the Eyes Wide Shut energy

A petite Black man with fresh cornrows grabbed a microphone, “Everyone! Excuse me, can everyone gather ‘round! We’re about to start.”

The crowd meandered into the living room. V and I took a corner, a safe distance away from whatever was about to happen. Earlier, we had noticed a middle aged black man in a dusty blue colored pinstripe zoot suit with long tails that brushed the floor. He arose from his seat, his eyes steely as he laid a metal Cardioid microphone on a mini grand piano. He bent over the piano, and in a gravelly voice, began singing into the microphone. He was everything Tom Waits wishes he could be: Black, authentically gritty, and capable of dancing. Two dancers dressed like flappers emerged from the crowd, slinking toward the singer in an overtly seductive fashion. A white man, reminiscent of a young David Spade, wiggled along to the music. He took off his shirt, and humped the air, a glimpse of what was to come.

The Black person in me wanted to enjoy the show, but the me in me was internally cringing. Was this supposed to be erotic? If so, for whom? For the millennials with porn tabs open on their phones? For the handful of zoomers scanning the room with discomfort on their faces? For the salt and pepper gen x’ers assessing the crowd for anyone interested? There is something about private musical performances that can feel too intimate. When the lights are up and you can watch your audience’s interest wax and wane—when you can see people covertly scrolling nearby—it is a deeply uncomfortable, almost pitiable, situation.

After what felt like an eternity, our freshly-braided host returned to center stage.

“Amazing!” He said, clapping his hands, “And more to come! Before we continue, I think it’s time we get to know each other a bit better. In a moment I’m going to ask everyone to look around the room and make eye contact with someone. Then, I’m gonna ask that you hold that eye contact for ten seconds. Then we’ll do it all again: scan the room, meet a new person’s eyes, and hold that contact for another ten seconds.”

I felt a flutter in my stomach. So it begins. When our host gave the order, I began looking around the room, hoping to catch the eye of someone at least moderately attractive. I knew I was being judgmental, but I couldn’t help but feel the Eyes Wide Shut energy of the orgy. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed someone looking at me. A dark skin Black man gave me a wide open grin, and I felt a blush prickling my ears. It wasn’t so much attraction as shyness—or perhaps the familiar discomfort of being subjected to the male gaze. Except that in theory, I attended this party in pursuit of that gaze? A white woman stood beside him and followed his gaze, looking from me to him and back again. It was clear they were together, but what was unclear was whether or not she was comfortable with him looking in my direction.

“Alright!” The host interjected, disrupting the standoff, “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

The young David Spade humped the air again as the room chuckled.

“For our next performance, I’d like to invite everyone to follow me downstairs. We are going to be gathering by the pool, but don’t jump in yet!”

He led the herd of horny people down a narrow stairway which revealed what was to come: elaborate sex rooms filled with beds, ottomans, plushy rugs, hidden nooks, and a variety of kinky dungeon furnishings. It was evident whomever owned our mansion venue liked to keep things spicy, even on days without an orgy on the books. As I stood to leave, the couple approached me.

“We want to talk to you later,” the woman whispered in a thick French accent.

“We like you,” the man winked.

I assessed the situation. They were a handsome couple—one of the more appealing couples in the group. I didn’t feel any spark or arousal, but to be fair, I am a demisexual. I don’t tend to feel attracted to people before I get to know them. The problem was, it was looking less and less likely that there would be much in the way of introductions at this orgy.

When V and I had agreed to the event, we’d been told there would be ice breakers. I’d imagined a moment where all of the event goers would be encouraged to play a sexy game, or something requiring collaboration like a scavenger hunt. As I took a seat outside by the pool, I realized that that was far from what was about to happen.

It was instead time for fire twirling.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate fire dancing, twirling, or any other variety of fire play. To each their own. I see the skill involved, and I am aware that some of these practices have a connection to various folk performance traditions. What I will say is: the kind of person who is in LA trying to see or perform fire dancing probably also goes to Burning Man. Fire dancers are one thing, Burners are another. Burners are typically a specific type of trashy rich people. Don’t @ me for discriminating against people who pay hundreds of dollars to be dirty and dehydrated. The Burning Man of today, regardless of its origin, is a capitalist scam under a pseudocommunist facade. Change my mind.

There is always a degree of danger with fire play. No matter how many flame retardant blankets and fire extinguishers you keep on hand, there is always a chance of everything going very wrong. As the fire twirler performed his set, I saw his face turn ashen as one of the flames swung a bit too close to the audience. He yanked the line back towards his body and nearly set himself ablaze in the process.

Again, I asked, who is this for? As his EDM mix shifted from unrecognizable techno tracks to a Lana Del Rey remix, the audience began singing along, men included. Was that our demographic? People who unironically know Lana lyrics? Myself included??

We were next led to one of the play rooms which featured a spinning stripper pole. A white woman in a Honey Birdette lingerie set stood waiting for the crowd to gather.

“She’s from Skirt,” V explained to me.

Skirt Club is one of the few femmes only, international play parties. There are Skirt Club parties all over the US and Europe. It’s geared toward the “bicurious” woman with a history of heterosexual disappointment, but it has its perks. It helps baby bisexuals to ease into homosexual activity without shaming people for inexperience. There are veteran queers in attendance to help coax the sheepish straight women along. There are clothed “munches” to encourage community building. It serves an important niche.

“Is she a stripper?” I asked.

“No. Just a pole dancer.”

V sensed my internal eye roll.

“I know,” she said.

In typical polefit form, the white woman gave a bizarre performance that verged on perilous. During a disjointed floor routine involving body paint, she attempted to twerk. The cismen in the room followed her writhing body with rapt attention. Still covered in paint, she made her way over to the X-Pole stage. While I hated everything about the performance, the stripper in me worried about her ability to grip onto the slick, stainless steel pole with wet paint on her skin. Additionally, the crowd was gathered closely around the pole, leaving only a small perimeter for her to kick out without concussing someone. It all seemed to me like a recipe for disaster. By the grace of whatever debauched god was overseeing our little orgy, she managed not to kick anyone during her acrobatic, yet deeply asexual, routine. It was like watching a baby stripper with a few pole classes under her belt: she was not dancing for an audience, she was performing a set she had memorized. There was little improvisation or playing to the crowd. We could have just as easily not been there and the show would have gone on exactly the same way.

As I watched the show, the host snuck in beside me.

“Having fun?” He asked.

“Uh, yeah,” I replied politely.

“I remember in your interview, you had mentioned being interested in performing. Maybe you could do a routine next time.”

“Uh, yeah.”

Internally, I could not fathom returning for a “next time,” let alone performing in an intimate space like this to a group of social-climber yuppies.

“Feel free to play on the pole later, if you get inspired.”

“Okay.”

Inspired~*

There was no part of me that wanted to perform in that space. I am a professional stripper. I don’t dance for free in spaces where other people are getting paid. Polefit has a way of trivializing the professionalism of stripping. It’s like “Oopsies, how about I just do the fun part of your work for free?” I felt my vagina retract into itself. If there was one thing the pre show had accomplished, it was to completely deaden any sexual energy I had had earlier. We’d been watching performances for nearly two hours, and it was almost midnight.

The slightly weary group of sluts trudged back up the staircase for one final performance.

The host once again took the microphone.

“We hope you’re having a great time—enjoying the entertainment, excited to go downstairs to the play rooms. We have one more performance. But! If you’d like to get a head start, feel free to skip the show and go play.”

V and I lingered in the back. Neither of us wanted to watch the performance, yet simultaneously neither of us were ready to get down to fucking. Where were the ice breakers? All I knew about the men present was that they’d all just visited their barbers or braiders, and all that I knew about the women was that they all purchased the same flapper headband from Amazon. I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Do you want some orange juice—?”

The couple reappeared behind me. Music drowned out the second half of the French woman’s question, but I nodded as if I’d heard. I looked at V.

“Do you mind if I go with them?”

“Go for it,” V smiled.

“You’ll be okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Okay.”