# Did key parties actually exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 26, 2014, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326 "2014-02-26T16:27:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![2gigch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/2gigch1/32/3313_2.png) [@2gigch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2gigch1)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/41 "2014-02-28T15:13:39Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I attended something a little beyond key parties a few times in NYC. It was in the late 70s, in a same-sex after-hours club. Everyone was given a key ring on which to attach their keys and hankies (you do know about the [hanky code](http://flaggingopinicusrampant.wordpress.com/hanky-code/) (TMI/NSFW), don’t you?) So when you picked someone’s keys, you also got the hankies, determining what the couple would do. I, being colorblind, am frightened beyond belief at reading that website. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/42 "2014-02-28T16:01:26Z")
Puce is a color? Celery seems safe enough. Someone buys you brunch. I like brunch. The “my little pony” will get you flagged as a child molester. Combining electrical tape and a teddy bear gets you an introduction to FBI agents, with dark red hankies worn on the left, trying to solve a child kidnapping. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/43 "2014-02-28T16:34:03Z")
(Mentally picturing clown pulling out the endless string of multi-colored hankies tied together, while smiling and nodding suggestively.) ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/44 "2014-02-28T19:05:50Z")
In the beginning, the hanky code was very useful, and only involved the more common acts that most of us engaged in. But you know gay guys, we couldn’t just be serious about a thing like that. So guys were constantly adding tongue-in-cheek colors (and other objects) to the list. So most of the more extreme things were added just for humor. Not necessarily that nobody ever did those things, though. 😉 Oh, and to add to the confusion, guys on the East Coast used the opposite pocket as guys on the West Coast. I guess going home with someone in the “Heartland” could involve some serious surprises! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/45 "2014-02-28T19:30:42Z")
> [@](#): > > So guys were constantly adding tongue-in-cheek colors (and other objects) (And other things in cheek) ---
**Author:** ![LarkingPot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bcef8e/32.png) [@LarkingPot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LarkingPot)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/46 "2014-02-28T19:36:09Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > The fact that he doesn’t consider teenage gossip about the sex other people are supposedly having to be verification of the sex those other people are actually having does not mean that his standards of verification are unrealistically high. On the contrary, it means that they are not abysmally low. > > “When I was a teenager living in a college town I used to hear that some of the profesors there had key parties” is definitely not verification that key parties ever happened. A statement from someone who actually participating in the key parties would be a different matter. Actually it isn’t. Given the stuff that people regularly fall for on the Internet, there is no reason to believe someone who comes flouncing in and grandly announces, “Well, back in the '70’s my wife and I moved to a new apartment complex. We’d both always been opened minded…blah blah blah.” And I’m curious as to why you purport to speak for **Czarcasm**? I would guess that he’s a big boy now and can speak for and stick up for himself, but that impression looks to be wrong. And more broadly EVERYBODY’s burden/definition of valid/certified proof is going to be different. The fact that the key party scene in The Ice Storm wasn’t a garagantuan, huge or even tiny shock to either the nation or wider world at large is evidence and proof enough for many including those who grew up in the 70’s like me that key parties were an actual thing that has taken place in the past and continues to take place, of course with various differences as time passes. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/47 "2014-02-28T20:29:24Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It’s indicative that these things are called “wife swaps”, and not “husband swaps”. Interesting. ---
**Author:** ![tim-n-va](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim-n-va/32/3001_2.png) [@tim-n-va](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim-n-va)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/48 "2014-02-28T20:46:16Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > I don’t think anyone doubts that swingers parties exist. They do. But key parties in particular seem like an unwieldy way to do it. Probably but if you have a group of people willing to “indulge”, the randomness of the pairing via keys could be less stressful than almost any other way which could leave someone “last picked”. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/49 "2014-02-28T21:07:58Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > You were supposed to take the wife home??? Damn, I was happy just to drive a new 911 Porsche or Pontiac Trans Am for the evening. It woul be just my luck to end up with the Yugo. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/50 "2014-02-28T21:36:10Z")
> [@LarkingPot](#): > > The fact that the key party scene in The Ice Storm wasn’t a garagantuan, huge or even tiny shock to either the nation or wider world at large is evidence and proof enough for many including those who grew up in the 70’s like me that key parties were an actual thing that has taken place in the past and continues to take place, of course with various differences as time passes. No, it’s evidence that stories of such shenanigans had been going around since the 70s, and so showing an instance of those shenanigans in a movie set in the 70s didn’t shock anyone. The movie didn’t introduce the trope to the public, the trope had been around for decades. Like, if you made a movie with soldiers getting back from Vietnam, and hippies were waiting at the airport to spit on them, that wouldn’t confuse anyone because everyone is familiar with the trope of hippies spitting on Vietnam vets. That doesn’t mean it such things actually happened regularly. Or at all. It just means that this was a story that was going around at the time, and says more about the people who repeated the story than it does about actual hippies, or Vietnam vets, or airports. So key party stories go around, not necessarily because everyone was having key parties, but because they liked telling and hearing stories about key parties. Did you hear what those hedonists are up to? Isn’t it shocking? Isn’t it horrible? Isn’t it delightful? What other horrible, disgusting, interesting things do these people do? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/51 "2014-02-28T21:46:00Z")
Allan Sherman (the funny song guy – “Camp Grenada” and many others) in his book _The Rape of the A_P_E_, wrote about it as an actual social phenomenon. It had a name (which I can’t now recall – it was the name of a town) and was featured in a song. Sherman was a pal of Hugh Hefner’s, and a frequent guest at the Mansion, so you’d think he knew whereof he spoke. But I can’t back it up with anything more definite than that. - The titular _A_P_E_ was the _American Puritan Ethic_. Sherman’s book was a long, humorous history of the loosening of American Sexual mores in the first 3/4 of the 20th century. Worth a read, if you can find a copy. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/52 "2014-02-28T22:42:40Z")
> [@LarkingPot](#): > > And I’m curious as to why you purport to speak for **Czarcasm**? I would guess that he’s a big boy now and can speak for and stick up for himself, but that impression looks to be wrong. Sorry, but I didn’t know I was supposed to be following your every posting. Anyway, to answer your question- what he said. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/53 "2014-02-28T22:44:52Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Allan Sherman (the funny song guy – “Camp Grenada” and many others) in his book _The Rape of the A_P_E_, wrote about it as an actual social phenomenon. It had a name (which I can’t now recall – it was the name of a town) and was featured in a song. Sherman was a pal of Hugh Hefner’s, and a frequent guest at the Mansion, so you’d think he knew whereof he spoke. But I can’t back it up with anything more definite than that. > > - The titular _A_P_E_ was the _American Puritan Ethic_. Sherman’s book was a long, humorous history of the loosening of American Sexual mores in the first 3/4 of the 20th century. Worth a read, if you can find a copy. It’s one of my top ten books for re-reading. ---
**Author:** ![Linden\_Arden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/53a042/32.png) [@Linden\_Arden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linden_Arden)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2014, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/54 "2014-03-01T02:06:33Z")
My wife and I were swingers 1988-2005ish until we got old. We never, ever encountered a key party. I think they are mostly fiction. Why? The reason is simple. If you are top couple why risk chance? Why not have your choice and let the others scramble? ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2014, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/55 "2014-03-01T02:22:00Z")
Everyone keeps talking about key parties and the 1970s, but I’m pretty sure I saw references to key parties in copies of _Mad_ magazine in the 1960s too. ---
**Author:** ![wellanuff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@wellanuff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wellanuff)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2014, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/56 "2014-03-01T04:11:40Z")
> [@faithfool](#): > > Now, what about the celery? For Og’s sake, let’s not forget about the _celery_!!! 😛 Perhaps it’s for sex with celerity. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2014, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/57 "2014-03-01T04:44:47Z")
> [@faithfool](#): > > Duh me. \< smack \> > > Now, what about the celery? For Og’s sake, let’s not forget about the _celery_!!! 😛 [I think it’s to make the underwear come off easier, or something.](http://www.lileks.com/institute/frahm/) ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/58 "2014-03-02T09:20:34Z")
> [@faithfool](#): > > Now, what about the celery? For Og’s sake, let’s not forget about the _celery_!!! 😛 Some people may have mistaken it for celibacy . . . not a frequent occurrence back then. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/59 "2014-03-02T13:31:39Z")
> [@Linden\_Arden](#): > > My wife and I were swingers 1988-2005ish until we got old. We never, ever encountered a key party. I think they are mostly fiction. > > Why? The reason is simple. If you are top couple why risk chance? Why not have your choice and let the others scramble? A friend of mine with connections to the lifestyle mentioned something similar to this when we were watching a movie set in the 70s which featured a Key Party - basically, an important factor in swinging was you were supposed to be comfortable with the other person and generally wanted to have at least _some_ idea who they were, and being able to politely say “No thanks” is a fundamental rule. Randomly picking keys out of a bowl doesn’t strike me as conducive to that. Personally, I’ve always figured Key Parties were in the same category as the “Jelly Bracelet Code” - an urban legend or incredibly rare event blown out of proportion to create a moral panic. That’s not to say no-one anywhere has ever held a Key Party, but like most of the other posters in this thread I doubt they were a widespread thing in the 70s (or any other era). ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326/60 "2014-03-02T16:23:36Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Personally, I’ve always figured Key Parties were in the same category as the “Jelly Bracelet Code” - an urban legend or incredibly rare event blown out of proportion to create a moral panic. That’s not to say no-one anywhere has ever held a Key Party, but like most of the other posters in this thread I doubt they were a widespread thing in the 70s (or any other era). Jelly Bracelet parties are real. I have a friend whose younger sister recently graduated high school on Long Island, and he claims she said these things really happen. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-key-parties-actually-exist/682326.md?page=4)