My Evening at a Bisexual Orgy in a South London Sauna

This post originally appeared on VICE UK

Kully – a young Asian guy who's butt-naked, bar the cup of Ribena balanced strategically to cover his crotch – is really holding forth.

"Woman have all the power in this world. They get the best employment, everything. I work in pharmaceuticals. You know how I got my last job? I waited outside the company premises every night on my girl days, dressed up as a woman. Then I got chatting to one of the gentlemen that works there. I told him that my boyfriend needed a job – my boyfriend was me, of course," he sighs. "Well, after I had pleasured him he was keen to offer me his number. The next day I called and arranged an interview. I attended, dressed as a man this time, and got the job! A three-month contract!"

And he didn't twig that you were the same person as the girl who'd given him a blowjob, just wearing different clothes?

"No, he never guessed. But there's no way I would have got that job if I hadn't met him as a girl first. The female is all-powerful in this society."

It's a rainy Thursday night in Kennington, South London, and we're at Bi Bi Baby, which is billed online as "a monthly bisexual party event primarily for boys and girls who like boys and girls. But everyone's welcome provided they are bi, friendly and respectful to the people and the venue."

The venue in question is The Locker Room, a gay sauna situated in a leafy, upmarket area of Kennington. Beyond a square of tall Georgian mansions and a rustic-looking pub, its bold monochrome sign and blacked-out windows are incongruous to say the least.

Keen to document what a naked bisexual party might look like, imagining some bacchanalian orgy of decadence, I decide to pay a visit. The event is billed to start at 6.30PM – presumably to attract the after-work crowd – but I'm not able to get there until 9PM. When I arrive, I'm greeted by a friendly, naked bloke on reception who, despite his nipple ring, looks a little like a member of the cast of Brideshead Revisted. After I've paid the £20 entrance fee he hands me a black towel and asks if I've been before. When I tell him I haven't he buzzes me in and, in front of a group of seated guys, girls and trans-girls, most of them nude or wearing towels, gives me a rundown of where everything is. A chill-out space upstairs with sauna, steam room and darkrooms in the basement. I can't help feeling it's a bit like the start of one of those prison films where the rookie lag gets paraded around by the guard before being torn apart by the other cons.

Not that Bi Bi Baby is in any way threatening. Quite the contrary: the atmosphere is chilled and friendly. What is disappointing is the male-female ratio. When I get there, precisely three women are in attendance, as well as two trans revellers. There are probably close to 20 guys. If this is meant to be a bisexual party, then either these numbers are seriously out of whack or the girls are going to be knackered by the end of the night. But perhaps I'm simply too late. Dave, the organiser, tells me that it was rammed at 7PM.

It has been said – unfairly, and often by people who don't know any better – that bisexuals are greedy, wanting the best of both worlds. It seems they're impatient, too, wanting to get their rocks off and get out early.

I sit down next to Dora, a heavyset woman in her late forties, who's watching a porn movie with Chantelle, a French trans girl in a latex dress.

"Wow. That was unexpected," she says.

On-screen, a woman with a bad 80s Bonnie Tyler perm has just revealed her massive penis.

I ask Dora if she's been coming to clubs like this for long.

"Oh yeah. I have a husband, a boyfriend and a girlfriend, and I like to supplement them, so it makes sense."

How did she first get into the scene?

"My husband got ill, so he can't really play any more. He gave me his blessing. Once a month I come here and then stay over with my boyfriend in Stoke Newington."

Downstairs, De'lacy's " Hideaway" and other bad 90s club music plays on a loop from tinny speakers. Blue light illuminates the gloom, which is otherwise almost impenetrable, what with all the steam. Naked people hang around in the labyrinthine subterranean passage, watching and waiting. There are condom wrappers everywhere. On a ledge outside the sauna there's a bottle of Dettol. I head into the steam room. Here, a middle-aged bear is getting pleasured by someone I can't make out, while a group of four others stand and watch.

"That's right. Drain me. That's a good boy. Empty that nutsack," he says, poetically, patting his companion's head.

In the sauna, Kully, who clearly likes to talk, is ranting on again to a crowd of semi-interested guys.

"You have to learn how to be seductive as a girl," he explains. "There's an art to it. It's in how you talk, how you move. That's why, in India, there's a hierarchy among the shemales. So the older ones can teach the younger ones the Karma Sutra. Tell them how it works."

All of this is fine, but I do wonder if the supposed bi ethos of the night has been lost in what seems like a fundamentally gay party. Apart from one attractive blonde woman with huge pendulous breasts who disappears quickly into one of the private rooms with her partner, I have yet to see any male-female action at all. Even Vern and Melissa – who I'd met before at Club 487, the New Cross porn cinema, and are apparently well-known faces on the swinging circuit – seem to have done little more than wander around and chat.

Dave, who's run the party for the last six years, first at its previous location in Romford and now here, is sanguine.

"You've got to get in early," he says. "People like to come, do their business and leave. We get 90 in here sometimes."

It's nearly 11PM, and finally a bisexual scene of the kind promised on the tin takes place, in a small alcove adjoining the chill-out area, beneath the gleaming light of an HD porn screen. A well-built black guy is having sex with Dora, who, in between taking another dude in her mouth, yelps in appreciation. Next to them Kully lays back to accommodate a good-looking Moroccan man, while others queue behind, fiddling impatiently with their condoms. Not to be excluded, Chantelle gives one of them a blowjob. I pour a coffee (hot drinks and orange juice are free) and stand watching for a while next to a Francis Bacon lookalike who, for whatever reason, has been excluded from the action. Dave turns and winks proudly. Finally, the party is really going off.

"We have the news on sometimes," says the Brideshead guy as I'm leaving, indicating the omnipresent "shemale porn" that plays on the screen above his desk.

Rather like working in a chocolate factory, non-stop boning must get a little much after a while, even for the most enthusiastic connoisseur. But judging by the grunts and groans that are still audible as I walk out into the cold, the revellers at Bi Bi Baby are far from finished this evening.

All names have been changed to protect anonymity

@johnlucas_esq

Previously:

I Went to a Posh Orgy in a West London Townhouse

This Is What a Night in North London's Top Swingers' Sauna Is Actually Like