On November 13, 2021, WhosThatBear presented the topic “How to Plan an Orgy” for Dating Kinky’s ‘It’s All About PLAY!’ Weekend event. The original presentation was free to all who joined us live, and was recorded for Dating Kinky’s PLUS members to access through the Dating Kinky Library (over 400 videos and 550 hours of content!).

Here is a clip from that 90-minute show, where he discusses setting up spaces for your event, and creating the atmosphere.
https://youtu.be/6uB6G1KmXX4

TRANSCRIPT

Anyway, going back to spaces.

I like to break things down into three specific spaces: social spaces, play spaces and quiet spaces.

So the way they’re broken down is, “What’s prioritized in this space?”

So for a social space, talk is priority.

So that’s a space where you might have some food. You might have some drinks, places to sit, places to stand places to be comfortable, that’s where your guests are going to be able to chat with each other and meet and mingle, and kind of talk a little bit.

The next kind of space that we have is the the play space. In the play space, play is priority—whether
that’s sex, whether that’s impact, whether that’s a combination of the two—in the play space, it’s very important that you establish, you know:

Scenes aren’t to be interrupted, they’re to be watched, the scene gets priority and it needs to be respected.

And then finally, the third space is the quiet space.

That’s the recovery space. That’s where you go, if you’ve just f*cked five people in a row when you need some water and some quiet space. It’s where you go, if you just got flogged. It’s where you go if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed and just need a break from the sex and the social stuff and I’ll talk about this
a lot, but I think the quiet space is really, really important to have to have to kind of facilitate the comfort of your guests.

All right. Moving on…

Lighting: pretty straightforward there. Bright light bad. Soft light good.

The lighting in your space particularly in the playing and the quiet spaces should be a little bit dimmer, a little bit softer. Really easy to throw a sarong or a sari over a lamp shade to kind of dim things down a little bit.

We won’t talk too much about lighting.

Same thing with music. This is your event, the music you choose and the volume of the music will really
kind of create the vibe.

If you’re, you know, going for like a really hardcore thing, you know, you can throw in some Rob Zombie for some hardcore impact play, or on the flip side, if you want something a little lighter, you can go with that.

Food for the social spaces: talk a little bit about that.

This is kind of the the pizza joke.

If you do decide that you want to serve refreshments, light foods are better.

Shorter party=less food.

If you’re having a multi-day event, you might actually want to have it catered. You can get kind of more of a designated time for the meals.

But yeah, just choose choose light foods. Stay away from things like garlic, and cheese. Pepperoni pizzas: a bad choice for a myriad of reasons. That’s..trust me..I…we learned this the hard way.

And then the other thing is alcohol.

Most of the time you’ll have to do—you’ll have to do a BYOB. People kind of bring their own beer and booze, but you can decide, you know, if it’s a bigger space, if you want a designated bartender or not.

And this is another thing that we’ve done, at the BDSM sex parties that I’ve hosted and gone to, is we have a we have a 3 drink rule, where what we’ll do is for like 20 people and up: Wristband everyone at the
beginning of the night and every time they get a drink, they get an X on their wristband.

After three Xs their wristband gets cut off.

They can still have sex but we don’t let them do higher risk activities, such as impact play or rope, and again we’re…what you do when you do that is you’re basically letting people prioritize.

Do you want to go and hang out and then drink at a bar and maybe f*ck some people or do you want to tie or be tied?

Where do you want to prioritize that?

So they still have agency, they still have choice, but you’re basically saying, you know, “This space does not value getting drunk and tying someone up.

That’s not a thing that we want to have happen.”

—

I’m pretty lucky.

I’ve had the opportunity to host sex-positive kink events for my community.

I’ve also been lucky enough that there have been VERY FEW consent issues in the ones I’ve been a part of.

Now, that was years ago, and I’m starting up again, based on what our local community wants to see and experience more of.

As someone who grew up with swinksters, then eventually found my way to that space (through a long, rambling exploration), this delights me.

And so, I’m looking over this amazing presentation and taking copious notes.

And I’m reminded of something we did at The Venue when we had it that was a HUGE hit for both the kinky side of things and the sexy side:

The ‘Touch Me Not’ ribbon.

It was loosely base don the idea of a house collar.

It was a simple purple ribbon that ANYONE could wear on their arm that made them unavailable to approach for play or sex.

Usually, nervous newbies would wear it, and know that the big scary kinky folk would not eat them whole.

But, quite a few experienced and play-desirable kinksters would wear it when they didn’t want to be overwhelmed with requests to play. When they wanted to chill and enjoy their planned scenes and social evenings.

And in starting up these new parties, I’ll be bringing the Touch Me Not back.

I’ll also be creating spaces, because I remember having a quiet room and how amazing it was for people to be able to get away, to self-calm, and to relax without having to leave.

It had a ton of pillows and mattresses on the floor, and while petting and affection were allowed, kink and sex were not, making it a good space for recovery and chill.

And I’m excited to start this again.

What are your thoughts?

Have you ever used a house collar or a Touch Me Not ribbon at an event? If no, can you imagine wanting to?

What other important tips can you share about creating sex-pos kink (swinky) spaces?

OR—what questions do you have about it, that others might be able to answer?