‘WE are all a little crazy when it comes to sex,” says 28-year-old Jon Collins, one of the performers in this year’s fourth annual “Worst. Sex. Ever.” stage show at the Bowery Poetry Club on Valentine’s Day. “My attitude has always been to laugh at it, even during, which can be a little awkward, but it’s kind of funny when you think about it.”

Oh, it is super funny when you think about it.

Take Collins’ surreal coming-of-age tale of being invited to fool around with a married sailor by the man’s wife. Things are going surprisingly well until, while they’re going at it, the two men hear a very unsexy “thump.” The wife’s on the ground, having accidentally overdosed on prescription painkillers. The emergency room kind of killed the romance.

Which is to say: Terrible sex is great, for one reason and one reason alone – the story.

“No matter how sorry you might feel for yourself,” explains event creator Chris Hampton, “someone else has always had it worse than you.”

Hampton, who is also performing in the WYSIWYG Talent Show event (details are at wysiwygtalentshow.org), says the stories never disappoint in terms of sheer humiliation or hilarity. Like the story of 30-year-old performer Chad, whose bad sex ends with his wallet and cell phone being stolen.

“I know most young people in the city have those moments after a night out where you wonder how you haven’t ended up in a ditch or in the hospital,” he says with a laugh. “It was a learning lesson for me that maybe I should stop trying to overlook things like, ‘I have a prison record,’ or ‘I don’t want to explain my scars,’ and start being interested in the type of people who are afraid of the type of people I’m interested in.”

Speaking of which, what ever happened to the woman who OD’d on you, Jon?

“Maybe a year later I saw her in the hallway at my college,” he recalls. “And she was like, ‘Hey, let’s do lunch!’ ”

With that wonderfully awkward segue in mind, here is a compendium of New Yorkers’ best “Hey, let’s do lunch!” stories – from the paprika (it burns, it burns) to the pet kitty (it watches, it watches) to make you feel so, so much better about the state of your love life.

Or, as performer Heather Ann Snodgrass concludes: “It’s really a public service announcement. Because there are a lot of people who are kind of bad at sex, and they don’t know it.”

And really, the more you know …

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Sweet Failure to Convert on a Fourth and One, Resulting in Turning the Ball Over on Downs

“I had been dating this hot guy for a couple of months. He was way more of a guys’ guy than I usually go for, and he kept trying to get me interested in sports (which I am not), especially football, which he was obsessed with. But the sex was great, so as long as I kept the talking to a minimum, everything was fine. Until this one night when we were in bed, and he was finished, and I … you know, wasn’t … and instead of wrapping things up as memorably as he usually did, he sat up and started describing a recent Washington Redskins defensive play to me in great detail.

“Needless to say, he did not score with me ever again.”

– Cassandra, 32, Brooklyn

Goodbye, Cruel Nookie

“My psychotic ex-girlfriend who loves me, but thinks she’s gay, got into bed with me after a long hiatus from intimacy. She swore to me that she totally thinks she’s into women, but still cared for me and wanted to show me her affection by performing on me. In the middle of this act, she tells me that if I don’t hear from her after this, I should not be concerned because she has decided to kill herself and I should be happy for her! Needless to say, the evening went downhill from there, and the relationship is completely defunct. I feel uncomfortable engaging in any intimacy now for fear of inducing suicidal thoughts in my bedmates.”

– Vincent, Manhattan, 28

This Is Totally How Journalists Do It

“Once I was having sex with my then-boyfriend, who was extremely chatty in bed. Way too chatty, if you ask me. So we’re having sex, and he’s all, ‘You like that, don’t you?’ and I said, ‘Yes’ and he was like, ‘Tell me how much you like it,’ and I was like, ‘I like it a lot,’ but that wasn’t enough for him. He required more description. ‘Compare it to something,’ he said. ‘Tell me,’ and I’d try a bit, but he always wanted more. Finally, I got fed up and blurted out, ‘Look, I work with words for a living! I don’t want to have to worry about being articulate in bed, OK? Would you just shut up?’ Needless to say, that didn’t go over very well, and there was a lot of post-coital sulking that night.

– Marie, 29, Manhattan

Again, He’s a Stud

“I’m traveling in Eastern Europe, and I meet a girl in Hungary. She shows me the pride of her country, its paprika. We go out to eat, and there is a buffet of hot peppers, and all the food – which you ate with your hands – is covered in a layer of paprika dust.

“Afterward I washed my hands. Apparently not well enough.

“Later, we’re making out at the posh confines of the local hostel, and my hand drifts south. There are moans. Then there are short gasps. And then there’s a little convulsing. I’m thinking, I’m doing pretty well here.

“‘Hot!’ she finally manages. Again, I’m a stud.

“‘Burns!’ Hmm. Something lost in translation, perhaps?

“Finally, it dawns on me, as a slideshow of comical expressions – from pain to bewilderment to pleasure – pass over her face.

“She had taught me over dinner that water only aggravates hot peppers while you’re eating. Instead, you’re supposed to eat bread. I briefly considered how that might work in this scenario.

“Eventually, she risked the water, got into the bathtub, and spent about 15 minutes cleansing. She got back into bed looking spent and breathing heavily.

“We had a nice cuddle.”

– Steve, 34, Manhattan

I Don’t Imagine She Was Catholic

“A few years ago, I went on a second date (coinciding with Valentine’s Day) with a girl I had become interested in. The date went great (we ended up in her apartment). We were a little tipsy but by no means were either of us drunk. We kissed, then removed each other’s clothing. Lying in bed on my back, she slowly kissed my neck and headed down below the belt. In the middle of it, though, she suddenly stopped, propelled herself up, and yelled, ‘Bad penis! Bad penis!’ as if she were a teacher scolding a child. I caressed her hair to make her calm down, but she ran into the bathroom like a lunatic and didn’t return for quite some time. When she did, I politely told her I had to leave. I told a mutual friend about all of this, but she didn’t believe me. Well one day some months later they had lunch together. Immediately afterward, our friend called me, hysterically laughing, and saying, ‘You won’t believe what your girlfriend did at lunch. I will never doubt you again. Never!’ ‘What?’ I asked. ‘She bit into her sandwich, put it down, and yelled, ‘Bad sandwich! Bad sandwich!’ ”

– James, 27, Manhattan

You Don’t Think This Means Anything, Right, Doctor?

“My guy friend calls me for drinks one night, and I agree to meet up with him. I proceed to get totally wasted and go back to his apartment with him. We’re having sex, and I’m normally fairly reserved. I’m a WASP, OK? I’m not a dirty talker, I’m not into anything kinky. So we’re having sex, and all of a sudden without warning I just … totally backhand him. Like, really hard. Crazy hard. I practically decapitate him is basically what it is. ‘Oh my God!’ he exclaims. ‘You just backhanded me!’ ‘You like that, don’t you?’ I say. ‘NO!’ he says. ‘My sinuses are ringing!’ This has no effect on me. I decide I’m on a roll. I do it again. Then I bite him. The next morning, his back is like a map of some really complicated ocean navigational chart. He is now totally scared of me.”

– Suzie, 29, Manhattan

Inside the Actors … Um, Studio

“I had a brief escapade with an actor. We had a lot of preshow action that was going quite well. And then – as if participating in a drama school lesson – upon ‘entrance’ he halted all action, grabbed the sides of my face, looked me right in the eyes, and said with gusto, ‘Let’s just be with this for a moment.'”

– Katie Sue, 26, Manhattan

Yeah, That Works

“How about the time this fat dude kept yelling, ‘OH YEAH! I’m RIDING IT! I’M RIDIN’ IT!!!'”

– Joseph, 35, Manhattan

Burning Love

“In college, my boyfriend and I were having sex and all of a sudden things felt very hot and stingy. I was like, ‘Oh my God, what did you put on your …?’ My boyfriend sheepishly admitted that he hadn’t showered in a few days, so when I came over he had sprayed deodorant down there. I sat in the bathtub for an hour. Today, this would probably be called ‘The Axe Effect.'”

– Lindsay, 27, Brooklyn

And Now for the Saddest Story Ever Told

“It was my very first time. My very first time ever. At first, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to give up my virginity for this guy, but eventually after many, many cocktails, I agreed. After all the beginning rituals had passed, we’re in his bed and we’re lying there, and eventually I say to him, ‘So are we going to do this thing?’ And he says, ‘We already are.'”

– Kristina, 26, Manhattan

But Are We Sure Nothing Else Was Named ‘Kitters’?

“I once hooked up with this girl I met at a party. She wasn’t exactly hot but nice enough. On our first date, we ended up getting really drunk, and she invited me back to her place. I went, figuring there was nothing good on TV. When we got there, it turned out she had a bad case of Single Woman Crazy Cat Syndrome. She had some cat, and it was apparently her world. She kept screaming ‘Kitters,’ calling for the cat, the whole night, even while we were doing it. I guess she wanted him to learn about the birds and bees from her instead of some high-school film strip. To make matters worse, she had a loft bed. Sleeping with someone for the first time is awkward enough without having to worry about loft-bed etiquette. Does she go up the ladder first or do I? Should I clasp my hands together and give her a boost? I went home and sanded off my fingertips. And thought of ways to get Kitters into a bag and into the river.”

– Tony, 32, Brooklyn