In a perfect world every city would have an active J/O club, a private place where men cum together to get off through mutual jacking. But alas, that is not the case. As you may have seen on our Directory page there are less than a dozen active J/O clubs in America. If you don’t live near one of these groups what can you do? How about starting your own J/O club!
I’ve been doing some research into how to do this and have summarized my findings below. If you have any other ideas or suggestions please use my Contact Form to tell me.
STEP 1: Research
If you have never attended a Jacks party the first thing you should do is take a trip to one of the cities on our Directory page that has a club and try it out. Reading about J/O clubs is fine but you really need to experience one “first hand”, so to speak, to know if its really for you. Especially important is whether or not you can completely buy into the “no lips below the hips” rule that forms the basis of what a genuine jacks club is. If you prefer oral or anal sex to jacking off then perhaps you should just stick with traditional sex clubs.
When attending a Jacks party try to meet with the host or club organizer before or after the event so you can tell them about your desire to start a club in your town. These guys will probably be thrilled to offer you suggestions and advice.
What if you cannot travel to a city that has a Jacks club? In that case your only other option is to scour the websites of existing J/O groups to gather as much research as you can. Fortunately the SF Jacks website has a huge archive of past newsletters dating all the way back to the clubs formation in the 1980’s. This is an excellent resource for anyone thinking about starting a J/O group.
STEP 2: Finding Jackmates, Part 1 (Create A Website)
Its been said that the two minimum things you need to start a J/O club are dicks and a location to jack them. Let’s focus on finding the dicks first.
In the past a common method for stating a J/O club was to create a Yahoo Group about it but that no longer appears to be an option, which is just as well since I found the groups to be filled with spam messages. So a better method is to just create your own website.
It’s incredibly easy these days to put up a basic website and you can do it for FREE in less than an hour or two with a service like Blogger or Tumblr. To get ideas of what to put on your site, check out the websites of other J/O clubs. Your site does not need to be super fancy or include photos of cocks or naked men (send surfers right here to Jackmates for that!). Just give the basic facts of what a J/O club is and what you have in mind so guys can decide whether or not they want to join your group.
Of course, having a website won’t do any good if you don’t have a way to collect contact information from the men interested in joining your J/O club. You could simply include your email address but this will probably get you an inbox of spam from Viagra sellers. A better way is to create an online contact form. You can do this for free with JotForm and the form can be easily added to your Blogger or Tumblr website. (Note: the free version of JotForm only allows 100 form submissions a month so if you think you’ll get more than that you may have to move up to their paid form service. Of course if you’re getting more than 100 men joining your group each month you should probably start charging a membership fee to offset your form costs!)
When creating your contact form keep in mind that most guys interested in a J/O club will not want to divulge too much personal information. You can ask for their name but a lot of guys will only want to give out their first name and last initial. The only information you really need is an email address so you can contact the men with club updates. Asking for anything else like a phone number or mailing address is probably a no-no for this kind of club. And please don’t ask men to upload their photos… that makes it look like you’re screening who you want in your club which is just not cool. Jack clubs are known for not discriminating against anyone… except women.
UPDATE: I’ve been seeing some jack clubs show up on the MeetUp website so that might be an option although I believe this type of club may violate MeetUp policies so the club organizers usually call it something else like “male nudists” or “male bonding”.
STEP 3: Finding Jackmates, Part 2 (Free Advertising)
OK, so you have your website and a contact form up on the web. Now you need to notify the world about it. In creating this article I’ve been trying to stick with ideas that won’t cost you anything… no sense pouring money into the endeavor until you know you have enough interested guys, right?
The good news is that just by creating a website you have already taken the first step towards getting the word out. That’s because all the large search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo will “crawl” your site as soon as you put it online, adding it to their vast website database. So if you’re trying to start a J/O club in Houston, TX and some dude in Houston does a Google search for “Houston jacks club” the chances are good that your site will show up in his search results.
But suppose they don’t? Hopefully that guy in Dallas will try searching just for “jack or J/O clubs” and then links to the big established groups like NY Jacks and SF Jacks, or even the site you’re on, Jackmates, should show up. These clubs and others have a “links” page that list J/O clubs so the next step you’ll want to do is contact these J/O clubs and ask if they’ll do a link trade with you (that’s where they list your website and you list theirs).
And guess what? Search engines like Google will give your website even more love once other sites start linking to it, meaning that it will show up higher in the search results!
There is one more thing you can do for free advertising of your new J/O club: ask your prospective members to help publicize the site on their Facebook and Twitter pages and anywhere else they can think of. Word of mouth is still the best advertising so recruit your members as a “marketing army” to spread the word about your new group. Note that on Facebook be careful how you word it since they may block you if they think your message is too sexual in nature.
STEP 4: Finding Jackmates, Part 3 (Paid Advertising)
If none of the above free recruitment efforts are working you may need to bite the bullet and spend money on paid advertising. The best place to run ads are in your local gay newspapers and magazines, or alternative press publications if you have them in your area. You’ll need to ask up front how explicit you can be in the ad… some publications won’t let you use the term “jack-off” or even “masturbation group”. Using the word “jacks” might be acceptable and the good thing is that your target audience probably knows what “jacks” refers to. Other print publications that might have readers interested in a J/O club are those targeted to niche audiences like swingers and the leather community.
Another idea is to get some 4″ x 6″ post cards (also called nightclub flyers) printed and then distribute these at gay bars and sex clubs, or places where your target audience (men who like to jack off) will see them. There are several online printing companies where you can order a couple thousand full color cards for a reasonable price. You can also do some business cards but the larger postcards and flyers will probably get more attention. When designing your card DO NOT include photos or graphics of full frontal male nudity since the businesses that will allow you to place the cards may toss them if they’re too racy. And don’t forget to include your website or a way to get info about the club on the card!
One Final Word About Member Recruitment: It is very important that you communicate exactly what a Jacks club is to prospective members. Don’t assume that everyone will know what it is. The majority of men are probably more familiar with a traditional sex club or bathhouse where any kind of sexual activity is allowed. For your club to succeed you need to find a group of men who will support a J/O club and enthusiastically agree to the basic “no lips below the hips” rule. Feel free to refer guys to Jackmates.com for all the info they’ll need.
STEP 5: Location, Location, Location!
If you’re lucky enough to have enough guys in your area interested in a J/O club the next step is to schedule your first Jacks party. Where will you hold it?
Here are the most common suggestions on where to hold your first J/O parties:
The private home of a member. On your membership application form you might consider asking if anyone would be willing to host an event at their home. If someone expresses an interest, try to meet with them in advance to check out the location and make sure it will work. You should also do whatever you can to ensure their home is left the same way you found it before the party. This might mean placing sheets or tarps on the furniture or floor because as you can imagine, sperm has a tendency to fly everywhere.
A hotel suite. If your first group event is fairly small, like between 10 and 20 guys, holding the event in a large hotel suite might be a good choice. A suite will probably run you $200 to $300 a night at a nice hotel so if everyone contributes a donation of $10 to $20 that should cover the cost. But is this legal? You should check with a local lawyer to make sure but generally speaking a private sex party with consenting adults 18 years of age should be legal as long as you don’t charge a mandatory admission fee or do anything illegal at the party (like use drugs). And if you’re not loud or disturbing your next door neighbors, the hotel management will probably never know what’s happening in the room. Just be sure you cover the furniture with sheets and maybe a tarp on the floor, or ask members to be careful where they cum or you could get hit with an extra “cleaning charge” after you check out. As for which hotel to choose, the best ones for a J/O party will have rooms in separate buildings or cottages with private entrances, sort of like a condominium complex, so your members don’t have to parade past the eyes of front desk clerks.
A leather group playspace. Most larger cities have a gay men’s leather community and they often have “dungeons” or playspaces they use for private partiies. Try to find out if one is in your area and if they’d be OK with holding a J/O party there.
A nude yoga studio. Nude male yoga is becoming very popular so if your town has one you can approach them about using their studio for your J/O party.
Finally, if your town has an HIV organization or group that is committed to safe-sex you could try contacting them about your J/O group and ask if they have any ideas for a location. Most HIV organizations should welcome with open arms anyone trying to encourage safe-sex so hopefully they will support your efforts.
One other option for a location might be at a local sex or swingers club, where you would arrange to have a certain area of the club blocked off for your J/O group. The problem with this idea is that your members may get distracted and wander off into areas of the club where oral and anal sex are happening. Holding your J/O party in a place where the men can focus on jacking without the option of any other sexual activity is probably a better idea.
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This concludes the “How to start a J/O club” article. The next logical article would be called “How to run a J/O party” but for that I suggest you visit the websites of the J/O clubs on our Directory page. Most have some excellent information on how to run a party and manage a club.
And don’t forget to use our Contact Form if you end up starting a Jacks club in your area so we can list it!
Good luck and happy jacking!