Something you may not know about the kink and swinger scenes in southern Wisconsin: They rely heavily on private parties, as opposed to sex clubs or dungeons.
While I’d been to plenty of BDSM events, I hadn’t yet been to a dungeon, though I’d heard about two regular events nearby. One took place in a building doubled as a children’s dance studio during the day. (I’m fuzzy on those details as I disassociated once I heard “children’s dance studio.”) The other was a club and sex-based community center boasting a dungeon, classes and social events — but I hyperfocused on the dungeon.
Prior to attending our first dungeon event, my friend Rebecca and I each paid $15 and created accounts on the dungeon’s website. I’d met Rebecca when she hosted an orgy, and we’d been friends and sex-party dates ever since. Having another single woman to go to events with is perfect, as I’m usually too shy to go alone.
Two weeks later, we arrived at a one-story brown-brick building right off the freeway with no signage, but we recognized the symbol from the website covering a large window near the door. To the left of the building was a dilapidated playground behind a chain-link fence. I thought they were really missing out by not keeping the playground area up for Adult Babies and other “age players,” but not everyone has the kind of creative foresight and aptitude for business I do.
Someone took our IDs and signed us in at a desk. The entry was nondescript other than some photographs of rope play and a bowl of condoms.
Since it was our first visit, we had to go through a brief orientation. A large, middle-aged man with a big, reddish beard brought us into a sitting room and shut the door. The room had a loveseat and a couch protected with red slipcovers — the condoms of home decor.
“This is Wisconsin, so if you come in here after a few beers, that’s fine. But we won’t let you in if you’re visibly intoxicated. We’re open weekends, except the first Friday of the month, when we are closed for a vampire live-action roleplay group.”
He read a list of rules. Most were about consent, but also included their cell phone and photography policy. Both were allowed but only in specific areas.
The rest of the rules were the same as any standard gym: wipe down everything after use, be mindful of your time on the equipment, make sure you keep a barrier between your asshole and the furniture, and no play involving bodily fluids on the carpeted areas.
I listened carefully to cleaning instructions, worried I’d fuck it up if I got any action. The club provided hospital-grade cleaner and paper towels. You could get as messy as you wanted, but it was BYOTTASC (bring your own tarps, towels and sharps containers).
“If you plan on partaking in any blood play, it has to stay in the medical room,” he said.
Once admitted to the space, I could hear screams mingled with heavy bass (courtesy of the DJ) through the walls. I wanted to get into the actual dungeon. I imagined the 7,000 square feet of play space would be sleek, black, shiny and sexy, but once we arrived, I discovered that it was beige and dated, more like a community center called The Gorilla Hole where I used to regularly attend a dance for preteen. It seemed like it could have been previously a daycare or preschool. Some of the walls had been painted a matte-black, but most were still an unsexy, generic tan, with a few framed photographs of close-ups of women tied up in intricate knots.
We did a lap with the tour guide. He walked us past the medical room and through the main play area (which had most of the traditional BDSM equipment — a St. Andrew’s cross, two spanking horses, hooks dangling from the ceiling for suspension and rope play, multiple massage tables), and then past a table with a large cake on it.
“Is that for sitting?” I asked.
Our guide shook his head, and stared at me with his mouth slightly open.
“The cake,” I said. “Is it for someone to sit on bare-assed?”
“Like cakefarts-dot-com?”
I nodded.
“You can take a piece and sit on it, if you want to. But don’t take the whole thing.”
Next to the cake table was a social area. There was a concession stand where you could buy non-alcoholic beverages and candy, like at a high school basketball game. To the right was a sitting area, with tables and chairs, and a shelf of puzzles and board games, so if you got tired of being smacked around, you could play a round of Trouble.
Our guide left, and we decided to check out the medical room. It was sparse: two beds and a big drain on the floor — I assume so it could be hosed down. A woman was on a bed, being shocked with some sort of taser. She had a row of needles piercing the skin of her arm. The room was grey and sterile; a couple of people stood around watching. Everyone stopped talking when Rebecca and I walked in.
I widened my eyes at Rebecca, who nodded, and we backed out of the room and made our way back to the main play area, where we took a seat on two black pleather chairs. In front of me was a woman on her back on a massage table with a male partner. I could not get enough of his outfit: It was a long, white, negligee-like garment made of polyester, like something a Jedi might wear to feel bridal on his wedding night. He was double-ponytailed up, with his thin hair gathered at the back of his head, and a long beard held together in the front with a rubber band. He looked like a wizard.
The wizard shook up a can of shaving cream and then sprayed it on his partner’s back.
Is he going to shave her back? What kind of kink is this?
He spread it around so it covered her back, and then lit the shaving cream on fire. I’d heard of fireplay before, but had no idea it could involve shaving cream. It seemed incredibly risky and dangerous, given the flammability of his wizard nightgown. The flames died down after a few seconds and the process was repeated. I was mesmerized until the wizard started packing up his belongings and left, presumably to force a hobbit to go on a road trip.
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Another woman laid on the spanking bench, head down, ass up, wearing a thong. I watched a man whip her with two mini-floggers until her butt was red. He had both whips going at the same time, and moved his hands not unlike a raver with glowsticks. He switched to a paddle that seemed like it belonged more on a ping-pong table — but hey, whatever works.
While Rebecca and I were sitting in chairs watching people play, a woman we’d met earlier approached Rebecca and asked if she wanted to play.
“Are you okay if I leave you alone?” she asked, and I nodded.
“Go! Have fun!”
I was soon approached by Marc.
Rebecca met Marc two nights prior at a local weekly kink event and went home with him. Rebecca is a size queen and only keeps Magnums on hand, which didn’t fit Marc, who didn’t have any of his own condoms. They ended up using the Magnum anyway, which Rebecca said felt like she was being fucked by a plastic bag.
“I could hear it crinkle,” she said.
She’d told him about the dungeon party, and now he was here.
Mark sat next to me and tried to make conversation. I just wanted to watch people play and fuck in peace.
“I was just thinking, ‘I could fuck Amanda, but I already fucked Rebecca,’” Marc said.
I let Marc know he could not, in fact, fuck Amanda. He was creepy and assuming way too much from my polite responses. I excused myself to head outside and smoke a cigarette.
When I came back inside, I watched a girl in a black dress and leather boots reposition a seating unit — it looked like what might result if something you’d use for leg extensions at the gym and a gynecologist’s stirrups had a baby. Her date took off all of his clothes. They were in their late twenties, and both had long hair: His was dirty blonde and tied up into a ponytail, while hers was a dingy matte blonde, devoid of any shine despite being directly below a light source. She strapped him in, clamping his ball sack and the base of his dick in a metal cage, and then took a whip and began flogging his genitals.
Marc tapped me on the shoulder. “I would not enjoy that!”
On the stage to their right, a bearded man with small, rectangular glasses with a wire frame and a pageboy hat was doing a sensory deprivation scene. His blindfolded submissive was fully clothed, with a furry tail attached to her skirt and pink headphones with little cat ears on top. (Somehow I had yet to see any full nudity in the entire dungeon.) Her dom took her to the edge of the stage and had her stand on the edge of it with her feet hanging over. I wondered if she could remember the drop was only a few inches off the ground.
Behind me, another woman was standing in front of a St. Andrew’s cross pantsless, with her hands bound and tied to a hook in the middle of the X, and her ankles tied to the bottom so her legs were spread slightly open. Her male dominant was wearing a kilt. (I’m not sure why, but there is always someone in a fucking kilt at any kink event I have ever attented.) He had a large dildo in one hand and a small duffel bag at his feet. I wanted to watch what they were doing more, but couldn’t without looking as if I was turning to speak to Marc, so I had to keep my focus elsewhere.
On the last corner of the stage, below a metal contraption with four posts and beams all meeting in the middle to a large hook, I assumed was for suspension but never saw anyone use, a lesbian couple was kissing and while one slowly removed the other’s clothes. They looked like people you’d see at a Whole Foods on a Tuesday night in clogs or Birkenstocks — a little crunchy but still hot. They kissed for what seemed like hours. Just kissing and kissing, stopping to hold each other, and rub each other’s backs. It looked fun and very erotic, for the participants — but as a viewer? I wanted razzle-dazzle. If you are on a stage, I expect some showmanship. I was over it even before they went down on each other.
I caught a couple glimpses of Rebecca and her new friend. They were sitting in front of one another, but Rebecca had her eyes closed and her playmate was punching her in the chest — above her tits, but below her collar bones. It didn’t look particularly sexy, but Rebecca was smiling.
The dungeon was one of the first public places I had sat alone, without a phone, in I don’t know how long. Occasionally I’d get up to go outside and smoke a cigarette, hoping I could bond with a smoker, but to no avail.
I wasn’t attracted to anyone at this party. I felt like Michael Scott in that episode of The Office when he is trying to get out of buying his condo and says, “Where are all the hot people? I was told that there would be all these attractive singles — and as far as I can tell, I’m the best looking person here.” Turns out a dungeon is not a great place to meet someone, and you should bring a date with your sharps container.
As I was feeling simultaneously hot, smug and sorry for myself, two couples entered. Both were attractive by traditional standards: young, with thin, symmetrical faces. The first was a man in a fur coat, jeans, and no shirt, like he was the frontman of a ’70s rock band. He was with a beautiful, dark-haired woman in white lingerie and white thigh-high stockings. Busted Mick Jagger took off his pants, and they hopped up onto a massage table and started to go down on each other.
The second couple — a petite blonde and tall brunette man — watched for a few minutes and whispered while looking around the room and pointing at empty tables. They settled on a loveseat a few feet away from Mr. and Ms. Busted Jagger. The blonde then got down on her knees and gave her boyfriend a blowjob. His head swiveled from watching her to the coupling going down on one another. After a few minutes, she climbed on his lap and tentatively rode him.
Anytime I watch other people have sex in real life, I expect to learn I’ve been fucking wrong this whole time and no one ever told me, but everyone (other than the fire wizard) usually does the same shit. Rebecca joined me, and we watched the two couples finish fucking before deciding to head home. Rebecca blissed out in subspace while I drove, feeling disappointed and not unlike someone had sat bare-assed on my cake, and farted on it.
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