Getting “Mortified”: Because It Always Hurts The First Time

Sexual frankness and its component shame in public isn't limited to emerging fully formed in "Barely Legal" or deleted MySpace pages. In fact, a commoditized multimedia mortification trend has taken shape in bookstores and stages across America (and in Sweden!) at the hands of a plucky band of "Angstologists".

Read about the "Mortified" phenomenon after the gap.

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"As much as we know it runs our adult lives, sexuality is the number one thing kids write about," said David Nadelberg, creator and founding producer of a series of stage shows called "Mortified", in which brave (or terminally narcissistic) adults share their adolescent journal entries, poems, lyrics, videos, and comics in cities across America. "(Sex is) this thing they're not having, and when they do have it, it's this thing that makes them miserable."

While the content of the nine stage shows, two books, and "Mortified Shoebox" webisodes is not limited to sex, that subject is the river that runs through the often poignant, hilarious, and cringeworthy true-life tales of "Mortified"'s contributors, from summer camp crushes, straight and gay blowjob primers, real sex with the football coach to porn fantasies featuring Duran Duran and the foiled masturbatory imagery of Tori Spelling and Anna Nicole Smith (writes contributor MCC, "When Anna Nicole Smith didn't work, I knew I was gay").

And when the teen crush is unrequited (as it most often is) or when things go horribly wrong (as they most often do), readers and viewers can take comfort in the fact that the author has lived to tell the tale. In that way, Nadelberg said, "the happy ending is built in."

But confessional isn't the only criterion, said executive producer Neil Katcher.

"If it isn't both funny and fascinating," he said, "we can't use it."

Local producers solicit and develop submissions from authors who've rediscovered their freshman diaries or shoeboxes of Bon Jovi tickets. Some find their way to the web, stage, and page, and others are best suited for just one medium.

"Some people are natural performers," Katcher said, "where others are shy." Still, Nadelberg said, 85 percent of the books started on stage.

Nadelberg and Katcher also make sure no one "jokes the joke", undermining the efficacy of the tender source material with too many adult asides. "We have to preserve the tenderness, and the humor is a byproduct," Nadelberg said.

"I thought girls had two holes; one for urination and one for sex," reads Leonard Hyman from something he wrote at age 12. "Wrong! The vagina!"

The Mortified stage show launched in Los Angeles in 2002 and was followed by counterparts in San Francisco, New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Austin, Portland, Chicago, and Malmo, Sweden in the next five years. The most recent Mortified book, subtitled "Love Is A Battlefield", was released this month.

And the demographics are not restricted to the Livejournal generation. While contributors are mostly in their 20s and 30s, Mortified boasts both performers and contributors in their seventies, and the appeal spans gender and sexual orientation.

"We've seen some amazing and heroic coming out stories," Nadelberg said, pointing out that straight men aren't big contributors of journals, often preferring power chord rock lyrics instead, "but the gay guys are diary-happy."

Katcher added that, while Mortified is often a "manly show", what with its many stories focusing on late 80s/early 90s heavy metal and hair bands, "I am aware that I am involved in the girliest project of my generation."

This does not stop monthly sellout crowds of diverse and delighted voyeurs at the Mortified stage shows, sharing a little bit of the performers' triumph.

"They made it through the rain," Nadelberg said.

· Mortified (getmortified.com)