Amy Schumer: ‘Maybe every one-night stand and a horrible situation was worth it’

AMY Schumer’s trademark humour is her sexual frankness, and she made no exception when she sat down with news.com.au for a very revealing interview.

“I THINK some men are scared of me but thankfully not all,” says Amy Schumer to news.com.au, before declaring, “I have never hooked up with anyone after a show doing stand-up, but my male counterparts have been swimming in a sea of pussy.”

Schumer wrote and starred in the semi-autobiographical comedy, Trainwreck, about a hard-partying magazine writer whose lifestyle is free of sexual commitment. She reflects on where monogamy fits in her life.

“I’m monogamous when I’m dating someone, when I’m really into them. The longest was two relationships for four years each; one of them an infectious disease doctor,” she grins.

“I haven’t met anyone that I could say, ‘You and me for absolutely ever,’ which might mean 60 years nor have I met anyone that I wanted to have a family with so it’s hard for me to know how I really feel about it.”

Currently single, her romantic past has included relationships with WWE star Dolph Ziggler and comedian Anthony Jeselnik.

Schumer’s trademark humour is her sexual frankness. She refuses to adhere to the idea that sexual attractiveness is restricted to fitting into a size zero.

Amy Schumer’s trademark humour is her sexual frankness. Picture: Invision/Splash Splash News and Pictures Los Angeles

She gave an uproarious speech at the recent UK Glamour Women of the Year awards in London which was received by a highly appreciative crowd. Asked about it, she says, “I believe I said, ‘I can catch a dick and I weigh 160 pounds,’ although I don’t actually weigh myself.”

She explains the impetus behind this personal outburst. “Well, there were a lot of beautiful models going on stage thanking Glamour magazine for using ‘real’ women. I was like, ‘What?’ So, I said to the room, ‘I’m 160 pounds and I can have sex with someone, I can get male attention and I don’t have to look like all of these girls. Women can be comfortable in their own skin and be beautiful, healthy and desirable.”

Schumer speaks candidly about the sexual content in her material. “I have used sex as a marketing tool and it has worked. I mean, my TV show is called Inside Amy Schumer. Yes, it’s mostly sex stuff and I wear dresses, but I want people to hear what I have to say. My interest is in talking about sex and dealing with it because I think it’s the funniest and most interesting thing to talk about. I want to hear about experiences because that’s when I laugh the most with my friends.”

“I’m 160 pounds and I can have sex with someone, I can get male attention,” says Amy Schumer. Photo: Michael Buckner/Getty Images for SXSW

Sipping champagne at an upscale Santa Monica hotel, she continues. “We have all had an embarrassing sexual situation. I am mostly someone who has been in a relationship, but in-between relationships, I will sleep with someone and something awful usually happens,” she laughs.

“I just don’t feel ashamed of it. I feel like I should be able to share it,” she shrugs. “Because I am a woman we are less used to hearing that way of talking but a lot of men talk about sex and they’re not labelled as a ‘sex comic.’ I have a joke where I say, ‘A guy could come on stage and literally pull his dick out and people would be like, ‘He’s a thinker!’ But for a woman it’s different, you notice it more. It’s less acceptable when people have such a low threshold for women being at all promiscuous, which is not even a word you use for men.”

Trainwreck is disguised as a romp through casual sex, but in reality it’s a love story between Schumer’s commitment phobic character and the sports doctor she falls for, played by Bill Hader.

“Some people ask me if I think the men and women’s characters are flipped in this movie but I don’t think that’s true at all. For me, this is my experience and a lot of the women that I am close to are the same.”

Amy Schumer and Bill Hader in a scene from the movie Trainwreck.

There are poignant moments based in reality that address her father suffering from Multiple Sclerosis (played by Colin Quinn).

Like many comics, Schumer’s upbringing was far from idyllic. The middle child of a family raised in Manhattan’s Upper East Side until the age of 12, she says, “I was really rich when we were kids. Then my dad got MS and we lost everything. He went bankrupt and we moved from a huge house to this tiny little hovel (in Long Island),” she says.

“As the middle child I felt forced to step up and I became the caretaker of everybody. It was important to make everyone laugh. Those moments of tragedy, that very hard struggle is what I think defines us.”

Her eyes moisten a little. “When you have a parent who is ill, it just makes you see things differently. When I start dating a guy and I like him, I think, ‘Would I want him to push my wheelchair?’ My mind just goes there.”

Now that she’s racing up the ladder as Hollywood’s hottest comedienne and actress, how does she look back on her past?

“I strangely wouldn’t change anything that has happened in my life so far. Maybe every one night stand and a horrible situation was worth it. It leads you to where you are supposed to go,” she says. “I definitely feel like that.”

Originally published as Amy Schumer: ‘Maybe every one-night stand and a horrible situation was worth it’