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Hi everyone!  Welcome to the A to Z of Sex.  I’m Dr Lori Beth and I am your host.  We are working our way through the erotic alphabet one letter at a time.  Just a reminder this podcast deals with adult content, so if you don’t have total privacy, you might want to put on your headphones.  Today the letter is X and X is for Xenerotica.

Xenerotica is being turned on by strangers.  People who are into this often find themselves in interesting situations.    Some of these situations can be very high risk – meeting someone on tinder or online and going and having sex with them – without doing any background research or even letting friends or family know where you are going to be.    Other situations can bring the strange and mysterious to already established relationships.

Surprise and mystery are important parts of keeping a relationship exciting.   It can be really difficult to recreate mystery when you have been in a relationship with someone for a few years or more.    But it is essential if you want to keep things firey.  

My favourite example of bringing the strange or a stranger to an already established relationship comes from the book 9 ½ Weeks.   In this book, E’s partner has her register at a hotel and when she arrives she finds a number of packages.  There are instructions to dress in the clothing and when she is dressed, she is dressed as a man – in male drag – including facial hair.  She meets her partner in the hotel bar.  She has truly become a stranger. 

It isn’t as difficult to become as stranger as you might think.  You don’t have to change sex.   All you need do is change your style and the way you present to your partner.  Start by changing your hair style.  A good wig can do wonders to completely transform your look.     Add a new style of clothing and your partner may barely recognise you.  Of course you want to look your sexiest.  Don’t forget you are trying to seduce your partner.  So create the hottest sexiest stranger that you know your partner will want to bonk and then arrange a date night.  Don’t forget to let your partner know that you are going to change your appearance. 

Another way to do this is to engage in role play together.  You can cultivate a variety of characters and then your partner can really indulge in some xenerotica – having sex with loads of strangers.

Role play can seem really daunting.  Most people worry about looking stupid.  Role play is supposed to be fun.  Laughter is a part of it.  Sometimes the scene works and is smoking hot and other times it just seems a comedy.    If you are interested in learning about role play, grab my eBook or why not join me for my workshop Casanova’s Secret.  Email me as drloribeth@atozofsex.com for details.

True Xenerotica involves having sex with strangers.  For many people, this means meeting someone on Tinder or another dating app and hooking up with little or no interaction to get to know each other.  These folks are not looking for relationships.  They are looking for exciting anonymous sex. 

Why is this so exciting?  There are more reasons than you might think.

Sex with a stranger allows you to be anyone.  You step away from any preconceptions and into the experience as a new person.  You can walk into the experience as all the best parts of you or as someone else entirely.  And since you are not planning to see this person again, you don’t have to worry about what they think.

Sex with a stranger allows you to try out a fantasy that you might be worried is too way out or that you think your partner may not like or that you are too embarrassed to talk to anyone who knows you about.    If you find you like enacting the fantasy, you can learn to talk to a partner about it.  If it doesn’t go well, you walk away from the experience with no baggage.

Sex with a stranger can be great when you are horny but don’t want a relationship – especially when you have just had a bad break-up.  You can work our your frustrations without worrying about any on going relationship.

The unknown and potentially dangerous part of sex with a stranger means that your biochemistry changes.  The adrenalin rush, the dopamine increase and even the increase in release of oxytocin can make this sex a more intense experience and cause a more intense high.

The research shows men are still far more willing to have sex with strangers than women are even in the digital age.  This seems to be because of worries about pregnancy and physical danger.

In Indonesia, there is a festival devoted to sex with strangers called the Pon festival.  The ritual requires the strangers to have sex 7 times over 35 days next to a particular mountain where there is a shrine in order for the ritual to be complete.   The people who engage in this ritual usually not single people.  Some married folks do not tell their spouses they are going to the shrine and having sex with a stranger.  All of this is done in order to ensure good luck for the coming year.  The ritual starts with morning prayers and then cleansing and finally the sex.   The most bizarre part of this ritual is that devout Muslims will take part and the religious leaders will turn a blind eye even though clearly adultery is going on.  Sex workers also turn up on the mountain to offer their services for those who have not found partners.

In the LGBTQ+ world, anonymous sex was extremely popular once upon a time (and appears to be having somewhat of a resurgence).  In the days before we knew about AIDS, gay men had the bath houses.  Bath houses are places designed primarily for anonymous sex.  The most compact ones had 10 to 20 small rooms and lockers and the ornate ones housed themed rooms, saunas and lots of space.  Most have a sauna or steam room, lockers and some private rooms.    People pay a membership fee (usually on the day) which is for the use of the facilities and prostitution is specifically banned.   I will not go through the history of bath houses in this podcast but will save that for another day.  Suffice it to say that men have been meeting in bath houses since greek and roman times. 

Glory holes are holes in the wall (usually in bathroom cubicles) where a man will push his penis through and the person on the other side of the hole will perform oral sex (or sometimes a hand job or even present an asshole for anal sex).   Finally, cottaging comes from the UK and is when men have anonymous sex in public restrooms or cruise to meet men to have anonymous sex with somewhere else.  In this case they meet in the rest room and leave and find another place to have sex.  Because some of this can be against the law, it adds extra spice and is one of the attractions of cottaging.

Recent research done by OK Cupid found that between 10% and 15% of it’s user base was looking for casual sex and many of these for anonymous sex.  Zhana Vrangalova who created the casualsexproject which collects stories about casual sex has found that lots of people still often feel bad the day after anonymous sex because of social conventions and mores.    Shame tarnished the experience. 

If you are inclined to engage in anonymous sex, do some personal shame busting before heading out on the prowl.  Take the time to really consider how you might feel and look at the things that cause you to feel shame.  Check out where the shame comes from and combat it if you can.

Before you head out, don’t forget to protect yourself by being risk aware.

Having sex with a stranger is a high risk activity.   Know this when you decide to engage.

To lower your risks:

Make sure that a family member or friend knows where you will be and when you are expected home.

Take a note from the BDSM players book and set up a safe call:

A safe call is where you have a friend or family member telephone you at a certain time to ensure you are safe.  You pick a phrase that means you are fine and one that means you are not so that when you answer the phone, you can easily let the friend know without letting the person you are with know what you are saying.   

Practice safe sex.  Bring condoms, dental dams, gloves.  And bring extra – you might want to have sex a few times!

Even though rough in the alley sex may have an extra kick, to lower risk choose to rent the hotel or motel room so that people are more likely to notice if something is wrong.

Robert write in and asked: Is going to a bath house a good way to experiment with gay sex for the first time?    Bath houses can be really intense, noisy places full of delicious sex.  If you are happy to jump in at the deep end, it might be a good place to experiment.  However, in my experience, if you are experimenting with something, it can be easier to do it in a place where you have the space and time to go slow and enjoy every minute or if it isn’t going well, where you can take a step back and rethink. 

Martha wrote in asking about dating apps for hook ups.  She wants to know what the best apps are for hook ups.  Thanks for writing in Martha.  Most of the dating apps can be used for hook ups.    Be naughty was rated the best hook up app in 2017 by 10 best dating sites.  It seems to be better for heterosexuals from the descriptions.    Adult friend finder has been around for a long time and still presents with lots of good options.  Many of the people I have spoken to recommend Tinder or use OK Cupid.

Write me with your stories about Xenerotica this week and I will share my favourites when I get to Z….

Thanks for joining me for the A to Z of Sex ™ .

Write to me with suggestions for the show, questions you want answered at drloribeth@atozofsex.com , follow me on twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

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Check out my YouTube channel: Dr Lori Beth Bisbey.  

Join me for a free teleseminar on 20 September: 3 Secrets to Comfortably and Confidently Explore What Arouses, Excites and Ignites You: In and Out of Bed https://the-intimacy-coach.com/3-secrets/ See you next week when the letter will be Y and Y is for Yoni.