April 2018 Issue #6 Issue #6 April 2018 B4Y | Page 47

What is that like? Chaos? Organized chaos! The pool parties are amazing. In the summertime, the pool is full – 40 people tossing around beach balls at midnight. It’s glorious and beautiful that time of night. Everybody makes friends. Some people are shy, but we have a social hour every night to try and introduce people and help them get to know each other. There’s this really great energy at the resort all day long when we’re sold out. It’s why so many come back. ‘There’s confusion in the marketplace that clothing-optional equals sex vacation’ I wanted to bust some myths around clothing-optional resorts… There’s a lot of confusion. Bathhouse-style resorts, where you’re not really paying for the room, you’re paying for the sexual activity: that’s not us. The majority of gay resorts in Palm Springs are not that way. But because there are three prominent re- sorts that are; that have day passes, and their average stay might be 45 minutes… Our guests sometimes stay 45 days! There’s confusion in the marketplace that clothing-optional equals sex vacation. It couldn’t be further from the truth. If someone’s looking for that, we’re happy to refer them. We want people to come and be happy. But I don’t want someone to come to a sex resort and think we’re all like that anymore than I want someone coming to my hotel looking for a sex resort and being disappointed. ‘There’s no ageism that I see’ Is it a myth that it’s mainly older guys who stay? It’s guys of all ages, but it does skew to a higher age level. That’s primarily because guys who are older have a little more money. They’ll have more time away from work, or if they’re retired, they can come and stay for a long time. We have plenty who check in for more than a month. Guys in their 20s take weekends off and drive here from LA and San Diego; if they’re going to come for a full week, it’s a big part of the vacation budget they get every year. So financially, it drives the age higher. But men of all ages enjoy being around other gay men on vacation. 47