Jamaica's Hedonism II can't be as risque as they say . . . can it?

Publish date: 2024-08-16

Sodom is in full bloom.

The palms dance over the beach in necklaces of bougainvillea and hibiscus. The garden walls are capstoned with Technicolor blossoms, any one of which would look at home on a glass of rum punch. The air over the sand is shot through with white morning sun, but under the trees it is dappled and cool. It's a garden of earthly delights, this whispering cove on Jamaica's western tip. Every vine is lush, every breeze a caress, every bloom a new waft of tropical perfume.

It's mellow. And I'm just beginning to think that the Hedonism II resort is more lovely than lively when the lady in the uniform tells me to take my pants off.

"Uhhhhhh," I stammer.

"Come on, mon," says the woman, a smiling but earnest young Jamaican dressed in staff whites. "This is not a clothing-optional beach. This is a nude beach and if you're going to be here, you've got to remove your trunks.

I repeat myself, just to be clear: "Uhhhhhh."

I've faced down a few authoritarian figures in my career. But somehow, being told to strip nekkid by the hotel management is more unnerving than any of the police or border guards I've met from Cuba to Cambodia. I mumble some arguments: I'm worried about unprecedented exposure to the sun. I've fallen behind on my push-ups. I won't have any place to keep my spare pen. Please, lady, I'm a working journalist here!

She crosses her arms.

And so, with muttered curses at the editor who sent me, I drop my objections . . . and my shorts. Protected from the tropical sun by nothing but a notebook, the First Amendment and half a bottle of No. 1 Million sun block, I set out to conduct my first-ever textile-free interviews.

My assignment: First, find out if Hedonism II -- the Caribbean's reputed seat of hard-drinking, anything-goes, sex-drugs-and-reggae wickedness -- is really as risque as they say. Second, make sure my mother-in-law never, ever sees this article.

I had never heard of Hedonism before a press release from the resort crossed my desk a few months ago. Its slogan -- "Be Wicked for a Week" -- seemed a little more pointed than the usual "Let-the-Waves-Sooth-Your-Soul" boilerplate of most hotels, so I asked around. It turned out that Hedonism is a resort with a rep: a sort of all-inclusive Roman orgy, where the people are naked, the drugs ubiquitous and Sex-on-the-Beach is more than the name of a cocktail. The place has such a bad rap that some travel agents reportedly will not even book clients there.

"It can't be all that bad," said I. "Go find out," said the editor.

And so here I am, an hour into my first day at Hedonism and already stripped of my Speedos and my dignity, wondering when the authorities are going to come down on me for public indecency. Oh wait. Here they hassle you if you're not naked. I try to relax.

But it turns out that nudity loves company, and after a few minutes I'm able to mingle more or less casually along the waterline, where people wearing nothing at all are busily staking out the best beach chairs. It's not long since the last of the all-night partyers fled from the dawn and gave over the beach to the first sun worshipers. Now, flotillas of the latter drift on mats, arms outstretched, not a strap or a string between them and the Caribbean sun.

Around the adjacent pool, almost every chaise longue is occupied by a bare bottom. Behind the swim-up bar, a clatter of activity finally produces the day's first whir of a blender. That, and the abrupt burp of syncopated calypso from the bar's sound system, are calls to action for the half-dozen naked people milling in the waist-deep water, who suddenly converge on the bar like a pack of piranhas. A middle-aged, lawyerly looking man wearing an expensive watch and nothing else eases into the water, careful not to splash the small pipe and lighter in his hand. He lights and puffs as he wades over to the bar and the ripe scent of marijuana smoke drifts over the pool.

This is Hedonism stretching its arms and stirring for another day in the life of Gomorrah.

So far, though, I don't feel in any danger of turning into a pillar of salt. Mostly everyone is just talking, a placid crowd of decidedly average naked people, black, white, tattoos, Rolexes. Some are thin, most are not. It's the kind of scene you might see at a company picnic if Casual Friday policies ever go too far.

"The real action usually cranks up about 4 or 5 in the afternoon," says Steve, a mortgage broker from Washington state, who -- like most Hedonism guests interviewed for this story -- asked that his last name not be used. "That's when the exhibitionists have had enough to drink to really get going."

He and his wife, Laura, have been here for a week, and they haven't left the resort once. Most of the time they've spent in two lounge chairs planted in the shallow end. As he speaks, I watch a forty-something redhead plant an enormous fake penis on the bar as she orders a Red Stripe beer. She doesn't explain. I don't ask. I'm the only one taking notes, which makes me feel like the weirdo.

By 11, a line has formed at the slushy machine that dispenses frozen daiquiris. Valerie, a 22-year-old waitress from Southern California, surveys the scene of building depravity. She faces the third day of her first trip to Hedonism with a mix of anticipation and worry. Her standards of behavior, she says, have been steadily fading -- along with her tan lines -- since she checked in.

"So far I haven't done anything I can't tell my boyfriend about," she says, a bit groggy from a night at the disco. "But I still have four more days."

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What she's done so far barely registers on the Hedonism scale of naughtiness and nudity: a little topless volleyball, a lot of bikini-free beach time, smoking some of the pot (which she says she doesn't do at home) that is easily bought from boats floating just off the beach. That's it. Okay, she did let one guy lick beer off her naked body to the whoops of the poolside crowd. Oh, and she did find herself frankly enthralled by an X-rated public display of affection one night in the infamous "grotto," a swim-in cave attached to the nude pool. But that's really all. So far.

"I couldn't help but watch," she says, marveling at her own hidden brazen depths. "It's like Temptation Island here. They keep you coming back for more and more things you would never do at home."

And come back they do -- 10, 20, sometimes 40 times. Hedonism II -- or Hedo, as its regulars call it -- has built the most loyal following of any all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean, drawing a repeat-visitor rate of 40 percent compared with a regional average of less than 20 percent, according to the hotel's statistics. There are hundreds of "repeaters" who book the same weeks every year, joining the same group of revelers. They form formal tribes with names ("Bubbly Bares," "Pirates of the Caribbean"), dues, newsletters, Web sites and even off-season reunions back in the States. Few clubs without Greek letters in their names offer such opportunities for organized, regularly scheduled revelry.

"People come to give up their adult responsibilities for a few days and act like kids again," says Chris Santilli, a Chicago-based writer who penned a guidebook called "The Naked Truth about Hedonism II" and has made 32 trips there, spending the equivalent of nearly a year at the resort. "It's like a cult. Not a sicko cult, just a little perverse."

Certainly, walking into Hedonism is like entering some forbidden compound where the normal rules of society have been suspended: It's an enclave of luxury amid the surrounding poverty of Jamaica, a place where the cash economy doesn't apply (unlimited food and booze are included in the daily rate) and where the most fundamental law of public appearance -- wearing clothes -- has been repealed. Taken together, it's no wonder that many visitors to Hedonism report letting themselves go in ways they would consider appalling anywhere else.

It's not the heat -- it's the nudidity.

"They've abolished the usual boundaries," says a psychologist from Atlanta who goes by the name Lady Jane while at Hedonism with her husband, the Captain. She's thought a lot about why otherwise "straight" people find it so easy here to replace their inhibitions with nothing but lots of extra sunscreen. "They've created conditions that let you express parts of yourself that you normally keep hidden."

And how. The day before, Lady Jane and the Captain gave an S&M demo at the nude pool. And now the hotel's own entertainment staff is leading a set of poolside resort games you would never find on a Carnival cruise.

First, they solicit volunteers for a round of Find Your Mate, in which blindfolded women try to identify their partners by groping a lineup of naked men. That will be followed by some bellybutton beer tasting. And in the meantime, they remind the crowd about the fake orgasm contest to be held after lunch in the dining room. And these are just the official activities.

I look around for my long-deserted shorts, deciding to spend some time where clothing isn't optional.

Hedonism is divided into the Nude Side and the Prude Side, which features less-expensive rooms and its own pool, hot tub and beach. The two sides are joined by a common open-air dining room (clothing required) and a disco (with "clothing" required but loosely defined; topless dancing is common as the night progresses). Hedo also offers the usual set of resort amenities: boat dock, scuba diving, tennis courts, logo shop, etc. Both nude and prude guests are free to cross over whenever they like, and the two sides mingle at meals and various resort-wide gatherings, most notably at weekly toga and pajama parties (where the nudes delight in shocking the prudes with togas that cover nothing but their shoulders).

Surprisingly, it is the prude side that is known as a singles hot spot, with twenty- and thirty-something men earnestly pursuing the available single females. Nude-side guests, on the other hand, tend to be about 20 years older (average age: 48), are more likely to be traveling with a spouse or partner, and are typically less fit than the harder-bodied youngsters on the prude side.

"I find it interesting that the people with the best bodies are over on that side," says Valerie, an exception to the general rule that younger people stay dressed.

By late afternoon, activity around the nude pool and beach has built. A dive boat from the nearby Sandals resort slows to a near idle as it passes Hedonism (the nude beach is itself a local tourist attraction). For the most part, it's still largely a scene of naked folks clustered in small groups, wading about the pool, noshing on jerked chicken from the grill. But Steve from Washington state reports that an hour earlier, one couple was frolicking on a raft just offshore as people on the beach cheered them on. And then he nods toward to a couple locked in a close clench in the whirlpool; only their heads and shoulders are visible above the churning water. "They've been going at it for about 20 minutes now," he says proudly, shading his eyes from the westerly sun. "I'd say it's turning out to be a moderately active day."

Well. Ha ha. Ahem. Now I understand why everyone is wearing sunglasses. I decide this would not be the time to request an interview. Instead, I take a keen interest in the clouds drifting overhead.

Nothing defines Hedonism so much as its reputation for open, casual sex. Officially, the resort prohibits public sexual activity. But the rules against it are more like speed limits than flat restrictions. "We're not going to let them have sex in the dining room," says General Manager Joseph Smith, a youthful Jamaican with an MBA who seems more entertained than offended by the frolics of his guests. "But at 2 a.m. in some isolated corner, living out their tropical fantasy, we're more lenient."

Two a.m.? It was more like tea time when I first got an eyeful. And the scene I saw at midnight around the hot tub would have made Caligula blush: three separate couples cavorting on lounge chairs with an audience attending.

But both Smith and Hedo regulars say the level of free sex is nothing close to the excesses implied by the resort's reputation. Further, they insist that most sexual contact -- at least in public -- is between spouses and partners. Authentic, partner-swapping swingers do frequent Hedo (and if someone sidles up to you in the pool and asks "Do you play?" they're not talking about cribbage). But they come mainly in organized groups during specific weeks in January, July and October. Otherwise, in spite of the nudity and the sexually charged tropical atmosphere, the normal rules of dating and mating apply, which means most of the single men who arrive in the hope of easy conquests leave disappointed.

"Look, women are princesses here and they can get whatever they want," says Santilli. "And I have seen men, even homely men, have incredible adventures. But that's not the rule. It's really not about sex. You make lifelong friends here. Being naked on the beach at Hedonism makes you a nicer person."

For the resort's part, owners are happy to continue capitalizing on Hedo's wicked, lucrative reputation. In fact, they're planning a $5 million upgrade that will include a rock-climbing wall, an artificial ice-skating rink and -- here's the Hedo touch -- a water slide through the new disco, which will have a roof made up of four glass-bottom hot tubs.

Officially, bathing suits will be required in those tubs, but Smith knows what to expect. "I'm quite sure our guests will bend that rule," he says with a delighted grin. He would have made a rotten junior high school principal.

"We're not the Holiday Inn here, you know."

Hedonism II is in Negril, Jamaica, about a two-hour bumpy drive from the Montego Bay airport (a small-plane shuttle that makes the one-way trip in 15 minutes is available for about $60 a person). Rates for the summer begin at $245 a night per person, which includes all food and drinks, including unlimited alcohol. Fall rates drop to $215 a night in early September. Info: 877-467-8737, www.superclubs.com/brand_hedonism.

Above, Hedonism II guests get wrapped -- and unwrapped -- at one of the Jamaican resort's weekly toga and pajama parties. Below, a snorkeling lesson.At Hedonism II in Negril, Jamaica, the Party Queen anoints King Studmuffin.The adult resort lets singles act like kids, swinging from a trapeze.

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Jamaica's Hedonism II can't be as risque as they say . . . can it?