Circus Orgasmuz was an event designed by Wotever World’s Ingo Cando to celebrate sexuality, and remove any attendant shame that lingers about its body, particularly in gay culture. The night began with erotic readings and performances from a host of queer acts, before the assembled spectators were invited to descend upon a sex dungeon in the Flying Dutchman’s basement – and start enacting that erotica. It promised a direct case of life imitating art.
Unfortunately this latter aspect of the night didn’t really work. It wasn’t busy enough to merit the cloak of anonymity in the crowd that (presumably) a successful orgy night needs to get off the ground. And downstairs held the brightest and most well-lit sex dungeon I’ve ever seen – not that I’ve seen many, but you can imagine that darkness is a vital factor in the appeal of mass sex with strangers.
And the venue itself, whilst laudably supportive of the LGBT arts scene, had a number of cons to its running: a £15 entrance fee was far too steep, and what is this new and utterly disturbing fetish for bars in London without draft lager? £3.50 for a 284ml bottle of Stella was, effectively, night-time robbery.
However, this didn’t detract from the appeal of the artistic element or the sexual celebration in general, hence the good rating. An American lesbian named Rubyyy performed a burlesque striptease dressed in glittering gold, then shoved a champagne bottle up her vagina to roaring cheers; the ever suave Dr Jonathan Kemp read some excellent erotic short stories from his collection Twentysix before treating us to a new one; and a truly wonderful shadowplay and fire-breathing show was delivered by an artist named Gemskii. Other acts also enticed and engaged.
There was certainly a lot to like about this night, both in its rationale and practice. Perhaps with the right venue and greater numbers of people, there’ll be many artists and their admirers having orgasms at Circus Orgasmuz soon.
• The Flying Dutchman, 156 Wells Way, Camberwell, SE5 7SY
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