Sadly, bad puns are unavoidable during an Air Sex World Championships performance. The emcee, comedian Chris Trew, started it by promising the competitive event would "blow our minds into a million pieces" and the foreplay, I mean wordplay, just went on from there.
For starters, let's say last night's Air Sex show at Stonefly Brewing Company, 735 E. Center St., redefined "air head" for me.
It's true: during the two hour show – which had five Milwaukeeans competing for a Fleshlight sex toy by pretending to have exaggerated sex onstage with an invisible partner (think air guitar but with fake orgasms instead of fake instrument playing) – I saw a butt-load of pseudo oral sex. Overall, the event was more like mime porn than anything else.
The only rules are that real orgasms are not allowed. "Airgasms," however, are encouraged.
Alex Berry, who lives in Austin, is on tour with the Air Sex World Championships as a judge. She says it's important the audience recognizes that Air Sex is mostly about humorous entertainment.
"It's not supposed to be obscene. It's more of a comedy show or performance art," says Berry. "It's not just a bunch of fake jerking off."
But there was a lot of fake jerking off during last night's show. Here's how it works: four people signed up (using a stage name) before 10 p.m. to have "air sex" to a song of their choice like Bad Company's "Feel Like Making Love" or "Escapade" by Janet Jackson. A fifth contestant, who ended up winning the competition, signed up midway through the competition.
"It's a little bit like karaoke," says Trew.
The contestants included a man who went by "Caged Heat" who knocked out a performance that could have been titled "Barry White Rides A Horse." There was also a slightly disturbing exhibition by "Hans" who demonstrated his passion for simultaneous aggressive sex and roast beef sandwich eating. The competition also included "The Wobbly H," a two-member team of drunk "best friends," "Evan Maybe," who made sweet, awkward love to the Stonefly stage and the only female contestant, "Emma Archer," who demonstrated her "master and servant" approach to rough sex.
"She was good," said the guy next to me, "but she didn't open her mouth wide enough."
The lack of female participants – despite the Air Sex promo poster portraying one rather randy lady – is not surprising. The event seems to appeal to, mostly, young, beer-pounding males minoring in voyeurism. Even The Fleshlight – the prize that goes to the top three winners – only works with boy junk (Well, I suppose a woman with an invisible penis could use one.) Trew promised, however, that if a woman made it to the top three that he would personally send her a "special gift" once he returned home.
This was unnecessary, it turns out, because the finalists included all men: "The Wobbly H," "Caged Heat" and "Evan Maybe." They each competed for an additional one minute and then the winner was decided through the level of audience cheers. Personally, I'm not sure how they determined "Maybe" as the winner – the cheering seemed about equal for all of the contestants – but he will be competing at some point in a Midwest Tournament and possibly the Nationals in Austin later this year.
"The winner of the Air Sex World Championship is guaranteed to have real sex for seven to 10 days straight after the show," says Trew.
"Evan Maybe" in his winning Air Sex performance:
Molly Snyder started writing and publishing her work at the age 10, when her community newspaper printed her poem, "The Unicorn.” Since then, she's expanded beyond the subject of mythical creatures and written in many different mediums but, nearest and dearest to her heart, thousands of articles for OnMilwaukee.
Molly is a regular contributor to FOX6 News and numerous radio stations as well as the co-host of "Dandelions: A Podcast For Women.” She's received five Milwaukee Press Club Awards, served as the Pfister Narrator and is the Wisconsin State Fair’s Celebrity Cream Puff Eating Champion of 2019.
