Okay Fine Whatever

by Courtenay Hameister

The door opened and the pumping techno music that had been muffled blasted us just as the disco lights hit us.

  I was surprised and relieved to find that it looked just like any other club with largely the standard clientele, aside from a few folks in S & M garb sprinkled around. There was a shiny black bar to our left and a very small dance floor to our right. The only tip-off that this might have been a sex club, aside from the one guy at the bar fondling his girlfriend’s breasts, were the torture stations. To the right of the dance floor, there were two huge black Xs, each about six feet tall, for people to shackle their dates to while they tickled, spanked, whipped, licked, slapped, or spoke to them in a mildly annoyed tone about their inability to file their taxes on time. That is something you don’t see at, say, a Dave and Buster’s.

  Oh, and there were giant TVs playing hard-core porn. Everywhere.

  BDSM has gone somewhat mainstream with the success of the Harry Potter of Watered-Down and Mildly Rapey Bondage book Fifty Shades of Grey, but if you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s very important to make clear that everything that was happening to the men and women in the club, even the ones who were tied up, was completely consensual.2

  This night, the featured fetish was shibari.

  Shibari, meaning “to tie” in Japanese, is an ancient form of erotic rope bondage that originated in fifteenth-century Japan as hojojutsu, the martial art of restraining captives. It’s evolved into an erotic art in which people use complex knots and rigging to create beautiful geometric shapes and patterns on and around a person’s body while restraining it, often suspending him or her in midair. The riggers use the ropes to move the person’s body into positions that highlight its natural curves and then torture the individual in subtle ways that increase sexual anticipation.

  Some shibari practitioners even position the knots on pressure points, similar to shiatsu or acupuncture.

  I know.

  In Portland, even our fetishes are artisanal.

  From the balcony of the second floor of the club, Joe and I watched a man take at least twenty minutes to tie a woman up using shibari. She stood in the middle of the dance floor below us, blindfolded and naked, suspended from a rope that bound her wrists as he slowly pulled an inch-wide rope across and around her body. He took special care to pull the rope slowly across her nipples and between her legs. They clearly knew each other well, and every move he made was painstaking, purposeful, and strangely affectionate. He stopped every few minutes to whisper in her ear.

  She seemed to be in a state of excruciating anticipation.

  It made me wish they offered spectators earphones, like on museum and zoo tours:

  As the rigger, or top, places the rope on the body of the model, or bottom, she often finds herself in what’s called a sub space, a trancelike state some people refer to as “rope drunk.” This rigger has just whispered, “You’re such a good little sub,” to his model. Now, please move on to television number seven, where we’ll be discussing the film On Golden Blonde.

  Shibari was happening on our floor as well. There was a long bar to our left with patrons seated in front of it with drinks, but instead of a bartender and a wall of bottles behind it, there were two queen mattresses on the floor. A naked man stood on one mattress rigging a thick rope that suspended his girlfriend horizontally, like a sexy hammock. The other mattress featured a man tending to two dangling women who were horizontally stacked on top of each other like sexual Jenga pieces. There was pretty much nowhere you could look without seeing some form of sex act or knot-tying that was outside the typical merit-badge categories.

  It was overwhelming.

  I turned away from the bar and saw a man standing near the action dressed like a football coach—blue polo shirt, Dockers—wearing a lanyard around his neck with the letters DM. He appeared to be surveying the action. I had seen more guys with DM tags on the lower floor, and I was curious as to what they did. I wanted to ask him, but…

  Here’s a thing about me: I don’t talk to strangers. I have such a strong fear of rejection and such an aversion to bothering people that aside from waiters, bartenders, and checkout people, I never approach anyone I don’t know.

  But the magical thing about the OFW Project was that having to write a column about these experiences somehow emboldened me and distanced me from my anxiety. Even though my column was just about my own experience, I somehow felt like a journalist studying my own life, and that fact gave me permission to talk to this stranger, even though he had no idea why I was doing it. I also thought that talking to him might distract me from the surfeit of sex acts going on around me so I could have a little time to fucking acclimate myself.

  I walked over to the DM.

  “What does DM stand for?” I yelled over the music.

  “Dungeon monitor,” he answered.

  “What do you do?” I asked.

  “It’s our job to monitor the play to ensure that no one gets hurt and that everyone’s following the house rules.”

  I learned that DMs are trained in BDSM safety practices and first aid, and they have absolute authority—if the DM says it’s over, it’s over. This particular DM had been volunteering at parties and fetish nights since the eighties and trained people in fetishes like shibari and boot play.3

  “Have you ever seen anyone get hurt?” I asked.

  “Sure. I’ve seen people get cut too deeply during knife play or drop ten feet to the ground during rope play and break bones. It can get ugly but it happens very rarely, because we’re here.”

  One of the things the DMs were doing that night, he explained, was quizzing riggers about the weight rating on their rings and carabiners to make sure that they could suspend the subs safely.

  My conversation with the DM was quite interesting, and he never, at any time, seemed like he was bothered by my questions. In fact, just the opposite. He was overjoyed to talk about himself and his work. I stored this information for later use; maybe it would embolden me the next time I shied away from asking a stranger where she’d gotten her cute purse.

  I saw firsthand how challenging the DM’s job must be when a man wearing a ball gag and being whipped on one of the Xs started screaming. Was it a passionate-pleasure scream or a hey-that-really-hurts scream? Maybe the pain had made him forget his safe word.

  I saw the DM sprint over and confer with the man briefly.

  That had to be a difficult conversation.

  DM: Hey.

  FLOGGEE: [Through the ball gag] Heh.

  DM: How’re you doing?

  FLOGGEE: Ar rokay.

  DM: All right. You’re okay, then?

  FLOGGEE: Ar hine. Hodaly hine.

  DM: You’re fine?

  FLOGGEE: Aherootly.

  One of the prerequisites for the DM position: understanding ball-gag. I’d imagine most dentists are also fluent in it.

  I finished chatting with the DM and felt prouder of myself than I guessed anyone else in the sex club was feeling that night.

  I sauntered confidently back to Joe but was immediately sent off kilter again by a woman who was watching the shibari and getting fingered two feet away from us.

  I shut my eyes hard for a second.

  “You okay?” Joe asked. “You wanna go?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m good.”

  And I was good. It was just a lot. I love sex, but it was everywhere, and that got to be a bit much. This is the same reason I’ve never visited the Tillamook Cheese Factory.

  I turned away from the shibari to get a quick break, but right behind us was a room with a naked couple engaging in full-blown sixty-nine. The room had a huge window, further enhancing the Sex Zoo feel of the place. I looked for the button to push to get info.

  Humans aren’t the only animals that engage in oral sex. Fellatio and cunnilingus are also enjoyed by Tibetan macaques, goats, brown bears, ground squirrels, and the particularly adventurous greater short-nosed fruit bat.4 Now please keep moving to your left, where you’ll find an older couple on t
he sex swing who will make you think about your own mortality.

  That button didn’t exist.

  Joe and I went back to watching the shibari show and he started rubbing my lower back. He kissed me. I felt self-conscious about the PDA for a minute, but then I thought about the sixty-nine couple and the bar where a good twenty people were watching a man strategically poking his girlfriend with a magic wand while she dangled from the ceiling on ropes and giggled.

  We were, by far, the least interesting thing in a fifty-foot radius.

  As I watched the shibari performers behind the bar interacting with one another and with the patrons, I was struck by how collegial it all felt. At one point, the rigger for the two women slipped a little and they both bounced toward the mattress, then threw their heads back in giddy laughter as they righted themselves. These people seemed to have real affection for one another, and even though they were all naked and being undeniably sexual, it didn’t feel lascivious. It felt like they all had this hobby they loved and practiced a lot, and they were excited to be able to show it to people. It just so happened that some of them were having orgasms as they did it. It was sweet in the way that only Japanese rope torture can be sweet, you know?

  This feeling may have been limited to fetish night; I didn’t have anything to compare it to.

  If Joe and I wanted to continue making out, we could choose our level of exhibitionism. We could, like the sixty-niners, grab a bed in a room with a giant window so everyone in the club could marvel at our skill, or we could duck into a sex-swing room with no door, or we could use one of the rooms with no windows and a door you could actually close and have some privacy. (The beds in those rooms had thick plastic mattress protectors that made the mattresses look like they were wrapped in body bags.) Or we could use the couples’ room downstairs, which we hadn’t explored yet.

  I decided I wanted to see more of the first floor. That’s where the actual bar and the infamous buffet was. We got a cocktail and decided to explore the couples’ room.

  We stepped into the large, cavelike room, which was decorated in a Japanese/late-model-Ikea-style with low light and lots of battery-operated fake candles flickering on all the exposed skin. There were eight futons, all evenly spaced about five feet apart, and each was sectioned off by a “curtain” of sheer fabric. On top of every futon was a sheet, a towel, and two condoms.

  I’d expected all the beds to be filled with bodies engaged in new and innovative sex acts that would leave me feeling unimaginative, but it turned out people didn’t necessarily go into the couples’ room to have sex.

  Sure, there was a couple in the first bed having sex. But the second bed was occupied by a fully clothed couple, each one sullenly sipping a drink; they looked like they’d run out of things to say. On the third bed, there were two couples—one fully clothed, one clearly postcoital—and the four of them were chatting. I heard one of them mention the final shootout on Breaking Bad.

  Joe pointed out a bed in the corner next to another bed with five fully clothed people on it. They were chatting too.

  Why aren’t these people in a coffee shop? I thought.

  Joe indicated we should sit down.

  We covered the futon with the sheet and sat down. Then I grabbed another two sheets from a shelf of clean linens and covered that sheet with those because I figured there was no way one thin sheet could possibly be enough to protect us from the layers of smut residue in a club with Ron Jeremy’s name on it. Then I wondered how many times the staff washed the sheets. Then I wished I’d brought a sheet of my own. Then I let the sheet thing go.

  We talked for a bit as I peered through the gauzy curtains at the other couples and wondered what had brought them here. Were they exhibitionists? Swingers? Trying to spice up their marriages? I looked around and thought, God, I have no idea what would have to happen in my relationship to get me to end up on a bed in the couples’ room of a sex club.

  Then I realized that I was currently on a bed in the couples’ room of a sex club, so clearly I had some idea.

  Joe put his hand on my knee.

  “How’re you doing?” he asked. “Is this weird?”

  It was nice that he kept checking in with me. How was I doing?

  I was far more relaxed than I’d been when we walked into the club. I’d seen everything they had to offer that night, and while I’d never seen live sex acts before, I was amazed at how quickly it got boring. Maybe it was just the sheer number of them, but it definitely turned into a “you’ve seen one penis going into a vagina, you’ve seen them all” situation.

  “Are you kidding?” I asked. “Of course this is weird. Don’t you think this is weird?”

  He looked around, running his hand softly along my back as he always did.

  “Yup,” he said. “Definitely. You wanna make out?”

  “Seems like we should,” I said. “Those guys are already way ahead of us.”

  I indicated a couple across the room who had come in after us but were already naked.

  “Wait…do you want to have sex?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, definitely let me know when you know,” he said.

  He kissed me and I kissed him back. He put his arms around me, and we began kissing with purpose.

  I started doing the emotional math.

  Do I want to have sex with him tonight?

  Absolutely.

  Will I ever be in a sex club again?

  Not likely.

  Should I pull a “when in Rome” as long as I’m here?

  I don’t think most people in Rome would have sex in public at this point, so don’t kid yourself by saying you’re doing what the Romans do.

  I don’t know…I think I might regret it if I don’t. It’s like going to Disneyland and skipping Space Mountain, or going to the Louvre and running off to the Jamba Juice in the food court before you get to the Mona Lisa.

  Is there a Jamba Juice at the Louvre?

  It just seems like if you’re going to go to a sex club, go to a sex club.

  That’s an excellent point.

  Also, look around. Not a single person here is paying attention or gives a shit.

  That one sort of clinched it for me. I undid his belt.

  He seemed pleased.

  Because we were in a public place, there was no way in hell I was going to get undressed. Because I’ll have sex in front of total strangers, but God forbid I show my midriff.

  I did my best to concentrate on Joe, but there was a group of people on the bed next to us talking about whether J. J. Abrams was going to ruin the Star Wars franchise. Also, there’s a reason no one over thirty ever has sex on a futon: it’s like fucking on a boulder with a slipcover.

  Joe asked me some sexy questions while we were in the middle of it all. It was just your standard “Is that big enough for you?” and “You like that?” kind of thing, but I felt a little funny answering in front of everyone. They were kinda personal questions.

  I answered very quietly.

  I laughed a little when it was over and I was standing at the side of the futon getting my clothes and self back to normal again.

  “What?” Joe asked, buttoning his shirt and looking for his shoe.

  “Nothing,” I said. “It’s just a little odd to have sex in a room next to people casually discussing whether the auteur theory applies to sci-fi directors.”

  “Do you think it does?” he asked.

  “Fuck yeah, it does,” I replied. “I almost stopped you so I could say so.”

  As I sat on the futon putting on my shoes and chatting with Joe about the ridiculous thing we’d just done, I realized that this was the end of the line for me, sexual-experimentation-wise.

  It was clear from my experience with Jeremy, and at Joe’s house, and now this that sex simply wasn’t an area where I needed to test my boundaries, because I might not have any.

  I’d taken a foray into nontraditional relationships a
nd it had been strange and illuminating, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I’d been brainwashed by romantic comedies, and being someone’s second was never the happy ending. (Although someone should make When Harry Met Sally and Sally’s Open-Minded Friend Who Works as a Cheesemonger at Whole Foods for the poly age.)

  If I really thought about it, this whole year was supposed to be about me becoming infinitesimally braver, not buying into my fears. And dating polyamorous people had always been a self-defensive act, meant to protect me from getting too emotionally involved and risking heartache. It was as if I was specifically seeking out people with whom I had nothing in common so I couldn’t possibly fall in love with them.

  And I wanted to fall in love.

  I wanted those hours-long conversations where your whole body buzzes from the connection. I wanted unfettered, uncluttered access to someone who loved me with his whole heart because he hadn’t given pieces of it to someone else. Someone who could choose to have anyone’s back in the world but chose to have mine and mine alone. Back fat and all.

  Thankfully, Joe and Jeremy had helped with my quest to find love by showing me what to look for in a sexual partner: sensual, sweet, intimate affection and filthy, no-holds-barred sexual bullying.

  Finding both of those in one person might be a challenge.

  Even though I’d decided that my big sexual-experimentation days were over, I still had to finish my evening with Joe.

  Notably, we hadn’t tried the buffet yet.

  You may be asking, “Why the eff is there a buffet at a sex club?”

  The answer is boring. According to Oregon Liquor Control Commission law, any bar serving alcohol must also serve “two different substantial food items.”

  Enter Build-Your-Own-Burrito Night5 at Sesso.

  The food looked fine, though out of place—less like bar food and more like what might be served at your aunt’s fourth wedding at the local Elks Lodge. There were chafing dishes with Sternos, bowls sparsely filled with burrito ingredients, and disposable plates and utensils on a long table covered in a white tablecloth. I’d been expecting a sneeze guard at about crotch height, but I assume the NO NUDITY sign precluded the need for it.