How I F*ck as a Sex Party Planner

NATALIE RIVERA: Hey everyone, before we start just want to warn you all that this episode briefly discusses sexual assault and incest, so feel free to skip. Take care of yourself. 

NR: There are many things Maria has accomplished that she’s proud of. For one, there’s the fact that she dropped out of high school with zero money and zero plans, yet she’s run a string of successful businesses. Then there’s the time she completed circus school, more on that later. But one of her proudest moments is the time she put together multiple beds to make one massive bed, complete with a princess veil draped over and fairy lights. 

MARIA STAVROU:  here was this wonderful section that we turned into, which was six, six double beds, which were all laid out so that I think that we're actually king-sized beds six king-sized beds, which will all be laid out next to each other to create this massive bed, which we created with the princess veil across the beds with fairy lights, as well like that at the end of the night just was absolutely Rexburg at the beginning of the night like gorgeous. 

NR:The bed wasn’t for her, nor was it for sleeping. The purpose of the bed was for strangers to have sex on it. It was made for a sex party, and Maria was the orchestrator. 

NR: This is How I F*ck and I’m your host, Natalie Rivera. So sex parties is a pretty broad term. Like what constitutes a sex party? When someone says sex party, I think of a bunch of people coming together to, you know...come together. Because I’ve never been to a sex party, I’ve never really wondered who actually puts them together. In the words of Clementine Kruczynski, “someone has that job.”Maria Stavrou (STAFF-RUE)has that job. Here’s how she got it and here how planning an event where people can f*ck has influenced the way she f*cks. 

NR: Maria has met a lot of entrepreneurs throughout her hustling life. A pattern she’s noticed in the entrepreneur world is that a lot of them got where they are by taking a path that was by no means a straight line. Just like her. 

MS: I've met so many other people like that now, who were you know, a bit rough around the edges growing up. And because of that, they've ended up being quite amazing entrepreneurs, I've met incredible people who've got just profound stories, and been able to resonate with them because it kind of gives you that hunger, that hunger to work harder to want to be more of a success and want to have more of a name for yourself so that you don't even associate with who you were when you were younger. I know that was that's certainly the case for me for sure. Everything that I do, I strive to make sure that I'm nowhere near the place that I started off, as in life.

MS: Where Maria started off was in Scotland with her mother and sister. They lived there for a bit before moving to England. Maria’s childhood was riddled with a lot of familial issues: They struggled financially as her mother struggled with substance addiction. And then there was the sexual abuse. 

MS: There was a pedophile in the family. And he was abusing my sister. And that was my first introduction to sex, actually learning what was going on. I was six and a half or seven, so I wasn't really understanding it. 

NR: Her mother had trouble explaining what was going on to her so she handed her a book about sex so Maria could figure it out for herself. 

MS:  looking back at it now and thinking about it now, it's like, literally handed a book in the back of a car on a long drive and told to read it. And that was my understanding now, you know, I've made my peace. Like, incredibly, incredibly made my peace with my mom. And, you know, there's a lot that left room for, you know, improvement with her mothering skills when we were growing up, but you know, that was with a very sad gaze at the situation and a very victimized gaze at the situation, you know, I put quite a lot of blame at her feet for everything that happened, albeit quite rightfully so for a lot of it, but not for all of it, you know? But yeah, her tendencies to be able to talk about sex are just not too, it's not really a done thing.

NR: Maria was eventually removed from her home and put into foster care. She was a bit of a rebel back then and would stay up all night and be everywhere with everyone. One of the many places she would shoot the sh*t was this abandoned school. That’s where she had sex with another person for the first time. 

MS: It was kind of magical. It really bars. I was very round the back of this closed down, shut down just disused space in a school and it was snowing. We were on the back of this kind of like shutdown school. He was super clumsy and blesser, you know, because we were really young. He didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. We didn't know what was going on. It was one of those situations where it was like, is it in? Okay, yes. I felt liberated. I don't know.

NR: This was also around the time she learned that an electric toothbrush can do more than brush your teeth. 

MS: That was one of the first times that I'd like found out how to make myself orgasm. Was that and I think that that's kind of like stuck with me for sure. Because I'm a massive fan of toys. Massive.

NR: But it was when she was 16 that Maria first experienced group sex. She and a friend went over to a get-together at an older boy’s house. There were zero parents and a lot of alcohol to go around. 

MS: One of the lads had made the very crafty suggestion is why don't we play some strip poker. And it was just like, you snore by but you know, it works and we were giving it a bloody go because I was so interested in it. I was like, Okay, let's, let's see what happens when it is I really want to give it a try. Give it a try. 

NR: Strip poker definitely did get the mood started because it wasn’t long after that the boys and girls started sleeping with each other. But that didn’t mean there was this overall sense of closeness and comfort among the group: Some of the boys were adamant that there be a distance between the different groups having sex. 

MS: One of the boys was like I'm not going near any of the other guys, you know kind of like that kind of bravado macho situation where they're like, if I look at a deck, then it makes me gay kind of tone about him. That was certainly like one of those experiences where it was super use over. The use over there don't even want you like, you know, your thigh near me, let alone anything else. Do you know what I mean? And the girl was like very I don't think she was open to playing with other girls either. So I don't remember doing anything apart from hitting her and remembering that actually, she wasn't very comfortable with it. So I was like, okay, we're gonna stop that then. Because I'm not going to keep trying with somebody that is clearly not into. I want to do this kind of experience with. But that definitely taught me what I enjoy and what I don't enjoy. Like I prefer people that are okay within themselves, like comfortable and confident within themselves and, you know, confidence to be able to try things even if, you know, part of their brain is like, oh, it couldn't possibly they still give it a go. Because until you try with a lot of things sexually, you don't know if you're gonna like it or not. 

NR: Maria went completely on her own when she was 14. By 16 she started her first business, a dance troupe. She performed and ran the troupe for a couple of years before catching the attention of a circus. So Maria ran away to join them… to join the circus. 

MS: I started in the circus properly when I was 18 started doing fire, started doing aerial, I went to a university for circus performances and got myself a little degree in circus arts, which is insane that you can actually say you have a degree in being a clown, but it's the thing I did that which taught me tight wire, it taught me Rola bola, which is you know, that giant ball taught me how to do still walking, acrobatics, gymnastics, some mild ballet, which was great, but I really genuinely took so much to Aereo whilst I was there, and then going forward actually doing it as a profession I took to fire artistry the most.

NR: As her professional life blossomed, so did her sexual interests. She started to toy with BDSM where she would mostly play a submissive role. She would still participate in the occasional orgy. In fact, she was gifted an orgy once for Christmas when she was around 21.

MS: It was it was an incredible four-day-long experience. People, legs, arms, everything everywhere. All the time. It was absolutely amazing.

NR: This particular orgy went on for four days and involved eight of Maria’s closest friends all on ecstasy. 

MS: I might hasten to add that that kind of lifestyle is behind me now. Which is why I can talk about it. But yeah, this is something that was super messy. We were very, very high. super high. So you're kind of like it's not like a beautiful orgy. It was kind of like you know, somebody's sweaty, and the other person's got one I shot like just like licking in somebody's general direction by the end of it.

NR: Was it awkward to sleep with your close friends?

MS: I that wasn't the thing that caused any kind of awkwardness, like the only, you know, sadly, a lot of us kind of like dispersed because of relationships more than the orgy. You know, people got with people and then broke up with them and then got with other people. And then they didn't want to see that first person. They were aware if then, you know, then they made people choose between people. And that got messy. The actual orgy itself, where we were at that time of our lives when we were in our early 20s. Everything was you know, never an issue during stuff like that was never an issue. No one had any Hangouts. Nobody had any awkward few days. It was very, very, very cut and dry. Like we knew what we were there to do. And we knew we wanted to give it a go. We all knew that we were quite kinky, we all knew that we were quite open. There was not ever really a subject that was left undiscussed if we needed it to be, so it was definitely more of closeness than it was an awkward situation was if anything, it kind of pulled us all together. And like I said, it was the messy breakups of relationships. That was the one that kind of tore apart that friendship group if anything, which was sad.

NR: These experiences probably explain why Maria’s eyebrows perked up when she saw an ad for a job at a play party. 

MS: My brain just illuminated. If you can see it on one of those that were MRI scans, you would have seen it just light up was like this is fascinating. And I was just like, this is absolutely what I want to do. Like, not only is it a place of no judgment, it's a place that everyone's kind of got that pure understanding of, we've got something massively in common. And it's hugely taboo, which is ultimately unifying, when you're in a group of people that all think and feel the same, at least to some degree.

NR: She applied for a hostess role meaning she’d greet people coming in, take names, and cash people’s checks. The play parties were not only exclusive but high-end. It wasn’t just aroused people Maria would see around, she also saw burlesque dancers and other performers in pasties. Live entertainment for the guests. 

NR: For our listeners who don't know, but I mean, I think it's pretty straightforward what the sex party is like, Can you describe what it is? And is there a difference between a sex party and a play party?

MS: So I guess a play party could definitely not have to include sex. This one, in particular, was a play party. So it wasn't directed for sex at the venue we were at and we were working out. So actually, what happened was, there was a second venue to happen after the initial Party, which is where only a select amount of people were allowed to go and invited to go, and it was in a hotel room afterward.

NR: The play parties that Maria worked on involved a lot of over-the-clothes kind of play. Definitely no penetration. She wasn’t invited to work the after-parties since she was still the new kid in the scene. It wasn’t until after working her way up for several months that she started working for other more intimate parties. 

MS: I was invited to come to another party where it was the hotel section. Because I guess, you know, they kind of worked out who I was, am I able to be trusted? lalala. So, yeah, that happened after that. 

NR: By the hotel section, what do you mean? 

MS: Oh actually where the f*cking commences.

NR: While Maria’s role was still “hostess,” her new gig granted her more access than the play party she worked at before. She’d walk around handing out drinks and such. They’d invite her to join but Maria was a professional. At the most, she’d linger and watch. 

MS: I did on a couple, but mainly as an exhibitionist. And I think that that's kind of like, yeah, that was kind of like my limit. Because I was like, for me, this is a job. Now, this is a place where I know that I want to be. And I know I want to create a network here. And it was like, that is a no-go zone. You don't, it would look unprofessional. If you're there. And you're interacting as a guy. When you're there as an act for one thing you kind of need to come across like you're untouchable. And it's needless to say, like, for me, actually doing things outside of work. still happens. Having a couple of swaps still happens. Having threesomes oh my god still happened a lot. But doing it at work, like actually f*cking at work. That's me, I was like, I don't want to be seen as that girl that takes advantage of her position. I don't want to be seen as that girl that comes to work and is like, you know, spotted in amongst the crowd after she's finished a job or anything like that, like, and it's still very much is like a no go for me

NR: It was also important to Maria that she stayed professional that way she could get gigs outside of being a hostess, like being a performer. She was experienced in dancing, burlesque, and fire performances, and so when she had the opportunity to entertain at one of these parties, she took it. 

MS: I would be definitely custard for less but using fire. So it's like fetish shows. So some of it would be that candle wax pouring. You would put that all over your body, you would take a little striptease, and everything was always pasties.

NR: ​Do people stop having sex when you would perform? Would they stop to watch you?

MS: When you do an actor, sex by a typically it's on before people folk. 

NR: What are some things you saw as you were performing up there?

MS: Seeing a train of people was pretty new to me. That was something that I will never forget. Because it was the first time I saw in my life and it was a train of guys going from a cage to another cage. Which I just thought was just f*cking incredible. So that in the audience is amazing. 

NR: What do you mean by a train?

MS: Have you ever seen the film Human Centipede?

NR: No, but I know what it’s about. So you mean like they're just like eating each other's ass?

MS:   except instead of with their mouth is with their d*ck. 

NR: Got it. And they’re just slowly making their way from a cage to another cage? 

MS: Yes. 

NR: How long does that take?

MS: It was luckily not that love was memorable. 

NR: It was just the audience activity that was memorable. The other acts that these events would book, you know the ones that went after Maria’s dance and fire act, would involve some pretty graphic penis play that, and I’m just warning you here, might make you cringe. 

MS:  called sounding Is that something that you've spoken about on your podcast yet? 

NR: I don’t think so. Can you say that again?

MS: Sounding. 

NR: No...what is that?

MS: Okay, f*ck bollocks.

NR: Why you don’t want to describe it or…

MS: If I'm bussing you sounding cherry, I am so sorry for your dreams you're gonna have this evening.

NR: It’s okay, Maria. I’ll do the honor of explaining to our listener what sounding is. Sounding or Urethral Sounding involves inserting an object or toy into the urethra, you know where people pee from. Their f*cking pee hole.

MS: My performer friend who uses sounding as part of his act, has been told by his gynecologist that he has to stop. This is why it's not okay. So what he'll do is he takes a metal rod of the gaseous with two, which is only barely capable for his d*ck to handle. And on the end of that metal rod, there is a wick, which he sets on fire, and he breathes fire from his mouth to his penis, and off to the ceiling. Why is this a problem? I don't hear you cry. But I'm assuming you're saying it. Why is this? Because he gets paraffin running down his penis into his deck. And that's where the issue is. So that is one of the acts which is like, wow, you need to stop doing that because you're literally causing problems for yourself. 

NR: Yeah, so Maria has kind of seen it all. 

NR: Having worked at these parties for a while now, Maria felt she was experienced enough to plan her own. She pitched some ideas to a company and they hired her to plan a party for about 150, 200 guests. It was exclusive and invite-only. This wouldn’t be a play party. No, this was going to be a sex party held at a four-story mansion. 

MS: on the ground floor, we had created this entire section from scratch, which we had had custom-built, which was a BDSM section. So we had all of this equipment created and designed with leather and just really like amazing, amazing products to be able to create this kit, we had a St Andrew's cross, we had a horse, one of those ones that you can bend over and get strapped into. We also had a cage we also had a glory hole that we had made, which was just amazing. Which was literally like, we'd create this board with a hole which would cut which was covered in this like leather fabric so that you could stick your deck or you could have another section where you can put it back into it. And then whoever's on the other side of the board, they can just flag. 

NR: That section was manned by a dungeon master and a dungeon mistress who looked after all of the glory hole glory. 

MS: there was this wonderful section that we turned into, which was six, six double beds, which were all laid out so that I think that we're actually king-sized beds six king-sized beds, which will all be laid out next to each other to create this massive bed, which we created with the princess Vale across the beds with fairy lights, as well like that at the end of the night just was absolutely Rexburg at the beginning of the night like gorgeous. 

NR: There was also the section for women-only, and there was also a dance room where people could also have sex.

MS: And then upstairs from that was like a circle bedroom, which was a more private area. So if you don't want to be f*cking downstairs at this big massive bed or on one of the seats, or in the BDSM place, or the dance room, or whatever, you can take your partner out for like this, like, it was fake candles, but like this candlelit area, which was more intimate. So it was only a few people that were allowed in there at a time. 

NR: While Maria was the ringleader of this kinky circus, she of course had a team of like-minded individuals who made sure the guests had all the tools they needed. 

MS: She was committed to making sure that there were condoms everywhere that there was lube everywhere. In fact, she went one step further, she was committed to making sure that everyone had Skittles as well as adorable. So she would go round and just make sure that everybody's got enough sugar and got enough water and everything. But yeah, that was one of the things that were super important, making sure that everyone was okay, make sure that everyone was safe. Which is why again, if you're f*cking around at your own party, you can't keep an eye on everything. You can't make sure that people are safe if you're being involved with that kind of thing. So one of the most important things for me was to make sure that I was up and down the staircase, making sure that everything was all right, making sure that the beds were put back together again. You know, things were safe for people to lean up against. Things. Which sounds like sounds almost like a little housekeeper. Level sex housekeeper.

NR: Being a sex housekeeper means seeing a lot of action. All sorts of people coming together. 

MS: You often say it at women on women guys on women guys on guys on women, plural. Probably one of my funniest latest moments was the one guy which is always great when you catch eyes with somebody that's going through a great experience, right? And this guy was sat down at this table it was one of the shows that's done at a sit-down dinner place. And he was getting your head off of this blonde and this brunette. And I just caught his eye and it was one of those moments of like, tip your hat, well done, friend. 

NR: Of course, keeping an eye on everyone also meant making sure everyone was on their best behavior. Maria and her team had sent out emails to the guests about their zero-tolerance policy and expected their guests to follow the rules. One of those rules, and probably the most important of them all, was asking for consent. Guests were required to ask for consent before trying anything with anyone. People who didn’t respect this rule were asked to leave. 

MS: There was one guy that we had to throw out without any question, you know, he was an absolute pest, and it was a problem.//He was very, very entitled. And that's the wrong attitude to have at that kind of party, you can't feel like just because you're there that you're entitled to a certain type of anything treatment or otherwise, you know, it's definitely down to the women or the men that are there and whether or not they want to do that with you. 

NR: Okay, before I ask you about the other parties you’ve put together before we move on, I have to ask you what the cleanup was like. 

MS: No, don't take away the magic. Please. Do you don't want to share? No, it's not. It's not very recovery. Alright, well, we'll just stick with the fantasy. Stick with the fantasy otherwise, no one will go.

NR: Maria’s second party was a bit more immersive than her first. She and her team decided on a “five senses” theme so touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste. They used the same mansion from before, except this time instead of being greeted with a dungeon guests were greeted with a naked woman with sushi laid out all over her body that you could eat off of. 

MS: And then when you are greeted by the hostess, you have got a little box in that box has got instructions for the event. in that box. There was a tie as well. Yeah, so it was like all the five senses. So there were edibles there, there was a moment where you had you know, we took elements of the blindfold experience and put it into that show, just because it was such a great concept. But it wouldn't stand up on its own at that scale. So it's taking that element and putting it into that event. So we had another moment where the blindfolding would go on as well. And kaki we had, like, we had like a whole different concept around the whole smell thing, which kind of flopped I'll tell you like one of the ideas that we had for which we didn't use, we were going to go ahead with having panties, which we sprayed with different scents and then the man had to go down on the woman and work out what the smell was everything like that. Because we were like struggling to think like okay, what do we do for smell? It's like, you know, there are only certain ways which you can get couples to interact in that way. But um, that one for me like absolutely the concept and the production of it. We leveled up from the last show, for sure. Everything was an experience. It was almost like one of those things that you get as, as like, I don't know, like an event out for a capo because you're like, I want to go to that Alice in Wonderland themed restaurant. Because you know, you've got walkabouts, and you get an experience. I wanted to create that. But for the kink scene, you know, something that you go and you're part of the event, like intrinsically part of the event. 

NR: Maria was involved in a couple more parties after that, all beautifully brought to life, and all with a heavy cleanup after. Then the pandemic happened, and as you know a lot of businesses were hit hard. Restaurants, spas, music venues, and, of course, sex parties. 

NR: So you guys switched from in-person to virtual during the pandemic. What was that like?

MS: Yeah, we did. It was awkward at first. How does that work? Yeah. It's kind of like you know, play at home with your friends with your partner and watch other people play at home and get turned on and play drinking games and do stuff that like.//I have if they wanted to use toys, they'd have to use what they already owned, we did have links to TOYS on the site. And we still do sorry. But that was definitely something that because the cost wasn't that high, because we want it to be conscious of the fact that, you know, when we started this Christ, you know, people were out of jobs and out of work. So it was very low budget. But it was certainly, you know, whatever you want to do to whatever level that you want to take, if you want to just be there with a glass of wine and watch, you can do that. Or if you want to. There was one girl that set up her webcam to point into her bathtub to which she had a door and the side of her bathtub with multiple different sizable dildos. And then throughout the night either starting but surely they would all end up in the bathtub.

NR: Soaking in your bathtub using your dildo collection while watching other people have sex—something you might not experience at an actual party—wasn’t the only perk of attending a virtual sex party. 

MS:  if nothing else, it's created that kind of like buffer, you know, like when you put the safety goes up when you're playing bowling is kind of like this. Safety buffers of the sex, sex party world, because you can go by you don't have to, like hang around if you don't want to, oh, say like halfway through the night, like, actually, I'd prefer a cup of tea and to watch Netflix, all you have to do close your laptop, you don't have to figure out how to say goodbye to this new couple that you've just met, you don't have to figure out how to, you know, climb off of somebody, or anything like that. You don't have to say any awkward goodbyes is literally just close the laptop, goodbye, I'm done. I'm gonna go stay in my dressing gown and get comfy with my slippers. But it was great in doing those home parties, actually, we found a whole new demographic of people that wouldn't have come to a sex party otherwise, which was really nice.

NR: Maria is already working on her first event post-pandemic. Like a lot of us, she spent a lot of the pandemic reflecting on her career and her relationship with sex. Like how she’s been exploring with women more since starting her event planning, and how she and her husband of 2 years promised each other to be open about any desire they have, big or small. It’s a relationship built off of trust, love, and an understanding that life, love, and pleasure can go so many different ways. Things like sex parties can exist, careers like Maria’s can happen, and marriages like hers can thrive.

MS: One of the things that we said when we first got together, not only did we do a pinky promise, we were going to be together forever, which was super cute. And then, you know, like, I think he promised this is it. We also as part of that promise, said that it's super grown-up ways. And, you know, we're never gonna say no to somebody else's desire or fantasy. You know, never knock somebody down before you try it. And because of that ethos, you know, part of running these sex parties, you know, like, I get to see something that I want to do a lot, you know, which is explore more play with women, which I love. I love I've got a big part of me. That's like, That's amazing. So that's it. the thing that we're doing. And that's something I don't want to say goodbye to just because I'm married. So luckily, I not only work at these parties, but I see different things at work and different things that don't work. So there's a lot of questions and, and concern and guidelines that really, really help. ensuring that your relationship, like the person that you're in a full-time relationship with, is happy and comfortable. Because it's not a selfish act. It's taking two and sometimes three, sometimes four reviews.

NR: Maria, thank you so much for speaking with me. 

MS: Thank you so much. And thank you for your time and for having me on your podcast. 

NR: You can follow Maria and her adventures on Instagram at maria dot antonia, A-N-T-O-N-I-A dot stavrou, S-T-A-V-R-O-U

NR: Thank you for listening to How I F*ck. If you like our podcast, give us a rating, leave us a review. Tell a friend. And please, subscribe if you haven’t already. Follow us on Instagram or Twitter, our handles are at howickpodcast, that’s “How I F*ck,” without the “u” so “fck.” We also have a website, howifckpodcast.com, again without the “u.” There you can find all of our episodes as well as show notes, transcriptions, sources, and photos. How I F*ck is produced by me, Natalie Rivera. I’m also the host and creator. Ben Quiles is our audio engineer. Shyanne Lopez did copy and fact check. Original music by Miguel Gutierrez. You can find more of his music online under the artist name Magh. Thank you again for listening. Until next time.