Exploring Swinger Clubs in the UK: Upside Down Pineapples, Erotic Hierarchies and the Pleasuring of Desire

Exploring Swinger Clubs in the UK: Upside Down Pineapples, Erotic Hierarchies and the Pleasuring of Desire

Over the past three years, Chris Haywood has been carrying out research on UK swinger clubs. These clubs are not strip clubs or lap dancing bars or places where sex workers are knowingly employed, they are places where cis and trans men and women meet up for often casual sex. Over the last twenty years, the number of clubs in the UK has risen exponentially, meaning that swinger clubs have become an important space for alternative sexual expressions. This presentation introduces you to UK swinger clubs, who visits them, what happens in the clubs and how we might begin to explain the dynamics of gender and sexuality within these spaces. More specifically, the talk explores the juxtaposition between popular cultural narratives of the swinger community and sexual encounters within clubs. It then moves on to discuss how hierarchies of desire that are often found in clubs assign women and couples erotic privilege in contrast to older white single men. The final area that the talk covers are the ways that club spaces have the potential to enable heteronormative, racist and transphobic practices, whilst at the same time creating and producing erotic experiences that exceed sexuality. Overall, this talk aims to provide insights and understanding into an area of leisure sex that remains persistently in view, but out of sight.

About Chris Haywood

Chris Haywood is a Reader in Critical Masculinity Studies in the Department of Media, Culture and Heritage at Newcastle University, UK. He is currently joint editor of the Journal of Bodies, Sexualities and Masculinities and the Journal of Boyhood Studies. His book, “Sex Club: Recreational Sex, Fantasies and Cultures of Desire” (2022, Palgrave), explores sex club cultures through themes such as power, desire and erotic hierarchies.  He is currently developing a project on sexual health, risk and swinger communities in the UK.