I’m in Berkeley, California, fingering a latex vagina while taking instruction from Alice Little, a diminutive redhead who lives part of the year in a Nevada brothel. Behind me is a line of 12 men waiting to do the same. There are three other sex dolls next to mine, all with different kinds of labia, none with small breasts. The guy beside me, a peculiar German, is taking his time. His eyes are closed; he is contemplative and knuckle-deep. The man behind me is tapping his foot and edging forward, physically signaling that I should stop hogging the doll and speed it up. These things can’t be rushed, though. And besides, the crevice is surprisingly hot and tacky. My fingers are stuck and I feel stressed.
This is SlutCon—a self-described “sex education” conference, founded last year by three Bay Area sex influencers, including Aella—once one of the top earners on OnlyFans, now a self-styled “sex researcher.” She spends her day surveying anonymous strangers about what they like to do in bed, then uses the data to draw conclusions on her Substack. Her partner is Nate Soares, one of the leading voices in the AI safety movement; to celebrate her birthday one year, he reportedly helped organize a gangbang for her, which she enjoyed. The other two founders, known online as Pandora and Chesed, co-host a podcast called SlutStack; its companion blog features posts like “A Slut’s Guide to STI Testing.” In short, these are women who have taken the sexual revolution to its extremes, and make a living setting fire to the final taboos around female sexuality.
But at SlutCon, the focus is on men. Specifically, on teaching them how to get laid. There are about 100 of them in attendance, and they have paid anywhere from $2,100 for an early bird ticket to $18,000. They range from 20something virgins to 70-year-old divorcés to middle-aged men whose wives have lost their libidos. Some of them have no trouble getting a girl to go out with them, and are just here to learn how to do complex BDSM; some of them literally cannot look a woman in the eye. The three-day timetable offers opportunities for beginners and experts alike; it is packed with hot tub sessions, and late-night dance parties, and almost 100 different workshops, ranging from “Small Group Flirt Coaching” to “How to Plan an Orgy,” and from “Vaginal Gymnastics” to “How to Pick Up Girls, Literally.” You could learn how to braid women’s hair, or get professional photos taken for your dating app profile.