What We Do Together (Not Sex)

When we talk about Real Hedonism, whether it’s on Reddit or in real life, we have been getting one question over and over again. In response to that question, we want to make something abundantly clear:

Real Hedonism is not a sex cult.

We are not facilitating orgies, and the community we want to create is not about dating. This is not to say that we are against sex or romance in any capacity; sex simply isn’t the focus of the movement we are starting. Pleasure is.

Our aim for this community is to help people (ourselves included) feel more grounded in the ideas of Real Hedonism via real world experiences and support from friends. In order to figure out what our Hedonist community might want to do together, we threw together a quick list of things that bring us pleasure (that aren’t sex):

1. Sharing Bites

Pick out a bunch of different foods that fit the allergy requirements of your group. Have everyone wash their hands and let them loose to create their own “bites” for everyone else to try. We recommend different bite-sized combinations that explore the myriad of ways you can pair flavors and textures. Encourage everyone to only eat bites that another person made.

2. Forest Walks

Bring some friends to the woods. Play around with how silently you can walk. Listen to the way the wildlife reacts to your presence. Smell the trees, look at the slugs and beetles. Splash in a stream. See how many types of plants and trees you can identify.

3. Laughing so hard it hurts

Laughing yoga is where everyone just laughs, even if it’s fake, for a certain amount of time (usually around thirty minutes, it goes by quicker than you might imagine). Hilarity often ensues. Also, ab cramps.

4. Not a Socratic Seminar

Sit down with several people and discuss a particular feeling or idea. Find out how other people feel about baths or drugs or heights (or anything else… like musicals or death or what it might be like to be a mermaid.) The “seminar” is grounded in a topic rather than a book, and instead of quotes from a book, we use stories from our lives. Listening is the most important part.

5. Breathe in the fresh air on top of a mountain

Hike a mountain with some friends. Get to the top and meditate. Think about the air at the top of the mountain and how it's different from air by the sea or in the city. Enjoy the crispness in your lungs and on your face. (If you don’t want to/are not able to hike a mountain, go literally any other place there is air. Most places do just fine.)

6. Go to an art exhibit

Take your time and really appreciate each art piece. Critique an entire collection based on a ridiculous metric, like how high each painting is from the ground, or how many people were standing in front of it when you were there. (Aren't all metrics kind of ridiculous?) Pretend you are an expert. You are an expert.

. . .

All of these experiences are ones that we can imagine doing with a Hedonist group. None of them are sex. Right now, we aren’t exactly sure how our community will look or how we will end up spending our time, but this community is centered around pleasure, not sex or any other specific activities. The important part isn’t what we do, it’s that we do it together. (Cheesy, we know.)

Help us brainstorm ideas of activities that might be very pleasurable within the context of a group down in the comments!