I only checked in 20 minutes ago, but already I’m butt-ass naked in the pool with around 50 other nude resort guests. It’s packed—my limbs are touching at least three other people at any given time—but even still, I can tell that I stand out.
“How old are you?” a woman asks me. She looks to be around 65.
“Twenty-eight,” I tell her.
“Yeah, you’re young,” she says. Then she smiles and continues squeezing her way past the slippery bodies.
You might have deduced I’m not at your standard beach hotel. This is Hedonism II, a nude resort that promises sexual freedom. In fact, the resort’s tagline is “be wicked for a week.” (Hedonism I, in case you were curious, was never a thing: When the resort opened in 1976, Hedonism II was originally named Negril Beach Village, and then six years later, some genius re-branders changed the name to something spicier and added the II, successfully confusing everyone.) I had a feeling I was going to be the youngest person at Hedonism II—abbreviate by the in-the-know resort-goers as “Hedo”—and the idea didn’t bother me. Twenty-eight seems like a prime age to be living large and naked. I also pictured myself as the hot, young stud who sleeps with all the cougars. That idea really didn’t bother me.
But hanging by the pool on my first day, I do feel like a child. After all, I’m probably younger than many of the guests’ kids. And despite being there on a press trip with other journalists my age, they aren’t as gung-ho as I was to get naked, party, and sleep with the other guests. I’m on my own.
I order myself a Grey Goose on the rocks at the pool bar, where a woman in her early 70s starts chatting me up.
“First time here?” she asks.
When I nod, she says, “I’ve been coming here with my husband since 2006. We’ve been married 49 years.”
That’s another thing I quickly learn about Hedo: It’s hardly anyone’s first time. And guests are keen to share their wisdom. That first hour at the pool, countless people tell me that my Hedo experience is up to me. It could be an absolute blast, or it could be a very uncomfortable four days.
By the end of the hour, I’m tired of having that same conversation. I think people have been taking my drinking at the bar alone as a judgement of their behaviours or lifestyle, but it isn’t that at all. I, too, sexually indulge back home in New York. I mean, I really sexually indulge —arguably “too much.” In fact, it’s something that worries me because it seems like everyone else around me is “settling down,” and I have no desire to change my current lifestyle. Sure, the desire to enter a forever cuffing season could, in theory, arise in the future, but I know me. I know what I like, and I just don’t see it happening, even as I approach 30.
Despite my sexual proclivities, I need a few minutes at the pool to take everything in. Even though being surrounded by a cornucopia of flesh isn’t foreign to me, I’ve never felt so goddamn young while naked in a group of people.
That night, I went to meet the rest of the members in my press trip for dinner. Hedo has two upscale restaurants, a buffet, and little places to order food by the pools if you’re hungry. The food is pretty good—better than I expected. That’s all I’m going to say about it, because if you’re going to a nude sex resort for the food, you’re missing the point.
By the end of dinner, I’m decently drunk. The resort is all-inclusive with top-shelf liquor. There’s a band with a live singer in the main dining room, so I dance with some press trip folks, and while the music was great, I yearned for something more. It was my first night there; I was, as I said, decently drunk. After “taking it all in” by the pool earlier, I had a sense of what to expect. It was time to mingle and make friends—aka, find people to fuck.
There are two parts to the hotel: the nude side and the prude side. While you can be naked on the prude side, you must be naked on the nude side. I’d say about 95% of Hedoners party on the nude side, which makes sense. I mean, why else would you come here?
I head back to the nude pool, where I meet Harry, the current owner of the resort. If I had to guess, the guy is in his 70s. While he has a calm and collected demeanour, like anyone (I’d imagine) who buys a place like Hedo, you can tell he has a naughty side. That becomes evident when he tells me about the “roughly 1,000 women” he’s slept with at Hedo.
My immediate instinct is to feel pity for Harry, a 70-something-year-old man still partying until daybreak. In the gay community, these types of men exist in bulk; their behavior is referred to as “Peter Panning,” because it seems like they never want to grow up. I’ve also slept with around 1,000 people, and listening to Harry’s stories, I get the strong urge not to end up like him some day. But I don’t see myself settling down, either.
So what do I want?
At this point, I should probably mention that Harry is joined by his girlfriend Katie*, an eccentric and energetic woman who appears to be a few decades his junior. When I tell them it’s my first time at the resort, they both decide I deserve a warm Hedo welcome—at which point, Katie drops to her knees and starts going down on me. Hard, I ask the couple if Katie and I can have sex.
I assume we’ll head to the official “playroom,” which looks and feels like a five-star spa, only people are boning in it. Instead, we go to a tent by the pool; it turns out, there are random tents around the resort intended for additional boning. We have sex, and it’s sloppy, but fine. Right as we finish, Harry sneaks back into the tent, gives Katie a kiss on the lips, and asks if we all want to head back out.
I politely decline. Sleeping with the owner’s girlfriend is enough for my first night.
I spend the second day snorkeling in the afternoon. I see a stingray with a three-foot long body and equally long stinger. The only thing I can think while swimming away from it is, that’s how Steve Irwin died.
Jamaica is beautiful. The waters are clear. It’s sunny except for that random hour a day where it pours. The rum drinks are delicious. But that’s not why you go to Hedo. You go for the people—for the experiences. And that second night, I experience two people.
I meet them at Hedo’s teppan grill restaurant. Our press group has three vacant seats at our table, and two end up being taken by one of the most beautiful older couples I’ve ever seen. The man is in a see-through white linen shirt, and his wife is in a tight sequinned dress. She looks identical to Melania Trump, only she has a huge, surgically-enhanced chest.
An aura flows from the couple. It’s clear they’re a power-unit accustomed to heads turning the moment they step into a room. By the end of the dinner, I’ve begun to eavesdrop on the couple. They’re from Brazil. When the rest of the group goes to find seats for the Hedo fetish-themed performance, I stay back to finish my fried ice cream with the couple.
They’re in a deep conversation with the third person at the table. The man, Vinny*, is discussing how all humans have one soul mate, but the body—the flesh, as he calls it—is for all. This is great news, because I really want to fuck his gorgeous wife. I learned they had been married for 40 years, so either they got hitched in the first grade, or they look exceptionally young for a couple in their late 50s or early 60s.
Eventually, we all get up. I hug his wife, Angelica*, before hugging him. He gives me a longer hug, and his hands brush my stomach as he walks away. I think to myself, either he’s naturally a touchy guy, or he’s bi, and down to have a threesome. I prayed for the latter.
After watching the staff perform the fetish show, I go to the piano bar for karaoke. (Walking in, I see two naked women dancing on the piano, obviously.) Everyone is surprisingly good; it’s a live piano karaoke situation, where there’s an unspoken agreement that anyone who gets up on stage will be halfway decent.
Then “Sweet Caroline” comes on.
“This is the unofficial song of Hedo,” says a woman sitting next to me.
I join in with the belting crowd—who among us doesn’t love Neil Diamond?—but I’m confused why this song, in particular, riles everyone up. I find out when we get to the chorus. After “Sweeeeet Caroline,” I start to sing, “Bum, bum, bum,” but every man in the room shouts, “Suck my cock,” while the women sing, “Suck my clit.” Everyone has such joy in their eyes as they sing.
“Sweet Caroline” plays at least five times during my trip, and each time, guests sing with the same childlike excitement. The joke, like many of the residents there, feels timeless. And while my gut response was to judge them—because come on, it’s not that funny—by the fifth time I heard the song, I was the one shouting, “Suck my cock!” Yeah, it’s tacky, but also, why am I rolling my eyes at the folks there? Is it simply because they’re boomers? That’s not right. Older folks are allowed to be sexual and crass, too.
Back at the piano bar, as I hear “Sweet Caroline” for the first time, I see Vinny and Angelica making eyes at me from across the room. I walk over to them both, and again, Vinny hugs me intensely. We make prolonged eye contact and peck on the lips, and then kiss for real.
“Oh, are you bisexual?” he asks.
“I am,” I tell him.
“I am, too. So is Angelica.”
The three of us go to Hedo’s nightclub, where a pole dancing competition is getting started. I have no desire to do it, but Angelica says I should, and she’s hot, so I go up and shake my money maker. I climb up on that pole with the grace of ape, and slide all the way down. I win the competition. While it sounds like a major feat, you have to remember the average age of my competitors. Not to be ageist, but I think I did have a decent advantage. But shit, it was a close call. Some of these older guys (I’m talking 60s and 70s) really know how to throw it back, and they loved every single second of it.
Hyped up from my big win, we make our way back to the Brazilian couple’s room. They’re staying in a top-tier suite with their own jacuzzi on the deck. For about an hour and a half, we all hook up, doing every threesome position imaginable. We go from the jacuzzi to the room. Lying down. Against the wall. With a bi MMF threesome, where both men top and bottom, the sky really is the limit. And not to brag, but I think we touched the sky.
After sex, we go to the nude pool and talk. Like everyone else at Hedo, this isn’t their first time there, but they also go to Desire in Cancun, Hedo’s direct competition.
“There aren’t as many old people there,” says Vinny, who must be double my age. Clearly he doesn’t view himself as being old, and why should he? He just fucked me and his wife for the past hour and a half, and he could have gone much longer. I was the one who tapped out by coming first. Their voracious sexual appetite, truthfully, was inspiring, but it was more than that. I loved seeing them so clearly in love after 40 years of marriage, while simultaneously still so open to new shared sexual experiences. And what if the latter is the reason for the former?
I start to see that “settling down” can take many forms—because they’re clearly not “settled down,” in the traditional sense, and they’re still madly in love. And while they share their lives with one another, they don’t mind bringing in a third from time to time to add a little oomph to their bedroom routine.
Around 3 a.m., I tell them I have to go to bed. I’m exhausted. The next day is Halloween, and I know shit’s about to get crazy.
When I wake up Hallow’s Eve day, I’m approximately 75% Grey Goose, so I spend most of the day sleeping. Around 5, I paint my face, serving a classic New York club kid look, meaning I didn’t necessarily go as a specific person or thing, I just look spooky and fierce. I compete in the costume contest, but sadly I don’t win, because some of the folks went hard, wearing costumes that clearly took them days to make.
After my tragic loss, I go to the piano bar and sing “I Will Survive.” Then I tell the other press folks that I’m going to the nude pool to hopefully have sex with someone while dressed like some bizarre-looking horny devil.
At the pool, I meet Bethany*. The asterisk this time isn’t for anonymity—it’s because I genuinely have no idea what her name is. Bethany seems smitten with me from the moment she sees me—specifically, my penis. Depending on where you sit in the pool, someone’s member can end up right in your face when they walk down the stairs. When I say, “Excuse me”—because even at Hedo, no one wants an unsolicited dick in their face—Bethany says to me, “Oh, honey, I know where I’m sitting.”
That’s when I realised two things:
- I would like to be Bethany when I grow up.
- I am absolutely going to have sex with this woman.
She might have been approaching her 70s (from the other end), but she was there getting exactly what she wanted: that dick. I found that very appealing. So Bethany and I had sex, and there’s a video on my phone of her going down on me. She asked me to record it and send it to her, but it doesn’t look like I ever did. If I had her number, I would, but that ship has sailed.
I don’t see Bethany the next day, which isn’t surprising, given that she’s leaving in the morning (at least, that’s what she said when she rejected my invitation to sleep over). If I didn’t have the video of her on my phone, I honestly would have thought that Bethany was the ghost of Hedo, because she personifies what makes the resort so special. It’s not the sex, though I did have that in abundance. It’s not even the freedom to do as you please, which yes, is incredible, too.
It’s the feeling of truly not giving a damn.
Prior to the trip, I was scared to consider what my future will hold; when I’m going to start “acting my age”; and when my desire to sleep with new people will disappear. I had this looming concern about whether I would ever rein things in—and what it would say about me if I never did.
Hedo helped me see that you don’t need to “settle down” just because you hit an arbitrary age—and besides, what is “settling down” anyway? I should ask Vinny and Angelica.
If 40 years from now I’ve taken over for Harry as Hedonism II’s owner, and I’m shouting “Suck my cock!” during Sweet Caroline at the piano bar, I’ll be proud knowing that I’m living my best life.
This article originally appeared on Men’s Health
