I try out sex club for the first time – here’s how it went down
The appeal
My overarching philosophy on sex is fairly simple – people should do what makes them happy and not hurt anyone. If you continually seek new partners and experiences and you get into some pretty niche stuff, but you treat people well, I would never shame you. Ditto if familiarity and routine are the cornerstones of your sex life. You do you, and other horrible clichés.
I’m pretty happy with my sex life at present. I’m embracing sex-positivity, feeling freer to express myself than ever, and trying new things occasionally – ‘occasionally’ being the right frequency for me at this point in time.
Visiting a sex club has been on my list of new things to try for a couple of years now.
So what appeals?
For me the potential for group activity is an obvious part of it. Two’s company, three’s a party etc. Of course, playing with others is an option, but so is just being watched, or watching, and those things could be equally fun.
Secondly, in contrast with say, a private sex party, a club from what I can gather will typically have a lot of structure around things. Rules, codes, timetables, bouncers, areas where you do this, areas where you do that. I tend to like a bit of order to my chaos, so that’s another tick for me.
Finally, and this is actually more of an enabling factor, while it hasn’t been much of a thing for me personally, I’ve never taken issue with those who have sex with strangers. Sex for me can be about an intense personal connection, and that does feel great, but it is also just a fun thing to do. And indeed, looking back, I wish some of the people I’d slept with had stayed rather less well known to me.
So those are the key points of my case, friends. If I ever had any reservations, I suppose it would be that the relative certainty of having sex might take away a little of the magic. But hey, some people get married and opt for the relatively certainty of not having sex.
Cheap one, I know…
How it happened
So I spent a couple of Covid years with this plan on the backburner for obvious reasons, friends who’d visited them swelling my curiosity with their stories and their analysis but the clubs doors firmly shut. And shut for a long time.
I was living in Florence and not really thinking about this thing at all when the opportunity arose. A friend with benefits (FWB) suggested we go to one, he himself having dabbled with an ex years back and seemingly ready to get back in there.
Funny how things turn out. I’d expected if I was going to try a sex club, it would be in London. Big, buzzy, experimental London. That point aside, work was busy, I was deep in a job application, my head was a bit jumbled, and I thought the language barrier might be awkward for me.
On the other hand, I had a pretty nice tan going and a reasonable chaperone, who if not the most emotionally literate person, was decent enough and pretty good fun. So I decided not to overthink it. I already had enough on my mind.
How it went down
So there I was, sweeping through the hinterlands of Florence in FWB’s Audi, making smooth German-engineered progress towards our objective on the outskirts of Florence.
It was Saturday night and not especially late, but the neighbourhoods we passed through were ghost towns compared to the buzz of the centre. Suburban, with wide, practical roads and modern houses made of modern materials in uniform design, the odd cluster of gaudy cafes and not a decent restaurant in sight. Nearing our destination things took a more industrialised turn, with smaller pockets of housing nestled between garages, warehouses, cash-and-carries, occasionally the lonely figure of a prostitute illuminated by the streetlamps.
Turning off the main road, we wound down a lane and entered an industrial unit with a honking great security gate. It drew back slowly to reveal the club, in operation since 1996 according to its website. I’m not sure what the magic age is for a business to impress me. My gut feel is probably pre-1980s, i.e. ‘a bit older than me’, though perhaps the industry needs factoring; for a gelataria I think I’m looking for 1960s or earlier whereas for this kind of establishment, perhaps 25 years plus is good going. Thinking this through now, they should say ‘going 25 years’ or something, not ‘since 1996’. That sounds much better to people my age who think the 90s was yesterday.
The ride to this place of what I now consider to be respectable vintage hadn’t exactly whetted my appetite, and my nerves jangled a little as we stepped out of the car. A yellow Ferrari was parked right outside (of course Ferrari people don’t walk), the rest of the cars looked pretty normal. I’d been wondering about the clientele of course, that was one of my main wonderings. Leggy Italian models knocking back prosecco, their angular forms draped in Moschino? Peter Stringfellow look-a-likes with Eastern-European girlfriends? Or (the most unlikely), swathes of hip young Florentines?
We were greeted at the desk by a friendly older couple. I’m not sure if they were an actual couple, though they did seem to have a good working relationship, and their friendliness put me fairly at ease. He was tanned, smiling, and efficient processing our membership. She was similarly welcoming and with her well-set hair and sparkly eyes she reminded me a bit of Betty White.
I declined to check my bag when Betty offered, the usefulness of this service becoming apparent to me later, and we grabbed a drink from the lobby bar, hovering for a moment in dead-end small talk before entering the larger lounge-disco to see what was up there.
This room was something to behold for someone who’s been living in achingly cool East London for seven years. A space I decided was designed to engender a sense of cosy playfulness, it was divided in two, with a small mezzanine seating area and a larger lower portion with dance floor and stripper poles.
The shiny black tiled floor reminded me of the duty free of an airport I couldn’t place (Newcastle or Bristol perhaps?), and faded crimson sofas lined the walls. Velvet, obviously, that most sensuous fabric. A projector beside the dance floor displayed a continuous loop of ocean imagery- cliffs, beaches and open sea, perhaps drone footage, though I’m not sure drones were a thing when it was made.
Anyway – ocean, yes, good – calming, inspirational. Also points to the vastness of the universe, infinity, and of course, death. Enjoy life while you can!
I may have been over thinking it…
The room also featured some minor mood lighting installations, bowls of giant pot-pourri. Plainly it was not for sex – it was just the departure gate, the holding pen, and with just a few silent couples dotted around and a corseted woman dancing alone in at the DJ booth, the atmosphere was a little flat, so my date whisked me off for a tour.
Upstairs a dense network of rooms with various set ups and features revealed itself. The smaller ones were perhaps suitable for two or three deviants, the largest boasted two double beds, ample floor space and an observation window. Other specialist features included glory holes, arm restraints and a big TV showing pornography. Sheets were provided in neat piles to be applied by patrons, alternatively the beds were wipe-clean so you could just press on if minded to avoid what might seem like horrifyingly mundane scenes at the orgy.
Curiouser and curiouser…
As to the crowd upstairs, some people were scoping the joint like us – for facilities, for playmates, both? – and some eager beavers were getting frisky in the corridors. Things were heating up. FWB and I had a little kiss here and there as we explored, but I was still a bit uncertain; the dim red lighting of the play rooms reminded me of a theme park Halloween horror maze, and I hadn’t clocked anyone of interest. There was also a little tug-of-war developing – FWB nudging me towards swinger couples, hopeful of finding another female, my eyes drawn to the handful of single guys stalking the halls with hard- ons.
I wasn’t sure. I sort of liked it…but did I?
I didn’t stay pondering the precipice for long. The kisses with FWB and the charged atmosphere got to me, and like Jack Torrance at the Overlook Hotel, I eventually surrendered to the place. I had a rather satisfying, sweaty experience in a neat little corner room. No glory holes, no pornography, just the old-fashioned way; me, a bed and three or four Italian men.
Somewhere around 2am I breezed out into the night air, beaming at Betty White. My fingers tapped the dashboard as we made our way steadily back into town, squeezed FWB’s leg from time to time. It may have not have been the slickest club in the world, but I’d popped my cherry and learnt a bit about my desires. I felt successful, and more than that, actually. There was a grubbiness to the events I found quite invigorating. It is in these kinds of scenes we’re reminded that despite our baggage, our hang ups, our smartphones, our busy jobs, crypto stocks and existential dread, that at the end of the day we’re all just animals, groping around in the dark.