SEXIS WRONG

Orgies
A Brief Paean and a Few Practical Thoughts
Carol Queen
No experience compares to your first orgy. Only fantasy and
porn might begin to prepare you for the experience of stepping
into a room full of rutting, sucking, or masturbating people,
and even then you won’t be ready for the sensurroundsound,
the body heat, the smells.
Group sex of any type defies the cultural norm adopted by all
but orgy and public-sex enthusiasts: the belief that sex ought
If you somehow still carry an
inculcated belief that sex is only for
the young and beautiful, attending an
orgy might well disabuse you of it.
to be private. As such, it’s one tool in the kit of those who
wish to shake off handed-down or enforced norms, and a
powerful tool it is. The orgy places its participants in context:
Sexual pleasure is one thing when it comes in the arms of a
partner or by your own hand, but sex at an orgy happens in a
kind of community.
Orgy sex appeals to people who desire that sense of group
participation, who long to lose and find themselves in a throng,
who are curious about what other people do and what they
look like in the throes of whatever-that-is, who want by extension
to imagine themselves fully erotic, the way they can see
the others who surround them. Having sex in a community
can heal the isolation so many feel about their erotic desire.
It’s also not a bad way to meet people.
Orgy sex is for exhibitionists, too, of course. If the presence
of others excites you, if the opportunity to show off and be
seen—be watched—is a turn-on, the group-sex environment
is perhaps the most perfect and safe venue in which to be
consensually observed.
And certainly orgies are for voyeurs. They’re voyeur heaven:
better than the fantasy, better than porn. They’re better because
what you see is unexpected; it’s real. Think how many
people will never get to see other people fuck. Think how
much delicious sex goes on in private, sex you’ll never get
to see. Watching the erotic experience of another person is
a privilege; when you can watch more than one, it’s a downright
epiphany.
It’s real in another way, too. Though most
situations of public assembly are controlled in
some fashion (you’re supposed to sit at an unoccupied
table in a restaurant; you generally
don’t go in the out door)—and orgies are no
exception—unlike most porn, they are not scripted. Nor will
you find a porn’s-eye view of humanity at most orgies: only
the buff, the lithe, the endowed. If you somehow still carry an
inculcated belief that sex is only for the young and beautiful,
attending an orgy might well disabuse you of it, because you
will see (unless the organizers have excluded them) a more
diverse stream of humanity than you’d expect. Shapes, sizes,
and ages less commonly eroticized in our youth-fetish culture
will be there...getting it on, whatever their “it” of choice may
be.
The common image of orgies is probably mostly heterosexual,
a group fuck party. Of course, there are orgies that fit
this image; many swing clubs host them every weekend. But
I’m using the term more expansively here, to include jack-off
(and jack-and-jill-off) parties and Masturbate-a-Thons, queer
group play and S/M gatherings, pansexual orgies where everyone
and (virtually) everything is welcome. Thinking about
orgies more inclusively is, well, more inclusive; plus, these
parties’ differences are as instructive and interesting as their
similarities. One reason to attend an orgy is to receive the
102 EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT SEX IS WRONG