Our Sex Club Adventure Was Great for Our Relationship
There’s nothing sexier than a true connection with your partner.
You know how the first rule of improvisational comedy is that you must never say “No”? No matter what your improv partner suggests, your response must always be some version of “Yes, And….”?
Well, my boyfriend and I seem to have something going that’s a bit like the Relationship Version of Improv. Meaning that — no matter how outrageous any suggestion might be — the other person inevitably responds with, “I was thinking EXACTLY the same thing! Let’s do it, and I’ve got a better idea — let’s do it naked!”
Mind you, we don’t do this on purpose. We just seem to bring out that quality in each other. It probably has something to do with the French-President-style age gap between us. (Let’s say that the Macrons would come in firmly in second place in the older woman/younger man cradle-robbing contest.)
So, because we’re already violating the commandment of Thou-Shalt-Not-Fornicate-With-Any-Person-Who-Shalt-Be-Less-Than-Half-Thine-Age-Plus-Seven-Years, we don’t feel particularly constrained to follow any other rules, either. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, really, but as I said, we don’t do it on purpose. We just sort of follow our desires, and things happen …
And you can see where this is going, of course. To be precise about how it started, I was bored because it was the morning of December 31, and I was doing what I do every year on that date, which was completing a mind-ossifying online training class that my job requires by the end of the year. So naturally, my brain was casting about for something more stimulating to focus on. In retrospect, I think what may have happened is that a floating thought about making some plans to avoid the post-holiday blues connected up in my head with a floating thought about I’d-rather-be-having-sex-instead-of-watching-this-training-video, and Eureka!
Two seconds later, I’m texting the Young Hot Boyfriend, and he’s responding with, “I was thinking EXACTLY the same thing! And we’ll have to do it naked!”
Of course, being the organized, responsible adults that we are, we did our research first. For two people who were supposedly all in favor of venturing into the free-spirited, bohemian sex club scene, we were actually being a little picky and uptight about the whole thing. No BDSM, nowhere gross, no pressure to have sex with other people. (Fine if other people were doing that, but we had apparently all of a sudden run smack into our sexual-freedom limits and wanted only the fully monogamous, non-swinging sex club experience.)
Luckily, there seems to be Something for Everyone out there in the sex club world (who knew?), so we managed to find a place that promised to provide exactly the right mix of steamy and yet reassuring for the sex-in-front-of-other-folks newbie.
(As an aside, the very same week we decided to make our foray into the realm of uninhibited public copulation, I received my AARP card in the mail. Sometimes it feels like the universe is trying to tell me something. I find it best not to listen.)
Anyway, on the night, when we arrived at the Beginners Welcome Sex Club (not its real name, you’ll be surprised to learn), everyone still had their clothes on. We started to make friends with our fellow patrons, most of whom appeared to have arrived straight from their jobs as tax accountants in structured finance. Appearances notwithstanding, quite a few of them, it turned out, had done this before and were very fond of The Lifestyle. (The Lifestyle — instantly my new favorite euphemism — is apparently what it’s called when people go to sex clubs and/or swap partners.) I decided the returning-customer ratio was a good sign. Repeat clients are the best brand ambassadors for any business, after all, and the getting-naked-and-having-sex-in-front-of-a-load-of-strangers industry would seem to be no exception.
We were a little surprised by how quickly everything transitioned from a cocktail party with dancing and snacks and polite conversation into stripping down and getting to the point of the thing. But the YHB and I went with the flow and were overall feeling pretty smug about how well we seemed to fit in.
One of the accountants even approached us to ask if we wanted to swap with him and his girlfriend. (The YHB and I had discussed this potential scenario ahead of time — being characteristically overconfident, I suppose, about our collective sex appeal to strangers. We did as planned and very politely declined. Our declination was graciously accepted. It was all extremely civilized.)
At this point, we had successfully checked off the lifetime milestone of Being Propositioned for the First Time at a Sex Club, so we started to relax. And once we did, the experience was surprisingly no-stress and a ton of fun. It turns out that on an Exhibitionist-Tendencies Scale of 1 to 10, we’re both about a 12.5, meaning we were right in our element. Of course, most of the people around us, on that same scale, were about a 45 or so. It takes a special kind of environment to make you feel demure while you’re having raw, passionate sex in front of a room full of strangers.
Quite a bit later, after the X-rated part of the evening wound down, the festivities concluded with the most hilarious locker-room-type scene in which everyone attempts to locate their clothes in preparation for leaving. Nobody’s trying to be sexy at that point; it’s all about hiking up pants and skirts and finding socks that have rolled under chairs. (I can’t even imagine what the Lost and Found at that place looks like.) We likewise tried to reassemble our outfits as best we could to make it seem like we’d been wearing them all evening, and then we headed home and to bed — exhausted, amused, and pretty all-around proud of ourselves.
In the end, one of the best parts about the whole experience (other than having the world’s most AMAZING conversation-opener for gatherings with our closest friends) was the intimacy that comes from sharing something with your partner that is not only new to the two of you, but is also well outside the realm of what everyone in your life would expect of you. If they knew. Which most of them don’t, of course.
At any rate, when you and your improv partner are completely in sync, and everything is clicking the way it should be, it’s an incredibly satisfying feeling. It’s just the two of you, wrapped up in this crazy, absurd world you’ve created, and you get sort of blissfully lost in each other. You feel connected, whole, and secure in each other and in what you’re doing. Even if what you’re doing happens to be getting down to it with a room full of people watching……
I definitely want to do it again, by the way. And I suspect he’s thinking EXACTLY the same thing.
