Since the connection-starved pandemic era, the tourism industry has embraced the sexual wellness trend. Now the international sex party scene is booming. Olivia and her husband were on a romantic getaway.
The couple had been finding it hard to “do anything spicy at home at all,” she said, what with their two teenage children around and the dirty laundry piling up. Escaping for a weekend in Venice, Italy, at the end of the city’s annual carnival, in February, seemed like the perfect way to reconnect. But instead of a gondola ride or a canal-side dinner, their itinerary revolved around a masquerade ball and, possibly, sex with strangers.
READ MORE: The Europe you’ve never experienced Their faces hidden behind intricately decorated masks, the couple made their way to a private Venetian palazzo. About 150 guests sipped Champagne and ate oysters while listening to a classical pianist and string quartet, while downstairs a “dungeon master” demonstrated spanking and other basic BDSM techniques. At 10pm, guests were invited to remove their masks — the playrooms (spaces reserved for consensual sexual encounters) were now open.
“I mean, that was the best way to see Venice,” said Olivia, a photographer based in New York and London who agreed to speak on the condition only her first name was used. Although Olivia has been a longtime member of Killing Kittens, the female-focused sex party club that hosted the ball, this was the first time she and her husband had travelle.
