There Was A Gangbang Next Door And I Heard It All

This is my first time to Louisiana. In fact, my first time ever to the south. I’m working on a film in a rather wayward town (although I hear it’s technically a city, Louisiana’s capital, in fact) named Baton Rouge. The filming is taking place a little outside of Baton Rouge but most of us cast and crew are being put up in a hotel in the “city.”

For the most part, I am embracing the fried chicken and strip-mall side of life—as much as one can.

That is, until things turned awry at around 2.15am today.

Adjusting to time zones (Melbourne, Los Angeles, Baton Rouge within only a few days), it was no surprise that I was still awake at 2AM saying goodnight to my boyfriend on FaceTime. About 15 minutes later I went to flick off my bedside lamp, when I heard the sound of a woman’s moan. And then another one. Unable to resist, I hopped out of bed and and tiptoed across my hotel room to where I heard it coming from. The room next to mine! The moans picked up in both volume and pace, and while I began to hear the sound of a belt unbuckle and jeans unzip, I could also hear multiple male voices. The volume of the sex and the talking stepped up a notch until I could hear almost everything that was playing out, seemingly only meters from where I was standing barefoot in my pajamas, concealed only by the wall that divided us.

(Admittedly, there are times when a distant hotel moan may be somewhat titillating in as much as it teases, ignites the imagination, and you only wish you could hear more. Well, the rough and explicit sounds that were coming from the room beside mine were a far cry from such dreaminess.)

SLAP! BANG!

It sounded like the woman was being both spanked and thrown around and then penetrated hard. Was this consensual? I wasn’t sure but I assumed so, since the woman was making performative sex noises to indicate that she was enjoying it (whether or not she was), and then appeared to stop performing oral sex at one point and join in on the conversation for a bit. But only for a bit.

Another guy seemed to be moving in for his turn — his belt buckle clinking and trousers unzipping.

They all had deep southern drawls and swore a lot, and while the woman seemed hard at work, the other men in the room—perhaps four or five of them—would continue to talk, crack open drinks, and make under-handed jokes that weren’t funny.

“Just fuck her. Look, she wants to be fucked. FUCK HER,” one of them said as he cracked open what sounded like a beer.

At one point, another man came into the room. The door slammed so hard behind him that it caused my door to shudder and in an instant I ducked for my life. Perhaps he was arriving with more booze? One of the men in the room reported to the newcomer that “the bitch bit my dick!” Another guy said that she’d done the same to him, they agreed that that’s what she does, “the bitch bites dicks!” (I wondered whether the woman was secretly laughing or crying at this point.)

“Where’s the fuckin’ music?!” someone said. The woman agreed that music would be good, and within seconds, someone else had found the music channel on the TV which blasted techno. By the sound of more porn-star moans and condom wrappers tearing, it was clear that the gang-bang was only gearing up.

It was after 3AM by this point, and I had moved well past curiosity and was instead both disturbed and angry. I felt the entire fourth level of the hotel rattle and vibrate with the tempo of techno and fucking. I phoned front desk and tried to explain the situation to what sounded like a church lady on the other end of the phone.

Me: I’m being kept awake by the sound of loud slapping, moaning and techno music. Also, I believe there are multiple men in there having sex with the one woman. She may or may not be a prostitute.

Church Lady: I’ll send security up right away, Ma’am.

Too many minutes later, there was a knock at the door and the music was turned off. But the sex only crescendo’d and soon things turned really out of hand.

“If you wanna fuck me then fuck me, don’t just sit there and talk shit. FUCK ME! This one fucks me like a man, but you’re just a fuckin’ pussy!” The woman had stopped moaning and had seemed to, rather suddenly, switch gears. “What the fuck did you just call me?! You’re a fuckin’ piece of shit. Don’t fuckin’ laugh at me, I have to get fucked every fuckin’ night and you sit there and fuckin’ laugh at me, you fuckin’ pussy.”

Bingo. She was a prostitute, and the whole thing (the sucking, moaning and giggling) was just for show. Now, like a fresh scab that’s picked and immediately reveals blood, the struggle behind her reality, the darkness was quickly surfacing.

I heard her pacing, her jewelry tussling around. “Where the fuck’s my clothes?” I imagined her with too much makeup, fake nails, and shiny pink Walmart underwear.

“This bitch is crazy,” “you don’t need to go, everything is okay,” the fellas were saying.

But she was off, out in the hallway, stomping toward the elevator in what sounded like nine-inch heels. “There’s something wrong with all of you’s. You’re all seriously fucked up. I’m go’n press charges.” “What are you doing? Where are you going? You don’t have to leave?” “Let the bitch go.” The male voices followed her into the hallway.

Bing! The elevator opened. “I’m go’n press charges you pussies…” The doors closed. And that was it. Everything went quiet and remained that way.

Did they all leave in the elevator? What about all of their things in the bedroom? Did they have any things? Maybe they never planned on staying the night since there were four or five of them and they planned on banging the hooker and then all going home to their respective wives or girlfriends (or mommies.) Or did they all sheepishly curl up in the hotel room bed and watch Home Alone 3?

I’ve since discussed this “incident” with a few people, including some colleagues at work. I’m relieved to discover that I’m not the only one who deems it shocking. “Why,” my boyfriend asked, “would any guys get off on watching their friends have sex?” I’d been thinking the same thing while I endured the salacious sounds of unzipping and sucking. Were they all just sitting there with their dicks out? Was there something almost homo-erotic about their sex-play?

Maybe. But also maybe not. When men gang rape a woman, they’re presumably all watching one another have sex with her as well. But rape is not about sexual pleasure, intimacy or passion. It’s about power. When a woman is gang raped — penises in various orifices, her hair pulled, breasts grabbed at and slapped about — the woman becomes nothing more than a rag doll. I’m not suggesting that what I witnessed was rape (although it might have been). However, since it was clear that the woman was being paid to have sex, presumably for the the many men present to stick their penises in her various orifices, the sentiment of power and getting off on taking someone’s power remains. In other words, to them, the prostitute was nothing more than a slab of meat. That she played along and “ooh-ed,” and “aah-ed,” pretending to enjoy being spoken to like the scum beneath their shoes, being slapped and thrown about, and being penetrated without any care for her comfort or health, only enhanced their sense of power.

I’d say the porn industry has a lot to answer for. More than the majority of porn available today privileges the male gaze and seems to only perpetuate a culture of misogyny and sexism, whereby the man is positioned as powerful and the woman is his sex toy. It’s certainly only the porn industry that would be twisted enough to create a gang bang scenario, shoot it, and put it online for mass entertainment.

And then, alas, it’s happening in real life in a small “city” in Louisiana.