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Sex clubs are becoming more mainstream. Jess shares her observations about sex clubs and chats with Fatima Mechtab who shares her stories (including one about a blowup doll!), tips and insights. Click here to find a sex club near you.
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A few additional notes on sex clubs:
Many of the couples I work with visit sex clubs to get their juices flowing. They dance, flirt, watch and leave without ever having sex or reaching orgasm. They use their experience as both fodder for intimate conversations (emotional) and as material for sexual foreplay. In many cases, the anticipation is hotter than the reward, which makes sense, as dopamine levels can be twice as high during the anticipation pleasure as when you experience the pleasure itself.
You don’t have to participate in any specific way and regardless of your specific desires, you’ll want to consider several questions and have ongoing conversations in advance:
- How long will you spend at the club when you visit?
- Will you have a drink? How many drinks will you have?
- Will you dance?
- What will you wear? Do you plan to undress?
- How will you respond if you’re feeling uncomfortable? How will you ask your partner for support? How do you want them to respond?
- What will you do if someone asks you or your partner to dance?
- What areas of the club will you visit? (e.g. Will you go into the play rooms or just the bar?)
- What excites you about visiting a sex club?
- What concerns or fears do you have?
- What’s your best-case scenario for your first visit?
- What’s your perceived worst-case scenario?
Discussing boundaries and concerns in advance can help you to feel more at ease and ensure that you don’t have to make high-pressure decisions in the heat of the moment. Take your time with these questions and allow yourself to be vulnerable as the conversations unfold. There is no rush to visit a sex club — they’ll still be there next week, next month or next year.
Note: Many reputable sex clubs also offer tours for newbies, so check online or call ahead to find out what they offer in terms of tours and workshops. I may even be able to recommend a sex club tour guide like Luna Matatas or Spirt Sex Lab’s Evguenia.
I believe that seeing real sex between consenting adults who aren’t being directed by professionals can be helpful in creating a happy, healthy sex life. Porn is not intended to be a form of education, but we often use it as a learning model, as we have no other options. If you want to gain insight on other topics (e.g. football, cooking, crafting), you being by observing others. You don’t simply learn about the mechanics in a book or study the potential risks in school — you actually watch others performing the task on video or in-person. Why do we treat sex differently?
I studied human sexuality and sexual health education in school, but I didn’t learn much about the physical act of sex in the classroom. Luckily, I have derived great educational benefits from observing real live sex at sex clubs and resorts over the past 10+ years. Seeing real people with a range of body types engaged in a wide range of sexual activities not only makes me more comfortable with sex, but also with my own body. The first time I visited Desire Resorts and saw couples of all ages having different types of sex, my whole outlook toward my body, aging and sexuality changed for the better.
This, of course, does not mean that your experience will be the same as mine. If you’re not interested in visiting a sex club, that’s okay too. There are many paths to sexual exploration and fulfilment and you’re the ultimate expert in your own needs. You don’t want to pressure your partner to feel the way you feel, but hopefully you feel comfortable expressing how you feel.
Check out fellow Sexologist, Ashley Cobb‘s advice on sex clubs here.
Rough Transcript:
This is a computer-generated rough transcript, so please excuse any typos. This podcast is an informational conversation and is not a substitute for medical, health or other professional advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the services of an appropriate professional should you have individual questions or concerns.
All About Sex Clubs!
Participant #1:
Welcome to the Sex With Dr. Jess podcast. I’m Jessica O’Reilly, your friendly neighborhood sexologist, and I’m here to provide advice, insights, and, of course, interviews use that help you to have a happier relationship and hotter sex starting today. Now, today’s episode is all about one of my favorite topics, and it’s pretty simple. Today’s episode is about sex clubs, and appropriately, it’s brought to you by Toronto Zone Oasis, Aqua Lounge. Now I love Oasis, and I love sex clubs. I don’t spend a ton of time at them. It’s not a daily thing or a weekly thing, but the time I do spend visiting sex clubs and erotic resorts is really quality time for me, for my sexual worldview and for my relationship. And based on not just my visits to sex clubs, but the thousands and thousands of couples and a few singles, hundreds of singles, I know who attend sex clubs. I believe that every person, every single, every couple, every thruple if there’s three of you. Anne Morrison’s, I believe that everyone can benefit from visiting a sex club, and it’s not just your sex life benefits. And I’ll talk about that. But I believe that we can all benefit from visiting a sex club for a number of reasons. So hear me out. I know that some people are very turned off by this idea, but there are so many benefits to just going to a sex club. You don’t need to do anything. So first and foremost, you have the opportunity to observe real, live, naked bodies in an unfiltered state. Now, this is good for your perception of the human body, for your relationship with your own body. Everything we see on TV, in magazines, on Instagram, it’s going through, like 18 levels of filtering from Facetune to you can perfect to Photoshop and then just the simple filters. So seeing real, live naked bodies, it’s a beautiful thing. It’s a good thing. And you’re going to see such a range of bodies. You’re going to see people who look like those Instagram models, and you’re going to see people who look like the person who’s cashing you out at the drugstore or the supermarket or grocery store. So it’s a massive range of people who attend and observing real life sex between consenting adults who aren’t being paid to perform for you, who aren’t being directed by someone who says, Please open your left labia to camera three. This is a good thing. You learn from their movements, from their sounds, real sounds, their responses to one another, and maybe their responses to your being in the room. As a potential Observer, I’ve always been an advocate of this. I do not believe you can learn about something without observing it. We do not do this in any other realm of our lives. I talk about this all the time and compare sex to football. Seeing sex is a good thing when you consent, of course, and when the other people consent. Now. Also, you have the opportunity to get naked in public. And I did a whole podcast on the benefits of getting naked. Hey, you should get naked right now. If you’re not on the subway or in your car or something like that. Lots of benefits related to body image and self esteem from getting naked in a group. And you know, here’s the thing. You don’t have to get naked. You don’t have to have sex. You don’t even have to watch. You can just go for one drink and whether you love it, hate it or feel indifferent about your visit to a sex club. A field trip to Effects club will inevitably inevitably start meaningful. Intimate and intense and intense can be a good thing. Conversations with yourself with your partner and you need to have these dialogues you need to consider. How will you feel an environment like this to keep things interesting, your sex life with yourself, but also to keep it interesting and hot in long term relationships, everything you observe and take in at the sex club can serve as father for your sexual fantasies and imagination. Moving forward, I know many people report that simply going to a sex club, even if it’s just for half an hour, helps to reignite their interest in sex. And I love this. Going to a sex club again, you don’t have to do anything. Just showing up can help you to discover something new that you’re into, something that perhaps you never imagined you might like. Now I’ve seen so many different scenes, encounters, sex acts and scenarios at sex clubs. Then it helps me as a professional to learn what my clients are into, but also personally to help me learn what I’m into. And my husband has always been very surprised by our reactions. And to be fair, it’s also helped me to learn what I’m not into. I’ve seen such a range of accents. Sex clubs. I’ve seen people eating sushi off of naked bodies. I’ve seen people with this is not for me, but it’s for them, and I’m learning people playing with pies all around their genitals. I’ve seen threesomes group sex. I’ve seen live porn shoots. I’ve seen couples in a quiet corner with curtains around their bad sheer curtains, just making love on their own. I’ve seen erotic massage, kinky play from cupping and hot wax to whipping and needling. I’ve seen strip shows, burlesque shows, exhibitionism voyeurism, just sexy dancing, spanking bondage, Daisy chains, double penetration. I went to one where naked men were serving women soup and macarons. I’ve seen a hot tub and pool and shower sex in groups and so much more. Now I can’t guarantee that you’re going to see all these things on your first visit to a sex club. Usually they have themes and specific nights so you can plan ahead for what you do and don’t want to see. But here’s the thing. I don’t spend all day and all night in the sex club. I’m way too Prude for that. So I am happy to invite an expert from a sex club. Fatima Mach, marketing director and event producer at Oasis Aqua Lounge, which is a really unique sex club. I’m happy to have Fatima with me here today. Hi there Fatima. Hi, Dr. Jess. Thank you for having me on the show. So happy to have you. How are you doing? I’m great. Very excited. Your intro was amazing. Are you at a sex club right now? Are you at Oasis? I am at a sex club right now. And when you said everybody should get naked, I’m like, Well, I could probably get naked too, because I’m here and I love when my guests are naked now. Okay. Oasis is a little bit different than a lot of other sex clubs. It is definitely not a swinger club, and I think a lot of people conflate the two. So let’s start there. What is a sex club? So a sex club is a club that allows sexual activity and nudity with consensus adults in various relationships. So unlike a swingers club where swinger couples get together and they expect to have some sort of swapping between guests, Oasis Awful Lounge welcomes anybody in any type of relationship or even if you’re single to enjoy the venue to explore your sexuality, explore your fantasies. But you do not have to identify as a swinger to be at Oasis. We definitely welcome the swinger community, and the swinger community knows a lot about Oasis, probably our core demographic, but you do not have to be a swinger to come to the club, so you don’t have to play with other couples if you don’t want to. Okay, awesome. Now, it’s interesting. I learned about Oasis years ago because you were hosting a student night, and the student night was from the city of Toronto. It was organized by the Health and Care Counseling Center, which in fact, is how I got my start in this field way back in the year 2009 that created all this controversy, not in Toronto or across Canada, but with media outlets. Yeah, it was a worldwide story. So that was just as I had started with the club. So when all of that happened, that was just my very first beginnings at Oasis Aqua Lounge. So we hold a student and we still hold it. It’s called South Africa class, and it’s for students between the ages of 19 to 35. You also don’t have to be a student. But we do offer student discounts. So that event was to kick off sex. So it’s SEC from the University of Toronto, the Sexual Education Center, their full kick off. So we wanted to host a party at a wake up lounge, and that particular party turned into a quote, unquote student. Orgy. So I think that title definitely the media got a hold of that title, and the story blew up. And Interestingly enough. When that party happened, Oasis Auckland was still a very new business, and the idea of sex clubs in Toronto was still very new. And other than the swinger community, people just weren’t talking about them. They weren’t going to them. So not only did this particular party sort of just take off as an event, but it also, I think, opens the eyes of people to realize that Oasis Aqua Lounge is a place that you can visit. You can explore nudity, you can explore sexuality. There are different theme nights. And so that particular event really put Oasis on the map as well as well as UFT. Well, yeah. The interesting thing about Oasis, and I think this new breed of sex clubs that are popping up across the globe, particularly in Canada and the States, is that they’re not in a dark alley, hidden in a strip mall, in a commercial area. I mean, for people who don’t know Toronto, Oasis is right downtown in the middle of a lovely community. It’s in an old restored mansion. But here’s the thing. I’m telling people, you obviously don’t have to have sex at a sex club. And at the end, I’m going to give you some rules and guidelines for your first visit to a sex club. So if you don’t have to have sex at a sex club, why are you there? What else can you do? What are the themes? What are the entertainment? What are the options? I’m sorry. That’s the question for me. Yes. What else can people do? Great. So Oasis Aqua Lounge. We have an outdoor heated pool that’s heated year round, so that’s our biggest selling point. We have a beautiful outdoor deck, private deck. And so people can enjoy the beautiful heated pool any time of the year. It’s even gorgeous in the middle of winter. And if anybody knows Toronto winter, sometimes it’s not a lot of fun. But the pool is beautiful outside. We also have other facilities, such as a dry fauna. We have a hot tub, there’s two licensed bars. Sometimes we have a live DJ. And as you mentioned, we have a slew of different events that cover all types of interest. There’s also a lot of educational elements as well, too. You may not come to Oasis maybe to have sex. Maybe you’re too shy. Maybe you’re not there yet. You can come and you can meet other people socialize and also take advantage of all of the workshops that we offer and the educational elements as well. To people that are maybe into King can learn how to tie rope, how to engage in activities safely. And I mean, depending on your comfort level, you may go in there thinking, you know what? Maybe I don’t want to have sex this time, but maybe you will. And the great thing about Oasis is that it just welcomes all of that curiosity without any pressure to have to do anything. And the community itself is just so warm and social. As you said. It’s not sort of a back alley, dark, anonymous place. It’s a very open concept and a very engaging community. Right? It’s about a 15 minutes walk from my house from my little trip here. What do you wear? What do you wear to affect them? People have all these jobs. What do I bring if I’m going to get naked, how do I pay for drinks? What do I bring with me? Do I bring a Fanny pack? Well, you certainly can bring a Fanny pack. That’s a great idea. That’s one of our most popular questions, because Oasis Aqua Lounge is clothing optional. I mean, the sky is really the limit, and that’s a really hard concept for people to wrap their heads around because we’re conditioned in a society to you have to dress a certain way. You certainly have to wear clothes everywhere you go. And so people can’t wrap their heads around. The idea of being in a space where you can wear anything or nothing, you can change. You can try on outfits, but just to bring it down a notch, what you’re going to see mostly when you come to Oasis is people wrapped around with a towel wrapped around them. So you’re going to see new bodies. But you’re really going to see a lot of people with a white towel around the body. And that’s because we offer water facilities. And we have complimentary towels from the pool in the hot tub. And things like that. Often we have themed events with a suggested dress code. So also you can dress up in theme, but you’re never expected to. So our dress codes are never strict. They’re just for fun. And it’s just a fun way to explore role play and dress up. And those things can be really sexy. You have nights when you allow couples and nights when you allow singles, you have a student night that’s under 35. Is there an average age of people who attend? Yeah, where other clubs? Because not everyone is in Toronto. Most of my listeners are in the States and around the world. So what would you say? Average age of someone who attends a sex club might be, I would say the average age of people that attend Oasis would be like 35 to about 60. I think that pretty much covers it. It is a wide range because we have such a diverse community that comes to Oasis. So unlike other clubs that focus mainly on couples, Oasis allows single men to attend certain days of the week. And then again, we have a student night. I produce my own event for women and trans folks, which is a bimonthly event catering to the LGBTQ community. But, yeah, I would say the age range, it’s pretty wide because again, we’re right downtown Toronto. So we have such a great diverse group of people that come to the club. Yeah, it’s interesting because a lot of people who wouldn’t consider themselves particularly sexually adventurous have been to Oasis, and that’s because sometimes you have had event media launch parties. There I go. There educational workshops, other people in the field, psychologists, medical doctors, entertainers. I mean, you have burlesque shows there. So it’s quite a broad entertainment facility, and I’d like to see more of them. I’m hoping that even people with a business or entrepreneurial mind listening in a city that doesn’t have a facility like yours will consider opening one up, because I think it’s a positive thing for the community. Now, if I were to walk into Oasis on a Saturday night and go out to the pool at midnight, what would I see? And I know everything. Let’s say it’s a good night. What would I see? Oh, my goodness. Okay. So you’re going to see a lot of new bodies in the pool. You’re going to see a lot of people talking, laughing, probably some play on the cushions that we have sort of outside by the deck coming inside on a Saturday night. Let’s talk about summer, because summer is definitely our peak season. You’re going to see people may be dancing around the pool either, wearing nothing, maybe a towel. People sort of running in and out from the deck to the bar to grab a drink.
Participant #1:
We allow sex in the pool. We just don’t allow sex in the hot tub. Okay. And they can have sex all around the pool. Can I have sex on the bar? We don’t allow sex on the bar just because of, like, hygiene reasons.
Participant #1:
Yes. And our employees, they can dress, however they like you could work nude at Oasis if you wanted to. But we do make sure that bartenders wear, like, bottoms and shoes and things like that if they’re behind the bar just for sanitary reasons. What about next to the bar? Can I have sex next to the bar? Of course, you can have sex on the couch beside the bar. You can have sex anywhere you want except for the hot tub. And we also discourage people having sex in our bathrooms because the club can get really busy and people need to use the bathroom. So we discourage people from taking up space in the bathroom. This is the opposite of a nightclub where the only place you can have sex is the bathroom. So it’s like you can have sex anywhere but the bathroom. Yeah, exactly. We discourage it. There are places that are more encouraged for people to have sex. Staircases are not a good idea. Not to say I haven’t done it, but it’s definitely not a good idea if it’s a busy night just for space reasons and things like that. But, yeah, we encourage sexual activity, whatever that might be, that might not even be intercourse. It could be oral sex. It could be whatever you’re into anywhere in the club. But the best place, the most comfortable place is mostly in our playrooms that we have on the third floor, which I’m actually walking through right now. Can you provide matches?
Participant #1:
So we don’t actually have sheets? All of our furniture is leather. And the reason why is because it’s very easy to clean up. So our beds, our play beds are all leather. They’re huge, spacious pillows are leather. So we don’t use any sort of, like, core materials down on again, that’s for hygiene reasons. Yeah. People lay their towels on the beds. So the other thing I should mention about Oasis is that we have a huge staff. So there are people day and night cleaning, busting floating around customer service. And so I know cleanliness is a big concern for people visiting sex clubs. So there’s always somebody that’s, like cleaning up after picking up cups, picking up towels, wiping down beds. We also provide wipes for customers who want to clean up after themselves. We definitely appreciate that. And there’s towels that are given out freely. So if you lay a towel on a bed and you have sex on it, you can always take that towel, throw it in a hamper and help yourself to a new one if you like. Okay. Cool. Because I went to the sex club once in Florida, where you were issued like, one little scratchy towel. And I just felt like a good life. Exactly. I’m not a sex club. I’m lying. Yeah. So now if I were to walk in and this is what I’d see, I know that some nights are Wilder than others, so I want to get to the fun stuff. What is the wildest thing you have ever seen happen at a sex party or a sex club? You don’t have to say where it was the wildest thing ever. Well, man, I’ve seen so many things, and it’s hard to say wild at this point because it’s just like that’s, like my world. I really like live porn shoots. That’s one of my favorite things to see. I really like sex and art mixed together. So erotic photography, porn shoots. We don’t do it often. I don’t even know if we’re doing another one anytime soon. But we’ve done, like, looshing events where people are into food and they will rub food all over their body, their naked body. We’ve seen, like, spoofing performances. I’ve seen some really great, like, kink activities. Spectator sex. I have a funny story, actually. Okay. So I have a good story. It’s not about something that I thought it’s about something that I did. So Oasis now has a sex doll, and we have a sex doll because we thought it would be interesting to bring it to the club to see if people are interested in using it like they would Arabian. It’s also a great thing to take around when we promote outside of the club. So anyway, we have something at the club called Spectator Sex, where couples perform in front of guests. And in my current relationship, I don’t participate in spectator sex with other people. But I really wanted to try doing a spectator sex show with, like, the sock stall. And it was just something that I had never had the chance to do outside of regular society. And so yeah. So I actually put on a show with this sex doll, and I basically put my sex toys on her and use her in front of the guests that we’re watching. Do you also have a sex machine? Yeah. We have a civilian. So the civilian is a large vibrating machine that you straddle, and you can also attach. What do you call it when you penetrate the penetrative attachments? So things like builders or finger shapes. And there’s an operator. So the operator turns it on and you ride it and you orgasm if you’re lucky. Yeah. I mean, it’s not for everybody. Some people I personally, it’s a bit much for me. It’s not really my thing, but for the most part, people love it. And I mean, it’s great for all genders as well, too. And again, it’s something that a staff member operates. They clean it properly. All of these activities and all of these things that we offer, we always make sure a trained staff member is present, they know how to operate, they know how to clean something properly. So we’re very big on cleanliness and making our guests feel comfortable. I’m really big on comfort for my back and also cleanliness. When it comes to now, we only have about 30 seconds to a minute left. Not everybody is in Toronto, and some people will come visit specifically to come to your club. Are there other clubs across North America you can recommend or is there a website or an organization or an Association for really great sex clubs? That’s a great question. I don’t know of a site offhand, but if you check, like lifestyle sites of people that are in the lifestyle, there’s usually like club listings everywhere. Actually, SDC is a great site for various clubs that happen internationally because they have a great international list. Other clubs that I would recommend if you’re in Montreal. I love LauraJ. That’s a great club. So for the non French speakers, that’s Orange with an L in front of it. Yeah. It sounds like Orange. That’s a great club. I’ve been to that club and I really liked it. I’ve also liked X Club, which is in the GTA. That’s Toronto. There’s a trapeze. I’ve heard great things about Chapis. I think there’s a location in Florida because I have to have to cut you off. I’m really sorry. I’m going to see if we can pull up a list of sex clubs and maybe look at maintaining it to go beneath this podcast. I really appreciate you’re taking the time. Certainly an interesting. Oh, that’s great. I will try not to think about that sex doll as we part Ways. Her name is Aquabella. Thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Same to you. Bye. Bye. Bye. All right, Kelly. We have to cut it off and record the closing on our own. Okay.