Want to check out the Los Angeles sex party scene, but not sure where to start? We’ve got you covered! The lovely Sophia was kind enough to check out all the most popular lifestyle parties and swinger clubs in LA to find out which ones are the best. Enjoy!
1. Lovely Fate
Lovely Fate started several years ago, and after going dark for over a year during the height of the pandemic, has emerged bigger and better than ever. Now a monthly party at their West Hollywood venue, they seem to have nailed both the crowd (hot but fun) and the vibe (sexy chic). We have been along several times now and absolutely love it.
The thing we like the most is how welcoming it felt as newcomers – it definitely lived up to their “fun / sexy / kind” tag line. The venue is spacious and beautiful, and we liked the layout. There’s a large social hangout area downstairs where you first walk in, with DJs hitting all the right notes. Off to the side, and upstairs, are several playrooms – so once you’re settled in and feeling adventurous, you can head off to watch or play amongst all the beautiful debauchery.
It’s an interesting mix of people, with about an even blend of BDSM types and lifestyle folks. Certainly the only spot in town where you’ll find lifestyle-curious Venice beach girls mixing with kinky yoga teachers and pro-dommes having fun on their night off.
The ticket price is surprisingly affordable (around $100 for a couple) given that this is undoubtedly the best party in town for 2021. We hope that they don’t become too much a victim of their own success and are able to keep it as awesome & fun as it is now!
2. Kinky Rabbit
Kinky Rabbit was created by the former creative director from SNCTM, and it offers much of what used to be good about SCTM with a bit less of the pretentiousness. They go all out on their sexy themes, with numerous porn models in elaborate costumes offering tantalizing performances throughout the evening. They do plenty right here, with nice attention to details like lighting and music.
If there is a downside, it’s that the events can seem a bit more about the porn star shows than about the attendees, and as a result many of the folks there seem be more into watching the show than there to meet or play. This seems to have become even more the case as Kinky Rabbit’s reputation has grown and it has kind of become a trendy “naughty thing for rich LA people to say they’ve been to”. The ticket price has been steadily increasing since the first time we attended, and are now up to $900 per couple (October 2021).
While the parties can be fun, it’s becoming difficult for us to want to go when there are other parties that are even better and significantly less expensive (see above).
3. Kinky Salon
Kinky Salon is pretty fun. Started out of the Bay Area, they now do events in a number of cities across America & Europe, including Los Angeles. Their standard MO is to rent a big empty warehouse and then deck it out for a sex-positive party. They have a unique rule of everyone needing to arrive and leave with a “pal” – friends who jointly accountable for each other’s behavior, which provides a check on potential solo predators.
Because of the nature of their pop-up venues, the space feels a bit cold & costco-esque, owing to the easy-setup canopies and furniture that they use to quickly make a warehouse party-ready.
The crowd is pretty good – a decent number of fun & attractive people, with a pretty healthy sprinkling of Burners, ravers and ultra-nerdy types thrown in for good measure.
The vibe can feel a bit like a high school theater production – more bawdy than sexy – and we found it hard to get into wanting to get our sexy on in their “horizontal play area” which was essentially a bunch of mattresses laid out in a concrete side-room. But we appreciate the passion they have brought to create this, and we enjoyed dancing along to their DJs in the warehouse vibes.
4. Club Joi
We have a lot of appreciation that Club Joi exists in LA. It’s an on-premise club (as in they have their own building and run all of their own events there), and they’ve been doing what they do for a long time. The building is huge (over 12,000 sq feet), with high ceilings, a spacious feel, and all manner of different play equipment and themed areas.
There is an old school feel that starts with their web site, and continues with the decor and the membership. For some, it is the perfect adult playground. For us, we might feel more at home there when we’re about 20 years older 🙂
5. Snctm (aka Sanctum)
Ah, Snctm… where to begin. There was once a time when this was the hottest adult party in town, but those days are long gone. It’s true that you’ll still find a lot of cute young ladies here, but the problem is that it seems that many of them are paid to be there and interact with attendees.
In addition to the extremely high ticket prices, at the parties that we went to, they encourage you to buy “tokens” at the bar which can be exchanged for play with the ladies. So it’s not hard to see why some people see this as less of a sex party and more of a glamorized high class escort service. Also, there is a decidedly entitled / unfriendly vibe among the attendees (perhaps a byproduct of catering to rich old men), which is why we ended up marking the vibe score lower, despite the elaborate decor.
Beautiful locations and very high production value, but unfortunately just not that much fun any more. (Side note – who do these guys think they are spray painting the Snctm logo all over the sidewalks of LA. Seriously – can we get them to pay to clean up their graffiti?)
6. Mass Pleasures (now closed?)
This is one of the longer running parties in LA, and while we appreciate their stated mission they are going for, it feels like it may they may have passed their peak (update – we’ve tried to check it out in the emerging-from-Covid era, and it looks like they may have now closed down). There were some things we liked, like the big Hollywood Hills house & candle-lined staircases. But then other simple things had minimal or no attention, like mood lighting & sexy music throughout.
Pros: Nice venue
Cons: No effort at mood lighting, Minimal effort at music & mood. Most of the attendees weren’t really our type
7. Club Labyrinth
Labyrinth started in NYC and has expanded to open a venue in Los Angeles (East Hollywood-area). It’s an on-premise club with parties on Wednesdays, Fridays & Saturdays every week. To be honest, the vibe felt a bit shady here and the staff were pretty unfriendly. The decor and lighting was mediocre, and the crowd was a bit of a sausage fest.
Maybe we just came on a bad night? In any case, we won’t be returning to find out.
That concludes the rankings for this year! We sure had fun trying them out on your behalf, and while there are several worthy contenders, our top pick (Lovely Fate) is currently in a class of it’s own.
Have you been to any of these parties or clubs? Let us know your what you think about them in the comments!
Note – I’m aware there are a number of LA establishments that cater specifically to LGBTQ folks which were not included here. I didn’t include those in my ratings, because I’m not the target market for those. I hope that another contributor will provide reviews of those in a separate article!