Sex-positive parties are on the rise, but despite its success, they are still fighting to break stereotypes
Sex was and still is a taboo topic for many. Talking about sex practices in public is unusual and if you do, you better lower the tone just in case someone else is hearing.
For many years, sex shops, sex cinemas and lap dancing clubs were the ideal places, mostly for men, to be curious about their frustrated passions or desires. They felt freer to ask questions and establish conversations that presumably no one else would have without judging them.
With the rise of the internet and changes in social attitudes, especially regarding the objectification of women, the number of these businesses have been declining sharply. According to a freedom of information request conducted by BBC, in the UK, sex establishment licences issued by local councils dropped by 34% in five years, going from 386 in 2013 to 256 in 2018.
However, these figures contrast with a buoyant scene of sex parties where sex is perceived as something natural and where entertainment is the primary aim. “I just love sex,” Moto says. “I love doing it and I love watching it.”
Moto, the Pup is the name by which Thomas Beranger is known inside the gay fetish community. He moved from a small French town to London three years ago and in the capital, he explored his inner fetish instinct. What started as a curiosity now has become more than that.“I wouldn’t say I’m addicted to sex, but it’s a key part of my life,” Moto says.
Apart from regularly attending fetish and sex-positive parties, Moto works in Clonezone, UK’s biggest sex shop. Moreover, his friends and contacts include kink stars, porn actors and sex workers.
Moto has lost count of the number of fetish parties he has attended. He says: “It’s like going to a store, you have your first browse, you kind of see what’s in stock and lay your eyes upon maybe a few guys you’d like to interact with.”
To better enjoy his experiences, Moto takes PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) on a daily basis. This small blue pill allows him to have condomless sex without worrying about contracting HIV. With the latest figures from Public Health England showing a decrease of a third in new HIV diagnosis from 2015 to 2018, PrEP is presented as the perfect preventive tool to HIV expansion. Its implementation in England is being studied by the NHS, which has doubled to 26,000 the number of participants of the PrEP Impact trial until its end in 2020.
Health and safety issues are crucial for organisers and promoters of sex parties, too. Despite the social perception of craziness and lack of control, sex parties are often monitored by easily recognisable members of staff. Besides, strict rules about consent, safe-practices and anti-discrimination are clearly communicated beforehand. “We have a completely zero-tolerance policy to any sort of harassment and you won’t be harmed if you don’t want to be,” says Alex Warren, organiser and manager of Crossbreed, a new inclusive sex party and record label.
After being immersed in the kink scene in Berlin, where music and dance clubs were intertwined with fetish and playrooms, Warren wanted to bring those two aspects together to London, as he believes that in London the fetish scene lacks from having “a good musical identity”.
Its music and mixed crowd are Crossbreed’s main attractions. Despite most of London’s sex parties being exclusively run, Crossbreed is open to everyone regardless of sex or sexual orientation.
“We proved that we can all fuck together,” Warren says.
People’s outfits also contribute to making the parties special and free from stereotypes. Leather, lingerie, rubber, metal or chains are frequently used to meet the dress code of the parties. “We love fetish wear and nudity,” Warren says. “If we like you, but we don’t like your outfit, we’ll give you the option to take it off.”
This variety of people and how they express themselves create a magical environment different from the rest of the clubs. Sex and fetish parties are on the rise because they offer something unique: a hedonistic experience. They are surviving amid the crisis of London’s nightlife, which in eight years has experienced a 50% decrease in the number of nightclubs, according to the Financial Times. The increased competition from pubs and drinking establishments, and young people’s attitudes shifting to one-off and festival-style events are the main causes of this reduction.
The selection of music, the set, varied furniture, but also performers, dancers, artists and models are the pillars that make these parties stand out. “In a sex party the main goal is sex, while a good sex party is where you have the party, and then you can have sex,” says Max the Tribrid, a performer, model and party host working in the scene.
Max is the character built by Joseph, a Portuguese actor who came to London two years ago and now is the reclaim used by parties to entertain the crowd. His character and the content he produces is a mix between fetish and horror, and this singularity is the key to his success. Max says: “I wasn’t craving to be in the fetish community, but I always wanted to try something different and learn more and more and I found it in fetish.”
His appearance is frightening at first glance. White contact lenses, chains, metal spikes and bondage harnesses are typical on his outfits. Max’s artistic looks form part of an ensemble of elements inside the parties that isolated might appear bizarre, but that together become art somehow.
“In the fetish scene, you can see art through sex, or everything sexual or sensual,” he says.
Despite fetish and sex-positive parties becoming more inclusive and open, they were traditionally linked to men and the queer community. Nowadays, women are also part of the scene and there are exclusive sex parties just for them. Divine Theratrix has worked in Skirt Club and through her experience and what she has seen, she believes women need their own spaces to get rid of social judgments and pressures. “The ethos of these parties is that sometimes women just want to play by themselves and feel more relaxed experimenting with other women,” she says.
Divine Theratrix is now a sex coach and mentor and thanks to the people she has helped, she has found out there is a lack of knowledge about sex and its practices. “There are two issues: the traditional way of doing things and being scared of trying new ones, and then the people who watch too much porn and think that’s the way of doing it,” she says.
Sex parties are a new possibility to enjoy safe and consensual sex. The options available are infinite: from small groups of people to large venues, just for exclusive sectors of the society or open to anyone looking to express themselves freely.
As society evolves and people become more open to express their sexuality and be proud of it, prejudices still present will disappear. Normalisation is key to avoid discrimination, and the expansion of these parties in London mean fetish and sex are becoming mainstream and by consequence, widely accepted. As Divine Theratrix says: “Sex is something that touches you not just at a physical level, but the emotional, the mental, the spiritual. It is a holistic experience.”
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Cover photo credits: Lucy Davies
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