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.

The lowest floor is the dance club which is nicely lit and where fairly acceptable music is played by a live DJ. People seem to start down there and, as the evening gets on, it tends to empty out but often one sees youngish suburban looking groups that stay down there as if it were only that sort of club.  Early on the evening the sex-oriented couples congregate in the dance club (drinking there is fine, but they ask that you not take it upstairs presumably because the upstairs has many soft surfaces).  People often dress fairly revealingly – often skirts without suitable undergarments or topless, the hosts sometimes come downstairs and dance with friends.  In general though the bottom level is more dressed than not and I’ve never observed any thing more than exploratory groping – no orgasms on the dance floor for example (though I’m not sure why).

1/3 flight up is a bar where one leaves the BYOB and a bartender will mix drinks for tips.

1/3 flight up from there is the entry and coat check and a bathroom.

Upstairs is where the real action happens.  It is a pointy triangular building: at the base are practical affordances (closets, private room) and a bathroom and then along the long arms of the triangle are curtained and glass-walled zones with various assortments of bed-like furniture.  One has a large screen TV with porn on repeat.  Toward the point of the triangle is a large circular bed with smaller “perches” around it.  The pointy tip is a triangular bedroom with glass walls and a door.  Some of the more enthusiastic n-way activity seems to happen there.

There’s a substantial male/female behavioral split despite the unambiguous intent of the space.  Every man there is looking (even though they only allow single women and couples and in theory there should be more women than men).  No women are looking for men.  Occasionally a woman will engage another woman, but somewhat rarely; male-male interactions are rare or non-existent due to the admissions policy.  People are well-behaved and respect boundaries and follow the rules.

Another key feature is a variety of spaces offering a range of private-exhibitionistic opportunities.  For males, however, exhibitionism must be it’s own reward as without being forward and accepting a high reject rate it will generally prove efficacious as advertising except for extraordinary specimens.  That said, people do come to have sex and actually do engage in it with some enthusiasm; while it is a little more mainstream in the audience than other SF clubs, mainstream people seem to talk about sex less and have it more, while the SF alt.sex community is much more about talk and posture than action: fauxsexuals.

Overall it is a nice, comfortable space that is attractive and appropriately lit and seems to encourage the behavior the appearance suggests.  People are usually not loud (though not always, some talk way too much, some are a little too theatrical with their orgasms in a way that induces some pretty anti-sexy laughter – it is fun and funny but….).   The experienced are likely to get what they’re looking for while for novices, it is a great place to flirt with being more sexually adventurous.

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.

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.