Sun, sand and sex
With restrictions on travel and hook-ups behind us, the dirty weekend is having a second coming. Only, before you snigger at the squeaking bedsprings of a wellromped seaside BnB, this time it’s sexologist approved. WH makes the case for the lay-cation
By day, the resort looks like any other harbour in the south of France, if you can get past the fact that no one has any clothes on. But by night, the promenade once packed with holidaymakers becomes a sexually motivated catwalk. There’s a woman in crotchless PVC pants and little else, a man led along by a harness attached to his scrotum and… Laura*, a 42-year-old business analyst dressed in a modest midi dress and willing her Aperol spritz to arrive. It’s her first night at Cap d’Agde, a swingers’ and naturist resort where clothes and monogamy are optional. But while Laura’s outfit marks her out as a first-timer, there’s nothing unplanned about her holiday.
After a year in which she supported her mum through chemotherapy, experienced a close family bereavement and navigated a pandemic-paused sex life, Laura had her ‘f*ck it’ moment. She booked the trip last summer and brought her boyfriend along with her to see if being surrounded by shagging could reignite their desire. It did. ‘Hot tubs, red velvet, leather beds,’ she says, reeling off the horny cues. ‘Yes, it’s all a bit cliché, but it works. It felt like we were in a permanent fantasy.’ Save for the reception, bar and open areas, nudity was allowed everywhere – and with it, sex, with some couples swapping partners on the sunloungers by the rooftop pool. And while Laura and her boyfriend decided to opt out of the swinging sessions, the very idea of them was motivation enough to run back to the hotel room together. ‘I’ve never felt more attractive or sexually confident in my life,’ she recalls. ‘The thrill of other people admiring us made for superhot sex when we were back in our room. It reminded us that we were sexually attractive, not only to each other, but to other people. We’d planned to go for a couple of nights. We ended up staying for two weeks.’
BREAK FROM TRADITION
Booking a break that puts sex on top – or any position you like it – is on the up. Trend forecasters at Booking.com cited ‘pleasure pilgrimages’ as a key theme for 2023, with more than a third of the travellers it polled expressing a desire for a holiday focused on sexual wellbeing. A rise in both resorts dedicated to fetishes and bondage and polyamorous retreats is on the cards, too; Cruise Ship Mingle, a dating app that connects singles and couples-who-swap so they can, quite literally, be in the same boat, saw a 500% rise in members post-pandemic. Meanwhile, one of the more stimulating dates on the UK festival scene is Swingathon – a Glastonbury for the swinging crowd that laun
