Sex parties under threat: What's stopping London becoming the second city of kink?
Sex-positive nights are more popular than ever in the capital — but the venues hosting hedonistic parties are getting nervous
Morning — it’s Berlin that’s famed for sex clubs, but over the last decade London has been quietly closing the kink gap. Unashamedly ‘sex-positive’ nights catering to a range of persuasions are more popular than ever in the capital — from cabaret to BDSM. But there’s a big constraint on the growing sexual hedonism: nervousness from venues, who fear they’re breaking the law by hosting the parties and risk the wrath of the authorities.
Today we’re bringing you a piece by journalist Tom Duggins, who’s been speaking to organisers and lawyers to figure out why it’s so hard to put on a sex party in London. He explores a landmark case — a battle over a non-nudity clause in east London — and wider efforts to navigate a sometimes legally grey zone. Tom’s full investigation is below.
FYI: for reasons we hope are obvious, this piece may not be safe to read at work, and contains some strong language.
BTW: apologies for the delay in sending out a PDF version of our Tube map of London rents to our paid subscribers. It’s on the way soon — we’ve just been taking a short break after a knackering general election period.
Is London's status as the second city of kink under threat?
By Tom Duggins
“Right now, there are tonnes of nightclubs in London that tolerate people fucking in their toilet cubicles. But because we run sex parties and are open about the experience we provide, we get heavily scrutinised and they don’t. Even though we are the ones who take duty of care seriously and worry about safety requirements.”
These are the words of Karl, who founded the BDSM club night Klub Verboten in 2016, and they reflect a common problem faced by the people who run events within London’s sex party and kink scene. Having seen a big surge of interest after the pandemic, when many people were looking to jump headfirst back into the nightlife, the capital’s blossoming sex-positive club culture is now caught at something of a crossroads.
On the one hand, the number of different events and the variety of what’s on offer has grown substantially across the last decade. As Time Out put it a couple of years ago, London’s sex-positive party scene is now “more accessible, more visible and a hell of a lot more inclusive” than before. Londoners have the choice of weekly events that combine workshops, cabaret performances and play spaces, many of which cater to quite specific interests and desires that can get easily lumped together in the catch-all term that is kink.
On the other, organisers are finding it’s becoming harder to find London venues brave enough to host their nights. Amid an often misunderstood legal framework, they fear borough councils or police might come down on them hard. A recent licensing battle in Tower Hamlets has acted as a warning. But first — what does a London sex party actually entail?
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