318 Minutes With …Daniel Saynt

The upmarket-sex-club entrepreneur invited me to his Easter—sorry, Eostre—orgy.

- By Brock Colyar. Photography by Phillip Friedman

ON THE NIGHT before Easter, dressed in the closest approximation I could throw together of Gloria Steinem when she went undercover to write about being a Playboy Bunny in 1963, I showed up at NSFW (that would be the New Society for Wellness) sex quarters for an upscale holiday orgy, costumes encouraged. The invite had read, “Long before Easter became synonymous with the return of Christ, it was the festival of Eostre, a Germanic goddess of the dawn. A celebration for the return of the sun, the festival is noted for signs of birth. Bunnies, eggs, and chickies are a common sign of this equinox celebration”— in other words, a bunch of things I’d never really associated with the idea of a sex party, which for me calls to mind dank basements, a decidedly mixed cast of too-handsy men, and a certain smell I’d rather not describe. So nothing I’d associate with Easter, what with its Peeps, bonnets, and Cadbury eggs.

Founded by 39-year-old Daniel Saynt, who grew up in the Bronx as a Jehovah’s Witness, NSFW has for years now touted itself as a “private social club for the open and adventurous.” Horndog journalists love to write about it: Harper’s Bazaar once called it the “SoulCycle of sex.” “I came out as bisexual, then realized there weren’t really spaces for bisexuals,” Saynt tells me. “I wanted a place where I could fuck my girlfriend and suck my boyfriend’s cock at the same time.” (Most sex parties in the city tend to be strictly straight or strictly gay.)