That Naughty in N'awlins Swingers Convention Went Swimmingly, with Only 41 Covid Cases

Kurt Hutton. Getty Images.

A few weeks back Coley wrote about the annual bacchanalia of celebrating random sex with multiple strangers known as the Naughty in N'awlins swingers convention in New Orleans that was going off as planned. 

Well you'll be happy to know (pun very intentional) it's come and gone without a hitch. More or less. 

Source - At least 41 people who attended a swingers gathering in New Orleans in November have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the event's organizer.

One of those attendees was hospitalized in serious condition but has since been released, said Bob Hannaford, the organizer of the annual Naughty in N'awlins swingers gathering. Most of the cases were asymptomatic or very mild, he said.

"If I could go back in time, I would not produce this event again," he wrote Friday in a blog post about this year's event. "I wouldn’t do it again if I knew then what I know now. It weighs on me and it will continue to weigh on me until everyone is 100% better." 

Naughty in N’awlins was much smaller this year with more restrictions. While some 2,000 attended last year, about 250 people checked in. …

Masks were worn at events, social distancing was enforced, contact diaries were kept and attendees were tested for the virus or antibodies before the gathering, he wrote. …

He said he blames complacency for the spread of the virus, based on his conversations with attendees as part of contact tracing efforts.

In the words of Sinatra, "Regrets? I've had a few. But then again, too few to mention." 

Don't beat yourself up, Bob Hannaford. You scheduled this thing for what? Mid-November? What did we know about the spread of the virus back then? Fortunately we've learned a lot since then. But back then we barely understood germ theory, never mind how viruses spread. Our best scientists were Medieval barbers, treating this thing with leeches and blood letting. There's no way anyone could expect you to know that if you put 250 people who've turned swappin' bodily fluids with several partners at once into a way of life that they'd … well, swap bodily fluids with them. 

When you get like-minded people together, you have a reasonable expectation that they'll look out for each other. You'd just naturally assume that orgy enthusiasts share that common bond. That two men with otherwise nothing in common but who share an affinity for watching other men rail their wives would bond like two men in a sports pub wearing the same player's jersey. And that they'd keep each other safe. But I guess orgy culture doesn't differentiate between a stranger's jizz or a stranger's respiratory droplets. 

And it's sad, really. It sort of destroys my faith in the whole swinging community, who I thought would be more responsible than that. One lesson this unfortunate incident has taught me is that when that, if people will brave a pandemic to get together to network over tables of sex toys, lubes and hot tub brochures, nothing is going to stop them once that vaccine is ready. This world is going to be one giant, 6 billion person, unmasked orgy.