In the summer of 1979, as WAP made its debut on the New York scene, organization leaders identified fundraising and membership initiatives as immediate priorities. Dolores Alexander proposed that WAP ask some well-connected feminist friends to sponsor parties at their summer homes in the Hamptons and on Fire Island. “We need an elitist [sic] group of feminists to put their names to our cause so we can raise money, hold parties, etc.,” she wrote in a memo detailing recommendations for action. These gatherings would allow WAP leaders to introduce the organization to the feminist community and solicit support. Alexander, whom Brownmiller described as “a whiz at raising money through the lesbian social network,” had many contacts through her work with NOW and Mother Courage, the feminist restaurant in Greenwich Village that she co-owned with partner Jill Ward during the 1970s. She began contacting friends and asking them to host parties.

The WAP women expected friendly cocktail hours, confident that a feminist organization committed to fighting pornography would be well received. To their surprise, they found that the conversations at the gatherings were heated, as guests vehemently opposed to limitations on sexual speech challenged WAP's goals. The word was out throughout New York City's feminist and progressive communities that prominent WAP leaders were calling for legal measures to suppress pornography. Up and down the East Coast, people were buzzing about WAP's appearance on Donahue and Brownmiller's Newsday essay.