Frolicon 2011
Paula and I have been to some pretty interesting places over the years, but our trip to Frolicon on Easter weekend of 2011 was something totally new. In some ways it was tamer and DragonCon-like than a swinger event. There wasn’t all that much public nudity and no fully public sex; however, I must note that we did not stay up past midnight for the late wild parties on either Friday or Saturday nights and there was sex in some of the ballroom events. On the other hand, the BDSM stuff was way out of our experience.
Friday
We arrived and checked-in the Atlanta Airport Sheraton Hotel in the late afternoon and visited vendor’s booths first since it is one of Paula’s favorite activities. There were several corset makers and fetishwear makers and even handmade sex toy makers along with the usual retailers of such things. We went to the bead table to make our “interest “necklace. Different colored beads meant different things: pink beads for interest in girls, blue beads for interest in boys, white beads for submissive, black beads for dominants, yellow beads for newbies, shaped beads for poly and so forth. Mine was mostly shaped beads with pink and capped by a white bead on each end.
As we arrived late we missed several very interesting sessions in subjects I would have liked to hear; however, I did make it late to hear Cherie Priest, one of my favorite Steam Punk authors as part of an author’s panel of new directions in literature. I’d left Paula in the room dressing, when I got back to the room 90 minutes later, she was still not quite ready to go.
While waiting I looked over the book of events and sessions. We were going to go to Erotica Pictionary, but she was not ready when the event began. We did go to live action Candy Land and although we lost the mini-contests like blowing up and tying off condoms, we did win the game and was awarded a goodie bag with candy, sex toys and what turned out to be a coveted pair of “Party Judge” badges and ballots.
After the game we met people and looked around until dark. As the night came the dress became more provocative, many women were in lingerie of all sorts, and a good number of men were in drag. Paula changed into a completely sheer blue blouse and quarter-cup bra; very sexy. We again went to the main floor and caught the last part of the costume contest. I regretted we'd not brought Paula an outfit for the contest. She could have won with one of the leather outfits I had made for her. We both thought the winners were ho hum compared to what we saw at Dragon Con. All three of the winners were females who’s costumes left them bare-breasted. Clearly sexy was better.
t 10:00 we began going to the various hospitality suites so we could start judging their parties. Of all the hospitality suites we visited, only one was stand out: The ducks. When we arrived a girl was naked being flogged on a cross. Lots of rum punch and music. Most memorable was the hostess of the party who was an older woman that everyone called Mama. She was very nice.
After we’d made a brief visit to all the hospitality suites, we crashed early, it was just before midnight.
Saturday
On Saturday morning we made the early sessions. I attended a reading by Cherie Priest and a session on “Photography in Abandoned Places” and an introduction to furry fandom. Paula went to one on glamour makeup and had planned on going to the session on ritual cutting but did not make it. We spent time with the vendors (again), and I bought her a grossly expensive, but very pretty blue leather corset.
There was a professor from University of Georgia doing research on polyamory and children of poly parents looking for poly parents to interview. So we gladly participated. She and I could have talked all day. I did feel sorry for the professor having to transcribe all we had to say.
After lunch we dressed up in our steam punk outfits and went to Meet & Greet with the Atlanta swingers group. She wore her sheer red steam punk shirt and another quarter-cup bra, this one was black. She was very hot. There was lots of good info on places to go in the Atlanta area, and some practical advice that would have been nice when we were new to the lifestyle.
After lunch we took a nap to rest up for the evening party judging. We went down to the main floor and watched the finals of the “air sex” competition. What’s air sex? Well it’s like air guitar but pretending to have sex rather than play guitar and sing. So it becomes sort of a sex pantomime. It was very funny.
There were quite a few cross dressing men out on Saturday. There were both men and women on leashes. There were people doing “pony play” – the submissive in pony play wears a stylized horse halter and corset/saddle. Some of the more advanced rigs have but-plug tails and hooves.
By then it was about 9:00 and decided to visit the dungeon. It had been in operation all the time, but now was enlarged to encompass all the 1st floor ballrooms. It was quite a sight.
Because we were needed to judge more parties, we only stayed for about 15 minutes at that time, but agreed to come back later. I’ll get to details in that second visit later in the narrative.
From the dungeon, we began our party judging again. We just started on the 12th floor and worked our way down. The 12 floor “Hell-Fire Party” was loud and wild. When we were in the large hospitality suite, there were several naked men and women soliciting people to write messages in Sharpie on their bodies. We watched one girl give a guy a handjob to make his penis firm enough to write her message right on the shaft. I nibbled on some food and Paula took some of their rum punch. On the 11th floor was a leather-themed BDSM party. I spoke at length to the dungeon master who was a West Point educated former Army officer. More food.
We skipped the party on our floor (10th) for the time being, but she did stop by our room to change into her new corset. The parties on the 8th and 9th floors hadn’t started. On the 7th floor was the “Dark Party”. Now at the Dark Party, it was …. Dark. The idea was that in the totally pitch black environment, the participants had only their sense of touch. But the early hours (prior to 11:00 PM) were females only. So Paula goes in assuring me she will only be in for a few minutes so she can judge it. I sat down outside the door and she goes into the pitch black room. And I wait. And I wait. And I wait. More women arrive. About half, strip nude in the hall before going in. And I still wait. I can hear lots of giggling from inside the suite of rooms, but no Paula came out.
A reporter from the Atlanta Constitution showed up and begins to interview several people at the door about the convention. Forty-five minutes after Paula and I had arrived, it was approaching 11:00 and I had just taken off my shoes so I could go in. I knew that from 11:00 to midnight it was men and women (there had been a men only time earlier) but it as ‘feel only’ until midnight when full penetration was allowed. So I was just taking off my shoes to go in, when out comes Paula. She walked down the hallway to where I was sitting, buck naked carrying her clothes. She clearly had a very good time inside. The male newspaper reporter blanched. Paula pulls on her pants and asks me for my shirt since she didn’t want to mess with re-lacing the corset in the hallway. So, as we are leaving the first of the men are going into the blackened room full of naked women. I will not pretend I did not have to work to hold my annoyance in check. Very seldom do I get annoyed at her behavior, but to make me sit and wait for that long, then say she won’t stay for the co-ed time left me a little miffed.
Back in our room, Paula changed from my shirt to the sheer blue one she had worn the night before, but this time she went without the quarter-cup bra. We resumed our tour of parties. We went back to the Duck party where a gal was very busy sucking the dick of a guy tied to a cross and blindfolded. That was one form of restraint I could get into. We went to an 80’s party, a fox & pony party and a few more non-descript parties before going back down to the dungeon.
The dungeon was like nothing I’d ever seen. Nothing was sexy to me, but a lot was fascinating. Some was just beyond the pale and made me very uncomfortable. The ball room was very large. It was crowded and dimly lit, so it was difficult to take in but one piece of the events at a time. The most common activity was bare bottoms being lightly teased with flogs and whips. Mostly it was clearly not painful, but there were a few exceptions of visible welts being raised by whipping that made me very uncomfortable. There was naked wrestling, use of an electric tingler on naked people, a naked man on a table enjoying himself as another man masturbated him with his hand and used a small dildo in his ass. There was someone giving a tattoo to a topless woman, and other many other things going on that I did not understand. We sat as Paula watched a man who had pins through the skin of his arms and back. He was being “sewed” to a hanging bar by two women. There was also, very near to us, a woman clearly enjoying being suspended from a metal frame by ropes.
We stayed a good hour. It was a lot to process and neither of us could articulate what we thought of all that.
I suggested we go back to the Dark Party now that men were allowed as well. I was rather frustrated that Paula refused. She was very tired and we went to the room and she crashed. The party noise went on all night. I was rather unhappy that she unilaterally had ended the party and could not sleep listening to the revelry going on in the hallway for hours.
A few weeks later we talked about it and she apologized for not giving me any say in what we did and didn’t do. So the trip was memorable, and she loved it, while I was mixed in my opinion.