Ddevious Delights is the party I’ve been to the most.  It’s not perfect, by any stretch, but it’s in many ways the closest to something that I find compelling/comfortable.  Le Trapeze is open Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.  BCD, OneLegUp and Chemistry all are infrequent parties – like, once every four to six weeks.  Ddevious Delights is a once-weekly affair.

Every week, typically on a weeknight, Saul and Cat, a 50-something couple from the Rockaways (if you’re from New York, this’ll mean something; if not, just know it’s the subject of this Ramones song) throw a party.  The party is invariably in the lovely apartment of some well heeled New Yorker, usually with spectacular views and/or outdoor spaces.  The gathering begins at 8 or 8:30 with a simple selection of beverages, crudites and cookies, and at 9:30 promptly, Saul gives a short spiel, which amounts generally to, “Have fun, be safe, and don’t make too much noise.”  Then, he asks everyone to introduce themselves by name, “because we don’t believe in anonymous sex.”  Then, he invites everyone to “remove someone else’s clothes – preferably those of someone other than the person you came with.”  And the party begins.

I’ve been at a Ddevious Delights party at which my date and I were one of three couples, and I’ve been at a party with twenty or more couples.  They vary week to week.  The median age of attendees is probably 30 or so, but the average is a bit higher, as there are a few older couples who frequent the parties.  There are a lot of regulars, including a few whom I’ve never not seen in the four or so times I’ve been, and there seems to be a clique of folks who are friends away from the parties.  Unlike at BCD, though, I’ve never felt unwelcome at a Ddevious Delights party.  Saul and Cat ask that you provide a photo the first time (though I’m not sure they turn anyone away).  Their parties are the most like, well, parties:  they’re not sensuous or extravagant, like OLU parties or Chemistry parties (about which I haven’t yet written), they’re not quite as artificial or sterile as the BCD parties feel, and they’re not as skeezy as Le Trapeze.  They’re welcoming and fun.  Not wild and raucous, necessarily, but fun.  And Saul’s trick of having everyone get naked at once, at 9:30, makes it a plausible place for people for whom partying until 4 a.m. isn’t quite as appealing as it once was.

The crowd is less rarefied than that at OLU or Chemistry, a bit older/more mature than at BCD, and a bit younger and more attractive than at Le Trapeze.

Got it?