Group sex getting into full “swing”
Sex has been an emerging market in the Czech Republic for 20 years, with its every marketable facet constantly developing since 1989. The first wave was naturally prostitution and pornography, shortly after, sex shops. At the turn of the new century came the phenomenon of internet exhibitionism, with some webpages becoming the most popular erotic sites on the Czech web. And now, in these last years, has come another lifestyle change that more and more businesses are catering to: group sex in full swing.
The number of couples seeking the intimate company of others appears to be in the thousands: private groups have sprung up in the dozens and at least seven nightclubs have been started in as many years. What’s going on in this small but steadily popular corner of sexuality? To find out what all the fuss is about, we went to visit one.
The Fantasy Swingers Club in Prague 18 is one of several places in the country that have opened in the last four years to accommodate what was previously happening almost exclusively at private parties. Up to 40 couples might be found here three nights a week, spread out among a number of special-purpose rooms and a bar that borders on a large Jacuzzi. The atmosphere that greets you is like being in a disco that doubles as a solarium, with the notable exception of the pornos playing on plasma screens. On this Wednesday evening there are about twenty people seated around the lounge in various states of dress and undress, mostly wrapped in white sheets, giving the place more than a touch of Pompeii. And they are a lot younger than one would expect. Petr Jelíček is the club’s owner.
“It’s often said that we have the youngest clientele in the Czech Republic, and I don’t mean 18-year-olds, but from 25-years upwards. And it’s a great client group to have, because they will keep coming for years, they bring new people because they feel more free talking about it, and they don’t have the huge prejudices that older generations have, because they are poorly informed. They think it’s about having a mass of people, each one with the other, and that’s not what it’s like. Couples come here to be with each other, to see and be seen, and first and foremost to have fun, not just to have sex or sexual relations with other people.”
The clientele is truly like the people you would see on an average Prague tram stop. Younger, older, fatter, slimmer, more and less attractive. Two or three new couples come for every party, the owner says, and there are about 13 parties a month, so swingers are not an endangered species. Some come every two weeks, some twice a year, like these two ‘friends with benefits’; let’s call them Jan and Jana.
Jan: “It’s not so many times that I’ve been in a swingers’ club, maybe six times. Mostly I was at private parties.”
Jana: “Yeah me too, six times. But over the years. This year maybe three or four times.”
Jan: “I would like to come here often but there is the problem that men are not allowed to come alone.”
Even though you’ve been to clubs like this six times, what was your gut feeling when the two of you decided to come here tonight? Was it also fear or only excitement?
Jan: “Yes I think every man is afraid and nervous a little, because there are many people and what you’re doing every day [at home] you have to do for all the other people so you’d like to still be “the man” [laughs]. So that’s why I think everybody is a little bit afraid.”
Jana: “I was more excited than afraid, because I know this club already and I know how it goes here. And I liked [Jan] from the first time I saw him, so I was not so much afraid as excited.”
And have you had any bad experiences in all that time?
Jana: “No, never, only good experiences.”
Nothing like this would work for a minute of course without rules. At Club Paradiso in Libeň there are 12 - no minors, no single men being chief among them. No phones, no unsafe sex, no drunkenness and most importantly no means no.
Petra: “Here we have the showers...”
Very luxurious, palm trees and everything.
The owners of Paradiso are Michael, a German, and Petra a Czech; both had experience in foreign swingers clubs before they became the first to start one in Prague, seven years ago.
Petra: “Here is the room with the cross. The girl or man is strapped to the cross and the partner goes away, and...”
Michael: “Sometimes somebody comes and does a little playing. It’s one of the possibilities.”
I admit that just coming to a swingers’ club for an interview off hours I find a bit nerve racking – like the participant we spoke to before, a mixed feeling of excitement and slight terror at what you’re getting yourself into – like the thrill of walking blindfolded while dreading what you might hit something. That’s a very Czech feeling, Michael tells me.
Michael: “Czech people are more shy.”
Petra: “But, we can say, only at the beginning. So the start is a little slow, everyone is sitting here and waiting for something to happen. People can come between 9 and 11, so during these two hours people are sitting here and it looks like a restaurant or a cafe bar – normal – and then you turn around and everyone is in the back in the playrooms and it’s empty. So the start is a little slow, but then...”
Michael: “They are very open then.”
Petra: “They are very active.”
More active than Germans? Or what is different in the Czech Republic than would be in Germany?
Michael: “In the back, all inhibitions fall down.”
Michael: “It was never not accepted here I think, because in this, Czech people are very open. When we were on TV, the feedback was big, it was great, and we were surprised about it. I personally have never heard any negativity. Maybe someone says ‘it’s nothing for me’, but I’ve never heard any negativity.”
Petra: “I think here in the Czech Republic, if you say I’m going to a swingers’ party with my partner, it’s nothing special, and not as problematic as if you say you are gay.”
Swinging is nothing new to the world, obviously, and there is little point in recapitulating all the risks again here – they-‘re the same in the Czech Republic as anywhere else: disease, divorce and whatever else you chose to add as per your own moral view. In both clubs we visited the owners said that they pay special attention to people who are old enough legally but too young mentally to see what they’re getting in to. Adults will do as they please though, as do Petra and Michael, and they frequently emphasise that this lifestyle is not for just anybody.
Michael: “When they have rules agreed on between themselves, then they never have any trouble, they have a nice night and then they try it again and try it again, and every visit they go a little bit farther and father... I think that’s even the best way.”
Petra: “To start slowly.”
Do you think this is something just any couple over 25 as you said should try?
Both: No.
Michael: They must have a good partnership, they have to not be only partners but also friends, and when their partnership is not okay, then it can break everything.
Petra: “When somebody is jealous. You can’t be jealous and go to a swingers’ party. It can happen that somebody will touch your wife or show interest in having sex with your wife, and some people are not into it, or jealous. Then a bad situation can happen.”
Petra: “Of course. Everything is theory until the moment you come to the swingers’ party. Then you realise the reality here.”
Michael: “I think it’s different for everybody. Everybody has different dreams, everybody has a different art of sexuality. Some couples are looking to change partners and for more people together, and some people say we just want the atmosphere, maybe just touch... it is different for everyone.”
Petra: “But for new couples who are here for the first time, we tell them just to enjoy the atmosphere and just watch the other couples. But for people who are here for the first time, I think it’s a very exciting situation, to see couples making love one metre behind you. It’s never going to happen in your own flat.”
For those assembled at Fantasy, looking like normal bar patrons except for their togas, drinking Champagne and chatting, the benefits – or rather the fulfilment that will come later in the evening, is worth the risks.
JAN: “I had a girlfriend, and we really loved each other, and we also enjoyed this kind of fun because it was something more for us, it was something like going to the cinema; we enjoyed it together, and we enjoyed that the other enjoyed it. Afterwards, when we came home, we enjoyed it even more, because we could talk about it, we could enjoy it again, but just together. So it gave us more than if we just stayed at home every day and had sex only with each other, and then spend the days watching to see whether he or she is going to talk to some other guy. Go and talk with him, have fun, because when you have fun I am having fun too. It’s just about trust. If you trust that she, after having fun and sex with somebody else here, will come back. And because of this trust, and because you love each other, then you know that she’ll come back.”
JANA: “I was in love and we had a really serious relationship, and we liked to go to the swingers club just to have sex together. We didn’t share, but we liked that we had other people watching us. So it didn’t destroy anything at all. I would be jealous, he would be jealous, if we shared, but we just liked the atmosphere – we liked going and having sex in front of other people, and so it was all about this.”
Why do you think a person wants to have sex in front of other people? What’s your explanation for the psychology behind it?
JANA: “It’s exhibitionism. Maybe it’s about self-confidence. Maybe it gives you more self-confidence, or the feeling that you are somebody... good? I don’t know, I can’t explain it. My boyfriend at that time was really nice and handsome, so people like to watch us, and it excited them, so, why not?”
