Swinging Lifestyle + Hotwife Lifestyle Podcast - Wanderlust Swingers Podcast Today I'm interviewing Ash and Russ aka That Hot Couple In GA on all social media platforms. We're going to be talking about their jouney and how they met at 22, started in a DOM / SUB relationship and eventually found the swingers lifestyle and now live out and proud with their faces on social media. BDSM and The Swinging Lifestyle What do you know about the Dom/Sub relationship? Have you heard couples discuss their contracts and boundaries? Today we dig deep into Ash and Russ start in the kink lifestyle before moving into swinging. We talk about how their communication from BDSM assisted them in their initial journey. Spoiler Alert - they were DOXXED and we discuss how they lost friends and loved ones in the process Health Journey and Body Positivity Having both lost over 100 pounds each (45kg for my metric friends) Ash and Russ know what it's like to be lacking in confidence to join the swingers lifestyle. We discuss how this health journey helped shape their lifestyle experience and what it truly means to be comfortable in your skin. I put them on the hot seat and I ask if they are portraying a healthly lifestyle for those looking in on social media.... let's see what they have to say! Links for this episode - Find Ash and Russ on Social Media here https://linktr.ee/Thathotcoupleinga - Choking 101 Mens Health https://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/a26471117/choking-during-sex/ - Choking 101 Sex With Emily https://sexwithemily.com/choking-etiquette-101/ Swingers Events We've got a brand new webpage with the global swingers events listed that we are hosting, attending or recommend. If you're looking for Swingers Events around the world, head over to our website https://www.swingingdownunder.com/swingers-events/ Support us Wanna help us out and ? We would love you to consider supporting us on Patreon from only $1 a month you’ll get access to exclusive content and live podcasts. Join us www.patreon.com/swingingdownunder Visit our website for videos, blogs, podcasts, newsletters and swinging lifestyle resources. https://www.swingingdownunder.com Love, Peace and Respect C D
Transcript
You're listening to the Wanderlust Swingers Podcast with Aussie hosts, Kate and Daryl. If you're curious about exploring your sexuality or the swinging, hot-wifing, and non-monogamous lifestyle, you've definitely come to the right podcast. Or maybe you just love travel adventures. Either way, we share our personal, sometimes juicy, sexy stories as well as Swingers Club and event reviews, interviews with other sassy people and of course our global swinging adventures.
We try to bring you a look into the diverse lifestyle that the swinging and non-monogamous community has. We hope you enjoy, now let's get into the episode. G'day everyone and welcome back to another episode of The Wanderlust Swingers. Today's episode is actually an interview episode. You know I love doing these. You know I get a lot of passion, a lot of energy from them. So let's get started. I do have a lovely couple on the phone here, Ash and Russ, actually from Georgia.
Welcome to the podcast. Hello.
Thanks for having us a little bit about russ and ash they've been together for 13 years have four kids as i mentioned before they live in georgia i'm excited to bring their journey to you because they started their lifestyle journey through a love of bdsm and a more of a dom submissive role before they started in the swingers lifestyle they've also lost over a hundred pounds in their health journey and as a result of that are passionate advocates about body positivity within the lifestyle space Thank you.
in the swingers lifestyle. They've also lost over 100 pounds in their health journey. And as a result of that, are passionate advocates about body positivity within the lifestyle space. Let's just go and get started, guys. Obviously, we want to share a little bit about you before we get started on a BDSM focus and a body positivity focus, because that's what we're going to be talking about today, guys.
Now, your journey spans over a decade, which is really tough to find somebody that you can deal with for more than a decade. So what do you think has been the key to maintaining a strong connection over the years, especially within the dynamics of family life? Well, honestly, when we met each other, we kind of just clicked and we shared all the values and life goals.
And I mean, we met when we were 22 years old, we were still young and still developing as people, but we still kind of aligned in that way. And we've always aligned. From the get go, we've always been really big on communication and honesty. And no matter how we feel openly to express, you know, express that to each other.
And even, you know, as 20-year-olds getting into this and starting a family and just doing regular vanilla life, we learned really early on to just communicate and deal with, you know, our issues, deal with our struggles, celebrate our good stuff. You know, mutual respect was a really big thing early on. Really good sex. I love that. That too always helps for sure. It is a very important end of marriage, definitely.
Well, I think mutual respect, communication, all those things that you just said, especially on top of that. I mean, I don't know whether you realize, but I'm actually, I'm child-free by choice, right? So when I meet people like yourselves who have managed to maintain a love of oneself, managed to maintain a love of their partner and have four kids and managed to make that work, I'm just constantly like, how do you do that? Do you have, like, are you magicians? Is there some way?
Because I just assume that you guys are super way elevated because, I mean, relationships can be stressful enough and then you add in, like, all of these dynamics on top of that and, you know, said you need to be able to talk and communicate etc so i follow your social media and have done for for over 12 months now and that's kind of how we connected but living authentically from the outside as a as a person consuming your content it seems to be a mantra for you both how has embracing that authentic side played a role in your journey in alternative lifestyles because your faces are also out there yes yeah it has been such a big important part about our authenticity i think it makes us more relatable to everybody right you when you meet us in person is the same people you meet you see online yeah there's nothing to keep up with if you just continue to stay yourself right there's no facade to keep up with or anything like that there's no I'll see you next time.
meet you see online yeah there's nothing to keep up with if you just continue to stay yourself right there's no facade to keep up with or anything like that there's no image to uphold because what you see is what you get that empowered us to explore and embrace the lifestyle and you know work through all this stuff the societal norms work against all of that just being authentic you know to each other to ourselves we kind of got thrown into the social media world yeah by accident i mean when we started our first tiktok it was something for just me and her to have fun with and then you know the first video we ever posted was a lifestyle video the first video got 375 000 views in the first day just between me and him like i didn't think anyone but him or me would see that video so it was very authentic it was just us embracing who we were and just you know trying to break down those the stigma that we are normal people we are regular people there's nothing special about us really we are just your everyday average couple and we've always continued to keep you know that at the forefront of all of our content aside by then just thinking about that authentic voice do you think it is important uh you know as content creators together and i'm obviously in this as well do you think it is important that we share some of these you know trials tribulations and issues because i think sometimes it's it's quite easy because we are so passionate about the lifestyle it's very easy to portray things on social media within podcasts etc that make the lifestyle seem like it's all unicorns daisies and lollipops but what we know is that there there are real struggles you know you can have a hiccup in your relationship you know the boundaries can get crossed so do you think it's really important then for you guys with that authentic vibe to showcase some of these issues that might pop up?
Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when we were making content for social media, we were thinking about experiences. Well, naturally, you think of the good experiences first.
I think that's why everybody sees the unicorns and rainbows and the the good side of it you have to dig deep to be like and after you unpack yourself and with your partner the negative aspects like the jealousies feelings of jealousy and envy and yeah the rejection is a big one it's all part of it but i think when it comes to content we just we're trying to sell it in a way sometimes you know it comes off as kind of we're selling it as this amazing wonder which it is and it can be I think it's because we've met so many amazing people in the lifestyle and we have had an amazing journey in the lifestyle that's not always the norm but yeah and so we see it from a different perspective as someone else who may have a rocky true beginning in a lifestyle we've all had bad experiences right yeah you know it's interesting though that sometimes we'll get an email occasionally on the podcast and we're like uh it's what you just said you know someone might be experiencing be experiencing something different.
They might have a rockier start. Occasionally we do get an email of people going, okay, your experience is not the same as ours at all. You know what I mean? Where are the people that are really struggling with jealousy and stuff like that? So, you know, we do try to bring a bit of balance to that, but you're right. It is, it is hard.
If you're living in a very abundance mindset at the same time and you're having a great time in the lifestyle, it's hard to be like, oh, and here's where it's all really shit when you're, when you're experiencing this really positive journey so totally get that let's step away from the about you and let's move into bsm and you know your journey and how this all kind of came about you guys had a conversation with me a little while ago and i just asked like oh by the way how do you you know what happened get into this?
Gave me just a scooch, a tiny bit of your story, which I found, you know, really, really interesting. And I think that a lot of our listeners will find this interesting as well. So we're going to get into that. We're going to talk a little bit about your journey in detail. I know that you started exploring BDSM and that's how you kind of moved into the swinging lifestyle. It's a super interesting approach because some people get into the lifestyle and then we'll see a bit of dabbling in BDSM.
BDSM is often misunderstood. I think a lot of people don't know much about it. It's definitely misunderstood from the perspective of it's about violence. And then we have a lot of movies that represent BDSM that further make it a little bit more misunderstood. So can you guys share maybe a pivotal moment or realization in your journey as well that made you then want to explore the swingers lifestyle? We happened to be in the BDSM lifestyle while we joined the swinger lifestyle.
We really didn't know much about swinging while we were in BDSM. And then we had kind of put that on the back burner for a little while.
We had been moving, we moved states twice and COVID happened and there was just a lot going on so we kind of it's always been a part of our sexual daily life daily life and we used to be 24 7 all of the time we had contracts you know strict rules and everything and then as we started moving and life got kind of complicated we've kind of just put it on the back burner a little bit and incorporated it here and there i think it didn't really bring us to the lifestyle, but I do think it did help us.
We already had the communication skills at that point because being in a DS dynamic, we had rules about altercations. There isn't yelling at each other's faces like a lot of couples do.
And it's a lot of respect for each other other this is how i feel and then your partner tries to understand how or why you're feeling that way you're trying to emphasize with each other and come to a solution we had a lot of those foundations and then of course like it kind of brings along with it open sexuality and just the craving for more sexual fun and activity and we were big on exhibitionism and voyeurism and that kind of stuff and so we were looking to kind of tap into something a little bit different something new that we hadn't really thought about or looked into and there is a lot of non-monogamy within the BDSM lifestyle you'll see it on FetLife you'll see swingers swingers is a category.
There's a lot of swingers on FetLife. And so we've, you know, they've always been around, but we hadn't in real life experienced any non-monogamy until we moved to Georgia and found a club and kind of, they do incorporate BDSM a lot into the swinger lifestyle.
And they had all the stuff that's in the dungeon you know all these things already there so we kind of felt comfortable I'm just gonna dig back I gotta I gotta know because I'm sure the listeners are gonna be like hold on a second we heard that you've been together since you were early 20s I think you said 22 we just heard you use the term contract and BDSM who brought this up you know what I mean like that's quite for people that are listening that maybe haven't had that level of understanding of bdsm and having this kind of more dom sub relationship who brought up the concept of bdsm and and how did you then get into that did you just research a lot was it something that's always been um part of you how did that bit happen our journey into that side of it is i mean we started as like any other early 20s couple you know puppy love guy and as our relationship grew we saw ourselves experimenting more getting into different kinkier stuff and then found the bdsm world and we talked about it and like is this something that You can crave and I was Yes I was definitely in the forefront In the forefront talked about it and like is this something that you can crave and i was yes like i was definitely the in the forefront forefront of that one i was very and i was actually with stereotypes you know the stereotype the stigma behind it the past traumas that we both had before we met each other all stands in the way of giving yourself to someone else we did a lot of research we saw it on the media we read about a lot of stuff independently together and then we finally said let's just try it you know incorporating incorporate a little bit here and there and then some rope over time it's turned into, do you think you want to do a 24-7 DS dynamic?
We agreed. And so that's when the contracts rules, we say contract contracts sounds very harsh. It's really just a document saying we both understand these are our roles and this is how things should go. If not, there's consequences, obviously. Yep. But it's always still always about consent and communication. In that list of rules, there's also hard limits, soft limits, everything from A to Z that we could think of that is maybe a hard no or an absolute yes.
It's just like like in the swingers they always bring a swinger lifestyle they always bring up boundaries and rules it's pretty similar to that it's just about the same thing any times one of us felt uncomfortable with one of those things we revisited it because we all change and grow as people as years go by it does make me want to jump forward a little bit and talk about communication because i know i i was talking to you earlier and we were talking about some of the things that we might discuss today and i do want to jump forward a few notches because you just mentioned about communication and you said contracts but maybe it's more of a boundaries kind of an understanding but it is a document i'm curious do you think that your experiences with that level of detail on your hard limits your soft limits you know everything like do you think that your your involvement in that in bdsm helped you in those early days to navigate swinging a little bit more because then you did have a because some couples that is kind of what's you know what are you looking for tonight honey you oh, okay, condoms only.
And that's kind of as deep as it goes, whereas BDSM and that level is significantly deeper. So do you think it helped you? Oh, for sure. Absolutely. For sure. We already kind of knew where we stood and what limits we were willing to push and, you know, set. Well, it helps because we already had the communication between each other. So we knew each other's limits already.
So's no none of the guests were between us yeah it's all this what is the other couple comfortable with ash ashley and i could focus on the other couple and see keep make sure they were comfortable and felt good about it and if they had questions or weren't sure about it then we backed off a little bit you know that experience talking over these different things and aspects and stuff and we knew we already knew kind of where we stood we didn't really have to kind of guess and navigate and see we kind of knew what we were looking for with ourselves and our you know in our relationship rolling back now into your bdsm journey so how did you then move into the swingers lifestyle you mentioned before there was a i'm assuming there was a local dungeon scene in your city what people talking about it they're like what made you know about and then take the shift over to the lifestyle there is nothing in our city that's the problem i'm like i'm sure there's probably a fabulous dungeon in your city and like kate you're fucking wrong there's not anything that was the problem is we couldn't find what we were looking for we couldn't find that's real like a dungeon or scene or anything so we were just looking for someplace that was a sexual swingers lifestyle by complete accident i'm not going to even lie it was by complete accident that we found it ashley and i went on date nights just me and her, we always had a little bit extra spiciness to it looking for we were craving something like that go and so when we first moved down to georgia it never went down to georgia he was looking for a soul to steal we were exploring atlanta just me and her for a weekend and found a club on like yelp or something and it was very very vague no no pictures somehow and we're like oh let's go check it out see what it's like like we were not we had no idea what it was in that first club we ever went to i don't recommend the newbies period i mean it was very we had a great time together in a sex shop like underneath of a sex shop so it was there was a sex store and then underneath was like this underground club that was nobody knew anything about it was really sketchy it was very sketchy and it had it was just full of like holes.
There was like different floors of all sorts of different stuff. I should have known what to expect when we walked in, like we walked out the back door of the sex store and down like a fire escape steps to like a metal like basement door.
And we opened it and there was a man there behind a glass counter that was full of condoms and this was not a swinger club either this was not a swingers club this was just as a sex club and he looked at me he said it's 25 for you and she's free if her gender matches her driver's license and then he was like are you sure you understand what you're walking into to me and that's when i knew i should have thought about that a little bit more he was very cautious but that wasn't it and so that led us to continue to look and continue and we ended up finding a swinger club that was also very sketchy and not sketchy but also very vague there was not very much information we had no idea it was a swingers club either yeah it just said lifestyle club we're like what type of lifestyle we saw like you know the bdsm stuff in it and it was very dark because we had a great time at the first club we it could have went really bad for any other marriage or any other relationship it could have been very bad but we had to end up having a great time in the end and then we walked into our club treffees and we're just embraced by the most amazing groups of people yeah like we you could tell we were new new couples that are very timid stick out like a sore thumb and the age difference at that time when we went to our the average age was 50s you know i'd say like around 50 and so we were the young we were a young couple you know we were definitely fresh meat when we first walked there for sure i was 29 when we first when we first went to um a resort actually we went to a club and i went to a resort and i was 29 and i definitely sympathize with that now because you mentioned fresh meat and you mentioned your visit to the club uh we haven't spoken about this yet but people on the podcast i think need to understand your handle and where it comes from because i know you guys told me this story and i think it's still hilarious so where'd your handle come from and i know it's based off of that off of that uh first couple of trips to trapeze it's supposed to be funny and ironic i hate it but now it's too late to change it so when fake originated from that very first tiktok that was supposed to be maybe 20 people yeah in the lifestyle might see it and it was after we visited trapeze then we could hear people or people we have met saying to each other who's that hot couple over there who's that new hot couple and it just kept coming up and we kept hearing it and we would and they were from all over alabama different states and stuff so it turned into that hot couple you know from georgia and that's kind of where it came from and it did become you know i kind of i hated the name i wanted to change it forever but then when that first video went viral our name just kind of got out there and i never got a chance to change it so now we embrace it and it's just who we are and how people referred to us at the beginning i love that who is who is that hot couple over there um definitely i know the fresh meat who is that fresh meat in the corner it is like that when you go to a club that does have a community and i know people want to use the term click we're not going to use that what we're going to say is they've got a local community of regulars or semi-regulars and you do get that there's all of a sudden like a hold on a second who are these people and I will also say now as somebody who's been in lifestyle for nine years I love that moment as the onlooker because I'll look at the new people walking in the club and then i'll look at the regulars and then i'll see their eyes go and then there's almost this like it's said without words uh between the group so there's like six other people looking at this new couple and it said without words and they're just kind of almost like like that they're ours you know what i mean there's an element of like tag we're going in first and if we fail like then you guys can go in and i love watching this little dynamic shift yes like if we strike out then you can you know what you guys can come in yeah you go ahead and give it a try swinging you mentioned before that you are trying to break societal norms you said that earlier in the episode what challenges did you personally face entering the lifestyle and how have you overcome those because it's not without its without its perils well we were doxxed by my family members well shit uh i did not know that yeah so and we've been pretty open about it when our first tiktok really took off people from where we were from originally it came across their for you page because in tiktok's algorithm they use you know matching area codes and phone numbers and stuff like that they're in your contacts and they start sharing your stuff to people you they think you already know at that point there wasn't that many on tiktok so we never really thought the chances of them actually coming across something that has to do with swingers we never never really.
Yeah. You had to be looking for that side of TikTok for. Right. But then there's 6 million people that see it and the chances of it being family numbers is pretty high. And so we, that was a huge part of most of our beginning of our journey, navigating how to either run from it and deny, you know, and delete all evidence and just. Yeah. You had a, we had a choice. We could have took step back and ran from it.
deny you know and delete all evidence and just yeah you had a we had a choice we could have took step back and ran from it or you push into it and i've always been the push into it type of person so i mean that's a massive challenge i mean i imagine it put a lot of stress on you and your you know your little circle of family but your extended family as well like what was how how did you guys just come up with uh you know what this is who we are and somebody can choose to walk away from us and that's their choice and not ours like did that i'm assuming you probably lost some friends and lost some family over this as well oh yeah yeah absolutely we don't talk to a good part of my side of the family because they pretty much disowned disowned it's part of us and that's part of our journey and if you're not willing to be embrace that you know right are and and that's part of why we really push into it because there's so many people that are discreet not just for their something secret with their partner that's sexy yep it's they feel like they have to because of their jobs and their families and they'll be disowned and so so and we've met so many people that feel that way yeah and though we were doxed in a way that we weren't happy with we had a choice to push into it and kind of fight that stigma for the people that we've met and we've grown to care about that was most of our beginning journey was a lot of people would say thank you for being a voice because i can't be yeah and we kept hearing these stories from these people that wanted to tell their story through us and so that kind of empowered us to be a voice and to keep going and keep pushing forward well early in our journey we even fought the title swinger oh yeah we went to the club for months and never were in we didn't consider ourselves part of the lifestyle we played together we watched we just met a lot of people but we hated that word swinger we couldn't we would look at each other and i was like are we swingers and the first reaction was ew no like ew i can't even think of like that being a word in that was a conversation we had after our first full swap oh yeah after we're like are we swingers we're like no no ew i could never i'm sorry that happened to you it's always um it's always baffling to me that people who have known you for you know potentially decades um all of a sudden when something comes out about your sexual preferences or identities, then you become this totally different person in their mind as opposed to the fact that, like I said, you've potentially shown up time and time again over multiple years.
So it just kind of baffles me. So I'm really sorry that happened to you. We also have people that we've known for decades that embrace us. Yeah, the opposite opposite i mean we i one of my best friends that i went all through school with or high school junior high everything i grew up with the guy he sent me a text message and said hey his wife and himself are coming out of georgia to visit he like, can you mind showing us the club?
And they've watched our journey and they've been in the lifestyle and they're never going to be, but they're just, they love that we embrace our sexuality and we're open about who we are. And they really admired that about us and really wanted to see what that environment was like and intrigued by it all. And that was really cool.
have had other opposite you know reactions as well it's brought other people closer to us yeah so let's move away from that then because we could probably talk for for hours about that and you know society and you know morality clauses etc and contracts i have a thing on my my interviews where i like to put people in the hot seat this is where i ask a question that might be a little bit delicate. So I'm going to put you guys in the hot seat.
And we're going to stick with the BDSM theme right now because swingers often get BDSM very, very wrong. Now I've interviewed a number of BDSM specialists. I've interviewed a number of people over the years that really are experts in the field. They talk about the fact that there is no play, there is no orgasm.
So they're very're very much into the scene you know there is a feeling that swingers do get it wrong when it comes to bdsm impact play rope play etc especially in a sexually charged environment so my question to you guys on the hot seat is what do you think we get wrong the most what is the most dangerous thing that swingers get wrong and how can we today maybe educate and avoid the pitfall honestly this is the most simple thing that you see all the time that is probably one of the most dangerous things i see is choking just education on yeah there's so you get somebody that doesn't know how to do any particular act when it comes to impact play um choking rope play anything you if you're not educated in proper techniques proper techniques and how to do it it can be absolutely i mean it can be deadly yeah if you don't know how to do something properly or you can hurt somebody severely i mean it can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.
Just the simple anatomy. Anatomy of the body. Yes. So you've just actually made me, I am looking at my phone. I don't know whether you can tell in the camera right now, but I'm looking at my phone because I did not expect you to say that. I expected you to say something like rope play and they don't have any cutters nearby.
They're having some impact play and they haven't really discussed what that looks like the areas where they can do that you know the pressure level etc i hadn't hadn't really thought about choking but you're correct in this i mean obviously you're correct but what i'm thinking about is the number of times where i've seen brand new play partners in a swinging club environment where the lady has said i want to be choked me and if you're not used to that with your own partner, you haven't been educated, I guess, yes, that's a very, very high risk area.
I mean, it only takes seven pounds to collapse your trachea. Okay, I just Googled choking the right technique, BDSM. So I'm going to try and... Seven pounds is nothing. Seven pounds is nothing. Like, think about how light seven pounds is. I mean, that's a gallon of milk. Wow.. In the wrong place on the neck, somebody is getting a tracheotomy to save their life. Well, I'll tell you what we're going to do then. You and I, after we finish the episode recording, let's connect.
Let's find what we think, what you think is probably the best resource for choking techniques. And let's drop that in the show notes for the link.
So, if you guys are out there listening and maybe you do like choking and you want to maybe educate your play partners or maybe you are going to be somebody's play partner in a club and you want to educate yourself on how to maybe have some of those beginner level choking techniques let's catch up you guys after let's put it in the show notes so we can actually give people a resource for that because you are correct I see it I see it in my events you know I see people I know yeah I know girlfriends that say I love to be choked and i'm wondering right now how do they educate those play partners on how yeah now on the flip side of that i've had husbands and wives come to me personally and say can you teach my partner or can you teach me how to choke my wife yeah it's been and absolutely yeah it's like a hundred percent of the time yes absolutely don't be afraid to ask yeah don't be afraid to ask somebody that may or does know how to do that type of thing fabulous no that's really good really appreciate the bdsm uh and your journey section i think it's a great time now we're kind of at the halfway to start talking about, and I know that you're really positive about both these things.
That's why I picked the MC. I was like, I know they're really positive about BDSM. I know they're super positive about body positivity and health and transformation. So let's get cracking into it. You guys have lost over a hundred pounds. I did convert it. It's 45 kilograms for my metric friendly uses out there. And I'm sure you've probably noticed a huge change in how you feel about yourselves, how you approach the lifestyle and life in general.
So I really want to talk about this because it is a passion of yours. So your commitment to health, I honestly, seeing your TikToks over the past 12 months, it's remarkable, right? I want to know what motivated your decision to embark on a weight loss journey, how it's impacted your relationship and your involvement in the lifestyle community. I know that's a really big question, but let's talk about it. We just got tired of being tired. We had four kids. We were very unhealthy.
I have spent my whole life at least 200 plus pounds, more around 300 pounds, him as well well and we had four kids to keep up with and we were just tired of feeling tired and hurting and not you know being out of breath not being able to participate not fitting on rides you know simple things that you deal with on with children and you know being young and not being able to do stuff that they want to do and so we lost 100 pounds each i would have never done it been able to do it without him yeah it was definitely a team effort people ask us the question a lot and the best way i can describe it is it's the simplest thing you will ever do is to lose weight because everybody knows how to do it but it's the single hardest thing I ever did because you are fighting yourself mentally mentally the entire time 90% of it has been a mental journey for sure it's such a self-exploration part of it that you don't even realize and that kind of led us into the lifestyle and you know our confidence was at our highest during that time when we discovered the lifestyle we were probably wouldn't have walked into a club with our head held high not knowing where we were going into if we didn't have that self-love self confidence between each other you know and had you had you already lost the hundred pounds before you went into the club or was this still you were kind of in your in the middle of your journey we were at the smallest we ever were when we joined the lifestyle we were at the peak of our health journey and since then you know we're back kind of doing a second journey now we've both gained a little bit weight and kind of laxed on a lot of stuff and life happened and we are presently now kind of figuring it out again We can't get our shit back together?
Yeah, it ebbs and flows. Totally get that. In terms of your involvement in the community, having that confidence is really what permitted and sparked you to have involvement in the first place. Yeah. Yeah.
We never probably would have entered into the lifestyle when I was at my biggest no stamina there was no stamina i mean it had affected other things sexually yeah between us we were just we were very sexual people we always have been really sexual people and then to finally be able to do positions that we've always wanted to do and have the stamina and to show off you know take off the clothes because i've never ever would imagine walking into a building at all in lingerie let alone you know with the Thank you.
and to show off you know take off the clothes because i've never ever would imagine walking into a building at all in lingerie let alone you know with the prospect of having sex with other people but it definitely was i think a big you know help in that getting that started for sure and you're right i think there's so there's so many more facets to this you just mentioned positions um we have friends here in the netherlands and they're very tall they're very slender they're also extremely flexible and uh we we joked on a recent podcast episode where you know they were doing all these different positions and daryl and i were like one we are so not educated in all those positions that you're doing um but two we're like we are not flexible and i joked with him after i'm like i think we need to start doing yoga because we cannot keep up like It was a matter of like, oh, wow, we're so vanilla in our sex positions, but also we can't even bend that.
How does that, what are you doing? How do you bend that way? The body's not supposed to bend that way. I know body positivity is a significant focus for you both. We had a conversation over Zoom, I think about a month or two ago, and we spoke a lot about this especially.
Now, in a community often associated with with specific body standards how do you guys encourage and advocate for body positivity within the swingers lifestyle body positivity is it's about embracing yourself and you know appreciating who you are and the size that you are no matter what size or shape you are and uh it's not necessarily wanting to be pretty or being you know so a certain standard it's for us anyway it was a big health journey ours was just we focus on our health and we try to keep it focused about that we just want you to be the healthiest happiest person you are you or you can be comfortable in your own skin yes and it had nothing to do with you know being skinny or being a certain size or shape or anything for us through our own experiences and trying to get through our own insecurities that kind of led us to like you know what i am who i am i like the way i look you like the way i look and that's all it really matters so if you go in there with that type of attitude as you and your partner confident in each other and yourselves then you're going to attract people to you period i mean i know i am attracted when i go into that type of setting to people that are just confident they don't necessarily have a a body type.
It's they're there to have fun. They're confident. They're have a good relationship with each other. I mean, they're comfortable with each other secure. I mean, that's what I'm attracted to. So that's what I try and portray. So I have a question for Ash then Ash, you just mentioned before that you probably wouldn't have walked into a club in your lingerie at the size you were previously.
And knowing that how much of an advocate you are for body positivity, my question then is like, what would you now say to Ash however many years ago? What would you now tell that woman if she came to you today, what would you tell her about the swingers lifestyle and how to approach the swingers lifestyle and how to be body positive?
Like advice would you give ash from a couple of years ago that it's has nothing to do with your weight it really doesn't it really is all within yourself and as long as you love yourself and you see yourself in a positive light that's all that matters there is someone for everyone like he was saying there is a person for you no matter what shape size or color you are, there is a group for you. And I never expected the amount of women empowerment.
You'll walk into a bathroom and you'll be greeted by women that will help you at the drop of a dime, pick you up, encourage you. And I didn't realize that at the beginning.
And now looking back, very i wish i want to see i want to grab old ashley and i want to grab all the people who are like me because i still feel like her every single time i walk into an event i don't walk into an event and think old ash versus new ash it's just a different ash you know i still feel the same way and it turns out losing 100 pounds really didn't you know help much it didn't it wasn't the magic fixer no i know we body dysmorphia is is a is a big thing and i know people who have been on a on a health journey um for body dysmorphia you still do have a big image of yourself as as as what that person looked like you don't it's really hard for people to see the the new version so but you're right i think that women empowerment or and actually we've been big advocates on the fact that men need to do this too oh yes yeah make each other feel better about who they are what they look like you know and showing up in the best way possible and i think also just realizing that sometimes you're not going to feel the greatest um there's there's days on your journey that are going to be really really hard and there's days when you're going to go to a club and you're going to say hateful things to yourself beforehand.
And sometimes it takes that mind shift change to really flip it around so you can get there. And then afterwards you come home and you're like, actually, I was being a dick to myself earlier. And, you know, I'm okay. Yes. It's a never-ending process. It never ends. It's always different. It always changes every single event, every club you go to, every resort you go to.
It's a never ending journey with loving yourself and just embracing who you are and finding the people that accept you and love you for who you are. And it's, it's been fun. It's been fun. Now I am going to put you back on the hot seat though because in our lifestyle we do say everyone's accepted. We do say that, you know, please come along and be your positive, authentic self.
But do you think that there is an element of people that might see your body positive and health journey and assume that you guys are telling people everybody has to be pretty and skinny to be successful? Do you think that there are an element of people out there who look at you and almost assume that by having your health journey public that you're kind of telling everybody to do the same? I think there is a certain group of people that feel that way.
I mean, we've gotten comments saying, well, you know, you're in shape.
I'm not in in shape yeah i lost a lot of weight i am not in shape i have very much i have a very much of a dad bod i'm not you know muscular or anything like that like anything and we we both do have natural bodies and we have kept natural bodies and i've had four kids and i have a lot of other health issues going on and so a lot of our journey has also not just been hey i lost weight but you know embracing our sizes no matter what stage we're at that you know in our journey and i hope that that comes across yeah i mean you've been pretty you've been opening up about your health issues and i have skin disease and i've got problems with vein you know issues and stuff like that and i hope people don't see that it's we're losing weight for a size or for you know a certain standard it's more of just we lost weight for us it's the only way you're it's successful is if you do it for yourselves and just so happen a byproduct of that is we we lost we are more attractive we lost them we are different people but that being said i think even if we would have had the confidence to enter the lifestyle before we lost weight we still would have found a group of people that we feel the same about that we do now and by sharing the journey i'm kind of hoping that i pick up people from all both ends of you know that all the aspects of the journeys you know and show people that it's okay if you're in the beginning of your journey on the end of your journey in the middle of your journey and it's a never-ending thing that's right and i do just want to just uh put a pin in this conversation real quick because we are, with Ash and Russ, we are talking about weight loss as part of their health journey.
I fully appreciate and understand that there are people on the other side of this journey. I had a very good girlfriend who had celiac disease and she struggled to keep weight and muscles on. So we are by no means, you know, I think there's a spectrum and I think people forget that. We when people are on a health journey, we, we immediately tie that into weight loss.
It's actually, it can be as hard for people who are legitimately unable to keep calories on, unable to have muscles, unable to kind of have that, you know, and I'm going to be very specific about how my girlfriend felt, but the, the womanly figure, you know, she was a very tall athletic figure and she always felt that she couldn't be part of this lifestyle because she didn't have that more voluptuous um you know womanly figure about her and so there's always you know i think it's important to remember that everybody is looking in a mirror and probably saying hateful nasty comments to themselves it's pretty rare to find somebody who looks in a mirror and is like yep you're amazing all the time yeah i don't think there's a person on earth that does that and our daughter's the same way she struggles with gaining weight she's on the opposite end where she's so tiny and she's so little and she i mean she's 20 years old now so she is starting to experience that pressure to have the curves and to have all the you know bots the right they're all the you know yeah cushion and the right spots and the right places and she kind of does she struggles on that other aspect the other side of it because you know that's what i mean i think i think we're so it's so easy to assume that somebody's not a size thing exactly and i think that's it it's it's really it's it's whatever your you are in your mental capacity is is it's where it's at and sometimes that, it doesn't matter, tall, short, thin, fat, whatever.
Yeah. Let's talk about then some gold star advice. I kind of already, I already asked you this, Ash, I'm going to open it up to both of you. But what real world advice would you give to somebody who is struggling with their body image? I appreciate the fact because you've been in multiple weight categories. And as you said, too, you're kind of on the upswing fluctuating.
And i think we've all been there um and i'm sure you've you said before you felt really negative about your body image so i i feel like you guys are in a really good place to answer because you've been maybe a heavier set version of yourself you've been uh you know a lighter version of yourself now you're kind of on the upswing but you're trying to be back in your health journey so well what advice would each of you perhaps give to that person who is struggling with body image surround yourself with positive people people that's a good one that are supportive people that you know friends and community that focus on your inner qualities instead of your outer qualities and not so much focus on what you look like and which more of what you're bringing to the table in other aspects and then just stop it just stop it be kind to yourself i i know i catch myself telling actually that like she'll we'll be getting ready for the club or the an event or a night party or day party whatever it is and you should like i'm sitting on the bed or a chair or something and i see that distinct face where she looks herself in the mirror and she makes that scrunchy like face and i just stop it you look amazing stop it now what i say doesn't matter let's be honest it's all how she feels it legit doesn't i'm like oh it's so lovely you're saying that but in the back of my head i'm like it don't matter and i know that i know it doesn't like but i feel like i have to do like you're being like in my brain you're being absolutely ridiculous to yourself because you look absolutely gorgeous but in reality it doesn't matter what i say or think or do it's what she thinks yeah it's hateful though isn't it it's it's I mean especially you rush you just give the example of like ass in the mirror maybe trying on some laundry on a costume giving the scrunched up face probably I'm just gonna use my own personal experience here and you can probably agree ash but like then turning sideways looking at your thighs looking at your stomach you know your boobs your skin whatever and and you've got your partner there that's like i think you're fabulous but again yeah it doesn't matter and you say hateful things you know to yourself and it's really horrid um so i love you're like just stop it what i what i used to do and what i've been trying to bring back now is that the minute that I say something hateful to myself and I'm gonna be very very um open and honest and transparent here I had a really tough weekend and I actually said to my partner when I got home poor Daryl by the way but I said you know what I just realized and he's like oh what babe thinking it was really nice and fun and I was like I'm really ugly and he went wow um that's really negative so what I've tried to do is now when I say something hateful and horrible to myself in the mirror or have a bad thought, I always try to do three positive things.
So if I say like my thighs are fat, what I try to reflect on is my thighs, I can run, you know, I can run, I can squat, my thighs keep me walking on a daily basis. So I try to do some three kind of positive things. I don't know whether that's going to help you with what you think about that, but that's something I try to do. I do. I love that. I do. I do try to incorporate that. But it does, it gets to you sometimes.
It does, you get in your head and it's hard because you see, we are on social media so often and a lot of images you see on there are really unhealthy standards that a lot of people you know put themselves at so it has been absolutely fabulous uh having you guys on the podcast today having you be super transparent super authentic really appreciate all of that and i think it just you know reinforces the fact that people are people and you don't know what somebody's struggle is you don't know what they're going through in their journey as well so when you're looking at the highlight reel on social media Thank you.
reinforces the fact that people are people and you don't know what somebody's struggle is you don't know what they're going through in their journey as well so when you're looking at the highlight reel on social media and you make those perceptions about people they may be wrong so want to say thank you very much ash and russ now a little bit of a uh side note is that you guys are actually joining us in uh livertine events in vices miami and i'm curious how you guys are feeling about coming to that event how you're feeling because this is like a like a fish out of water for you this is a brand new event brand new community miami also is new for you so how are you guys feeling about it we are so excited we thrive in these situations we have continued on our journey we always make it a point to go to parties where we know no one and we don't know we've never been to that location we love going and experiencing new groups and new people and meeting people so we are so excited that we won't know it brings it back to the beginning for us where we didn't know literally didn't know anyone and no one knew who we were and it it brings with that butterfly nervousness back that is exciting so we've made a point to do that throughout our journey we've we always love to go to new places we'll find just a random group of people on facebook and not know one single person and we'll just show up and meet people so we are excited to do that for sure and what about hosting a seminar How do you feel about hosting like a seminar and a panel in front of like potentially 200?
Terrified. Yeah, okay. Absolutely terrified. That part of that. I'm not sure about that. It's great. I'm really excited to having you guys there again because you are so passionate about so many things in the lifestyle that I think are going to be absolutely fantastic for our listeners and our attendees to meet with you. So we're going to be fine-tuning what you guys are going to talk about in I don't know.
so many things in the lifestyle that I think are going to be absolutely fantastic for our listeners and our attendees to meet with you. So we're going to be fine tuning what you guys are going to talk about in Miami, but really excited to have you there. And again, thank you very much for joining the podcast. Thank you for having us. It's been fun.
