These days New York City is smoldering with a rebellious sexual spirit. The temperature is boiling. Taut bodies, stripped down to the bare essentials (Versace mini dresses, Jimmy Choo mules, you know the rest), are strutting through the streets, and the already-hot Meatpacking district just got a little hotter with the opening of the Soho House New York. Located in a converted, six-floor warehouse that includes a rooftop bar, pool, screening room, party room with zebra hide rugs, spa called Cowshed, and 24 hotel rooms (nine of which are called Playrooms and three called Playgrounds), the big story at Soho House isn’t NYC’s introduction to clubby exclusivity but rather its catering to the new sex-and-jet-set-crowd. We’ve seen it coming, as designer members club cum strip club like Pink Paradise in Paris signaled the arrival of a new pampered naughtiness. Now Soho House has elevated the playing field by outfitting rooms to-do-it-in politely wrapped up elegant sexiness. The Playgrounds in particular raise the sexual barometer with seven-foot canopy beds and massive marble bathtubs practically in the center of the rooms — a few of them even flanked by antique mirrors. Other treats like Nars body lotions and oils, lubricants and condoms, a massage kit, edible body chocolate, a Kama Sutra pillow book, and a feather with love oil are provided to ensure that sex is anything but vanilla. Like the Meatpacking district, the Soho House mixes high and low, old and new, demure and risqué, grit and sex.

- Jenny Moda
Photo: Inside Soho House New York