We were at the Bijou Theater, whose owner claims it’s the oldest continuously operating adult theater and private sex club in the country. On this night, the Bijou hosted a first-of-its-kind party called Wayward Sisters, whose moniker references a song from German countertenor and performance artist Klaus Nomi. So far, it was shaping up to be the most intriguing addition to Chicago’s after-hours landscape we’d seen in some time.

Wayward Sisters had begun a few months earlier when Alex Ferrando, a 21-year-old visual artist and student contacted Bijou owner Steven Toushin about using the space to shoot video and photos for his artwork. “I thought I was just going to talk with him for five minutes,” Ferrando says, “and somehow through that, the idea of a party came to me.”

Toushin, who is straight, liked the idea right away. The porn magnate has run multiple adult-oriented venues, has written several sex-oriented books and is the recipient of a GAYVN award (like the gay adult industry’s Oscars) for lifetime achievement. When Toushin opened the Bijou in 1969, gay sex venues flourished in Bohemian Old Town. In those days, he says, men visited from around the world to engage in rough sex in the Bijou’s dark corners, like the so-called Dungeon or Circle J Alley. But the rise of social networking on the Internet has hurt Toushin’s business. He’s ready to introduce the place to the next generation.

“I’m looking for a new audience; I’m looking to promote my name, which has been world-known for the last 38 to 40 years,” Toushin says. “There are so many other areas of entertainment that catch people’s interest. I have to catch their interest in coming back to something like the Bijou.”

For Ferrando’s part, it’s an opportunity to acquaint young gay men with the pre-AIDS bathhouse culture of the ’70s, a key part of a then-emerging queer identity, but in an environment geared toward drinking, dancing and socializing. Ferrando, who spends a lot of time in Europe, also wants to recreate stateside the sexually permissive atmosphere common at parties in London and Berlin.

“On any given night in a city like Berlin, sex parties are predominant,” he says. “People are afraid of that in the United States. There are so many sex clubs all over [Europe], and that’s a really normal part of gay life.”

That isn’t to say either Ferrando or Toushin plans to turn Wayward Sisters into a sex party—nor should guests think that. (My friend and I found the Bijou more fascinating than titillating.) Instead, they hope partygoers will wander through every dim nook and cranny and let the Bijou’s energy, atmosphere and history speak for themselves.

“You don’t have to have sex. This is totally different,” Toushin says. “But if you’re going to sit in the glory-hole booths and talk, you know that just a couple hours before you walked in, somebody was cumming all over the walls.”

Wayward Sisters happens Thursday 28.