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​Remembering Capital VIP—The Private School Orgy Disguised as a Nightclub

Think Hieronymus Bosch's, 'The Garden of Earthly Delights', only swap voluptuous nudes for sweaty teens high on Pro Plus and reeking of desperation.

The most popular girl in the year above had told me that everyone pulls at Capital VIP. But what if I didn't? Or worse, what if I did and I was bad? I'd heard horror stories: apparently after one Mistletoe Ball a guy and a girl had to be forcibly pulled apart by paramedics after their braces interlocked. But if only I knew then what I know now I wouldn't have been so worried—because literally everyone pulls at Capital VIP.

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For the uninitiated—or, as attendees might call you, "proles"—Capital VIP is an underage party company that was set up in 1992 and runs, in their words, "the most extravagant and exclusive parties for teenagers in London." Those parties were basically five-hour finger-a-thons in a shitty club called Inferno, a bottomless pit of rampant preps, pressed up against each other in gay abandon. Think Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights, only swap his voluptuous nudes for a swarm of sweaty teens boshing it out on the dance floor, high on Pro Plus and reeking of desperation.

So yes, I had my very first snog at the very first Capital VIP party I went to. My tongue whirling round and round like a washing machine, I swapped saliva with some nameless boy to the sound of Kevin Lyttle's "Turn Me On" while I gyrated on his knee and prayed he wouldn't notice the wad of tissue I'd stuffed down my triple-A bra. But my exploits were tame compared to some of the regulars, who I got back in touch with this week.

I asked one, Hugo Huntington-Wright, what his all-time record was at a Capital VIP party. "Four fingers and 21 make-outs in one night," he told me. And how old were you? "Fourteen."

"I remember feeling like the biggest failure for weeks after," mused Max Somerleyton, another regular, now 20, and full of regret. "I only managed two pulls and one of those was someone I had already kissed at school." Getting with two girls in one night might not seem like a failure, but at Capital VIP it wasn't about whether you could pull or not, but how many and what base—and the competition was fierce. "At the time it meant everything," added Jeffrey, 25, who didn't want to give his last name. "It was life or death. If I came back to my boarding house with less than double digits I knew I'd be crucified, at least until next exeat."

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(Yep, he said until the next "exeat." Even I had to look it up. It's Latin, obviously, but is used in British parlance to mean "a permission from a college, boarding school, or other institution for temporary absence." Told you these guys were posh.)

The ratio between guys to girls explains how the likes of Hugo, Max, and Jeffrey could score so high. Around 70 percent of revelers were walking, talking vagina-couriers. We all looked the same, too, in our belted skirts from Miss Sixty, ra-ra dresses from Wheels and Dollbaby, tights from Ad Hoc (the go-to destination on the Kings Road) and sequin tops from a place called Arrogant Cat on Kensington Church Street. Some girls got spray tans, while others relied on Hoola, a type of bronzer by Benefit that no Sloane would be caught dead without. It was our war paint.

As well as being mostly female, the vast majority of the kids who went to these parties went to public school. It was all about sorting the wheat from the chaff; there was even a section on the company's website where you had to fill out what school you went to, and a "please specify if other" box to weed out all persona non grata.

As Capital VIP is an underage party, there was a strict policy against alcohol, drugs, and tobacco, which meant we all had to engage with the opposite sex under the influence of our raging hormones and breathtakingly poor judgment. Break these rules and one of the club's staff would call your mom.

As far as I can make out, not much has changed since my day, except for the fact there are now Capital VIP parties in Norfolk, the Midlands, and Northumbria, and they now have live performances from artists like Aston from JLS, Loveable Rogues from Britain's Got Talent and someone called "The Petebox."

Made in Chelsea bad boys Spencer Matthews and his blond mate, Jamie Laing, hosted last year's May Day Ball, and afterwards staged a private meet and greet in one of the Ministry of Sound's private suites for 40 VIP ticket holders, which sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, but if I was a 14-year-old kid again maybe I'd enjoy it. Who knows?

As Matthew McConaughey's character in Dazed and Confused said, "That's what I love about these Capital VIP parties, man—we all get older but they stay exactly the same." Well, he would have said it if he'd gone to Westminster.