All Aboard the Murder Mystery Yacht Orgy

BOBBING AT A DOCK SOMEWHERE IN L.A. COUNTY, the main salon of a 100-foot yacht is packed shoulder-to-shoulder with fifty partiers in crimson crushed-velvet gowns, sheer slipdresses, and tuxes. After discreetly climbing aboard — the ship’s owners don’t want their vessel publicly associated with tonight’s event  — they’ve left their phones and their government identities at the door.

Their noms de guerre are written in sharpie on nametags attached to their costumes: “Ram Dat-ASS,” “Dr. Pierce N. Boundrys,” and “Detective Inspect-Her-Cunt.” On this boat, they are gold mine heiresses, assassins, detectives. Out in the “real world,” they are medical professionals, screenwriters, actors, and elementary school teachers.

They’re here, in part, for a murder mystery cruise. The setup is that the boat’s owner, the heiress “Genevieve Evening,” died at sea exactly one year ago, and the guests are supposed to find her will and her murderer’s identity. But the whodunnit is something of an afterthought compared to the night’s true purpose.

“Who here likes to fuck raw?” Diego Share asks the group, getting a few wolf whistles in reply. “That’s too bad! Cause you’re not gonna do it here.”

This murder mystery cruise is also a “play party”: a longstanding and increasingly popular tradition for participants in “the Lifestyle” or “LS.” It’s a place for swingers, kinksters, the consensually nonmonogamous, and the simply curious to have a night out and, yes, have sex with each other.

“If it’s not a fuck yes, it’s a no,” Share tells the group. A “no” can manifest as dodging eye contact, or even a too-long pause. In whatever form it arrives, Share tells the group that the correct response to rejection is “thank you for taking care of yourself.”

Share (26, queer + polyamorous, Encino, a kink-friendly therapist IRL) is the harm reduction specialist on duty for the cruise. They’re responsible for delivering the “consent talk” and mediating any potential naked/vulnerable miscommunications — an essential worker at any responsible play party. 

“Play parties in L.A. bump it to such another level because it's L.A.,” Share told me. While the LS scene isn’t unique to this city, L.A.’s nature as a hub of creatives, seekers, and storytellers can give it extra flair.

Some L.A. play parties are casual IYKYK affairs at a mansion in the hills owned by a host with a hot tub and a dream. Others are organized and ticketed, with a vetted crowd and some over-the-top fanfare. The Play, the club organizing tonight’s event, is the latter — the group describes itself on its website as a “a private, members driven cultural ecosystem where intimacy, creativity, and human connection are explored as living art.” Admission requires an application, interview, a clean STI bill of health, and an NDA.

A handsome man in a tux, his topknot of dreads artfully askew, takes the mic. This is Michael Hollice (37, heteroflexible, Baldwin Hills), the founder of The Play. Hollice welcomes the group and introduces a singer, who performs a rendition of Ella Fitzgerald’s Summertime accompanied by a man playing a Lucite piano. Then he raises a toast, takes a sip, and pretends to die of poisoning.

Hollice, whose sister is an assistant coach for the Lakers, came up with the idea for The Play after observing a certain lack of ceremony in the LS party scene. “Think about it: For birthdays we have cake, we sing. For weddings there are vows,” Hollice said. “Why aren’t we doing something like that for play parties?”

Since 2018, his parties have ballooned from 30-person affairs to 250-person festivals. “The Play’s thing is no phones, no money, no hierarchy,” said Hollice, though the party does cost money to attend: $140 for a woman, $250 for a non-binary person, and $340 for a man. Venues are donated by members of the community, many of whom are eager to host.

Themes also shape the experience. At the rodeo-themed party, there was a “frisky farm” where people enjoyed pet play (pretending to be an animal) and butt-plug ring toss. The annual Ren Faire party boasts a seven-acre mini-town, complete with a “shibari forest” showcasing the Japanese art of rope bondage, a knight-themed impact play station (think men in suits of armor with floggers and paddles), and a full-on mythic quest. Tonight’s murder mystery yacht party took over a month and a half to develop — it’s the club’s second party at sea, last year’s maiden voyage having won Party Of The Year at The 2025 Play Awards. 

The boat pulls away from the dock for a brisk hourlong sunset spin around the marina. An open bar slings stainless steel glasses of Barefoot Wine, Grey Goose with mixers, and hard seltzer. A harried chef with eyelids at half mast slings out canapés that remain largely untouched at first, but after a little cardio, people will really tear in.

The action typically unfolds out in the open, but due to the configuration of the vessel, it’s going down in the cabins. In each room, the air is humid and vaguely gym-scented. Couples wrestle, grunt, and moan adjacently. The pianist gets head. Between positions, a woman adjusts a knee brace. Another goes down on a woman while two men straddle her face. Bathroom counters are appointed with bowls of condoms, lube, and Cottonelle wipes. Nobody seems to mind the lack of hand soap.

Regulars see these parties as unique canvases for self-expression and community. “I always think of this quote: ‘Kink is the joy of childhood play with the privilege of adult sexuality,” said “Katya Dikov” (29, bisexual, Westchester), creative strategist by day and dominatrix by night. Compared to the regimented dungeon environment she’s used to, she finds these spaces to be fluid, choose-your-own-adventure playgrounds: Be an exhibitionist, a voyeur, a brat, a sub, swap partners, or get in touch with your inner child. 

“Delphine Montclair” (30, bisexual, Mid-Wilshire) appreciates how people show up to The Play’s parties with a costume and persona, becoming bolder versions of their street selves. She and partner “Atticus Montgomery Beauregard” (58, straight, Mid-Wilshire) — describing themselves as “monogamish” partners, not married — came for the thrill of being watched, but stayed for the “playful, artistic intimacy” of the experience, free from the “shame, expectations, and conformity” imposed by society. 

“Atticus” was in a marriage that left him feeling “trapped” when he met “Delphine.” “I know I’m not made to be with one person,” he said, recalling that he had never been faithful to a spouse. “But I’m also at a different stage where I understand who I am now.” 

The Play’s Discord server acknowledges 12 different relationship structures and eight different sexualities, and the community often draws parallels to queer culture. People often ask each other if they’re “out” to friends and family. Hollice told L.A. Material that 62% of The Play’s community doesn’t even identify as “straight,” encompassing labels like heteroflexible, pansexual, bisexual, demisexual, or bicurious.

“Queer people have been throwing [play parties] since the dawn of time,” Hollice said. But in spite of the club’s majority non-straight clientele, Hollice clarified that he’s “not throwing a queer party.”

Despite the perception of willy-nilly plural relationships, many couples in the LS scene maintain some form of traditional commitment to each other, participating in the scene together as a bonding experience. That’s the goal for “Camille Laurent” (35, bisexual, San Diego) and “Ser Ignacius Whoredini” (46, straight, Marina Del Rey), who describe themselves as “emotionally monogamous.” As the tech professional/ aspiring magician told L.A. Material over a card trick, “Whoredini” introduced the idea of play parties on the couple’s first date a year ago, and they now attend together.

“We tend to prioritize women,” Whoredini said when asked who he and his partner are seeking out at parties. He told us that solo bisexual women who play with both members of a (mostly) heterosexual couple — sometimes known in the LS community as “unicorns” — are a priority “for us and everyone else there, I think.”

Take Paige (33, pansexual, Santa Monica), known on this cruise as “The Ghost” (murder victim thrown overboard, now haunts the boat), who is attending solo. She was drawn to these parties as liberating, consent-driven spaces for racking up adventures that she could look back on fondly in old age. 

“I cried,” she told L.A. Material, recalling an eye contact intimacy exercise from her first party that left her feeling overwhelmed. “It was about being perceived, and I couldn’t escape the moment.”

Paige has enjoyed playing with couples at parties, but also feels the tensions of wading into pre-existing relationship dynamics. “Is it toxic heteronormativity to assume I should default to interacting with the female partner, under some assumption that she was pushed into this?” she wondered to me. Sometimes, she said, doling out pleasure between members of a partnership feels sexy, edgy, or even sweet. But other times the triangulated dynamic makes the unicorn feel pressure to diminish herself, prove she’s not a threat, and politely hook up even without feeling a full-chested “fuck yes.”

And yet, with its ethics of over-communication and directness, some find play parties to be a refreshing antidote to the digital dating markets: Paige told me that the “safe container” of these events can offer a “quick reset/ validation” following a “post-app meetup rejection.” Partnered or not, a point of agreement among several cruisers was that trying to meet someone in Los Angeles required its own kind of masochism. “The veneer over the dating pool of men in Los Angeles is so self-serving,” “Montclair” said. “If you can stay away, stay away,” echoed “Laurent.”

“It’s harder to navigate relationships in L.A. for many reasons,” Share agreed. “The entertainment industry, social media culture, and trying to ‘make it’ promotes functioning at such intense levels of performance, which can get in the way of real intimacy.”

It’s just past midnight — now officially Easter Sunday — and the moon beams down its spotlight on the boat of revelers in various states of undress. Hollice, in a Phantom of the Opera mask, dances cheek-to-cheek with “The Widow,” who according to the storyline had thrown herself overboard in a fit of hysterical guilt earlier in the evening. A rhythmic liquid slapping echoes in the night. It’s not the waves against the boat.

Arielle Dachille is a Los Angeles-based writer, journalist, and branded content creative fascinated by modern intimacy, internet culture, and the communities people build on society's margins. Invite her to your house party, and she will be the first to arrive and last to leave. Follow her on Instagram at @marcusariellius.