybe because it's so perfect,

I fall asleep next to him,

and I have a dream
that I'm in a sex dungeon

being seduced by--

I don't even know how to describe him
other than "wet slut."

-I don't know.
-[laughter]

And it wasn't water. It was lubricant.

He... he was just covered. [laughs]

[laughter]

He was covered in lubricant.

I should have known it was a dream,
but my dreams aren't always this exciting.

The other night,
I had a dream that I was in a queue.

[laughter]

And before I got to the end of the queue,
I woke up.

[laughter]

So I said to this guy in the dungeon,

"It's lovely you've brought me here,
but I'm in a relationship.

I can't really get involved."

And then I couldn't stop him,
I think because he was so slippery.

[laughter]

And we did all kinds of sordid,
wonderful things together.

But then, I thought,
"Oh, my God! What have I done?

I've betrayed the best relationship
I've ever been in.

What am I going to do?
I've ruined my life."

And then I woke up.

I was in France. Everything was fine.

Everything was fine.

But then, for the next three days,
all I could think was,

"I really loved that sex dungeon.

[laughter]

And is that who I really am?"

Because you can't argue
with the unconscious.

Everything now just seems so appropriate
and polite in real life.

"Do you want another croissant, Simon?"

"No, I want to shove this pain au chocolat
up your ass."

[laughter]

"Your body's so dry."

[laughter]

I couldn't stop thinking
that I was just this animal

who wanted to be in a dungeon,

and everything else
is just a bit of conventional behavior.

And then...

I attended my boyfriend's mother's
birthday dinner

where his brother gave
this beautiful, heartfelt speech

about how much he loves his parents

and how he really appreciates

how accepting they've been
of all their children

no matter who they turned out to be.

And I start crying,

feeling so safe and accepted here.

And I turned to my boyfriend, and I say,

"This is better than a sex dungeon."

[laughter]

The family found it very sweet, too.

[laughter]

And then, a couple of years
into the relationship,

I met this very beautiful man

who seemed very interested in something
happening between us that night,

and it seemed... it was just too...

it was too much,

but I walked away,
because my relationship is my priority.

And it was... You know, I felt good,
'cause I was able to walk away,

but I couldn't stop thinking
about what a shame it was

to not have been able
to go with this moment,

and I felt really disgusting
even thinking about it,

and I didn't want to bring it up
with my boyfriend, but I eventually did.

And he looked very serious and then said,
"I'm really glad you told me about that.

I guess what you're saying is
you're a human being."

I said, "Oh, right. Yeah,

but I couldn't have slept
with him, right?"

[laughter]

"No."

[laughter]

He said, "No, but I agree.
It is a shame."

[laughter]

So we thought about it for a few days,
discussed it, and came to the conclusion

we didn't really want to be
in an open relationship,

but if somebody insanely beautiful
just presented themselves to you,

maybe it would be silly not to go with it.

So, the rule is we don't sleep with people
outside of the relationship,

but we could in principle

if it was unmissable
and required no effort.

[laughter]

And because
of that kind of communication,

last year,
we were able to attend a sex party.

Thank you.

[laughter]

It would not have been possible
for me before to go to a sex party.

I would've thought with my personality,
what I bring to a social setting is humor,

and nobody wants an ironic blowjob.

[laughter]

"How was the orgy?"
"Oh, so witty, so witty!"

[laughter]

But on this occasion, we both thought,
"Oh, we're all going to die.

We must go to the sex party."

So, that's a phrase, isn't it?
I think that's a phrase.

[laughter]

So, we were both a bit nervous,
but we put it in our diaries, and then...

[laughter]

And then, one week
before that sex party,

we were at a club night

where one of the floors
suddenly just turned into a sex party.

And it was a week too soon.

[laughter]

We'd eaten pasta.

[laughter]

And we haven't discussed
how involved we were going to get.

So we thought, "We'll just stay together

and do some very cautious touching
of other bodies."

I touched a bottom that was so hard,
it was like a cupboard.

[laughter]

And it was fun. But as someone
who has often said things like,

"We're all just animals.

Why aren't we all naked
and having sex all the time?"

Once everyone was naked
and having sex,

I really wanted to see somebody in a hat.

[laughter]

Having thought for many years,
"Why aren't we an orgy?

This should be an orgy.
I want to be at an orgy."

At the end of that night, I thought,
"Oh, God! Next we've got anther orgy."

[laughter]

But I feel so relieved, really,

more than grateful,

that I'm in this relationship
where we can talk to each other.

We get to invent our lives together
rather than...

I don't know, just sort of following

what other people
think we should be doing.

I occasionally feel really threatened
by normality.

I was at quite a traditional wedding
recently and...

had a very strong feeling

that if the Nazis came to take me away,

the people at the wedding would feel sad,

but not stop them.

[laughter]

I felt quite angry all day.

[laughter]

I think, partly, I just can't believe
people are still getting married.

People with degrees. What's going on?

[laughter]

They've already lived together
for ten years.

Now they have to announce
they're going to carry on as they are.

Why do I have to go to Dorset for that?

[laughter]

Have to announce you're so happy.

If you're so happy,
stay in your house and shush.

[laughter]

Just send an email saying,
"It's going very well. Carry on."

[laughter]

What would be wrong
with this conversation?

"I love you." "I love you, too."

"Should we have a big event
where we tell everyone we know?"

"Seem arrogant."

[laughter]

It's so smug. You wouldn't get
everyone you know together to say,

"We made so much money.
We think it will last until death."

[laughter]

With a bit at the end where you toss
a bouquet of spare cash

at the poor people.

[laughter]

Don't like normality.

I felt really good
visiting a school recently

that teaches children who are autistic.

And I ended up saying to the head teacher,
"I don't really know anything,

but it feels like the child
who is autistic doesn't have autism.

What they have is a kind of freedom

from all the nonsense
that we have to accept as normal.

And if there's any stress or anxiety
that they feel,

isn't that often from us,

trying to make them
the same as everyone else?"

And she said, "Well, that's a nice idea.

[laughter]

But sometimes,
they want to masturbate in public."

[laughter]

I nodded, but I thought, "So?"

[laughter]

Would it be so bad?

Like, isn't it worse for the parent
in that moment

to shame the child, and feel ashamed,
and everyone's so ashamed?

Better in that moment
for the parent to say,

"People of the supermarket, gather."

[laughter]

I felt so conventional at this school.

I went to shake this kid's hand,
and as I was shaking his hand,

I could see him thinking,
"This is bullshit, isn't it?"

[laughter]

It was interesting to see
what had to be taught.

I was in a class of kids being taught
to spread jam on toast.

It's not that they can't do that.

You can just see them thinking, "Why...
[stammers]

This is just wasting
valuable masturbation time."

[laughter]

I think the world
doesn't make enough sense

for everyone
to be expected to fit in to it.

In this country,

we have a royal family,

and not just in the past.

Now.

[laughter]

People are very interested in them.

To me, the only thing
that's really interesting about them is

they don't seem to be embarrassed.

[laughter]

They walk into rooms. There are trumpets.

[laughter]

If that was me, at some point,
I would have to say,

"Please, you mustn't. It's ridiculous.

[laughter]

I'm just you. I'm basically you."
But that's not what they do.

They stand there,
and they must be thinking,

"Yes, this is appropriate.

[laughter]

I was born."

[laughter]

I worry for them sometimes.

There must be so much denial
in their lives.

Imagine every morning,
you wake up, you do a shit,

and then for the rest of the day,
you have to pretend that it didn't happen.

[laughter]

Because if you're just a person
who does a shit,

the trumpets are gonna start
to sound sarcastic.

[laughter]

Because no one is special.

It doesn't matter what you do
or even what you achieve.

The ending is the same.

You win the Olympics. You die.

You get your dream home. You die.

You're pregnant. Oh, you both die.

[laughter]

No one is special.

Certainly, not in a major city
like London.

Like, it's not even that exciting
to you people that I'm here.

[laughter]

And I'm very famous.

[laughter]

People in the middle of England
would lose their minds.

[laughter]

We're all basically the same thing,
and yet everything is about status.

On every chat show on TV,
it's, "Welcome to the show.

Here's another famous person
who's done another amazing thing."

And it's unsettling for all of us.

Really, it should be,
"Welcome to the show.

As you know, life is suffering,
and the self is an illusion.

[laughter]

Please welcome my next guest,

whose face is a mask
covering an unknowable void."

[laughter]

Nobody feels happy where they are.

I decided a few years ago
that it was very important,

important,

that I go to America
and start being funny there.

And only 'cause I thought
it would be a bit embarrassing if I don't.

Like, "Who am I if I don't go to America?

Some regional comedian...

[laughter]

who's a bit famous on one tiny island,

and if I go anywhere else, I'm...

I'm you."

[laughter]

So, I went to New York City,

and I did these shows.
It went really well.

It should have been pure joy.

Everything in my head became about,
"What can I achieve?

Where will I get to?"

And finally, somebody said to me,

"Simon, you're doing these shows
in New York. People--

Everyone's coming to see you.
They're laughing.

If you're not happy now,
you'll never be happy."

And I thought, "Oh...

I'll never be happy."

[laughter]

It's not like you even get
what you used to get in show business,

which was this feeling of elevation,

of definitely being special.

Before one of those shows in New York,

somebody sent me a message over Twitter,

which said, "Can you let us know
what time the show finishes?

We have to book a babysitter."

[laughter]

I'm the star.

[laughter]

You can't just talk to me.

[laughter]

I felt completely lost in LA.

But then I met this guru,

who...

It turned out he wasn't really a guru,
but he had very good posture, and...

[laughter]

And I was very drawn to his charisma,

and I thought, "He seems at peace.
Maybe if I can listen to him,

if I listen to everything he says,
I'll have peace in my life, finally."

And we were talking about meditation
one day.

I said I'd begun to enjoy meditation.

Just feels like something
I'm doing now every day.

Not like a duty, you know?

And he said,
"Well, do you know what that is?"

I said, "What you mean?"

He said, "You've gone from discipline...

to blissipline."

[laughter]

I thought I was gonna be happy.

[laughter]

I went to see this dance piece.

[laughter]

Don't go and see something
if it's a piece.

[laughter]

If somebody says to you,

"Would you like to come and see my piece?"

[laughter]

You have to say, "Oh, I'm so sorry.

I've hurt one of my fingers.

[laughter]

I'd love to see the piece.

Maybe let me know
when it's the whole thing."

[laughter]

It was this solo dancer...

I'm gonna go down again.

[laughter]

...rolling around on a floor,

and then, at one point, she pulled
a giant sheet of paper over her head.

I guess to give the feeling...

Where is she?

[laughter]

And then, as the music climaxed,

her foot burst through the paper.

And nobody laughed.

[laughter]

I think the problem is
we don't die quick enough.

[laughter]

Somebody said to me the other day,
"You know, in 40 years, you'll be 79."

And I thought,
"How long is this gonna go on for?"

[laughter]

We just keep living,

so you have to keep coming up
with things to do.

That's why you're here,
so you've done something tonight.

[laughter]

'Cause tomorrow, people will say,
"What did you do last night?

You'll say, "I went to this comedy show
'cause I live in London. I'm alive."

[laughter]

Are you, though?

[laughter]

Or are you just desperately
filling the time

so you don't have to feel any pain?

[laughter]

Well, you came to the wrong show.

[laughter]

It's not that I'm even depressed anymore.
I just don't know what this is.

It used to be that I almost couldn't
get out of bed in the morning.

Now, I get out of bed,
but I don't know why I've done it.

[laughter]

I'm so annoyed I still have to earn money.

I do know how you feel.

[laughter]

I feel like we were children playing,

and then, suddenly, this economic system
where nothing is ever enough,

causing endless anxiety,
destroying the planet.

I said to my agent,
"Is there any way out of this?

Could I be a not-for-profit comedian?"

And she said, "You're getting there."

[laughter]

And so, feeling completely lost,

desperate to figure out
who I'm supposed to be in this world,

I ended up...

in a sweat lodge.

A sweat lodge, if you don't know,
is a Native American ritual

for resolving inner or outer conflict
in a hot, womb-like teepee in Norfolk.

[laughter]

There were two sweat lodge ceremonies.

In the first one,

I found that I was just
a bit too embarrassed to get involved,

because it was so powerful and sincere.

People were forgiving their parents
and honoring them.

It was too much.

But in the second ceremony,

I thought, "Come on, you know.
Life is very short...

as well as much too long.

[laughter]

Be in the teepee,"

and a conflict of gender equality arose.

The shaman had explained
the women who were on their moon period,

which is what
the shaman called a period...

[laughter]

were not allowed in the teepee
at that time.

This caused a bit of tension,

in part because one of the women
who was on her moon period

snuck in.

[laughter]

And the shaman, I guess
from his decades of training, knew.

[laughter]

And as a response,

this shaman suddenly took on
this sexist character,

kind of like a trickster, misogynist guy,
to further inflame the tension.

And some of the women in the heat
and the madness of it all started crying.

The men looked deeply troubled
like they didn't know what to do.

And then my whole body started vibrating,

and I thought, "Maybe I alone
hold the power to end misogyny."

[laughter]

Because the truth is
how can there be any sexism? How...

I mean, we all come from a woman.
When... when do we begin to be sexist?

Are we there in the womb, thinking,
"Well, this is all very well,

but I think my dad would do a better job."

[laughter]

Can you imagine emerging

from this life-giving,
warm, nurturing place

and then going, "Okay. Thank you.

Set fire to that now."

[laughter]

How can the worst thing
you can call someone be cunt?

This is where we all emerge from.

To say to someone, "You're a cunt,"
is to say, "You're the doorway to life."

[laughter]

It's like calling somebody an asshole.

If we didn't have assholes,
we'd explode.

[laughter]

To say to someone, "You're an asshole,"

is to say,
"You're a vital member of this community."

[laughter]

Maybe... maybe some of the misogyny

comes from the fact
that we were ejected from the womb.

We weren't allowed to stay there.

And then maybe we were breastfed,
but then, that had to be stopped as well.

We definitely miss
our mothers' breast milk.

Of course we do.

Of course we do.

[laughter]

Otherwise, why would we have started
stealing milk from other species?

[laughter]

The cows must be thinking,

"This has nothing to do with you.

[laughter]

This is for my child.

[laughter]

It's... it's not for your Coco Pops.

[laughter]

You think this...
Maybe this is an issue with your mother?"

[laughter]

Can you imagine if calves started
attaching themselves to human women...

[laughter]

and then complaining
of lactose intolerance?

[laughter]

And women, women...

women, you control the continuation
of human existence.

Until there is equality,
you could stop breeding.

Maybe it's not for me to tell you
what to do with your bodies, but...

[laughter]

I suppose have a baby
if you really wanna have a baby,

but if it's a boy, you must abort.

-Yes.
-[laughter]

Yes, because it's a war.

If you're a woman having sex with a man
and creating more men,

you should be hung for treason.

[laughter]

Do you think Winston Churchill
would have got pregnant

if there was a 50/50 chance
it could be a Nazi?

[laughter]

And so, in the intense heat
of that teepee,

my soul transcended any embarrassment,

and I found myself saying,

"I would like to honor my mother

for doing her best
under very difficult circumstances."

And then I found myself saying

that I would also like to honor
my child self for doing the same.

Something shifted.

I felt strong, ready to be reborn.

But I wanted to do something
to protect this child self

before he was thrust
into the patriarchal madness

of suburban Essex, so...

[laughter]

I started covering myself in mud.

Nobody else was doing this.

[laughter]

I crawled out of that teepee.

I fell down to the grass.
I burst into tears

in part for everything that lost child
had gone through,

and in part because I knew
that misogyny had ended forever.

[laughter]

I think I also realized in that teepee

that one of the major reasons
I found intimacy so difficult is...

I had to pretend to be another person
for about eight years.

I never wanted to talk about this
like it was a big deal,

but think that maybe
it's dishonoring the 13 year old

who had to cope with liking boys
and not being able to tell anyone.

I was so terrified at 13
that I might like boys.

I remember thinking that it was probably
the fear of liking boys

that was causing me to like boys.

This made sense to me at the time,

even though I know
people who are scared of heights

don't also have an intense sexual urge
to sit on a roof.

[laughter]

"Where are you going?"

[laughter]

"How funny do I have to be, Daddy?"

[laughter]

I didn't know what to do.
I couldn't talk to anyone.

So, I decided at the age of 18,
I would go to Paris on my own, in secret,

to figure out if I really did like boys
or if it just was this fear in my head.

So, and I remember packing...
I got on the train.

I'd packed a small, black t-shirt,
contact lenses, and hair gel.

That was it.

'Cause I thought,
"How will these French people resist...

a skinny boy with spiky hair
and the suggestion of eyesight?"

[laughter]

As soon as I arrived in Paris,

I freaked out slightly
that nobody knew I was there.

I thought, "My God! I could just die here,
and nobody will get why.

They'll say, "All he had on him
was hair gel. What was his plan?'"

[laughter]

I was so nervous
walking into this nightclub.

I'd never been to a nightclub before.

And what I thought would happen...

This is quite naive maybe,

but thought
that I was this new guy in town,

somebody, at least one person,
would approach me and tell me who I am.

Nobody did that, no one.

And that's still so weird to me,
because...

when I think about that lost, shy,

vulnerable, anxious young man,

I think,

"That's my type."

[laughter]

I wish I'd been there for me.

[laughter]

In therapy, we discussed
why I was often drawn to younger men,

and it turned out I was trying to save
the 18 year old in me who wasn't saved.

You may prefer to think of me
as a pervert, but...

[laughter]

I'm actually a narcissist.

[laughter]

And a pervert.

[laughter]

So, I eventually just got drunk enough

so that I could go up
to this very cute guy

and say the French for,
"Will you kiss me?"

And he just shrugged and kissed me.

It was so amazing.

I still remember thinking
as he was kissing me,

"Oh, yeah, gay."

[laughter]

It was amazing.
It ended much too quickly, though.

He had to leave.
I didn't have the French for,

"I'm only here for one night.
Please stay."

I can't believe
that my French wasn't better

when two years earlier,
I'd received an A Star

on my GCSE oral exam
for brilliant sentences like,

"Mon père travaille dans la banque."

[laughter]

My dad didn't work in a bank,

but I didn't know how to say,
"He runs a cab company,"

and I thought, "Who's gonna check?"

[laughter]

So I thought, "Well, maybe I know
who I am now. I could just go home."

But I thought, "I've come all this way.
It's a long way to come.

It's a shame not to touch a penis." So...

I imagine that's how lot of people feel
when they come to East London.

[laughter]

So, half an hour later,
I see this other guy, very attractive.

I go up to him.

He speaks English,
which means that I can say,

"Can we go somewhere?"

And he says, "Sure."
Then he takes me out of the club.

We get our coats. We leave the club.

And he takes me to a canal,

where I lose quite a bit my virginity.

[laughter]

And this may be the most romantic
and disgusting sentence

I have for you this evening.

We then washed the cum off our hands
in the fountains of Paris.

[laughter]

[applause]

[sighs]

[laughter]

So, you know,
I'd confirmed what was obvious,

and then all I had to do
was spend the next few years

trying to make my family feel comfortable.

And that's an exhausting task.

Especially when all I could think was,

"How can there still be any homophobia
when Elton John wrote The Lion King?"

[laughter]

What does he have to do?

[laughter]

And the problem with needing people
to love you despite who you are

is you end up subtly compromising
for them.

You don't even realize it,

but you agree somewhere
to feel a bit uncomfortable

about this bit of yourself as well.

Just enough to keep them in your life.

And then, of course, any attempt
at intimacy is going to be thwarted

by this inability
to just be yourself completely.

I tried so hard with my dad,
and it was very tricky,

because he'd found religion
after my parents' divorce.

For a long time, he was just canoeing,
but then he found...

[laughter]

[sighs]

We wouldn't have the problems
that we've had

if he'd just committed to the canoeing...

[laughter]

or drowned, but...

[laughter]

But he found this religion,

and so, I had to phone him,

and I remember one day
phoning him so frustrated.

I said, "Tell me the sentence in the Torah
that's the problem,

and we can discuss it."
He didn't want to discuss it.

So, I said, "I've got it in front of me,
and one of the things things it says

is I should be put to death."

And he said, "Well...

that's not my responsibility."

[laughter]

So, not, "Let's disregard that sentence,
Simon.

Of course, it was written a long time ago
by fallible human beings."

"Yes, that is what should happen,
but I'm very busy.

[laughter]

I don't know if you've noticed,

but I'm running a cab company
and a French bank."

[laughter]

I found for my father
in The Book of Samuel,

"And Jonathan made a covenant with David

because he loved him as himself.

Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing
and gave it to David.

They kissed each other and wept together
until David became great."

Unfortunately, at that point, the Bible
pans to a shot of a fireplace, but...

[laughter]

Nothing worked.

And then, more recently,
my mom called me very angry

because my dad hadn't invited
my boyfriend and I

to his daughter's,
my half-sister's, bat mitzvah.

And we hadn't been invited,

because in the Jewish religion...
I don't know if you know,

but if you are a boy
and you have a boyfriend,

it's very important that he's a girl.

[laughter]

And I guess
I would have felt angry in the past,

but on the phone that day with my mom,
I ended up saying,

"You know, he's not a monster.

He just has a religion
so he can cope with being alive."

And as I said that,
I realized I'd really let go

of any need for my father's
validation, acceptance, even attention.

I thought, "Wow, the rage is gone.
It's really, finally gone."

And then, the next day, he invited us,
and I was furious.

[laughter]

So much therapy
to accept that he wouldn't change...

and he changed.

[laughter]

I can't get the money back.

[laughter]

So, I called him after a few days
and said, "Thank you for the invitation.

What happened?"

And he said, "Nothing."

I said, "Come on. Something happened."

And he said,

"Let's imagine that you were
in St. John's Wood,

and you wanted me to come and pick you up
and drive you to Edgware,

and on the drive, you fell asleep.

But then, when you woke up,
you were exactly where you wanted to be.

Would it matter how we got there?"

[laughter]

"What kind of cab company
are you running?"

[laughter]

I think it almost made sense for a second

until I realized
that I hadn't been asleep for 15 years.

And because I was terrified

I wouldn't be able
to stop screaming at him if I started,

I just found myself saying,
"You know, feelings have been felt."

[laughter]

And then he, I think
because he couldn't say I'm sorry,

said, "I understand."

And then said, "But it has been
very good material for you,"

which was difficult to argue with.

[laughter]

"You think you'd be so funny
if you'd been raised by Mark?"

[laughter]

So, we went to the bat mitzvah,

and one of the first people I saw
when I walked in

was this friend of his
who I hadn't seen for 15 years,

since she tried to convince me
to become more religious.

And when I told her 15 years ago
that it wasn't for me,

she said, "But are you happy?"

And I wasn't happy, and I thought,
"Oh, she's got me."

[laughter]

That's how they get you, these people.

It's very important not to be unhappy,
or you could end up in a cult.

[laughter]

She said, "It's been a long time.
Are you married?"

And I said, "Oh, no,
I've been with this guy for six years."

And she looked nervous,
which I found enjoyable.

[laughter]

But rather than make her feel
any more awkward,

I kind of filled the space for her.
I told her some stuff about him.

And I suppose because I was happy,
I was able to meet her fear with love.

And then, a rabbi came over,
and I thought,

"Oh, God! I don't know
how many of these I can do."

[laughter]

He also asked if I was married.

I pointed to my boyfriend,
and he didn't know what to say.

So he hugged me.

And I went from feeling alarmed,

to patronized,

to realizing he wasn't hugging me.

I was hugging a child

who had just heard something
that scared him.

And knowing, I guess instinctively,

that he needed to be taken care of
in that moment,

I lifted up my shirt
and let him suckle on my right nipple.

[laughter]

And then he was fine.

[laughter]

There's a real calm now
to my relationship with my father.

It just got very calm
once we stopped trying to fix each other,

and I realized in the end that
the past couldn't have been any different.

If he'd have been a different person
at any point,

I'd be a different person now.

So, to wish for the past to be different
is just another form of self-hate.

Some of this show is just wise.

[laughter]

I suppose the fundamental reason
why I needed to be so special

is because it made me feel safe.

And I didn't realize
how unsafe I'd been feeling

until I went to Peru

and drank this healing plant medicine
with a group of people and a shaman.

It had the most profound,
lasting effect on me.

In one of the ceremonies,
I was sat in this circle in the dark.

I drank this brew,

and I had a vision of myself in a pram
being rocked by my mother,

and I felt safe, I felt loved.

And then, the rocking stopped,
and my mom wasn't there anymore.

And then I had a vision of my mom
in another room, crying,

because she'd just been slapped
around the face.

And this whole baby's body tensed.

My stomach tensed, my shoulders rounded,

and I desperately wanted to do something
to stop this man from hurting my mom.

And then, suddenly,
something in the rainforest,

through this medicine, said,

"You were just a baby.

You couldn't even crawl."

I just kept hearing that
over and over again.

"You were just a baby.
You couldn't even crawl."

And finally, I was able
to forgive this baby self.

All this guilt and shame was lifted.

I could see that I'd found shyness
and then funniness as ways to feel safe,

and all this depression was gone.

The depression was just gone.

And I spent the rest of the ceremony
just dancing about.

[laughter]

And I decided in that moment,
I never needed to be funny again,

and I never was.

[laughter]

I felt healed in that rainforest.

I felt held by nature.

I felt like I wasn't separate from it.

I... I came out of there thinking,
"I am nature."

And if we want to avoid
our own extinction,

we really need to be in communication
with the planet that we're sitting on.

When I arrived home,
I was walking through Hampstead Heath,

and I happened to say...

It was a nice day,
and I was feeling quite happy,

and I said, "It'd be really great
if there were some monkeys here."

And just as I said that,
a big rabbit hopped by.

It was like God or nature said,
"We don't have monkeys here.

[laughter]

Will this do?"

[laughter]

And the final piece of the healing
came very recently

when my boyfriend and I...

went to a party together

and tried, for the first time,

something called MDMA.

[laughter]

Oh, my God!

[laughter]

What kind of a country do we live in

where it's legal
to buy alcohol and cigarettes,

but they won't let us be happy?

[laughter]

We were sat at this party
on these big cushions.

Oh, they were such good cushions.

[laughter]

We were there
with these very beautiful friends of ours.

This guy called Harry,
who's an artist that we both fancy,

and Stephen, who is an actor, who's...

I have known him for many years.

And I... I thought I was over
any attraction to him recently.

And then in front of me,
he took a hat off,

and his hair was still miraculous.

And I thought, "My God!
If I put a hat on right now

and then took it off,
I'd have to go home."

[laughter]

I'm so done with beauty.
Beauty is too powerful.

Sometimes I see somebody beautiful now,
and I just feel tired.

[laughter]

I say, "Oh, great. Now I've got to think
about you for 20 years."

[laughter]

It was nice to see Stephen at this party,

but I always feel this great regret
that we should have kissed years ago.

There was a moment where we could have,

but I wasn't able to receive the moment
because I was too full of self-loathing.

We were inhaling nitrous oxide
from balloons.

-[laughter]
-And...

I fell back on this bed,

and he fell into my arm,

and he said the words, whilst in my arm,

"This is the most erotic moment
of my life."

And rather than kissing him, I thought,

"He must have just said the wrong word.

[laughter]

He probably means erratic.

[laughter]

Or is he asthmatic?"

[laughter]

But at this party,

staring into Harry's eyes
for maybe half an hour,

pulling on his earlobe for a while.
At... [laughs]

At some point, he said,
"Do you want me to kiss you?"

And I said, "Yes,

but I think it would be good
if you kiss my boyfriend as well."

And he said, "Okay."
So, I said, "Quick!"

[laughter]

[laughter continues]

"Harry will kiss us now."

[laughter]

So we all started kissing at this party,

and then the only person
on this joy-filled occasion

who had taken cocaine came over.

She looked quite judgmental.
Wanted to take Harry away.

And I thought,
"You're at the wrong party, cokey."

[laughter]

She did take Harry away,

and, uh, it was sad,

but I thought, "Wow! All the conventions,
all the boundaries are dissolving.

All the boundaries of my own personality,
of society, all gone."

I thought
there were no boundaries anymore.

There were no boundaries.

I looked at Stephen,
who'd been there the whole time,

and I said to no one in particular,

"I think I'm just gonna hold
Stephen's hand for a while."

And Stephen pulled his hand away,
and I thought, "There are boundaries."

[laughter]

But it actually didn't feel
like much of a rejection in that moment.

It just felt like something
that didn't happen,

and I thought,
"I'll just hold my own hand."

[laughter]

Which, for a narcissist, is a real treat.

[laughter]

The whole night was so healing,

and when I think about the things
that have healed me in my life,

they've often been illegal.

Like, I had psychotherapy for two years,
and that was great,

but it was going to Peru
and drinking ayahuasca

that got to the root of the depression,

and magic mushrooms made me see
that everything is ridiculous,

which really lessened the anxiety.

And I've had stuff like acupuncture
and osteopathy,

but neither of those have ever really
helped me and my boyfriend

kiss Harry, so...

[laughter]

And the day after that party,

I did the most wonderful poos.

[laughter]

They just slid out of me...

[laughter]

like these soft, elegant canoes.

[laughter]

It was like there'd been
15 years of anxiety,

and then something said,
"We can leave now."

[laughter]

And I think it was in that moment
that it occurred to me...

I don't do the poo.

[laughter]

The most I do is allow the poo.

[laughter]

I thought, "This is so important.
I can't wait to tell the people."

[laughter]

This medicine dissolved everything.

It meant that I could just be
in the moment with another human being

without pretending to be someone better.

I didn't need to feel special,
because I felt connected,

because we are.

I am you.

I am you.

And the only problem
I have in my life now...

is not being on MDMA.

[laughter]

Thank you very much for listening.
Have a good night.

[cheering and applause]

[instrumental music plays]

[birds chirping]