Sunday Secrets: Inside London’s private ‘lap’ parties

The underground events where cunnilingus was queen

I saw a comment today on an Instagram post that made me laugh out loud. The post was about praising men who love to enthusiastically perform cunnilingus. As you can imagine there were loads of women in the comments lamenting that they struggle to find a man like this. Somebody had replied: “It’s really not that rare, you girls are just settling for losers. As a sex worker, it is the NUMBER ONE request. From people who are PAYING me”.

It made me laugh because it reminded me of what I saw play out on the private party scene when I was a stripper. As restrictive licensing changes in mainstream venues made working conditions worse through the Noughties, enterprising dancers started launching their own invite-only, word-of-mouth events.

There were four or five that I knew of and I’m sure there were more. Each occasion had a small number of dancers paying a fair house fee to cover venue hire and the organisers’ time, then keeping all their earnings. The guest list was kept small and exclusive. Sometimes the events took place in pub back rooms but others were in hired apartments – shout-out to Marlin Apartments! Each got known for the services dancers there tended to offer beyond what was allowed in licensed venues.

People outside the sex industry assume that every man wants as much as he can get in terms of sex acts, but that’s not the case. Wherever a dancer’s personal boundaries around being touched or touching, there would be customers who shared those boundaries. And a private party to suit them.

I found my personal boundaries were: