A class act | 10 January 2019

The English love a story of posh people behaving badly, especially one that involves sex, drugs or drink — preferably all three at once — in some stately home or Mayfair pad. In 1963, following the Profumo scandal (yes, the one involving Christine Keeler) the nation was gripped by tales of sex parties involving prostitutes, pimps, peers and cabinet ministers. And then there was the infamous photograph of the Duchess of Argyll with something in her mouth that definitely wasn’t a silver spoon. The Denning Report — Lord Denning’s 1963 inquiry into what he referred to as ‘perverted sex parties’ — was a smash hit, selling more than 4,000 copies in the first hour of its publication.

‘VIP sex parties’ have been back in the news more recently, following the murder of Tudor Simionov. He was a bouncer who was stabbed to death by gatecrashers outside one such party on New Year’s Eve. No one is sure if the Park Lane party really was awash with posh people getting up to no good, but the event was linked to ‘Lord’ Edward Davenport. Davenport has denied the claim, but as soon as his name popped up, the story of the dead 33-year-old Simionov, who had come to this country from Romania with his fiancée in order to make a better life, was pushed aside for that old favourite: posh decadence behind closed doors.

Davenport is the man responsible for creating and successfully marketing the concept of the posh sex party that is also open to the public — at least the wealthier end of it. Till Davenport appeared, sex parties were seen as suburban affairs for young middle-class swingers, bonk-mad baby boomers and druggy pop stars in cool pads in Sussex Gardens. Davenport made the sex party upmarket by giving it a veneer of class: thanks to Eddie, one could poke with the posh.