But, in the spring, as more and more New Yorkers became fully vaccinated, hot vax summer seemed imminent. An April study done by the Kinsey Institute (in partnership with Cosmopolitan and Esquire) seemed to confirm this: Of the 2,000 respondents, 46 percent percent said they were engaging in more sexual experimentation, while 19 percent said they were more inclined to pursue an open relationship in the future. (Monogamy had a moment, too 52 percent of single respondents said that a committed relationship is what they wanted next.)Īnd then, hot vax summer seemed like it was over before it had really begun. After a frenzied spring, people burned out on socializing and small talk. As the Delta variant spread, New Yorkers of all stripes had to reassess their risk of catching the disease, even if they were fully vaccinated.
But there was at least one place, it seemed, where that feeling of uninhibited joy, of celebrating togetherness after a long period of isolation, raged on: at sex parties. Over the course of the summer and early fall, I attended four different New York–based sex parties: one in June, one in August, one in September, and one in October.
Two of the four parties required proof of vaccination the other two allowed a negative COVID test. Party guests and employees told me that people seemed hungrier to attend - and, once they were there, to explore - than ever. Several also observed an unprecedented influx of newbies - a trend that dovetails with the Kinsey study, in which nearly half of respondents were interested in investigating their sexuality in a more intentional way. There was at least one place where that feeling of uninhibited joy, of celebrating togetherness after a long period of isolation, raged on. SNCTM - a private members’ club that hosts sex parties in New York, as well as Los Angeles, Miami, Moscow, and Kyiv - was one party that saw a particularly robust increase in applications from people who were new to sex parties. Robert, the company’s managing director, told me over the phone that the club saw applications from twice as many first-timers as before the pandemic. (Additionally, a representative from Killing Kittens - a members-only sex party that’s headquartered in the United Kingdom but holds events in New York - reported that since the start of the pandemic, its New York membership has grown by 25 percent, and the U.S. (By comparison, annual memberships at Hacienda, in Bushwick, are priced at $120.) traffic to its website and accompanying app has increased by 300 percent.) For single men, annual memberships at SNCTM start at $10,000 women, once accepted by the club, can attend for free.