After Action Report #52

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[00:00:26] Welcome to After Action Report, where listeners, Savage Lovecast listeners, tell me about new sexual situations they found themselves in. This week, Pierce tells me about a recent adventure he had in Sweden. Pierce, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, Dan. Before we get to what you did while you're here on this episode of After Action Report, tell us a little bit about who you are.

[00:00:49] Sure. So my name is Pierce Anderson. I am a Rotterdam-based food journalist, home baker, and tabletop board game designer. That's awesome. My boyfriend and I are big fans of tabletop board games. We play them all the time. Settlers of Catan, which I do not love. Tack, which I do love. Very pro board games. All right. So we're not here to talk about board games. We're here to talk about sex stuff.

[00:01:13] And you have a sex thing story to share with us. What is your sex thing? What is your After Action Report? My After Action Report, sure. So for the past two summers, I've been going to SexAbility, which is a erotic, sensual, all things bodily festival in rural Sweden, where I've been cooking first breakfast, then lunch and dinner for up to five to seven hundred people who come to this five day sex festival.

[00:01:40] A five day sex festival in Sweden. How did you get hooked up with that? How did you find out about it? How did you wind up working at it? Yeah, fair enough. These are all good questions. I went to a munch, which is a social gathering for kinky people down in Christchurch, New Zealand. And when I was there, I was told, Pierce, if you ever find yourself at the other side of the world on August 1st, you should go to this festival and volunteer.

[00:02:04] Will change your life. So when I was accepted to design tabletop board games as part of an art residency in Finland, I thought that's only a hop, skip and jump over from rural Sweden. If I combined a bunch of ferries and trains and buses, I could get there just in time to volunteer, which lowers the price of admission, but is still three thousand and nine hundred Swedish kroner for your ticket. So I thought, is this life changing? Is this worth it? Let me just sign up and see.

[00:02:33] So was it your first one? You've been to two now. How was your first one? How was your sex festival in Sweden? And paint us a picture like, where is it? What are the people like? What's the breakdown roughly around sexual orientations, gender identities? Give us a mental image of like what it is that you encountered when you got there, when you got to camp. Yeah, when I got to camp. Summer fuck camp. What was it like?

[00:02:59] It really does feel like summer fuck camp. I think the introduction, because it's been going on for I think over 15 years at this point, people know each other and they come with these prebuilt relationships. And so walking through camp, hauling way too much luggage with me. What amazed me the most was how people were kind of rushing into hugs with each other, jumping into contact improvisation, dance, immediately saying hello.

[00:03:26] I will go to a sex festival, but I am not signing up for the contact improvisation dance segment of the sex festival. But I mean, if you think about it, contact improv is some of the closest physical conduct we could have that's not erotic. So it's a very good way to see, do I flow with this person? Do we connect? How does that work? And then if you want to make it sexual, you could work on that for the remaining five days. But talk me into it. Thank you.

[00:03:54] But I'm not a I'm not a zealot of this. It is interesting because it used to be sanatorium as well. And so there are Swedish outbuildings from the 1930s where I was getting the eggs to boil for breakfast used to be apparently where the morgue was. But they've done a really, really, really beautiful job with the restoration. It does look similar to Midsommar. And when I arrived, I had to make a pro and con list if this was too much like Midsommar.

[00:04:22] You had to like find the escape routes. You had to have a go bag just in case they started flaying people alive at the Swedish sex festival. It's very I really appreciate what they said there once when I entered a workshop where they said you could leave this workshop at any time and you could also leave anything at any time. And that was a really affirming thing about like, you know what, if you don't like it, you could leave. And a lot of people who volunteer the whole summer because it's not just the festival, it's continuous festival grounds.

[00:04:49] If they don't like the sex festival part, they might just go for meals and not participate with any of the intense nature at all. So gay, straight, utopia where everyone's bi, what was the... I know, right? Yeah, I feel like Marta, who was one of the facilitators this year, said it could really become more queer. And I definitely agree with that. But there was fairly hetero from my experience.

[00:05:14] And also when you get it gets to late hours and it gets dark and you're in the dungeon, which is above the cafe that has ceremonial cacao, you know, and matcha. There things might get a bit more flexible. And it was a very nice opportunity to check if I was gay or not yet. I feel like people have been telling me all my life, you know, hey, Pierce, you should... You feel queer-coded.

[00:05:37] And so then if I'm able to do nice warm-up exercises with people and it could just stop at an exercise. Contact improvisational dance. Or massage or eye gazing or breath work. These are all things that build intimacy but don't have to have that sexual edge. So what did you find out about yourself at Swedish sex camp? Ah, what did I find out about myself? I like serving people food. I kind of knew that already.

[00:06:04] I found out this might not be the best sex festival for me. I feel like after two years, things like Intimate Revolution, things like Explore Berlin, the whole festival, if we're just talking about European ones, might be more my style. This one is more on the tantric side, more on the hippie side. And the first summer there, I felt like the biggest freak, which is oftentimes very intimidating to come to a place where it's so close to be so sex positive.

[00:06:31] And then feeling like, wait, am I even on the edge of what they would like to have here? How come I know all about these big gay, sometimes fetish sex festivals that happen all over the world? People are always posting about being at Folsom in Berlin or MAL in Washington, D.C., all over social media.

[00:06:52] And I never see anything online about all of these big, mostly straight sex festivals that happen, it seems, primarily in Europe, but not exclusively in Europe, are just straight people more discreet. Does this place have a rule about keeping it off social media? You heard about it through word of mouth. You didn't find out about it because something popped into your algorithm, into your for you feed on Twitter or Instagram. Why do these fly under the radar?

[00:07:19] Because like my impression of straight people, or primarily straight people, is they don't go to places with sex dungeons and contact improvisational dance classes to suss out potential sex partners. That that's kind of gay coded. And yet I keep hearing about these big, straight fuckfests happening in the woods in Sweden and the Netherlands and France. How come it's also under the radar when it comes to the straight people? I can't speak for other people.

[00:07:45] I know that I was intimidated to also speak about it because you signed this confidentiality waiver. You talk about that. And so when I wrote the piece for Playboy, I thought, how can I keep this the most anonymized, but also keep those really funny details about people and about our interactions that really make the piece come alive? So the first rule of Swedish fuck summer camp is you don't talk about Swedish fuck summer camp. You just mentioned you wrote a piece about Playboy. Tell us about that.

[00:08:14] Are you pulling the veil off? Are you naming names? How did you hook up with the new iteration of Playboy? They've got a new editor and they're kind of killing it right now. And why did you decide to write about this experience? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I originally wrote a Bolo Tie article as a Bolo Tie jewelry maker myself many years ago. And the person who I worked on with that later went on to Playboy. So I kind of helped write those cocktails and then kind of mask off a bit and say, hey, I feel a lot of shame around being kinky.

[00:08:42] And I'm trying to help myself with that. What if coming out in one of the best sex publications could help? And give me a chance to say this festival, it's silly. It's humane. It's intimate. That's not necessarily about sex. Some of the most intimate moments I had were about the food I was cooking or the food that I was being served.

[00:09:03] And I wanted to, as I took the mask off, also take the mask off for maybe this festival experience and invite people in, destigmatize, but then also own it in a way. We have something in common, I think. I just went to Dori Alley, which is sort of like the younger brother of the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco. It's a big queer, everybody, leather fetish event, originally gay, but like everybody, everybody now. And I can't go to something like that if I don't have a job.

[00:09:33] So I went to Mr. S Leather. We have a connection to them. Yeah. My husband who models for them. Great old friends. And they have a bar. They have a party with a bar. And I bartended all day. I'm like serving beer. And I feel like, okay, I have a thing to do. I have a reason to be here. I'm not just me. I'm just milling around and standing around. If I have a job, I'm comfortable in a place. You had a job. Yeah. You went both times to the Swedish summer fuck festival camp in the woods to cook.

[00:10:00] You say you have some shame around kink. Did that make it easier for you to be in that space? You felt because you had a job less implicated. And then you could roll out your kinks when you were more comfortable. Like what is it about that we have in common about like needing something? You needed eggs to boil. I needed beers to serve. And then we were both fine at the fuck festival. But if we hadn't had those gigs, had those jobs, I don't think we would have been as comfortable. Yeah.

[00:10:26] And I think also what is common in both of those features is the fact that hospitality jobs bring so many people together incredibly fast. I mean, the fact that a festival similar to a cruise ship where swingers famously congregate is it's a contained area where time feels like it moves in different spaces. Foucault, I think, defined this as a heterotopia where there's a lot of variety of people coming together under interesting but maybe adjacent goals.

[00:10:53] And because, for example, all these volunteers were chopping onions three hours a day, we had that as opportunity to recharge, decompress, talk things through. I remember when I was passing by the kitchen, not even there, I was walking back from a three chili workshop, they scale them, called Throatgasms. And everyone who was squishing kofta with their hands said, Pierce, Pierce, come up and tell us about this three chili workshop. We couldn't go. We were too busy making lunch.

[00:11:21] And then I kind of felt like a storyteller or gossip or a – where I'm from in New York, they used to hire people to read the newspaper at factories. I was standing in front of all these people working and being like, let me share. Now kind of the role is reversed. Now I'm the teacher because of what I've learned and can now spread to the larger community. And that felt really, really special. And as a food writer, just another great opportunity to interact with the food. Okay, I got to ask.

[00:11:49] You say that you wrote the piece for Playboy and you went to these events in part to get more comfortable with your kinks. What are your kinks? Give us one. And did you get laid? And did you get laid at Swedish summer fuck camp in the woods? We've talked about the eggs you boiled and the stuff you narrated and the contact and propositional dance you witnessed. But did you get your dick wet? But did I fuck? The first summer I did not fuck, Dan. I tell people I did weirder things than fuck.

[00:12:18] I turned my camp crush into human furniture in three different ways and then later saw them around Europe as I was backpacking through. And just had that shared moment of like, oh yeah, back there we were doing that. And now here we are, vanilla, having coffee out on the street. That was lovely. Were your other questions? I got distracted. Did you get laid at the second one? And what are your kinks? Like human furniture. You turn someone into human furniture. That's dehumanization. Sure.

[00:12:48] Very popular. Objectification, degradation. I'd say generally corruption is a good one word description for what I'm into. And the mental aspect, which I think can be sometimes at odds with a festival like this where some events were nonverbal. Some events were very tantric and very chakra based. You know, and then I'm thinking like, but wait, are we not going to, are we not going to, who's the lawyer? Who's the boss? You know, who's the. Yeah. Dirty talk is very important to me. Yeah.

[00:13:17] And I'm, I'm cursed with a couple of people in my life who hate dirty talk. And I'm like, wait, we can't narrate this. The narration is often the best part. So are you a human furniture dom or did you take a turn as the Ottoman? I know it's a very funny thing to be serving food because that feels like a very subby role. And during the second summer, Andy Beru also hosted slave school for three, three mornings. And so that was an hour which I attended. And then, so I think a lot of people got in their mind that I was, I was a sub and I'm happy to be convinced.

[00:13:47] But, but so far, so far I don't swing that way, but I could always come back and, and test if I'm gay again and test if I'm gay. I'm a sub again. I was going to say, so what you learned at Swedish summer fuck fest camp was dom top and straight. A better sense of yourself. Straight-ish. Let's, you know, these are, yeah, yeah. Straight enough for all practical purposes. All right.

[00:14:09] So tips for people who might, through word of mouth or because they heard you or read the article you read for Playboy, find their way to Swedish summer fuck camp or something like it. How do you get the most out of it?

[00:14:50] Yeah. You're a bunny and you need to chill out. I remember one time I tried to boil eggs and then go straight to impact play workshop. And you have to pair up beforehand. And I said to my partner, when you both looked at each other, we're like, we just don't have this in us. Like we both are interested in this as a concept, but we have to say this is nap time, you know? So definitely know your limits and know that a lot of people are feeling maybe as alone or confused as you.

[00:15:20] As I said, when I came there the first summer and felt like a freak, more of a freak. The second summer, one of the facilitators came up to me and said, I felt similarly alone last year, but knowing that you felt that way helped me find community here. And that was from someone who I felt like had a lot of more power and years at this. So there's a bit of contradiction here because what I'm hearing is communicate. Also, listen to yourself, communicate with that voice inside, but communicate with sex partners.

[00:15:47] But then a lot of these workshops, they want you to shut the fuck up and not at least when not engage in dirty talk. Dirty talk isn't exactly communication. It can be if you're good at it and sly about it, a way to check in and draw somebody out while sustaining the vibe of the sex. Yes, but good communication, checking in with yourself and not rushing. Yeah.

[00:16:09] I think sometimes at a big sex event, people will get this FOMO about every single moment and then they'll ruin all the moments for themselves because they're too exhausted to enjoy any of it properly. So good idea to go take a fucking nap instead of power through an impact play workshop where you're not firing on all cylinders because you don't want to be a sloppy impact play top. Yeah, that's true. All right, Pierce, thank you so much for coming on After Action Report. When is your article coming out and what issue of Playboy?

[00:16:39] Sure. So this is in the Charlie XCX issue. It's already out. Came out September 28th. You can find it on newsstands. I'm trying to locate a copy in the Netherlands. So if anyone knows where one is, please, I want to get a photo shoot of me on it. It's on a page 130 and it's online right now as well. And what's the headline? Oh, the headline is I was a egg chef at an orgy, I believe. Oh my God, an orgy.

[00:17:04] That really doesn't quite capture the enormity and extent of the Swedish summer fuck camp in the woods. Yeah, you don't pick your headlines. All right, Pierce, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me, Dan. Thank you, Pierce. We linked to Pierce's Playboy article in the show notes. If you want to tell the world what you did on your summer vacation, write to me at q at savage.love and you might be my next guest on After Action Report. After Action Report.

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