Dimples on the Edge

It’s 2PM on Good Friday, and I’m in Portugal for holiday. The sun is shining, the pasteis de nata are delicious, and the dinner plans are set. It’s time to decide on evening plans.

While looking up clubs, an “adult entertainment venue” pops up on the map. The link leads to a webpage for swingers clubs, and my companion and I decide, why not?

As a person that has lived in and visited many large, cosmopolitan cities throughout my life, I am no stranger to alternative spaces. I have merrily attended kink parties and had a blast. It is fun to revel in the delicious and scintillating temptations of these spaces, to open yourself up to new experiences and bask in the beauty of others sharing in their passions and reverie.

After contacting the phone number on the page, as it instructs, I explained the process I was familiar with to my companion, a sweet novice to the decadent world. I listed off the presumed expectations: receive a consent form, possibly get “cleared” by the organizers, review the form, and recite one or two rules of consent before being allowed to enter. Those tend to be the norms of the gatherings I have attended in the past, so I naively expected that bare minimum of standards to be set going forward.

Unexpectedly, after a brief WhatsApp exchange, the address was shared. Off to the swinger’s party we go!

After a rideshare drive 30 minutes outside of town, we arrived to an assuming, albeit devastatingly dark, suburb street. We buzzed the intercom on the imposing iron gates before us, and were let in. “Sorry about the streetlights, there was a black out a few days ago, and the city hasn’t fixed them yet,” came the sultry voice of our hostess. No going back now, the car has driven away. Let’s hope we’re not so far out of town that procuring a return is difficult.

We entered the home, paid the fee, and were given a tour. No preamble or set up of consent at all, we were let in free and clear with no expectations of norms or behaviors to adhere to. How odd for this kind of event.

The house is run by a woman who converted it into a pleasure den with her late husband. Rooms for voyeurism, exhibitionism, sadism, masochism, and all manners of debauchery are throughout. The space has an open bar, with no apparent system to track drink consumption, another surprise. It seems that the honor system rules in this domain, which is a lot of faith to put into fallible humans.

Another odd note is that there was no curation of community. While I wouldn’t expect this in a typical kink space, my understanding is that the swinger scene is a bit different, with more of an emphasis on getting to know the people that you may ultimately swap an intimate partner with. What was I expecting? Ice breakers or conversation cards may have been silly, but just leaving everyone to their own devices seemed worse. Couples stuck together, and that made the open space between everyone feel even more loaded and thick.

Finally, the Single Man Problem reared its awkward and imposing head. Single men, despite their small numbers, loomed and lurked throughout the space. They followed couples from room to room, my companion and me included, at an uncomfortably close distance given that they didn’t speak or even attempt reassuring body language. Considering there is an open bar, you would imagine that the idea to invite couples over for a drink, a “hey, what do you think of this party?” or even, “I dig your vibes as a couple” to lessen the creep factor would be attempted. However, that never happened. Instead, the menacing shadowing was decided upon as the best course of action. It must work for some of them, but it certainly didn’t work on us.

Ultimately, I am surprised that for my first time in a women-led alternative space, this was the one that lacked any sort of consent culture. Some simple, sexy framing and structure would have made all the difference. When people aren’t given a guideline on how to act, their own uncertainty seeps through and manifests in anti-social behavior, and that can scare off newcomers that could bring a welcome flow of energy to the environment. While my companion and I can look back on this experience and appreciate it for the novelty of an Easter Weekend that it was, it could have been so much more.