I swear you couldn’t make this story up if you tried. And yes, the name of the swinging couple’s house IS the Hardwood Cabin.
So where do we start with this one? First, let me explain that this isn’t the usual fare of this blog, which usually deals with far more sober and depressing fare. But sometimes people behave just foolishly enough to catch my attention, which is what happened in this instance. And I should add that my wife first turned my attention to this story, so it’s not entirely my fault, you see. And besides, I didn’t choose this story. Like Proust and all the literary greats–it chose me.
So let’s get on with it:
Des Moines–Regan “Draco” Lane-Smith and “Naughty” Nonah Elliston outfitted their six-bedroom rental house with 15 mattresses, bondage crosses and sex swings. They built elaborate sets in their backyard for taking erotic photos.
And they promoted the Hardwood Cabin online.
Up to 60 guests at a time came to mingle, sunbathe nude by the pool and have sex with fellow swingers and fetishists, Elliston said. Parties were frequent enough that the couple’s laundry service was cycling through 50 bedsheets a week.
But the couple shut down the sex club last month when they were cited for running a business without a license and threatened with fines of up to $513 a day.
According to the loving couple they weren’t running a business at all, but rather hosting good, clean fun for their fellow swinger friends. Another aspect of this story that tickled my fancy was that the couple specializes in what my bubbe and zaydeh would’ve called (if they’d had the guts, in this particular case) the zaftig set. You can tell that, by taking one look at the lovely couple in the picture:
The parties catered to “big beautiful women” and “big handsome men,” and to the BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadomasochism) scene, they said.
There are a few rather hilarious quotes which I just have to share with you:
“We’re normal people who happen to enjoy sex,” Elliston said.
Nothing wrong with that. But I think they may enjoy it a tad more, a tad kinkier, and with a tad more partners than the average Joe and Josephine:
They began with just a couple parties a month, then increased to weekly events. In March it became three times a week — hosting about 20 people on Wednesdays and Fridays, and between 40 and 60 on Saturdays, Elliston said.
Elliston counted police officers, nurses and lawyers among her guests, she said. Members were as young as 22 and as old as 80.
80??! Hey, I know we’re all going to be 80 someday and far be it from me to get all prudish and ageist, but doing bondage at the Hardwood at 80 is a bit much, don’t you think?!
I’m sure John McCain and Jerome Corsi will be interested to know that Barack Obama has captured the swinger vote–at least in Des Moines:
The couple hosted a naked rally for presidential candidate Barack Obama and naked karaoke nights.
This quotation from a neighbor actually made me almost fall down laughing…until I realized with horror what it would actually sound like to someone who had to listen to it:
Many nights, Rosenstiel said, he left his TV on as he went to sleep to block out moaning and slapping noises.
“Once in a while it sounds like a raccoon dying,” Rosenstiel said.
To be fair, Nonah and Draco do have their defenders, who see the bright side of the enterprise:
“We probably bent the rules a little bit,” Hixon, 48, said of the noise and parking issues. “It was kind of like a big happy family thing. We were just trying to express our freedoms and have fun.”
One “big happy family” if you got together with sixty of your closest, biggest, most “handsome” cousins, aunts and uncles from age 22 to 80 on a Saturday night.
Their poor neighbors!
I met this couple 3 years ago. They are kind, funny, generous, brilliant (phd), work in not for profit jobs that provide care and assistance to the homless and aged…and outside of their work they share an OPEN lifestyle that millions so called “regular” folks do as well but hide for fear of judgement and riddicule for what they CHOOSE to do in a controlled adult environment. I applaud their willingness to take a stand. BTW, they live in the SEATAC runway area and ALL the neighbors have triple paned windows (paid for by the airport) and wooded lots bigger than a typical city park. I didn’t respond to defend their choice, but to say I ask you to think about how exposed you would feel if your intimacies were made public. I call Regan and Nonah brave. I also feel it is a bit hypocritical to espouse peaceful relations between people when you riddicule and judge people who have done NO harm whatsoever. Laughing at fat people is acceptable. And god forbid they lead a lust full life, huh. I say, each to their own.
Peace Out~ Elli
@elli:
Uh, they’re exposed by their own choice. First, no one asked for them to turn their home into a swinger’s club. No one insisted that they be photographed in a towel in the city’s major newspaper. They’ve allowed & even encouraged the stereotyping.
I didn’t say they’d done any harm except to their neighbors serenity. I didn’t call them evil. I just found the entire situation screamingly funny, that’s all.