That Time I Went To A Swingers Resort With My Sister
A true story about family bonding against a backdrop of booze, boobs and open-plan bathrooms.
Last November, my sister, my cousin and I took a trip to Cancun, Mexico.
It has taken me six months to fully process the trauma I experienced on this holiday, resulting from the fact that we inadvertently booked ourselves into a resort for swingers.
Temptation Cancun Resort is an adults-only, topless-optional hotel with a self-named ‘Sexy Pool’.
We booked the resort without having done much research because we saw the words ‘all-inclusive’ and ‘adults only’ and we thought “great, no kids.” Plus, it was cheaper than every other hotel in the Cancun hotel zone.
We booked ourselves in for three nights.
When we arrived at the resort, we waited in a line to check-in with reception. From the reception area, we could see a party raging outside in the pool bar — boobs and butts as far as the naked eye could see.
The elevator opened and a man in a neon green mankini (think Borat) with a cowboy hat, pool floaties on each arm, and his balls hanging out walked up to us and boomed “welcome to Temptation!”
His testicles were literally hanging out the sides of his mankini straps.
Quite a welcome to Temptation, indeed.
We progressed to the reception desk and were given our room key bracelets (bracelets are used because the guests aren’t expected to be wearing any clothes with pockets, or any clothes at all, really).
A concierge then sat us down at his desk to talk to us about the resort’s amenities.
To the left of me sat my sister, to the right sat my female cousin, and in the middle sat my gay ass. The concierge looked at me and said, “are these your girlf-”, I cut him off before he could finish, “SISTER! That’s my sister and this is my cousin.”
He was taken aback. “You came here with your sister? So you won’t be making a reservation for the aphrodisiac restaurant.”
No, we would not be.
A porter walked us to our room. One thing we noticed while walking down the corridor were the signs on the door handles that said ‘Sexy Time — Please Do Not Disturb.’
It was safe to say that there would be no sexy time for us.
Our room at Temptation will be sketched into my brain forever.
There were two beds, a mid-sized balcony, a TV, and a bathroom with no door.
No.
Bathroom.
Door.
You turn to the right and bam there’s a toilet.
Admittedly, we didn’t thoroughly research this place, but I’ve since gone back and looked at the reviews and nowhere does anybody warn you that there aren’t any bathroom doors.
I appreciate that the resort is trying to project a sexy, care-free vibe. However, surely even the most liberal of couples don’t enjoy seeing or hearing each other take a dump? Right?
My sister and I are close — but not that close.
We quickly developed a system where if one of us needed to shower or use the bathroom, the other two were shoved on to the balcony or were sent downstairs to linger around the pool.
Of course, my sister with the tiny bladder needed to pee straight away. So my cousin and I went to the balcony.
Our balcony looked out on the ‘Quiet Pool’ (an alternative option from the more rambunctious ‘Sexy Pool’ where Borat was headed) as well as an adjacent block of rooms and balconies.
As this is a hotel favoured by exhibitionists, it was no shock that a lot of the blinds were left open. Right away we could see a couple having sex in their room. Good for them, awkward for us.
So we averted our gaze downward to give them some privacy. We then discovered that the ground level suites have bathtubs on their balconies and we see another loved-up couple sharing a romantic bath. Good for them, awkward for us.
After assessing the options we decided to focus our eyes on the Quiet Pool, where we found a group of topless librarians (I assume they were librarians) enjoying frozen margaritas. Good for them, awkward for us.
The rooming situation mortified us, but after a pep-talk to ourselves, we were determined to make the most of the experience and enjoy the resort as much as possible. Just because everyone else was half-naked that didn’t mean that we had to be.
I do have a vague memory of my cousin jokingly flashing her breasts from our balcony but my mind has repressed this and I refuse to elaborate further. I will not be taking questions at this time, thank you very much.
After dipping our toes into the ‘Quiet Pool’ — physically and metaphorically — we beelined for one of the resorts many restaurants for a buffet dinner. This was where we would be having our own version of sexy time.
I have to admit that the food was exceptional and I would probably buy a timeshare at Temptation just for the dessert platters.
However, it was hard to escape the thought that with the queues of half-naked people in swimwear at the nachos station, there may have been a few stray pubes floating through the air. Not an appetising thought.
Temptation has different theme parties each night, such as superheroes and villains, 70s and 80s, and ‘back to school.’
If you didn’t pack an outfit for that night’s specific theme, the gift-shop had you covered.
The gift-shop at Temptation was like no other gift-shop I have ever seen. You could get harnesses, jockstraps, bikinis, and crop-tops to fit that night’s theme. You could also buy condoms, lube, viagra, and the largest array of sex-toys in the entire Yucatan Peninsula. You could get everything you ever wanted — apart from traditional souvenirs like fridge magnets or a deck of cards.
That night the theme was ‘white night’. We gamely put on our pristine white clothes and headed for the party area.
The party was wild. There were go-go dancers, fireworks, hand-held smoke machines, dancers on stilts, and bartenders pouring tequila down people’s throats straight from the bottle.
The resort hires a bunch of good-looking locals called ‘Party Makers’ and their one job is to dance and get drunk with the guests. Dream job, to be honest.
All the guests were really into it — everyone dressed up, some people even dressed down. If the only piece of white clothing they had was a g-string, well they just wore that — and more power to them. The vibe was judgement-free (apart from us), open and accepting.
Every body-type was on display and accepted as ‘sexy’. You could see why the retired school principals and insurance broker couples from Missouri came here.
We were officially the lamest people in the whole resort — even though everyone who looked at us must have assumed that we were a throuple.
We were relieved that we had booked a tour to Chichen Itza for the next day as it gave us a reprieve from the madness.
What we did not expect, was being picked up from the front of our resort by a tour-bus filled with passengers who instantly judged us as three-way kinksters.
When we came back from our day-trip, the TV in our room was displaying a promotion for the resort’s in-house spa, specifically their “Sensual Couples Ritual” package.
The ad said, “Share with your loved one this unique experience, specially designed to create passion between both of you.”
That was the most upsetting thing I saw on a TV in 2019 — no, wait, I just remembered how Game of Thrones ended… make that the second most upsetting thing I saw on a TV in 2019.
On our last day at Temptation, we attempted a relaxing day by the Quiet Pool.
However, the Quiet Pool is only located 50 metres away from the Sexy Pool so we could hear the Party Makers hosting trivia and pool games — and honestly, it sounded fun.
Why were we being so snobbish? We decided to lighten up and go for a swim in the Sexy Pool and the gigantic hot tub.
It wasn’t that big of a deal, and it wasn’t all that sexy.
One of the frisky librarians even complimented me on my speedo, so that was fun.
When it was time to depart Temptation, I said goodbye to my sister and cousin as they were staying on to explore more of Mexico and I was flying to New York.
I hopped onto the airport shuttle bus and there was an excited couple already sitting in the back seat who said to me, “How was Temptation?! We wanted to stay there but it was booked out.”
“Um, it was different. Kind of cool, I guess.”
“Come on man, we heard those parties are hectic. Did you hook up like crazy?”
I explained who I was there with and they said, “Oh man, it sounds like a fun place but you went with the wrong people.”
How right that was.