The World's Most Exclusive Sex Club, My Mother, and Me
Can you see me now?
Nearly three years ago, I attended a private event hosted by what is widely considered to be the most exclusive sex club in the world. At the time, I was intending to write about what it’s like to go to such an affair, although I didn’t end up doing that. For starters, a member of the security detail hired by the club confiscated my mobile phone upon entry, which robbed me of the ability to take notes. Another reason I didn’t write about it was that I wasn’t sure what to make of what I’d seen. This was a high-end orgy, I suppose; although I wasn’t sure what the actual story was. But the primary reason I never wrote about my experiences there was that a couple of weeks after that, my mother died. My mother and I had been estranged for years, but her death still threw me for a loop. She was my mother, after all.
Either way, it was early in June of 2022, and I took a Lyft to the location where the invitation-only sex club soiree was being held in downtown Los Angeles. The dress code was something like black-tie and masks were either required or recommended or entirely optional. I had gone to a Halloween store and picked up a mask of the sort one might have worn to Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball and grabbed a black dress—tight, too short—from my closet. Now I was stepping out of the car and moving towards the entrance to the impressive tower with the correct address on the front of it. I sighed literally or internally. Despite the articles I’d read online, I didn’t expect to be impressed. Would the people who had gained admittance to the most exclusive sex club in the world actually be members of the one percent or just pretending to be? By the time I had shown my invite to the individual checking invites and boarded the elevator, I could see my fellow attendees were, in fact, not fucking around. They were the real deal. Rich people have orgies, too, I might have concluded.
At the penthouse, I/we disembarked. The security guard took my phone from me. I started down the hallway and checked out the scene. I was early because I guess that’s the kind of person I am: the type of woman who arrives to sex clubs too early. Still, there were plenty of people: in tuxes, in sexy dresses, in bejeweled masks that half-covered their faces, as if this were a Mardi Gras of perverts. Generally speaking, the types of individuals I surveyed could be allocated into one of two categories. The Wealthy: a guy in his fifties who I swore I recognized as a studio head or powerful producer of some sort or the other that I’d seen in Variety or The Hollywood Reporter; a married couple in their forties who seemed to be scanning around for someone with which to have sex; a guy who was insanely tall and maybe had played in the NBA. And Ringers: devastatingly beautiful women, young and impossibly bodied, who may or may not have been financially incentivized by the host to show up and let’s say lubricate the process.
As someone who writes about sex on a regular basis, I sometimes find myself in somewhat awkward situations. I mean, take, for example, that time I watched over 100 men have sex with one woman during the course of one day. That event stretched over 11 hours. And while I was working—covering the erotic Olympic event for a print magazine and Playboy TV—there are times when I am unsure what to do with myself. What does one do at an exclusive sex club as a journalist? Wait for something to happen. Eventually, it did. More people arrived. Additional alcohol was consumed. Clusters of people arranged themselves on the furniture. Finally, a guy began having sex with his date at the dining room table. A few people floated over to spectate. The penthouse was long and glamorous. The mating couple was reflected in the dark glass beyond which the city lights sparkled. At that point, the vibe shifted, as happens in these types of circumstances. Tuxedos were shed. Glittering heels were tossed. The most exclusive sex club in the world was in full swing.
I drifted between the rooms. In a bedroom I noticed the walls were covered in a type of luxurious fabric or leather. A three-way was entangled on the bed. A half-circle of onlookers stood around the threesome, ogling. I went to the window. The red, glowing neon sign on a nearby building promised JESUS SAVES. It was hard not to think of Eyes Wide Shut, except there was no Tom Cruise or Nicole Kidman. In another bedroom, the couple I’d seen earlier was having sex while a crowd watched. In yet another bedroom, a topless woman was spanking a pants-less man. In the future, I would see this very same penthouse in a television show I was watching, and I would think: That’s the place, I was there, that’s where it all happened.
Anyway, like I said, I meant to write about all these things, but I never did. Several weeks later, my mother died. That changed things. Sometimes when I discover myself in situations like I did when I was in the penthouse watching wealthy people have sex with each other and people not as wealthy as them and the beautiful girls hired to make them happy for an evening, I think to myself: What am I doing here? I am both completely immersed in these unique circumstances and watching as if from a distance. The view from nowhere is a lie, and I am the one doing the looking, the scopohiliac, the voyeur who walks right up to the edge for an eyeful.
For a long time, I believed my interest in studying the baser actions of human behavior could be attributed to “daddy issues,” a theory I offered up in my memoir. But after my mother died, my perspective shifted. My mother was a queen of ignoring. To express her disinterest in whatever was happening, what you were saying, some need you were attempting to express, she would simply look away. Rendering her subject invisible, she established dominance and annihilated the presenting problem. Perhaps in my adventures in sex writing, I am trying to undo the damage of her withholding her gaze. I am the one looking. I am the one not turning away. I am the one who sees what others don’t: the truth behind the mask.
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