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visceral message, “Everybody does it”; a reason to attend a<br />
pansexual or other type of gathering is to be reminded that<br />
everyone does “it” a little differently.<br />
in a semicircle watching, dicks in hands. I came about eight<br />
times. I walked out on a cloud. By the next time a party was<br />
held, I had joined the organizing committee.<br />
While I’m touching on reasons to go to an orgy, let me tell you<br />
a good reason not to attend: to get laid. Sure, you might. But<br />
people leave orgies all the time having not gotten what they<br />
wanted, and the reason is usually simple: If you have a hard<br />
time getting laid outside a roomful of people (because you are<br />
painfully shy, have bad social skills, smell funny, etc.), the people<br />
inside the room probably won’t want to screw you, either.<br />
Certainly your odds get better when you’re in the company of<br />
a dozen (or a hundred) potential partners instead of one, but<br />
the variables are many. I’ve seen men bring their actual wives<br />
to sex parties and not get laid. No, the best reason to go to an<br />
orgy is simply to be there. Everything else is gravy.<br />
Look, before I go on, let me say this explicitly, because one<br />
factor in Americans’ reaction to our neighbors’ sexual kinks<br />
is to feel that their very existence somehow challenges our<br />
own sexual choices. This is—may I be frank?—bullshit, but<br />
it’s common. So here goes, and this is especially<br />
for those of you who may be reading in<br />
quiet yet fascinated horror, the people who<br />
would run screaming from a room full of naked<br />
people and who somehow feel my very<br />
discussion of it is meant to invalidate your own life-history<br />
and choices: There’s nothing wrong with having sex alone<br />
(well, or with one other person). It’s time-honored; it can be<br />
intimate; it can be passionate. It’s the basic unit, and rightly<br />
so. I am not suggesting you do anything but...unless you are<br />
so inclined.<br />
Me and Orgies<br />
I was always, it seems, so inclined. I fantasized about threesomes<br />
and moresomes from the time I figured out there<br />
were such things. Threesomes were relatively easy to find<br />
my way into, but I didn’t grow up in a community that hosted<br />
orgies—at least, none I was ever invited to. I was 30 years<br />
old by the time I had an opportunity to go to an orgy, and it<br />
changed my life. It was the first-ever Jack-and-Jill-Off, a pansexual<br />
safer-sex party with a no-intercourse rule.<br />
In San Francisco in 1987, all sorts of people were open to attending<br />
such an event, so there were gay men and swingers,<br />
lesbian sadomasochists and frisky sexologists, with plenty of<br />
latex to go around. Besides the upfront prohibition on fucking,<br />
the only other rule was, “Ask before you touch.”<br />
I wound up masturbating on a couch with several people<br />
around me. A fag wearing boxer shorts with kissy-lips printed<br />
all over them talked dirty to me, and a bunch of men stood<br />
I met my next partner at an orgy. I met my partner, Robert, at<br />
a Jack-and-Jill-Off a year later. And when the JJOs ran their<br />
course, we started our own sex-party community, Queen of<br />
Heaven. I still miss the venue we used to rent for our parties<br />
because it had a sound and light platform, like you’d put a loft<br />
bed on in a high-ceilinged apartment. I could climb up there<br />
and look down at a roomful of people fucking, sucking, spanking,<br />
and dancing naked...all at the same time.<br />
So I found my exhibitionism and my voyeurism at orgies. I had<br />
easy access to partners and sexual adventures in the context<br />
of a friendly community. I found love in the room; I rarely enter<br />
a group-sex space where I do not feel it, though I realize<br />
people who haven’t experienced this themselves might not<br />
believe it. This is a culture that wants to package love into<br />
monogamy, and that is emphatically not the only place love<br />
resides.<br />
I was 30 years old by the time I had<br />
an opportunity to go to an orgy,<br />
and it changed my life.<br />
I also found the nerve to say no at orgies, which is a good<br />
skill to have when it comes to sex—just about exactly as important<br />
as saying yes. I found that my orgy-mates were total<br />
literalists: If I said, “Not right now,” to an invitation to fuck<br />
when what I really meant was, “Probably not ever,” the person<br />
would invariably be back 20 minutes later, hoping that<br />
enough time had ticked by that my answer would change. I<br />
don’t know that Miss Manners has ever weighed in on orgy<br />
etiquette, but I like to think she would recognize that a simple,<br />
pleasant “no, thank you” will fit the bill in any situation like<br />
this.<br />
Likewise, the person asking has to be willing to be told no.<br />
Orgies are a bad place for the sexually desperate, but, then,<br />
there is no truly good place for them, as anyone who has ever<br />
fended one off at closing time can attest.<br />
Speaking of drunken people: The number-one social-skill problem<br />
may well be too much alcohol, and I do not allow it at my<br />
orgies, nor am I happy to attend sex parties where it is present.<br />
If this seems shocking to you—like, “How could anyone<br />
do that sort of thing without a couple of stiff drinks?”—you’re<br />
not ready for your first orgy. Good sex doesn’t result from drink<br />
and drugs. Learn to let your vices stand on their own before<br />
commingling them, that’s my motto. Don’t obscure such an<br />
amazing experience; be in it.<br />
ORGIES 103
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