From Fun To Felony: Lifestyle Rules You Shouldn't Break

Transcript

Speaker1: In today's episode, we're giving you a crash course in lifestyle club and event survival. From awkward cash for play offers to phones popping up in places they shouldn't. Let's talk security, safety, and how not to wreck the vibe. Welcome to I'm Not Swinging. A raw, real look at modern relationships. I'm Dave Arena. And I'm Victoria Arena. We've been together nearly 30 years, married over 24, and swinging for more than 22. We're starting this podcast now because for too long, fear kept us from living authentically from being open about who we are and what our relationship actually looks like maybe this is our modern day scarlet letter but we're here to be both the example and the invitation to help others own their desires and question the scripts we've all been handed what's broken in today's relationships is monogamy even natural for humans and could the secret to a relationship that doesn't drain your soul be boning other people this show explores how love sex and identity often buckle under the of societal expectations, especially monogamy. Subscribe to Coming Out Swinging, the podcast that redefines couple goals straight from the motherfucking OGs. Okay, so today we're going to piggyback on last week's episode and kind of take it a little bit further and talk about security and safety in clubs and lifestyle events. Yeah, even down to like going on the outside of the club. Right. And that also blends into a little bit of etiquette things as well. So just like last week, these are kind of your areas. You know, again, you being the swinger police. Not the swinger police. I just like to be safe. That's all there is. No. It is not just about being safe. It's about calling people out, confronting people when they're doing the wrong. Well, because when they do something stupid, that's when it's not safe. And that's when I become a scaredy cat. Potentially, right. You know what I mean? Like, it kills the vibe. Right, which we'll get into. So these are more, it crosses over into etiquette, but these are designed around like safety and security type issues or just bigger no-nos. Yeah. What do you want to start with? I mean, we could start, like, I mean, typically what you're looking at when you're pulling up to a lot of these clubs that you may want to go to, possibly, they're not in, like, the greatest, of areas, the majority of them. I mean, or it's somewhat of a rundown looking building on the outside. That doesn't potentially mean that's what it's going to look like on the inside. It's just, that's more affordable to a lot of these clubs, especially like, you know, you get like the Midwest and so forth. Don't you, don't you agree? Yeah, it's, it's not all the clubs because we've been to, I mean, first of all, there's higher end clubs, there's, There's places like Secrets in Kissimmee, which is not... I mean, it's an old Howard Johnson, so it's not like it's anything fancy, but it's not really in... It's very nice. Yeah, it's not in a bad... You get inside, it's amazing. And it's not in a bad neighborhood. It's more in like a... I don't want to say strip mall, because that's not what it is. No. But there's like... There's like... Restaurants. Stuff around it, yeah. There's chain restaurants around it. But a lot of the clubs that... you're referring to like in our hometown of Cleveland or a lot of the different cities that we've been in. You know, a lot of the a lot of times it's I think it's because it's affordable to be in these areas where it's some sometimes it's in an industrial area or a warehouse district where there's just not a lot going on. And I assume the property was cheaper to get that kind of space. Plus, I also think, you know, I'll see if you agree with me on this I think it also has to do with the fact that you want to be a kind of a little bit low-key and in you in other words you don't want to be in a in a you don't want to be in a ritzy suburb you're not going next to a church well it's not it's not I mean yeah but what I'm saying is you also don't want to be in a ritzy suburb where that might draw more attention from people that don't want you there yeah they yeah I could get word out into a community where they're going to start you know causing problems yeah and it's a little different like in the big cities we've been in like New York City but even then and you've mentioned this where you wouldn't even know it's a club from the outside like it's some secret hidden door and I think that's that's more to my second point where they kind of want to just blend in and not be they're not calling themselves out correct um you know which a lot of times they don't even give you buy a membership, they don't even give you an address until you've done that. Right, right. You know, that's part of the club itself's safety. Yeah. So, yeah, you don't want to judge a book by its cover, necessarily, because there are, you know, most of the clubs that we've been to, they are, and it's not always that they're, like, super nice inside, but it's typically... But take it from me. I mean, someone who, you know, might... Well, you know, I get skeeved out and I get my antennas go up. Like, if I find out, if I have a vibe that something's not safe, I have always gone in and felt I'm going to be fine in these places. From the entry and how they do your sign-in method, they're all by the book. Most of them, you know, do the security check. They check the bags when you go in. and so forth. So I think I've always felt very safe going into a club. Yeah, I agree. And I think there's things that happen inside the club, obviously. You can't control everything. No, you're going to always have the bad kid. Somebody's going to do something stupid. Yeah, which kind of gets us into safety and features that you should be abiding in the club. But there's always the one, like I said, the one bad kid that tries to push the envelope and do something stupid. Yeah. I mean, first of all, I guess my point about being low key comes into play with one of these things. Right. And when you talk security and safety, you know, when people are going against club rules, which typically will prohibit, you know, drug use. and things of that nature, we've seen that. We've seen lines of cocaine right on the table. And you've even called people out, not maybe in that situation to their face, but you have called over management and let them know. I don't want to be the Debbie Downer, but unfortunately, it only takes one undercover cop that's in there that night. You just don't know. And they are looking for one thing to be wrong in that club. And the whole thing's going down and so are you. And you're on TMZ and everything else. You're not trying to get on. Swinger clubs on TMZ is like a thing. Yeah, and they're just waiting for some kind of scandalous... Because you know damn well all they would talk about is that it's a sex club. Not that it could have happened anywhere. A drug-filled sex club. Yeah. But a lot of times because we... We frequent these clubs and these events so often, especially in the cities that we've lived in and we've become regulars and we know management and we know ownership. We do point those things out to them because, again, it's not only for our own safety in case something happened, but also for them as a business. Because, again, if someone in society, in that community, doesn't like that they have a sex club, but they can't really do anything about it legally those are the ways you can get shut down right you can you know by doing or allowing stuff like that to happen even once if like you said if the wrong person is there yeah and they're looking to shut you down on a technicality like those are gonna find something yeah yeah and that's also i mean we've even had we've even had situations where you've been offered money or you've seen other people offer It's crazy. Well, there's kind of two things there. Usually on the guy side, it's you've had someone offer you money or flash you money. Or we've seen it that doesn't involve you, or we've seen it happen with other people. Yeah, I've seen single females or, you know, I mean, really anything. I've seen a couple where a guy wants to... Basically, it's like pimping out his shit for money. I've seen it all. I've just seen a lot of money offer type things. I've been walking down a hallway to go to the bathroom and somebody flashed me money like, hey, will you come in this room with me? And I'm like, are you freaking kidding me? Yeah. Not what we're able to do. Yeah, that's not my thing. But yeah, it does happen. And that's kind of an absolute no-no. That's not why we're there anyways. We all do it for free. Right. And the other situation is, do we have seen females that are also working, that use the club? And we say it all the time, sometimes it's cheaper than getting a hotel to go in there on an off night or something. You know what I mean? I've seen gentlemen bring in the call girl. for their date to an adult club, but they're really ultimately going to be with each other. And like I said, it was probably cheaper than going and getting a hotel room. He's just going to bring her to the sex club where he knows he can just go in a room with her and, you know, whatever. As long as the money exchange isn't on that property where it's going to bust everything and shut our vibe down, what are you going to do? Yeah. And again, we tend to try to point these things out to the management as well, just because, again, If they're caught with those kind of things happening, that's a recipe for disaster. Yeah, it is. It really is. And they don't want it in their clubs. Trust me. They don't. And they're always pretty gracious when we do bring that up. Because, again, if there was some kind of technicality they're going to get busted on, it's not having the sex club, per se. It's going to be something like that. Yeah, correct. I guess the next thing, then, is where we get into the... Those are more just kind of safety, security things. Before you go into that, the whole like drugs thing, I mean, it comes down to like even the roofing type stuff. Yeah. That has personally happened to me. So I always say if it's a BYOB, bring in an empty covered cup to your bar. And they're happy to make your drink in your covered, Like, you know, a tumbler or whatever. Because I used to do the open drink, and it happened to me twice at a club. And it was awful. It's the most horrible feeling. What they thought they were going to get from me with my husband right there, I have no idea. Dave does not drink. So, you know, that's a thing. But it did happen to me twice. Yeah, it does. We've discussed that. I don't want to say we joked about it. We kind of did, but it's not a joking matter because it's a serious thing. But we joked about the fact that, like, what did you think you were going to get from this situation when you're putting someone basically out of commission, especially in a club-like atmosphere? Like, yeah, there are rooms there where they could have maybe gotten you in a room or whatever, but your husband is right there with you. Right. I mean, maybe they didn't know if I drank or not, but still, it's just really baffling to me. And that was a scary situation, especially, well, the first time it happened was super scary because I've, you know, because I don't drink, I observe. And I, I've seen you drunk a lot. And you, and you, you really do hold your liquor well. I'm a good time girl. Yeah, there's very, very rarely do you tip over the edge where you get sick or you get, you know, or you even get light and you definitely don't get to where I don't have to ever carry you out. It's a good time. Yeah. Just say that. Yeah. So you know how to handle your liquor. But like on that first time I was, I knew something was wrong because you were just staring off and I was asking you questions and you literally weren't answering me. It's like literally lights were on. Nobody lights. Yeah, for sure. And that was like super scary. And I'm like, okay, we got to get out of here. And basically got you, you know, got you at home. Yeah. And right into bed. The second time it happened, you recognize the feeling right away. Yeah. Stopped the. I didn't drink anything else. Right. Yeah. And we were actually able to go in the back and just kind of sit on. It took about an hour or so, but I was able to recover because it was happening so quick. Yeah. And we, we were able to actually finish out the night, but yeah, that's just not, not a good situation. I was pretty scared. It was rough. I mean, again, it, you know, people pushing the envelope and, and it's a very serious thing. And, um, there are like singles that go. And so that's kind of scary to think that, you know, somebody would want to, you know, take advantage of whether it was a a single male or a single female. You know, like it, it happens on both sides. Yeah. And when you're not suggesting it was a single, because you actually thought the first time was a couple that did it. So it could, we're not saying like, well, you're saying it could happen to a single or if they're there. Yeah. But if you're there, what you're saying, yeah, what you're saying is it's even scarier when you're not, when you don't have a significant other with you. Yeah. Right. But, but we're not suggesting that it's just the singles that are perpetrating because this you thought at least was a couple in this situation yeah so yeah that's that's crazy so yeah what i wanted to get into then is like those are kind of like i guess bigger security real safety type issues agree yeah but now i want to kind of get into it again it's this is where you just the etiquette yeah you have no tolerance for any kind of stupidity or yeah breaking of rules or No, I don't. And these are not, mind you, these are not, we're not talking about personal boundaries and rules here. This is like, right, these are things that you should not be doing. So you want to, what's your number one? What will make you snap off at someone? Yeah, what will make you snap off quicker than anything and jump out of your, out of the bed with no clothes on and Lunged towards somebody. Opening a door without permission. Yeah. And coming into a room without permission. I swear to you, it happens probably almost every time we go. Yeah. And this is coming from a couple that, again, we play a lot in the open or we leave the door open or we leave the chain, you know, hooked. Yeah. So oftentimes it's okay to come in our room, but either... Or ask permission. Asked permission, right? And sometimes they do push the envelope. But also what you're talking about, and you've had fights where you almost got kicked out of the club. I did. Because it wasn't even us involved. We were out in the, just in the sitting area of the playroom. And you're watching people shake door handles and see if it's locked or even, and I, you just go bananas. I remember you were almost going to fight that one guy. Yeah, it is so disrespectful. And imagine you're in the throes of whatever you're doing in a room. Could you imagine the, like, vibe killer that is? Just some stranger come in and just stand there. They didn't get to know you. They didn't talk to you. I mean, some people are into that. We are not. I think it's a violation of privacy. If I want to play private, the door is closed for a reason. If I don't, it's going to be open for a reason and then just ask permission. It's pure 101 of rules. Yeah, when the doors, and especially what we're talking about specifically is when the door is closed, it's closed. Yes. It doesn't matter if they, if there was, maybe there wasn't a lock on, some don't have locks. Some don't have locks, yeah. But maybe they forgot to lock it. It doesn't matter. First of all, taking someone, like, taking someone out of the moment just by shaking the handle is bad enough. Agreed. We even had a situation where we were in with another couple playing, and some dude just opened the door, came in, and was just watching. Yeah, he didn't do anything. To his credit, I shouldn't say to his credit. That's not good. No, it's not. Yeah, I know you were going to yell at me. He didn't do anything. He didn't try to push the envelope that way. But it was freaking creepy. Now, this is different than, I just, and again, I try to keep in mind the people that don't know the atmosphere or the environment, or if they haven't experienced this. We do a lot of open play, like we said, or the door is open, right? Right. Now, sometimes people, you really should ask permission no matter what, but sometimes, sometimes the rule is, hey, if the door is open, you can go in there and watch without permission. You still can't touch or do anything like that without permission. But you can go in there. So we understand that because we do that a lot. Right. But what we're talking about here is that the door was shut. So just imagine the balls on someone to open a door that is shut. You don't know who's in there. And you're just going to come in, shut the door, shut the door back down and just stand in the corner and watch. It was creepy. Yeah. He was like, it was just, it was like somebody it in and float it out. It's really wild. There's no way to not make that creepy. And it's an absolute no-no. It's amazing that we even have to say that. It is. It really is. But it happens. I mean, we've had... 100%. I mean, I've had people approach and touch without permission. There's nothing that will stop me from flipping around if my ass is in the air because they They touched me without asking if they could touch me first. I will stop whatever I'm doing and say, I did not tell you you could touch me. Yeah. Doesn't mean I'm not going to allow you to, but you asked me first. And some of the worst, to be honest, are the women on women. Oh, yeah. And they think. And they take you right out of it, too. And for some reason, they think that because it's a woman on a woman. Yeah. That they don't have to follow the same. No, I completely agree. And it goes for everybody. It doesn't matter who you are. Yeah. And so what's your... I think I know what you're going to say. So the next one is what... Because I'm thinking of things that... You think of everything I've gone off about. Yeah. And I literally can picture you, like you said, whipping around, like when you've been touched, like you whip around so fast. I'm like, uh-oh, here we go. Or you snap off the bed and lunge towards someone. You make it sound like I'm like a leopard. You are at times when the wrong thing happens. But I know there's another category of things that you absolutely will not stand for. I'm trying to think. Phones. Oh, God. I did get into a really full-on out brawl for the phone. Oh, yeah, the one in New York City. The one in New York City. I mean, you've gotten into multiple confrontations. That almost actually went to blows with another female. With another female. And we, yeah, we were nose to nose. I do not tolerate it. I'll tell you why. We had somebody reach out to us and tell us that we had a video circulating out there. Yeah, on the porn sites. on the porn sites that was up without our permission. Now, we were able to get those down. We were able to, but once something's out on the internet, like it's out there. Yeah, we never know. So we don't know who could ever find it, you know, that kind of thing. But when it's out there, they're recording or whatever. You just, I don't know any club that says you can have your phone in a playroom. Right. There's not one that I've been in. And we're talking New York, Vegas, LA. Now, some are stricter than others where you absolutely cannot have your, like, lock it up in a locker. You can't have it on you. You know, there might be phone areas, you know what I mean, that you can use. But yeah, you're right. In the play area, it's an absolute no-no. Now, as soon as you see that flash or that brightness of a screen, I'm like, oh boy. Now, I will agree with you on that because we've personally had that happen where we've had videos, out there. And in today's age, you can take a video so quickly. Yeah. And if I'm going to put out a video, I'm making bank on it. It's going to be my own video. Right. You're not going to let someone else. Somebody else ain't putting my shit out there. Yeah, absolutely. Bullshit. Absolutely. So, you know, and I will say, 99% of the time, it probably is innocent. And people are used to having their phones. It's just a habit. they take it out to check whatever you see the light you see the we are so attached to our phone that i'm not i'm not so like oblivious to think that sometimes it's an accident yeah and a lot of nervous habit they don't know what else especially if they're walking around back there it's like oh let me just check the time or whatever yeah but you can't do it there is no you are not allowed to have that phone out yeah and you've even you even the watches wig me out the Apple Watch. I mean, it just takes... Yeah, when you see someone fidgeting on it, you're like, what are they doing? Yeah. But you've confronted, if they've been new, especially, say, what, 99 out of 100 times, they're like, oh, my God, sorry, I forgot about it or didn't realize that or thanks for letting me know. Right. I mean, it's usually just purely accidental or habit. Right. But the point is, again, you can do it so quickly. quickly and so on the sly now with these phones, you just can't take that chance. And again, especially with us playing in the open a lot, you're out there. If you're in the middle of our thing, sometimes I'm not watching. So knowing me, I'm very vigilant to what's going on around me all the time. It doesn't mean that I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing. But what I'm saying is my spidey senses are up a lot of times. Well, you're observing anyhow. I'm more lost in the cloud. in general. Things go over my head all the time, but you're very. Yeah. But yeah, it's. And if I catch them, I've caught them for a good reason. So Dave always knows that I'm, I'm not just saying you had a phone out and they didn't have a phone out. No, they did have a phone out. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like. Just like, just like when we saw those lines of Coke, I'm like, are you sure you're seeing what you're saying? Yeah. And you're like, yeah. And then you're like, look. And I'm like, I looked over. I'm like, oh, okay. Yes. you're right that is happening right in front of us so anything else anything else that kind of goes into the safety security etiquette i just want everybody to realize these are just like these are you know we've been in this for a long time so these are over the span of years that we've been in this i'm not saying this is all like every weekend we see this because we don't yeah absolutely yeah these are yeah no you make a good point because those are very This is just something we've wrapped up over the 20-plus years that we've been doing this that I can bring up and let you know that overall, you are very safe. And as long as your boundaries are set and you follow the club rules, there is no problem with that. And there's no problem with you expressing your consent. That is the number one thing that these clubs preach. No means no, and permission means permission. And another point we're trying to make, too, is it's not just the consent thing. It's also speaking your mind if you see something. Like, I'm going to sound cheesy from the New York City subway. See something, say something. Right. But really, it is like you hate to be like. Yeah. Sometimes you hate to be like you feel like you're you're like a rat, you know, or something. But you just go to the either the management or the whoever the you know, they have watchers or security. Yeah. And just express that this is what you saw. You might want to be on the alert for this. You know what I mean? Just because. Because let's face it. If it gets taken down, that's a place that's another location that we all like or whatever that would be shut down. Yeah. It's stuff for everybody. Yeah. And especially if, like, again, you see the phones or anything like that, that's also for your safety and security. Yeah. So it's just you've got to be, you've got to say something. All right, so we got two episodes in of things that... All my pet peeves. Yeah, I'm sure we've got... They're all out of the way now. I don't know. I'm sure we're going to... I'm sure there's some more episodes coming with other things that drive you nuts, but it's good, though. It's good because you know me. Everything goes over my head, like I said, so I would never even notice things. No, you're oblivious to the world. Yeah, you're the one that hones in on these and stops it, so... good to let people know and especially movies yeah and especially if you see that club that you're like holy shit what kind of what part of town am i in how like what kind of shady shit is this like yeah it's typical now not always you got you know what i mean if it gives you the skeevy vibes which like you said you would get right away you could yeah you could leave but for the most part they're you'll know when you enter yeah you'll know when you enter and a lot of these are just in those parts of town yeah whatever reason yeah so all right All right, we'll see you next time. If you're digging this, make sure to subscribe. Leave us a review and follow us on TikTok at dickandbake. We'd love to help you redefine couple goals through non-monogamy without the mess. New episodes every week. We'll see you next time.