The bruises were annoying, and my back couldn’t handle the heavy fighting.
I’ve been to parties as late as 4 am, and never seen any of the crazy stuff being referred to. Yes, the joke was Society of Consenting Adults, but I never saw that kind of mentality. Maybe I didn’t go to the right events, but I went all up and down the East Coast from Georgia to Maryland for SCA events, and never saw it. We showed up at one event in Virginia at about 10:30 the night before to drop some stuff off with folks before heading to the hotel (I couldn’t camp due to severe back issues). I hear a LOT. I heard people talking in low whispers. I heard conversations about money issues, about some sexual issues that dealt with outside the society issues, and some other conversations about kids and school and other stuff, but never heard any hedonistic crazy things. There were over 200 people camped.
The place where I heard about it was Redding California, but at that time (1981) an orgy could easily happened if someone threw a Tupperware party in Redding. It the whole town, not the presence of one group or another.
Some of the other marines from 29 Palms went. I stayed at the motel and worked on my armor.