or⋅gy

–noun, plural -gies.

1. wild, drunken or licentious festivity or revelry.
2. any actions or proceedings marked by unbridled indulgence of passions: an orgy of killing.
3. orgies, (in ancient Greece) esoteric religious rituals, esp. in the worship of Demeter or Dionysus, characterized in later times by wild dancing, singing, and drinking.
4. Informal. a boisterous, rowdy party.

Origin: 1580–90; < MF orgie < L orgia (neut. pl.) secret rites < Gk órgia, akin to érgon: work

Word History: The word orgy has become connected in the minds of many of us with unrestrained sexual activity, but its origins are much less licentious.

We can trace the word as far back as the Indo-European root *werg-, meaning "to do," also the source of our word work.

Greek orgia, "secret rites, worship," comes from *worg-, one form of this root. The Greek word was used with reference to the rites practiced in the worship of various deities, such as Orpheus and Dionysus.

The word in Greek did not denote sexual activity, although this was a part of some rites. The rites of Dionysus, for example, included only music, dancing, drinking, and the eating of animal sacrifices.

Having passed through Latin and Old French into English, the word orgy is first recorded in English with reference to the secret rites of the Greek and Roman religions in 1589.

It is interesting to note that the word is first recorded with its modern sense in 18th-century English and perhaps in 17th-century French. Whether this speaks to a greater licentiousness in society or not must be left to the historian, but certainly the religious nature of the word has gone into eclipse.

One of the statements I made in OE Sheepdog's excellent icebreaking game said I have participated in several orgies. It was the runaway pick as "the lie" among OS peeps who commented on my post, though, to her credit Sandra pointed out that her quibble was not with the idea of my being an orgiast, but rather with my use of the word "several" in the statement.

Many of those who accepted my statement at face value attributed the likelihood of its truth to the fact that I reside in California, which I found quite amusing, given the actual truth of the matter.

But to be clear, it is true. I have participated in several orgies, many of which qualify as such under the definition of wild, drunken or licentious festivity or revelry, though a few did also involve sexual activity among a number of participants.

I lived in New Orleans from 1978 - 1982, between the ages of 18 and 22. It was a time before the drinking age was 21. It was a time before AIDS was well-known. It was a time when pharmaceutical quaaludes were readily available, when high-quality cocaine was available and very much in vogue. It was a time when New Orleans was true to its reputation as "The City that Care Forgot".

As luck would have it, in the summer before my sophomore year of college my two roommates and I took an apartment next door to a couple of guys who were 3 - 4 years older than us. They were doctoral candidates in the Pharmacology Department at Tulane University and the five of us shared similar tastes in food and drink, in music and partying, and in women - or, as it was known at the time - in Sex, Drugs and Rock n' Roll.

As we got to know one another a little better our neighbors eventually introduced us to and we became friends with some of their colleagues in the medical school at Tulane, and well, you know what they say about doctors. Much of it is true.

Others of our friends were local Louisiana boys who loved to hunt. In addition, they loved to cook and it wasn't too long before our growing circle of people gained quite a reputation in the Uptown neighborhood of New Orleans for the parties we sometimes threw. I wrote about a special one previously, to which I invite the dear reader's visit for additional detail should you be so inclined.

Many of the parties we threw featured the preparation and consumption of great numbers of ducks that our hunter friends would bag from time to time, and we came to call the bashes we would throw by the generic term wingding, or sometimes just wing for short. As in, "hey, should we do a wing this weekend?"

I participated in half a dozen Mardi Gras over the years, four during my time at Tulane and two more in years after I graduated and left New Orleans. Every one was an orgy of drunken, licentious, festive proportions as can be found nowhere else in America. Mardi Gras day itself is merely the culmination of a two week period of time in which the people of New Orleans dress in costumes and parade throughout the City, making merry and and having high times that truly must be seen and experienced to be believed

It breaks my heart that I have yet to return to my dawlin' N'awlins since Hurricane Katrina changed her forever, but when I do, if I do, going back for a Mardi Gras would certainly top the list of my reasons to return.

By the time I was a senior in college my friendships with my pharmacologist buds and several doctors and nurses from Tulane Medical Center were closer and more meaningful than many I had made among my peers in class and on campus. I enjoyed running with the older crowd just as much as they enjoyed the entré to what the docs used to refer to as "young tissue" among my undergraduate friends, and we'd achieved a certain amount of cross-pollination by the spring of my last year at Tulane.

One of the doctors whose Georgian mansion Uptown often served as a venue for our wingdings kept a 5ft tank of nitrous oxide in his laundry room. It was also not uncommon that spring to find cans of pharmaceutical-grade ether mixed among the bottles of wine and booze at our parties. The attentive reader familiar with late 20th century popular political commentary will recall the author Hunter S. Thompson was famously known for having opined that there is nothing so depraved as a man in the depths of an ether binge. I can corroborate the good doctor's assertion.

The first sex orgy wasn't planned, it just kind of happened. Sometime in the wee hours on the backside of a regular old wingding, a few of us were skinny dipping in the Uptown mansion's pool. One thing led to another and before I really knew what was going on I was one of six or seven naked bodies writhing on the carpeted floor in the living room. As the person with the youngest tissue present, I was the focus of quite a bit of attention and I have to say I was quite thrilled by it all. In the end I passed out in the embrace of a couple of 30 year-old nurses in an upstairs bedroom. They were both gone when I woke up later that afternoon and I remember lying there wondering if what I'd experienced had been part of a dream.

Having finally broken the taboo, we managed two more sex parties that spring which I won't detail other than to mention that, at one of them, several of my undergraduate friends joined us in the knowledge of what was going down. The excitement and curiosity among them was titillating for everyone involved as we put on a huge feast and continued the drinking and dancing that had begun earlier in the afternoon on the campus quad. But when the time came to actually get naked, almost all of them bailed.

Guys were jumping over the fence in the back yard to get out of there. A girl I'd brought along kind of as my "date" - who I'd been trying to bed since we were in the same Freshman orientation group, and who just hours before had been unabashedly dirty dancing with several of the men present - walked into a bedroom where I and my two nurse friends from that prior spontaneous night were pleasing one another; she freaked out.

Started screaming and crying. We were all sick, sick dirtballs and she wanted to be taken home right then and there. Totally harshed everyone's buzz and almost ground the whole thing to a halt. I tried to comfort her on the front porch as she waited for the cab I'd called for her, but she just sat there heaving and weeping and asking how could I do this to her. I was pretty sure I'd never get her to sleep with me after that.

People are funny, though. I never did get her to sleep with me but she and her friends were always extra nice to me on campus after that wild night. I would often catch them gazing at me from across a classroom or a cafeteria and they always had a kind word and a smile for me, which, in the end seemed to last longer and feel better than anything I enjoyed at our wingding bacchanals.

Next: my picnic with The King.