HBO to Make Comedy About the Female Orgasm
HBO is said to be developing a new comedy based on the non-fiction book Thanks For Coming: A Young Woman’s Quest For An Orgasm, a non-fiction book about a young woman’s quest to achieve her first orgasm.
Thanks For Coming, written by Mara Altman, was published just last year but HBO is already knocking at Altman’s door to turn it into a comedy series. It is said Altman will serve as a consultant on the project, which is tentatively titled Thanks For Coming.
Altman’s book chronicles her life as a single, successful, twenty-six-year-old woman in New York who’s never had an orgasm. Determined to finally have the big O, Altman sets off on a path she never expected.
Altman recently discussed her book and the HBO project in an interview with Deadline.com:
Deadline: How do you feel about the possibility of your book becoming an HBO series?
Altman: I’m very excited about the prospect of HBO adapting my book for a comedy series. It’s not everyday that a dysfunctional vulva gets to move out of marginalization and into the limelight. Of course, like my book, the show would be about much more than a curious pussy with problems.
Deadline: Will the series have a happy ending and did you have yours?
Altman: If the book made it to series, it would be a fictionalized account of my journey and would therefore not follow my exact path. As for my book, which chronicles a year of intense orgasm immersion – having a sacred whore, staying with an orgasm commune, researching my orgasmic ancestry in Israel, masturbating in an MRI machine and more – I did manage to have some luck with orgasm. My conclusion: orgasm metaphors – like a volcano, like an explosion, etc – should be abolished. They prime us for a particular experience when the experience is actually entirely unique. That being said, my first was similar to the response I had when I bit into my first escargot – not quite what I expected, but willing to try another. And as one Tantra teacher told me, “There are as many different kinds of orgasms as there are stars in the sky.” Just because I’ve had one doesn’t mean that the journey is over.
Deadline: Were you surprised how much interest the story about the HBO project based on your book has created?
Altman: I am really surprised. It’s super fun to see the interest and diverse opinions. People tend to be very passionate about sex, especially other people’s sex. Overall, I would just be happy if the project gets made and if it gives us a fun and entertaining way to continue talking authentically about pleasure, desires and fulfillment.
I’m getting flashes of a female 40 Year Old Virgin, but it could be promising. Will you watch Thanks For Coming?
