What the Vanilla World Can Learn About Consent from a Sex Club
Every major city has a couple of them. Most minor cities have at least one…. A swinger’s bar, a sex club, a “life-style” venue. Depending on the place, these may be anything from BDSM playspaces to something more along the lines of a hang-out for like-minded souls to gather. We haven’t been to one for some time, but a while back we used to frequent one on a fairly regular basis. It was mostly a dance club, but did have a stripper pole and a St. Andrew’s Cross off to one side of the dance floor, although neither was used very often.
When we first started going to the club, we didn’t really know what to expect. Was there going to be a lot of hooking up and sex in public or was it going to be more low key? We later learned that different clubs have different vibes and that this may even vary from night to night, with a typical Friday night crowd being fairly different from a typical Saturday night crowd. But what they all seem to have in common is an ethos of “women are in charge when it comes to anything to do with their bodies.”
Our first trip there, we were met by a greeter (definitely not the Walmart variety) whose job it was to explain things to all newbies and make us feel welcome. She showed us where everything was (place to put your coat and street-legal clothing, bathrooms, nooks that had privacy curtains) and gave us the lowdown on the rules, which basically consisted of “Always ask if you want to touch someone and no means no and that’s final.” There were big, burly guys with bald heads and tattoos in case anyone forgot the rules although I very rarely saw them being needed. These guys had the look of someone who might make a woman walking alone nervous, but the bouncers were actually the champions not only of safety in the club, but of women’s safety in particular.
One time a guy got riled and possessive because his lady-friend was kissing the woman she was dancing with. He grabbed her by the arm, but before it could escalate any further, the guy was ejected from the club. No questions, no lee-way — that kind of aggressive behavior was simply not tolerated. The woman was asked if she was alright and if she needed to call a friend or an Uber. One ultra-crowded Halloween party, I got a little claustrophobic and raced onto the patio with a stricken look on my face. Someone immediately headed over to check on me, and to make sure that no-one was the cause of my distress.
The other thing that made it feel so open and comfortable was the complete lack of what might be termed “outfit justification.” Female club-goers often dressed in ways that in a regular club or on the street, if it were even allowed at all, might be used to justify predatory behavior. “Well, what do you expect when she had that on. She was clearly asking for it!” What’s fully understood in a sex club is that what you have or don’t have on is in no way an invitation. Are you probably going to get looked at if you have a lot of skin showing? You bet, but that’s where it stops unless you say otherwise. That means that women are free to publicly embrace their sexuality without censure, shame or fear — something that almost never happens in the vanilla world. One of the best things I ever saw there was a chubby brunette in a cupless bustier just dancing her heart out. She had a dance partner but was just full-on enjoying the look and feel of her own body in motion. It was really beautiful!
There was never any ogling. It would have been considered the height of uncool behavior to act like you’d never seen human bodies before and whatever looking there was seemed to be of the admiring and enjoying kind, rather than of the objectifying and entitled variety. In fact, I once had a guy tell me in a friendly but very respectful tone that he thought I had nice breasts and that the lingerie I had on showed them off nicely. I told him I appreciated his appreciation and then in an almost shy voice, he asked if it might be possible to touch them. “Sure, I said, go right ahead.” His brief touch was gentle and admiring. This was not a leering, “Hey, nice tits — mind if I honk ‘em!” Nothing but full appreciation of my right to everything about my own body including the fact that I was a person who was not separate from it. To me, this is what healthy sexuality is all about and it’s a damn shame that it’s not more widely prevalent in the larger world.
Frankly, this was the main attraction of going to that club. It was in a fairly conservative, mid-sized city and didn’t have the revenue for more than a spruced up warehouse. They had one decent DJ, but the other one played whatever he liked, whether the crowd was into it or not. Most of the other people who went there were not people we wanted to become intimate with and there was in fact, very little sexual activity that I ever witnessed there — some to be sure, but it almost wasn’t the point. There was just a huge amount of freedom and self-expression in a place like that. Not just to dress in sexy clothing and flirt with strangers and feel safe, but to be yourself on all levels and actually be safe. Larger women weren’t sneered at or shamed in any way and the overall atmosphere was just one of enjoyment and acceptance. Not everyone wore skimpy clothing, and that was fine too. Be who you are; do what feels good as long as you have the full permission of the other people involved. Look out for each other and take care of one another. Enjoy your body and your sexuality — it’s yours and yours alone to do with it as you wish. The vanilla world may consider a place like a sex club and the people who go there to be lacking in morals, but there’s frankly a lot that could be learned from them about respect, bodily autonomy and consent.
