Nick Woof
EDGING WITH LONDON’S CUM CONDUCTOR
LONDON – I first heard about the London circle-jerk club BatorBro from a friend who made it sound a little like a tantric yoga workshop – a New Age approach to an old way of getting off. On a Sunday afternoon I went to Hackney to check it out for myself. In a large warehouse space bathed in red light, I sat in a circle of chairs with a few dozen men – old, young, and of all sizes – naked or wearing just underwear. As we went around introducing ourselves, the tone was sober and friendly, like a horny AA meeting. The room filled with dick and small talk. Eventually, two ‘bulls’ took position in the center, where volunteers came up and took turns edging them. Coaching the action was Nick Woof, founder and self-described ‘conductor’ of ‘Europe’s premiere edging event.’ A few weeks later, I met Nick at his flat, surrounded by toys, poppers, and jars of Albolene, and asked him to unload his story.
Mark: Hey Nick. Tell me about your workshops, BatorBro and…LeFreq? How do you pronounce that?
Nick: Like ‘freak’. It’s short for frequency. But also, the gay seventies disco anthem ‘Le Freak’ by Chic. I’m a massive fan of Nile Rodgers. The workshops are about frequency connection – trying to find people on the same vibe. It’s also about reclaiming and re-owning words, like queer. Why can’t we reclaim words like bro? Or dude? Why can’t we be all those things that imply strength and resilience? Because we’re often more resilient and stronger than straight men, who might be in the closet or have sexist marriages. BatorBro, which is the communal masturbation party I run with hundreds of men, is about reclaiming that we’re all brothers – we’ve been shamed to think that we can’t have that level of masculinity and still be queer.
‘Bro’ also sounds very trade…
In my culture, it’s a respectful term for male elders. I come from Thailand, where everyone is like family. Age doesn’t matter – you’re either a big bro or a little bro. It’s about camaraderie, not toxic masculinity. As an Asian man, I’ve had role models who emphasized the importance of being calm and masculine, rather than aggressive. Also, big brother-little brother kink is different to the daddy-son kink. You are teaching each other how to touch your shaft or balls.
Is that why you started these circle jerk workshops? There’s a meditative quality to the way you run them.
When I started BatorBro during the pandemic, I was having a rough time. My mom was sick with cancer, and I was trying to figure out what to do with my life. There were aspects of escapism involved in that. Should I move back home? What about my career? So, I spent a ton of time online finding my thrills and stumbled upon these cam-sex communities. Threads is full of that stuff, different channels where people are just performing. I realised I could cosplay any identity in a ‘room’ full of strangers and this excited me. At the same time, I was in this long-term relationship, and I started wondering about boundaries. Was I cheating by exploring this? In the end, it sparked a renaissance in our relationship, which had been closed for 12 years but ended up being open for the last three.
Renaissance? How so?
I found the Bator subculture, short for Masturbator, and I became a Bator coach.
Sporty! But how exactly do you coach a solo ‘sport’ like masturbation?
For two years, I hosted Zoom rooms where guys shared links on a Reddit blog to get on camera and ‘expose their bait.’ Sessions lasted 45 to 90 minutes, with as many as 100 participants. I organized and ran them like meetings, highlighting speakers, encouraging interactions, pairing people up. Essentially, it was an online sex party. We had a pseudo mailing list called the Bromance Club.
Was everyone at these parties a gay man?
It was a mix. Gay men, straight men, closeted men. For the most part, it was men who identify as men. But that’s not to say there weren’t people who identified as fluid too.
Would the closeted guys show their faces?
That was a mix, too. I didn’t show my face for a good while, actually. I was like the Whitney Houston of the scene, just the voice in the background. My voice was there, guiding everyone through these rituals. And that’s how ‘Nick Wolf’s Golden Hour’ came to be.
Golden Hour? What was that?
The Golden Hour sessions linked up folks across different time zones. Picture this: while the US was just waking up, the UK was enjoying their afternoon tea, and down under in Australia or Japan, it was the early hours of the next day. It became this cult phenomenon, you know? And the way I orchestrated it all was pretty amusing. Since recording was off the table due to privacy concerns, I took a more old-school approach: meeting notes. Yep, just like in a boardroom, I’d jot down who did what, who turned up, and who sent each other these ‘cum tributes,’ a way of showing appreciation.
Like gay prime time!
Exactly. So, I’m scanning the virtual room, looking for those who’ve got that spark, that charisma. You can tell a lot by how guys stroke or touch themselves. It’s all about who’s ready to vibe with me. So, I jump in, start saying hi, and people respond back. Out loud, mind you, because I’m all about the verbal coaching. It’s like, ‘Hey you, looking good! Why don’t you give us a 360, turn around and give us the hole show.’ And then I would spotlight guys, like, who wants to huff some poppers with this guy? Guys would pick someone who they really liked, so they could have this communal rush together on the same chemical. I’d give them a countdown. I would encourage people to moan and really express themselves out loud and really start ‘gooning’ out. Gooning is when your whole body is like, completely in the zone.
Imagine being the roommate of one of these people and hearing them through the walls! (laughs) What was the crossover like to IRL?
It’s not the same crowd. There’s anonymity online. In person, it became a whole marketing challenge. I was starting from scratch. Most of the guys on my UK list were just bators on cam.
What held them back?
Many were in relationships or had specific kinks, making online interaction more convenient. My main promotion was going to clubs and spaces that were traditionally sex clubs to find like-minded people. I also used Grindr to message people with tags like ‘jerk off’ and ‘edging.’
Are live events run the same way as the Zoom jerks?
We’re more focused on unrushed connections, which is the essence of edging—dragging it out, slow and paced, with breaks to breathe, beg, and moan. It’s about riding the wave without rushing to the end. Edging is really about dragging that shit out as long as possible. It’s slow sex.
I think that slowness is what makes some people see edging or jerking as vanilla, rather than kinky. How do you keep it spicy?
We discovered that the edging kink was popular because it fulfilled fantasies of being tied up, restricted, and exposed in front of an audience. When I officially started calling it edging, more guys revealed it was their biggest fantasy—they wanted to be admired, rubbed down, and massaged on a pedestal. We created roles: the ‘bull’ who enjoys being milked, and the ‘edger’ who does the milking. Some guys said they never had so many loads in one day, like 25.
Whoa! So where are you when these guys are cumming 25 times?
I’m just the conductor. I just give them the bed and a platform. Another asset is our ‘tug rug.’ It’s a massive communal bed made of ten single mattresses connected into one large block, occupying three-quarters of the space. The ambiance is set with red lighting and soft, haunting instrumental music. In the tug rug, participants lose track of time, playing in pairs or threes, with bodies intertwined and heads resting on each other. Even if you aren’t touching the person, you are still connected. We also have a ‘cum train’ and everyone can go and cum together. Sometimes guys cheer each other on.
I felt like a sex tree, you know? I had a man at every branch.
You’ve got pretty strict rules about what guys can and can’t do, though. Do they stick to them?
It makes people get creative. If we can’t fuck or suck then we are going to find another way to get off. They see it as a challenge. But also, people feel safer. Some people are very private about having particular parts of their bodies exposed or want other parts to get attention. Some guys like having their feet sucked the whole time. I remember this one time I was in the middle of a threeway bate, and one guy was on top of another and they were rubbing their dicks together. And I was standing on one leg balanced on the floor, my other foot on someone’s face, while he was sucking my toes. And the other person was doing stuff with my hands on him. I felt like a sex tree, you know? I had a man at every branch.
Do you get many straight guys?
A bunch.
What do they do and how do you know that they’re straight?
Often, they message me beforehand asking if it’s okay for a straight person to join and just watch without getting deeply intimate. Many love it and see it as fulfilling a fantasy from their youth, something they did shamefully with other guys and then repressed.
Do they interact with others?
They mainly stay on the sidelines and watch. They make it clear if they want to be touched or not and sometimes will disappear. It’s pretty hit or miss. Bi guys especially seem to appreciate being free from the top/versatile/bottom hierarchy, and without realizing it, we’ve also attracted subsections of the gay community, like sides and sober people.
How does sobriety come into it?
It’s a day party, and we encourage people to come sober. I admit we don’t serve alcohol purely because we don’t have the license, but it’s an accident that hugely paid off! There was no conscious thinking that we we’re really gonna tackle chem-sex. Actually no, I just don’t take drugs. And the people I’m with are clearly awake and horny at 1PM on a Sunday so most likely were not going out for the weekend. People have come to me like, ‘Nick, you know, I’ve been really suffering trying to get off drugs and still find sexual encounters and like, thank you so much for having the space to do that without feeling the pressure to go back into my old patterns.’ That was super rewarding and so unexpected as well.
I’m sure guys have told you some crazy stories, too.
We had one guy, probably in his forties and bi, living a bit of a double life. He was so excited, posing in various ways and asking to be covered everywhere. Seven guys surrounded him, lifting him in different positions. He was like a kid in a candy shop. He was so hungry for it. And it wasn’t like a typical scene where like everyone was trying to exploit this person. He was so excited and happy and hugging everyone afterwards.
How much cum did he get on him?
Probably like 15 loads. The next day he messaged me, saying it was the best birthday of his life!
The icing on the cake.