It’s just lads ‘avin a wank, innit.

Loyal readers (and indeed anyone who’s ever given me even the slightest chance to bring it up in conversation) will know that I’m a big, big supporter of the New York Jacks. I attend as often as I’m able and I have yet to have a poor time there, in several years. After all, even a bad orgasm with friends is still better than no orgasm, at home by yourself.

If you’re unfamiliar, the New York Jacks is now in its 34th (I believe) year, of twice-weekly parties which are never poorly attended. A slow night for the jacks is still 40+ dicks at hand, and the holiday parties often top 100+. They are the gold standard by which I’ve learned to measure jack off clubs, and I believe they’re entitled to that position. I’ve met some of my dearest friends there, kissed and jacked with dentists, lawyers, celebrities, and clergymen, and lost an immeasurable amount of semen to the floors of both venues.

When I travel, I always make an effort to seek out the local jack club and see how they do things.

I was shocked to learn that London doesn’t really have a standing, membership-based masturbation club, and the London Jack Off Club (LJOC) is only rather newly established as a party.

LJOC is a production of MA1 (which is – I guess itself a subsidiary of Sewell and Marbury – it’s a bit foggy from the outside, really. The event listings and ticket pages seem to jump from the MA1 site to S&M, to an external service called Ticket Source, and there’s no dedicated page for each of the parties MA1 produces) which hosts a number of gay/leather/fetish/penis-related events and parties, and has done for quite some time.

I popped into the MA1/S&M site to buy my ticket yesterday, as their flyer warned that there were to be none sold at the door, and only 100 total would be issued for the event. When I bought mine that morning, Ticket Source informed me there were only 18 remaining, and based on the turnout, I wouldn’t be surprised if they sold all 18 before the doors opened.

As I’m just a visitor to London this month, I planned my underground trip pretty exhaustively before heading out for the evening (I’m doing whatever I can to avoid looking foolish to the locals, in case someone invites me to stay). I knew where I was headed from the overground stop by my flat, to the Northern Rail stop nearest the venue. Nevertheless, I was surprised to discover that the train I needed to connect to was newly “cancelled,” last evening, and I would have to walk the last stretch. I guess it’s nice to know in advance that trains won’t be coming, as the boards and announcements kindly informed me, rather than being allowed to stand on the platform like a jackass for minutes/hours/days on end as one does back home. But was still more than mildly inconvenient.

Rather than wasting a lot of time trying to sort out a bus journey (which involved waiting for two different busses, near as I could make out) I opted to walk/run the last 1.5 miles to try and get in before the 8:30 PM cutoff. I had already paid my £10, after all.

Following a long but uneventful stroll through what google maps deemed to be the Canonbury section of London, I managed to show up at the door of East Bloc and hike myself down the stairs to meet the check in guy. He was friendly, if brisk, and handed me a drink ticket, and a large, recycled plastic ziptop laundry bag for my coat, clothes, and bits. It was an efficient way to keep everyone’s things together and protected, but I wasn’t nuts about jamming my coat and button-down shirt into a plastic bag for the evening, especially as I’d been sweating a bit on my impromptu jog to the club. But: when in Rome.

Handing over my zipped up bag of everything I’d brought with me, save for the two cockrings I was wearing, and the drink ticket jammed into my shoe, I stepped into the main floor of East Bloc and was immediately unsure what to make of the scene. A departure from the Jacks to be sure, the foyer of the LJOC featured thumping, techno music that I would have been unsurprised to learn was only a single, 3.5 hour long meth-head remix of some obscure, even-more-terrible song, a fog machine, and a dancefloor area that remained uninhabited for the duration of the party.

I decided to do a lap to get my bearings and discover the full layout of this basement level space. A maze of large and small rooms connected by steps, slippery floors (a hallmark of any semen-heavy event), and curtains, East Bloc probably works for a myriad of different parties and crowds.

I settled in a quietish darkened room dubbed an “Anything Goes” area (also a departure from the Jacks, where trying to sneak ‘anything’ gets you a warning or an invitation to leave), next to a heater and the friendliest looking guy I could spot. We struck up a conversation about New York, the Jacks (he’d attended, as had many people I spoke to over the course of the evening), and what I was to expect from this particular evening.

Over the course of our conversation, several other guys wandered up to us and one of those magical moments that only happens in jack off clubs transpired: we were all suddenly very good friends, erect, stroking, smiling and chatting with one another. Someone near me offered up poppers (the good, European kind, not the ow-my-head-hurts-now US kind) and I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to hold it very long. I lost my first load to this group and regrouped from my orgasm to notice a small crowd of guys who had gathered to watch us playing.

I don’t totally love feeling like I’m the center of a crowd in these spaces (being a participant is one thing, but I never know what people expect when I’m in the absolute middle), so I gently pulled myself out of the group and moved with a new friend (the guy with the good poppers) to the bar area for a drink. My new bff and I talked about work (what I do – escorting – what he does – marketing – and where the overlap between them was) and soon had another group of new friends around us as he poppered up again and I did my best to lend a hand.

The next hours are a bit of a blur of big (and small) uncut penises, smiles, conversations about everything under the sun, and a general warmth of camaraderie that all jack of parties strive to provide. Lot of new friends came on me, got me to cum, and all of us left all of the cruisy, catty bullshit that feels so connected to any other gay bar event, in our zip top plastic laundry bags.

If you’ve never been part of a group jack or jack off club before, it’s difficult to describe the specialness of it. This post gets into it a bit, but in a group it’s really something else. At the LJOC last night, the best time all evening was being jammed into a semen-stained, velour banquette area that was sealed off from the main bar by a heavy drape, and feeling myself pressed tight against absolute strangers on both sides. We, all of us, had sperm on our skin, and either our own or a friend’s boner in our hands. As new guys entered the space, they were greeted and welcomed and made part of the pile of legs and arms and semen and smiles.

It isn’t a shame-filled darkroom designed to offer release for men who don’t want to admit to themselves or others what they want (like people seem to expect sometimes), but rather the direct inverse: an open and welcoming area where men (who run the age gamut from 18-80 – there’s no defining this crowd) masturbate themselves and each other with prideful and glorious abandon. Where one makes direct eye contact, smiles, and and offers encouragement as others edge closer and closer to cumming. Where people who mightn’t give you a second glance on the tube wrap their arms around your shoulders and hold you while you shudder and nutt recklessly on the floor, the seat, your shoes, the walls.

Why MA1 deems this is only necessary to put on once per month (and on a Monday night, of all days!) completely escapes me. Every man I spoke even a few words with last night excitedly exclaimed that they would come (!) as often as this party happened, even multiple times per week.

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What seems to be consistently undervalued about jack off parties and clubs is the sense of community and sexual satisfaction they provide to men who aren’t interested in, or don’t see themselves as part of more hardcore gatherings. To my mind, the idea of a proper ‘orgy’ sounds positively exhausting, stressful, and ironically impersonal. What happens in jack off clubs is what so (SO) many men are doing already in locker rooms, saunas, watching sports with their friends, at bars, and a million other banal examples. They’re looking for a sense of masculine approval and acceptance from people like them. And an environment to feel unencumbered by what society at large deems to be ‘gay.’

What happens in these spaces is “homosexual” in the clinical sense (it’s two or more people of the same biological gender having some form of sexual interaction), but not really capital-G “GAY” by the same necessity. I don’t ask (and don’t honestly care) if the men I meet identify as gay, or are married, or fuck women, or anything. It doesn’t matter. It isn’t the point.

And that’s what makes it important. To be socially embraced by your male peers without the confinement of labels or the body-shame that permeates stereotypical gay culture, is relevant and significant and helps men be better men. I left the London Jack Off Club last night, feeling like I do every time I leave the New York Jacks: reassured, flooded with endorphins, and sticky.

10/10 – Highly recommend.

If you’re even slightly on the fence about attending, jump the fence and do it. You won’t regret it.

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I’ve got a short list of things that would improve the experience immeasurably, though I would go back with or without these changes:

• Changing Area: even a few more surfaces, and a chair or two would speed people out of there and make an intimidating part of the process less uncomfortable and strange.

•  Music: not that. Doesn’t have to be top 40, but thumpy techno didn’t suit the crowd or the activity last night. If you DO have to play thumpy techno, make it fucking weird.

•  Frequency: I promise that if there’s room on the calendar, you could have this weekly and fill it each time. Guys want this and will give you money for it.

•  Pen and Paper: this seems like a no-brainer, since you can’t bring phones into the club. Guys want to connect here, and this is a great opportunity for branded cards or stationery that will be sure to make it out of the club and get a second viewing. Trying to “remember” someone’s Bateworld ID after a few loads/beers isn’t going to cut it.

-t

Header image is a photo collage featuring the art of Joseph. 

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