Vapes of Wrath is permanently closed, according to Yelp. It may have been replaced by BUZZ “R” US, another shop on the street where I work, but my mission to find a vape is momentarily stifled, putting my mission to have sex like Leonardo DiCaprio allegedly does in jeopardy.
According to tabloid lore, the rumored Leo method allegedly involves wearing noise-canceling headphones while hitting a vape. A blonde model is likely present. And it’s likely aboard a yacht. Now, I wasn’t going to be able to fuck a model—I know my limits—and I don’t know anyone with an eco-friendly super yacht. But the headphones and vaping business… that I could swing.
Except, it turns out, my understanding of what vaping entails is shaky, at best. (Big congrats to my middle school; D.A.R.E. worked!) I’ve also never used noise-cancelling headphones. (My editor assures me normal headphones will do; I am skeptical but also not rich enough to buy noise-cancelling headphones just to fuck my boyfriend as kind of a joke for an assignment.) The only thing I’ve been assigned to do that I have done before is… have sex.
Because I did not yet know anything about vapes or their attendant terminology, and a cursory Google search did not clarify much for me, I asked my boyfriend, who’s smoked both weed and cigarettes before, “You can vape weed right?”
To which he confusedly replied “...yes?”
“I need to vape weed for a story.” I then explained the assignment. “Sophia,” he said, “when people say vaping, they usually mean nicotine.”
Oh. Oh.
I wasn’t about to lose my nicotine virginity for journalism, so we headed to the one dispensary in town for a weed vape—not the tank-like variety Leo is frequently seen with in public.
I approach the counter. “One vape of sativa please,” I ask a woman with green hair.
She starts clinically pointing out strains. Shit.
I begin to ask: “This is going to be a dumb question, but—” and then my boyfriend (not a model), who I brought for backup, laughs; she does not “—what’s the difference between strains?”
I love hot people. They so rarely make you feel dumb, even when you are asking something incredibly dumb. This is how Leo feels, I bet. Everything is easy with hot people—they have an earnestness about them that is often incidentally generous. She starts in on what each flavor tastes like. The lemon one? Sweet and citrusy. The mimosa one? Also sweet and citrusy. The one with candy in the title? Actually, she has no idea, but this other girl who works there says it’s her favorite. The other ones “taste more like weed.” Lemon it is!
So we head home with some vaguely citrus-y weed. The vape is charged. Sex is planned. I’m off work and I’m going to get high. To hell with Leo; this is about me now.
We head to the bedroom and hit our first roadblock: I can’t get my wireless headphones to work. I’m highly skeptical about the acrobatics involved with bringing a cord into the equation, thereby tethering myself to my phone. I’ve had to stop sex to get my hair uncaught from the headboard, and now I’m supposed to add in a four foot cord and electronics? My boyfriend is laughing, even though he’s trying to keep the vibe sexy.
So I lie on my back, vaping in bed while my boyfriend fetches me his big, over-the-ear, not at all cordless headphones. Imagine a gamer headset with no microphone. Had my great Uncle Bob worn these headphones during World War II, he wouldn’t have lost his hearing.
But sex is all about momentum, and the headphones fiasco killed the mood. I’m not sure that there even was a mood, but whatever sexy inclinations we had? Evaporated.
So we re-calibrate. I lie back down, slide the headphones on, hit shuffle on Spotify, and take a puff from the vape. “Hymn to the Sea” from the Titanic soundtrack starts playing.
I admittedly didn’t know what to play during sex; I tried to channel Leonardo DiCaprio’s (alleged) sexy mindset and guess what he would listen to, and all I came up with is climate change podcasts. So the Titanic soundtrack it is. (I found out later that he reportedly listens to MGMT’s “Time to Pretend” which is perhaps the most passive-aggressive sex song other than that Norah Jones song where she sings “don’t know why I didn’t come,” over and over.)
The over-the-ear headphones actually work better than advertised. I can’t hear my boyfriend at all, and that part is kind of… nice. Not in a jokey, “I want men to not talk hahaha!” way. (Men should be making more noise in bed, for my money.) But in a sensory deprivation kind of way. It was a fun experiment, one that rules out almost every position other than lying back and getting eaten out. The logistics of doggy style with noise-canceling, over-the-ear, non-cordless headphones escape me.
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It’s nigh impossible to actually have high-level-participatory sex when you have headphones in and you are vaping. What do you do? Hold a penis in one hand and a vape in the other? I mean, this is a recipe for not pulling your weight in bed. (Not that I mind!) My boyfriend, oblivious to the maritime dirge playing in my ear, is making his way downtown, walking fast, faces pass, so good for him; I barely notice.
At one point, I drop the vape and on my arm and it burns a little. I’m trying to stay horny listening to pan flutes except it’s impossible. A fool's errand. I cannot stop laughing.
I take my headphones off. “I don’t think I can do this,” I tell my boyfriend.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asks.
I think for a minute. “I’m going to try Beyoncé.”
This is my last ditch effort to connect with Leo. I don’t think that he listens to Beyoncé during sex, but if you don’t feel sexy when the bass boomphs in “Partition,” you’re never going to. My boyfriend goes back to work—this may be the first time I’m grateful for how hard it is to stymie male horniness.
But alas, for maybe the first time in recorded history, Beyoncé didn’t solve my problem. Even the phrase “He likes to call me peaches when we get this nasty” barely registered. I finally call a timeout.
This whole thing... is not sexy. It feels deranged at best and callous towards your sex partner at worst. We have some normal sex instead—which, was pretty great because weed—sans accessories.
The only conceivable way that you can have sex—and by that I mean lie back while someone does sex to you—with headphones on and a vape in your hand is if your ego is the size of say… an ill-fated ocean vessel that slams into an iceberg. In a tiny way, I begin to understand Leo’s (alleged) headspace. His level of fame. It’s a fame that would afford anyone enough self-importance that getting fellatio’d while you vape with noise-canceling headphones on is not ridiculous, but in its own twisted way, desirable. There's a level of disengagement with the world that being rich affords you; you’ll know you’ve made it when you can fuck to “Hymn of the Sea.”
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