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My first sex party called Kismet is a montage of cliché hedonism: there is a lime green Lamborghini parked outside the luxury hotel in New York City’s Meatpacking District; the elevator takes us to the penthouse suite, where zealous strangers dressed in all white pour in. The suite is two floors with a spiral staircase, a heated jacuzzi and two beds in the open, along with two shower rooms. Bowls with condoms and lube are everywhere.
The hosts set the tone with a consent speech. We’re here to play and have fun, but safety is number one; emphasis on verbal consent, compassion, and sex positivity. Finally, we are allowed to f*ck anywhere in the space.
I do not have expectations and inhibitions about participating in anything sexual. I am here to infiltrate a novel world. I am a fever anomaly at this sex party.
As a Muslim woman, I am accustomed to being perceived as oppressed, de-sexualized, or incapable of inhabiting an erotic space. I grew up with echoes of 9/11 America, constantly on the margins, negotiating how to package my layered identity to survive and belong. In my South Asian household, I was also raised with the dogma that premarital sex is prohibited, showing off my body is an act of disgrace to myself and my family, and queerness is a sin.
This is a risk— women who deviate from these prescriptions are often exiled from their communities. Women like Mia Khalifa, a Muslim woman cast out for her work in the porn industry. But Khalifa also shifted the narrative on what a complex Muslim woman can look like outside the stereotypes and projections placed on her.
I’m at this party to dip a toe into that complexity, to learn and unlearn my feelings about sexuality. These feelings have been instilled by the environment I grew up in, but also by living in a world in which a woman’s body is often exploited, sexualized against her consent. My ticket to this party is my femininity and beauty. Outside this room, I usually do not have agency to decide, but I consent to being sexualized this time. I’m here to reclaim the male gaze. I lean into the flocking male attention that comes from wearing a skimpy bralette that just barely covered my breasts and mini silk shorts. I throw in a secondhand champagne robe with fur-cuffed sleeves for a chic-cozy effect.
One guy asks me to guess his profession by giving me the hint that he touches penises. He is a urologist who drove two hours to be here. He is nice and respectful, but I don’t feel a stinging chemistry. Bored and unimpressed, I tell him bluntly I want to explore other people. He understands, and I head back to the main room. A shirtless man is spanking a woman in one corner, a group of people are skinny dipping in the hot tub, and two girls are strip teasing a crowd.
I kiss both my friends with permission because why not?
Everyone is anonymous until they’re not. I make eye contact with a brunette.
May I play with you? The brunette asks with her eyes from across the room.
Yes, my smile replies.
She floats over to me and introduces herself. “The men here are ugly,” she remarks. She’s not wrong, I think. I learn that she is a dentist and a dominatrix. She asks me to dance. On the dance floor, she plays with my favorite thing—tension.
She dances her hands all over my body, spidering her fingers from my collarbone to my neck. “May I choke you?” she asks. I nod under her trance. She kisses my forehead and chokes me, politely. She lets her hold go, whisking her hand past my ‘God is the greatest’ necklace written in Arabic.
I wear the necklace everywhere signaling my Muslim pride. I am at a stage of my spirituality where I can breathe and move between carnal curiosities and transcendental thirst. Over the last decade, I dove into marginal interpretations of Islam derived from Sufism, traveled around the world cultivating a personal relationship with God, and connected with queer Muslims to unlearn cultural doctrine that declared women to be inferior and ashamed of our bodies, and our power. Now, I understand faith to be so much more dynamic than you will go to hell if you even slightly stray from the edicts of the Abrahamic faiths interpreted through the lens of patriarchy.
I decide to sexymaxx, joining the naked women in the hot tub. The crescent moon glistens over us and we chat as if we are all best friends at a bar. I forget nudity is sexualized because open corporeality is the new norm here. I feel oh so free as if social conditioning has flown out of my body. A man asks if he could join us, and we decline. I appreciate the direct communication with people naming their desires and boundaries. He leaves and everyone is unbothered, basking in the somatic.
Gratitude and forgiveness, both themes of Islam, wash over me. I feel my heart beating thankful for new adventures and connections. I do not strive for binary right and wrong, good and bad, sexual and asexual. Even if it’s for a moment, I expel the violent tropes and stereotypes I carry and internalize. Purifying the heart is a Muslim’s true endeavor. Something about a space where people are vulnerable and primal is pure. This excursion begins to feel like a higher power.
I put on my top and head over to the couch with two of my friends. We check in with each other and all agree we feel safe and enthralled to see intimacy that makes the entire room feel charged with possibility. I kiss both my friends with permission because why not? More people join us to cuddle on the couch. We talk about kink, business ideas, and all plan a date to go to the sauna together. We naturally all kiss and melt into each other’s comfort and solace. I adore the strangers to friends and lovers pipeline.
I notice a woman across from us is on her knees with a circle of men around her. I get up to take a closer look. The men are pantless while she is crawling to each guy and performing oral one by one. The men cheer her on. I feel myself tense up as if undergoing a loss of innocence from the sight of the group play. Everyone in the circle, including the woman looks elated. I no longer want to make out with strangers. Why am I so appalled? I wonder. Didn’t I just play with a group minutes earlier? Nothing about her makes her less moral than me. Yet, I am struck by what my mind decides is grotesque.
I head to a bed and lie in it alone. Another woman approaches to check on me. I appreciate her care. I tell her it’s my first play party, and she assures me this is an unlearning process. We have new eyes now. “That’s a lot of money in her mouth,” alluding to the wealthy men in the room. “She is in control,” the woman offers perspective. I understand I still hold degrees of shame around pleasure. In this moment, I am not as evolved and open minded as I thought. I convert my judgement into joy for the woman in the circle when I realize I cannot look away. I witness her bliss to destroy my own perceptions of this woman and the sexual world at large. I cross a threshold where no one is beholden to anyone. The woman is responsible for her fun just as I am for myself.
I learn that play parties can be healing, cathartic, and normal for someone like me, Muslim, and aiming to be conscious and free. By witnessing, I take away audacity. It does not have to be exclusively reserved for the bedroom, but to be able to choose yourself in such an intimate way is inspirational. This party is no longer just debauchery to me, but a mirror into myself and new ways of seeing, feeling, and being.
Photo Credits
Creative director and photographer: Enmi Yang
Stylist: Chantelle Thach
Makeup and hair: Will Metivier
Models: Nancy Uddin, Will Metivier
Location: Pocketbook Hudson