Erotic Anarchy

A photographic exploration of Tokyo’s sex clubs from the early 1980s by Nobuyoshi Araki.

Tokyo Lucky Hole is a huge volume of photographs documenting the sex clubs of Shinjuku.  The pictures come from a variety of clubs, from the early no-panties coffee houses to specialized perversions such as a club where the patrons lie naked in port-holed coffins and are masturbated by “mourners” sitting atop.

Many of the photographs are taken in and around the public areas of the clubs and document the shows and environment of the clubs, which seem to range from merely titillating or just plain silly to live sex shows where the performers fellate volunteers from the audience on stage or mount them; a bit like a sex-positive circus.

Another common theme is candid snapshots of the performers, most laughing or smiling, all enjoying themselves.  The prologue explains that the sex scene of the early 1980s opened up to amateurs: students and housewives who could make good money in a fairly non-threatening environment of these sometimes very silly venues.  Their good spirit shows through in the pictures.

The most explicit theme is photographs taken in private rooms of patrons and performers engaged in various sex acts: mostly oral or hand jobs, but plenty of plain sex as well.  The images give the sense of being un-staged and candid, and as a result are  amusing and erotic and entirely un-pretentious.  And sometimes very funny, as when a woman’s group scene ends with her peeing at a man shielding himself with an umbrella.

The book is a 700 page, comprehensive documentary of a unique period of sexual history.

TwistSF  is a very stylish sex club, modern and attractive.  One enters through an unmarked door into a lobby with a rest room and coat check.  Alcohol is strictly BYOB, one leaves the bottle under the care of staff (who seem to monitor for excessive consumption).  There’s four partial levels on two complete floors.  One floor is  a dance club where people tend to remain at least mostly clothed, the other is a sex club divided into areas suitable for 2-10 or so people each. Continue Reading »

Kinky Salon has been around for a long time but we’d never been because they tell people they have to dress up.   The theme of our first visit was jungle night; almost all the men were wearing some variant of the pith helmet thing.  The women weren’t awfully jungly, but something sexy generally suffices.  Our apprehension about having to dress up was misplaced.

The advertised difference between Kinky Salon and Club Kiss (located in the same venue) is that Kiss is screened for attractive people and as a result it tends to be populated by superficially better looking people who are a bit more overtly exhibitionist and pretty much everybody is there to have sex most of the night.  Kinky Salon is much more of a social experience and many people are not there to have sex at all, rather to be with friends in a comfortable environment. The  attendees are not bad looking, but even in the play rooms there may be more people socializing than actually doing it.

Those that do engage in sex acts are a bit less in the mode of doing show-off sex than at more sex-oriented sex-clubs where they tend position themselves such that the genitals are visible.  I don’t think I saw anyone else’s genitals all night…

There were several female couples there, which is very unusual for a nominally straight sex club, but kinky salon is actively gay friendly.   Gay male clubs and straight clubs are very rarely integrated for complex psychological issues that have everything to do with straight male insecurities.  While there may be some gay men at kinky salon, a friend who goes just about every week says she’s only seen a few male gay couples and they usually don’t come back.  Then again, with all the options gay males have and most overtly catering to their needs, a straight club could seem uptight and boring and pretty pointless.

Gay women seem less well served by the community and the effectively zero pressure fun party atmosphere seems like it would be pretty comfortable; still single females are rare and female couples rarer still.  Like every US club, there seems to be nearly zero spontaneous interaction between people who don’t know each other already, though as always, a receptive female can have as many males or couples as she’s interested in.

Traumland, Vienna

We visited on a Saturday night, a couples-only night every week. There are other nights where the club caters to different interests, including a Thursday night regularly scheduled gang bang with professional bangees.

Traumland is probably the nicest, best appointed sex club we’ve visited thus far. The first visit runs about € 104 including memebership. After that it is € 69 per couple. This includes a fairly decent buffet style dinner in a dining room, free drinks of brand-name alcohols from a well-stocked bar, and access to the entire club.

The club has approximately three floors (on four or so levels). One enters from the street into a small monitored room, and then one is admitted into a dressing room. They do not allow street clothes in the club. You get a locker key and a towel on entry. People are generally wearing something around the club, if only a towel, but it is not obligatory. There are no areas where nudity or sex are prohibited, but on the bar would probably be inappropriate.

One enters from the dressing room to the bar, which is nicely appointed and comfortable and has a lounge-style attached room where people seem to rest and engage in light play. Down a half flight of stairs there are toilets and another dressing area, sex segregated locker rooms, a sauna and steam room (both were cold when we visited).

The basement is, as our very cute psych major guide explained “middle aged” theme, including basic BD/SM play equipment such as whips, paddles and the like (though the hand implements were padlocked and we never did find out if there was a protocol for their use). There zone includes a huge castle-grade dining table with tie down points, a spinning rack, a fixed rack, and various padded and unpadded zones. Nobody was using it when we visited.

Upstairs is the play area. It is a warren of different rooms with different themes and lighting levels. Several are specifically configured for show/voyeur arrangements, all are quite nice. One includes a gyno-style chair for easy access, others have swings or various pads and supports or unusual lighting. One is almost completely dark.

The crowd is what one would imagine euro-swingers to be – a variety of 30-50 year old couples, some very attractive, some not so much. People are friendly and participative. Most speak some English, but German fluency would be a plus.