To attend and participate in an organized sex party.

State your hypothesis in the form of a prediction that can be verified by the results of the experiment.

Of all the things I want to do before I shrug off this mortal coil, attending a sex party is definitely in the top five. When the opportunity presented itself, I imagined a secretive throwback to the court of Caligula right here in Manhattan. Like Tom Cruise's character in Eyes Wide Shut, I'll have to use sneaky devices to secure admittance to the party, but I think that's a good thing: Who'd want to join a club that would willingly accept them as a member?




Please list all the materials required for this experiment (including, if applicable, how they were obtained).

Wig (1)
White apparel
Password




In this portion of your report, you must describe, step-by-step, what you did in your lab. It should be specific enough that someone who has not seen the lab can follow the directions and recreate the same lab.

An acquaintance of mine named Palagia runs One Leg Up, a company that throws sexy parties in New York, Los Angeles and other major cities. Her name came to my attention when I heard that people were using Nerve Personals to arrange more than just dinner and a movie. Palagia holds two different types of events. The relationship between the two is that of a rehearsal dinner and the wedding reception.

Part I: The Party

     The first type, called an "off-premises party," is held at a bar or club. Although there's a cover charge and pricey drinks to deter the riff-raff, there is no actual screening process. One must simply RSVP, arrive dressed (or undressed) in accordance with the theme, and — if male — be escorted by at least one female. Single ladies can go stag. In accordance with New York City law, no actual penetrative sex (a.k.a. "live playing") can take place, but at the bar owner's discretion, almost everything else goes.
     The second type of party takes place "on-premises," typically in a downtown loft or lavish hotel suite. To attend one of these evenings, couples and single women are put through an in-depth screening process that includes submitting photographs and essays about exactly why they wish to attend a One Leg Up event. (Perhaps a medical screening wouldn't have been a bad idea either; with sixty New Yorkers swapping fluids all night, somebody's bound to be pissing lava by the next week.) In Palagia's own words: These events are for the SERIOUS PLAYERS who want to perhaps play with others, engage in female bisexuality or simply play with their own partner. We welcome NOVICES to attend these events as well, but you must be willing to explore an aspect of your sensuality even if it's at a voyeuristic stage.
     Details about the location and password for these parties are revealed forty-eight hours beforehand via email. The actual suite or apartment number is only revealed immediately before the event via a recorded phone message.
     My date, Claire, was new to New York. We'd only met recently and were seeing each other casually. On our first date, I mentioned Palagia's party; on the second, I asked her to accompany me. I approached the subject with some trepidation, but with a shrug of the shoulders she parried, "Why not?" Why not, indeed.
     Both of July's One Leg Up events had the same theme: attendees were required to wear at least one article of white clothing and a wig/headdress. The parties were held about ten days apart, the off-premises event at a venue downtown.
     In the three times Claire and I had met up before, she had been relatively punctual. However, on the evening that I was dressed in a Beatles wig, bright white Cubano shirt and capri pants, she was disconcertingly late. Twenty minutes and about a hundred funny looks later, Claire emerged from the subway, her white form glowing against the urban jungle, strikingly reminiscent of a laundry detergent commercial.
     We were quickly ushered into the club; Palagia had put us on her VIP list. The interior was, like the attendees, entirely decorated in white: the scene looked like a bacchanal in the Arctic circle. "Grant, dahling!" exclaimed Palagia after I introduced myself. Palagia was a curvaceous, olive-skinned beauty wearing heels, a thong that was little more than an eye patch, pasties and a white sheet that partially covered the right side of her body. She held a cocktail in one hand and a cigarette, with holder, in the other. After planting two loud mwahs near either side of my head, she teetered off. While watching our host's ample buttocks disappear into the monochrome throng, my date and I took a corner seat by the dance floor and feasted our eyes on the craziness before us.