The Organizer of a Berlin Sex Party Explains What It's Like to DJ an Orgy
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The Organizer of a Berlin Sex Party Explains What It's Like to DJ an Orgy

Apparently, people don't like fucking to Goa trance anymore.

"Where is it I should put my keys?"

A bald German dude, who's perhaps fifty, looks at me perplexed. Given that he has stripped down to a slender thong and a pair of tennis shoes, it is clear that his key-stashing options are somewhat limited. But this is an issue that all attendees of Kinky Gang Bang, a weekly Thursday afternoon sex party at Berlin's notorious Insomnia club, must negotiate. Clothing with sensible pockets is not welcome at this long-running event, where naked, fuck-happy Berliners meet up to knock boots with each other to a varied musical soundtrack from the early afternoon until late at night. Fortunately, there is a secure cloakroom facility run by a friendly attendant and her dog Peepee.

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It's only 3pm, but as I ascend the staircase and enter the main room the place is already busy, with around twenty guys hanging around nursing bottled beer, as yet too diffident to approach the group of girls in underwear laid on a huge bed in the centre of the dance floor.

It's an impressive space—a former 19th century ballroom with high-ceilings that's been carefully renovated to its current incarnation as Berlin's premier palace of fuck. A massive disco ball hangs low. On the huge screen that overlooks the floor, a video of a woman licking ejaculate from her lips plays. Text informs us that the movie is "DP Fanatics Volume 5." Above the bar that runs the length of one wall there's a mural of a nubile leather-clad orgy in hell, all bright reds and yellows. There are bowls with condoms in them dotted around everywhere. Red strip lights show the way upstairs where a buffet is available all afternoon (battered chicken, mashed potato and cheesecake). A helpful sign marks this epicurean space out as a "No Fuck Area."

Now, finally, a man plucks up courage. He approaches one of the girls. Soon she is removing her bra and panties and—in the verbiage of a prude but prurient red-top newspaper—performing a sex act on him. Now the party's really started. By seven this whole place will be a seething mass of bodies doing improbably athletic things with one another, and naked girls smoking cigarettes, pole-dancing to Snoop Dogg. Which begs the question—what music should you play to soundtrack an orgy? DJ-ing is, after all, nothing if not a versatile art—but are there special requirements for DJ-ing at an afternoon nookie session? To find out, I spoke with Insomnia's founder and owner, Dominique, a major player on Berlin's club scene since 1996.

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Starting Insomnia after Kit Kat Club, where she used to promote events, became too mainstream, Dominique—while not a DJ by profession—has been curating the music for some of Berlin's most energetic group sex get-togethers here since 2006, so she knows what tunes to drop when the knickers drop, so to speak

Dominique, via Youtube.

Hi Dominique, great to meet you! Insomnia is a fantastic looking venue.
It was totally destroyed when I found it ten years ago. The ceiling was falling in, there were big holes in the walls. We had to spend a lot of money to restore it to bring back the old glory—it used to be a ballroom in the nineteenth century.

It's amazing how busy it is here this afternoon…
There's no more harmless date for a sex party than a Thursday afternoon! "Oh baby, I'm just at work, I'll be home for dinner by 7!" We started with maybe ten or twenty people, now it gets really crowded.

Is it Different, DJ-ing in a normal party compared to a sex party?
I'm not a DJ as such, I'm the owner of the club and I do every task necessary. But the point is, during the week we have sex parties with more-or-less background music. Friday and Saturday we have erotic dance parties where sex also happens, so this is really a different concept. For the sex parties, techno is for sure the best and hip-hop is also nice—you saw earlier how the whole club was fucking with the same rhythm. Hip-hop is great for fucking because we do what they sing!

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I noticed that earlier in the afternoon you were playing trance and techno and then later you switched to rap—is there a particular time when you do that?
No, but I get the party feeling. When I started earlier the party was a little bit down and so this is a good point to bring in different music, and you saw within ten minutes it brought energy back to the party. The music is the biggest instrument for me to bring energy in.

So you'll look at the crowd and judge the mood of the fucking, just like a conventional DJ will judge the mood of dancers on the dance floor?
Yeah.

It's a different type of DJ-ing to the weekend parties, then?
Yes. On Fridays and Saturdays we have different parties where the focus is a little more on the music, so for example we have a party called "Master and Servant" where we play Depeche Mode. We have young girls, 18 or 19, who say "Oh my God, you have a Depeche Mode party?" and they're so excited. They [Depeche Mode] always sound authentic and modern, even though it's 20 or 30 year-old music. We also have a swing party where we play 20s and 30s music all night, and the "Angel in Bondage" party where we play darkwave, Gothic, industrial.

On Saturdays though we play hard techno, trance, electro, house—the music is like a magic carpet, you go on this wave through the night as one song goes into another.

Do you look at the crowd and think "they're fucking at a certain speed, let's keep to that?"
Yeah, don't play too fast otherwise people will come out of the rhythm!

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Is there any music you wouldn't play at a sex party?
What didn't work was Goa psychedelic trance because of the people—it doesn't bring in the right crowd. Also rock does not work very well, it's too unsexy. We tried it because people asked for it, but it doesn't work. What a pity. And dubstep, I like it but it's not possible to create an erotic atmosphere with it, although it works for stage performances. And I'd love to put on a full hip-hop party, but the people who come tend not to want to actually do what rappers are talking about!

Do you think it's becoming more conservative in Berlin now?
No—quite the opposite is true. You can smoke anywhere you want, if you're not in a really high-class club you can fuck pretty much anywhere, there is less of a divide between straight, transsexual and gay crowds. This is really special in Berlin that they are all celebrating together. It is getting more expensive here, but Berlin always finds possibilities, areas where it's cheaper. And what is nice, everybody has the same worth here, whether they have money or not. There's not bottle service like in Munich or somewhere. Berlin is underground. It's dirty, rough and poor, but it's sexy.

§

I thank Dominique for her time and take a final tour of the club where I observe a rotund Bavarian with a Boris Johnson-style hair-do vigorously enjoying himself with two black-haired Goth girls. It is time for me to make my excuses and leave, but I depart with that image in my mind, happy that Berlin still runs parties where you don't have to wait until the weekend—or even the nighttime—to get your rocks off with a complete stranger on the dance floor.

JFL.