Want to send us a message? Compersion is learning to grow through other feelings, in order to get to that one. Join us as we speak with the actors and play writes from Compersion . Nik and Mik use their autobiographical stories to create an intimate and steamy theatrical experience. Compersion is an adult-only play that celebrates a healthy lifestyle in ethical nonmonogamy, where the characters explore real-life scenarios and participate in erotic intimacy scenes. The guests get to enjoy a meet and greet with the cast and crew, and the opportunity to participate in the play, making it a truly interactive and immersive experience. For those who are curious about swinging, Compersion provides a real-life look into what one might expect in a swinger event or encounter. GUEST BIO:Nikki began her performing career with a dance-in-education company touring Australia before further training at Broadway Dance Studios, New York. On her return she ran the company for another 10 years whilst appearing in theatre, film and television. She works as a youth theatre director, specializing in disability arts and ASD, and is a social advocate for cultural diversity and recidivism projects with theatre companies and local government organizations. Mik is a Doctor of cultural anthropology, an actor, award-winning director, published playwright, and has toured in the UK, USA and Australia. In 2016 he broadcast the first ‘livestream performance’ from an Adelaide Fringe, based on his MPhil about an autistic theatre company for which he has presented findings at the Royal Anthropological Institute (UK). He is a freelance Creative Director for governments, commercial enterprises, and arts festivals, creating large-scale immersive art events.SHOW NOTES: About The Play The Concept - How it Began20 year Marriage - Getting Started - ExperiencesDeciding on ContentReal Sex? - Yes!Audience Participation/EngagementReciting Lines from the PlayTour DatesHow to Support - Patreon LINKS:Website: www.steamyromantics.comPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/SteamyRomanticsIG: @steamyromantics Support the showWant More?👀 Watch on YouTube: YouTube ShowFull video versions and interactive live episodes!Bonus episodes, exclusive content, and 🌶️Extras: https://www.patreon.com/SwingerUniversity 🛳️🎉Looking for lifestyle events in your area? T4P is the go-to directory for clubs, parties, and resort events. Browse now at Ticket4Play.com Custom SU T-shirts and gear: Our Amazon StoreSwingerLinks.com - live schedule, special offers*, and our 🌶️links!Our Website - Leave us a message, articles, and sexy products3 Ways to get your question on our show:RECORD it on our website at: https://swingeruniversity.com/contact/EMAIL a recorded voice note to: [email protected]: (916) 538-0482 and leave a voicemail.* We get a commission if you decide to purchase through our links, at no cost to you.
Transcript
We have to talk about something we've been genuinely excited about for months, and our patrons actually got a preview of this already. Jamaica! Yes, we are going back, and actually, we have a great offer for you guys. Yeah, it's Swingcation. It's October 11th through the 18th at Hedonism 2. And if you don't know what Swingcation is, it's pretty easy. Swinger plus kink plus vacation. It's a hosted group with real structure, workshops, lectures, real conversations with experts who are passionate about bringing and bridging that gap between the swinger world and the kink world.
And we're not just going as attendees. We're going as featured presenters, which is exciting. We'll be leading sessions. So if you come, we actually get to hang out with you. Which brings up something we should mention. When you use our code, yes, we got a code, you're not just getting a discount. You're getting the signature swing experience, which means $100 off per person, up to $200 per room, but it also means that we make time for you. An exclusive breakfast, lunch, cocktail hour, or one-hour and one time with us directly, plus more surprise benefits.
Here's something that's really unique. You could actually contribute by hosting a discussion or running a Skillshare. I know it's scary, but if you have something that you want to contribute, that's a big part of why this event is so special. Everyone there has something to bring to the table. All right, details. If you book before April 25th, you save $400. Plus, they gave us that special code that gets you an additional $200, and the special code is SWINGERU-VIP. So book through TicketForPlay.com forward slash Swinky. That's T-I-C-K-E-T, the number four, play.com forward slash S-W-I-N-K-Y.
And use our code at checkout. And you guys, if you have any questions about the event, the resort, or what to expect, just reach out. I mean, we're here for you. We're happy to help. So once again, TicketForPlay.com forward slash Swinky, the code SwingerU-VIP. We really want to see you there. Hi, this is Ed. And this is Phoebe. Today we're talking to two of our favorite people, Nikki and Mick from Australia. They are playwrights and actors from Compersion, an intimate adult-only play celebrating a healthy lifestyle in ethical non-monogamy and the meaning of compersion.
The authors use their autobiographical story to create this cultural event by revealing real-life scenarios and steamy, erotic, intimacy scenes. First, we have a couple shout-outs. We have some new Patreon members that are supporting us, and we absolutely love your support. Betty and Larry and Asaki. So thank you, thank you very, very much. All right, Ed's going to introduce... Oh, actually, I'm going to introduce Nikki. so mrs sr or nikki began her performing career with a dance in education company touring Australia before further training at Broadway Dance Studios in New York.
On her return she ran the company for another 10 years while appearing in theater film and television. Currently she works as a youth theater director specializing in disability arts and ASD. Her passion is social advocacy work on cultural diversity and recidivism projects within theater companies and local government organizations. And Mr. S.R., Michael, or Mick, is a doctor of cultural anthropology, an actor, award-winning director, published playwright, and has toured internationally in the UK, USA, and Australia. In 2016, he broadcast the first live stream performance from Adelaide Fringe.
This project was based on his M film with an autistic theater company for which he has presented findings at the Royal Anthropological Institute in the UK. He is a freelance creative director for governments, commercial enterprises, and arts festivals, creating large-scale immersive art events. Welcome, welcome, Nikki and Nick. Thanks, guys. Thank you for having us. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm very excited to have you. It sounds great in your accent. You can read our CV anytime you like.
So we really thought your CV was important to read because for a play of this nature on conversion, it's not just, you know, someone who decided, oh, you know, we've been swingers for a few years and, you know, what the heck, let's try something new. Let's just create a play. You know, I mean, this is not a small undertaking by any means. And you have a wealth of experience and knowledge behind you. And as longtime swingers, which we are going to get into, there's a lot of thought and a lot of hard work that has gone into this.
So as we see all over our industry now, there's podcasts popping up everywhere and swinger games and all kinds of crazy stuff. But I really think there's something different here that you guys have. I know there is something really different and I'm really excited to get into it and and discover and share with everybody what it is you have created so so explain a little bit uh about what the play is about and then walk us through like what happens like how when you get there and what happens in the theater um well should I take the first part? Yeah, go for it.
So the play is, as you mentioned at the top, an autobiographical or a collection of autobiographical stories. So experiences that we went through as we were emerging into the lifestyle. And as that process went, it was a process of discovering events but also what the impact of those events have on us as a relationship and all of that unpacking.
And I guess we found at the time that even though there was a lot of activity around, we found it personally very hard to find people we could sort of share stories with and, you know, you can't really go to your everyday friends that you've had for the last 30 years and sort of unpack some of this stuff. Right. And so, yeah, it's a bit awkward.
Although we did try it yeah only once once that was yeah that's probably another anecdote we should write about but we we we had several of these sort of anecdotes and stories and through the process of talking with each other and unpacking it with each other and all the rest of it we some of them were traumatic, some of them were upsetting, but some of them were quite funny and some of them were quite sort of ridiculous. And empowering. And empowering and lots of different feelings.
And we also found that when we stumbled across the lifestyle and all the activity that was going on in it we also discovered this this freedom um this this liberation this sort of discovering a new identity and and all of those sort of feelings combined those funny stories those dramatic stories the feelings that we had about um you know this just welcoming new community we just wanted to it just what drives any artist ultimately, you just want to find the medium you use to express how you feel and communicate those stories.
So it probably started in a really essential space like that and then we began a creative development process. So we thought it's very hard to, as you can imagine, it's very hard to sort of write and create a piece that is so intimately connected to your own experiences. So we approached it from the position of, well, we would like to do something like this to celebrate and share the stories. Let's imagine that we were working for a client.
If a client came to us and said, hey, we want to do this project, then we would know all the skills that we were able to do to put that together so we just sort of went right let's let's park ourselves a little bit and just now apply that the creative process to to creating a work that fulfills what these clients want to do which is share these stories and create a sense of awareness and identity and a platform and I guess another cultural contribution to the community that's out there, really.
I think another element is that after working in theatre in particular for this many years and educating in theatre, one of the things you realise very quickly is that it is a wonderful tool to experience real feelings in a safe environment and to act out real-life situations and see what happens if you're brave enough to answer like this or see what happens if you say no this time and to experiment with that, you know, with real-life situations. And so we were partially aware that there's no way to practice.
You can look and you can read or you can go and throw yourself in the middle of it and practice it but but that really kind of I just don't like what you were saying before I don't know what it looks like I don't know what it's going to sound like I don't know what it's going to feel like um you know and there's no way to practice and and sometimes what you're looking at is actually overstimulating you know in all sorts of ways that aren't even important to what you want to go and do and so yeah i think in that sense we recognize there was very little area for the for that sort of engagement and that maybe theater would be a great uh tool to not only have those feels because you really do feel the feelings that you're feeling i mean that's part of what you do as an actor um to relive or to make those feelings come to life in the moment and so if if you're able to actually create that in a room what happens for a group of people and their sense of self and sense of community and what might be what could we do maybe we could help maybe we're just blowing steam but you know let's go see and find out um and so yeah it was a combination of a of just true honest conversation about all of our adventures you know you pick it apart afterwards you wonder why you did something and then you you recognize a behavior and then you start looking at that behavior and then you start you know and so all of that conversation led to that realization you know it really was a joke it'd make a great play we just kept joking about it and then eventually eventually we kind of went all right let's write it down and that's when we started recognising that maybe we had something that was not only useful but maybe empowering.
A homage to the community that gave it to us, a give back. Yes. So the second part of your question, obviously it's not a Broadway musical. There's no big set pieces and show tunes or anything like that. This is a production that's done as a parlour play, which was really popular in the 18th and 19th century. And used to talk about social constructs. Yes, social issues. Perfect. So we've borrowed that format, which means that when you come to the venue, you're greeted at the venue by us.
It really is sort of set up as if you're coming to a kind of meet and greet that we're hosting and part of the night is that we're going to sit down and the audience is very intimate, 10, 15 sort of we we start chatting start chatting we start we start storytelling and part of the storytelling is that we dramatize some of that as. It's not like we do big Macbeth things and Laurence Olivier kind of quotations, but we do dramatise the stories we've told.
But before we even begin the show, there is a really, generally about half an hour where we just mingle and because it's such a small amount of people and, you know, you pour a couple of drinks and you just ask who's who and what's what, we were really surprised by how comfortable everyone was. I mean, we've been to parties where everyone just stands there. Or you might get a couple of little groups and then there's lots of people standing around and no one's taking any action. Everyone's kind of just frozen. Yeah.
little groups and then there's lots of people standing around and no one's taking any action everyone's kind of just frozen um yeah and and so we were very concerned that with a small amount of people that would be what happened that it was too small and intimate but actually what happened was that it was comfortable enough for them to all meet and greet actually meet and greet each other and where are you from and what and how did you get here and exchange those stories so by the time the show starts that's given us a chance to get to know them too so we actually have a really comfortable okay gang we're all here is everyone comfortable we all got a drink because we've got a story and then you know and it is as intimate as that and the and the play begins we work through roughly in a roughly kind of chronological order of of events that happened to us um again we we can't many different reasons you can't put exactly what happened in your life on stage um you have to sort of make some creative choices there and so that's where the sort of dramatizing the narrative part of it comes in so it is a story it goes for about an hour um and and in throughout the piece too we also there's a there's um there are intimate acts like you you said before they're quite intimate um sex acts i guess or solo solo acts together um they are they are unique because they are part of the story though they're not this isn't just sort of going to watch a strip show or watching something like that the the events that we recreate fit within the narrative of the story the question really was if that is what happened then do we show the truth or do we allude to the fact that i masturbated online every day for my sir because he was important to me at that time and i was you know a mess for it a hot wet mess for the whole thing you know and that that's the honest truth of the situation do it do i just say that and let your imagination or do I show you the whole messy truth of what it was like because part of it was fucking great sorry my lads swear part of it was amazing part of it was an act of self-harm because I was looking for approval I hadn't met myself yet my own personal needs and I was looking for approval.
I hadn't met myself yet, my own personal needs, and I was looking for it somewhere else. So if I'm going to be really honest about that, this is what it looks like. This is how it felt. And, you know, I was really scared that the reaction from that, I didn't quite know how to manage that or how it would be received.
But, oh, my God, my heart exploded when I turned around and faced the audience again after having done the act was actually empathy recognition of acts that they themselves have done and in that was this uh like a like it broke the spell of shame that we all had over those acts because it made us realise we've all done it. And that's because we all suffer being human beings. Sure. You know, yeah. There are other aspects as well. We do a little bit of audience interaction by virtue of the fact that we talk about stories with other people, but there's only the two of us.
So it's part of our performance technique that we've developed through other projects over the years where we have a process partly involved in that mingling in the early stages where we might find people in the audience that are going to be really receptive to being like a plant or coming up on stage and playing a role. They don't have to do anything. They don't have to be involved. It's all consensual and we work through all of that sort of in the moment.
But it does mean that people get to come up and get a lap dance, for example, or come up and pretend to be someone else for a moment and then they sit back down or then we might move into the audience. You might get a massage. you know. Yeah, you might get a foot massage if you're lucky. You know, that sort of stuff. But we do spend a lot of time in and out of the audience as well because it is a discussion. There are questions we're really genuinely asking the audience of ourselves, of you, of the social constructs we live in.
And it wasn't something we wanted to do as a, we're standing on the stage and you must listen to this idea of ours, you know, and we recognise you're here because you are also curious and you're also untying and untangling all these knots and puzzles and riddles, which means that we can just have an honest conversation tonight and we can unveil and unstrip those formalities and talk earnestly.
Is it a series of little scenes put together and then you interact with the audience like with a Q&A in between or is the interaction done after it's more um the there's it's little vignettes and scenes some of them are contemporary and in the stories that we we had and experiences that we had some of them are actually reflective so my character me my character um uh goes through uh unpacks a few little vignettes that happened in my history as a child which I I didn't realize until I was in the lifestyle and I'd done some of that unpacking that some of those moments had actually shaped me so it's not a sort of it's not there to sort of beat myself up it's sort of there to go well hang on a minute that that came from somewhere and now i recognize where that came from and so i can move forward and that was something else that we noticed resonated with members of the audience as well the q a the q a it's funny sometimes we get an audience where at the end of the show it it does develop a real Q&A session uh and other times it it just becomes a real like everyone goes up and plays pool and has a drink and just talks to each other and just swaps numbers numbers does that so we kind of we kind of try and I think that's what we're trying to do really is just create an environment that that lubricates more of that social atmosphere or that ability to to to talk whether that's to I don't know.
that's what we're trying to do really is just create an environment that lubricates more of that social atmosphere or that ability to talk, whether that's to express in that kind of Q&A way or just to feel comfortable around other people without pressure. So we just sort of create that moment and then facilitate it and guide it at the end, whichever way that goes. Right, right. What I love so much about your play and I just need to see it. I'm going to have to take a trip to Australia. I just know it. We're going to have to come over there one way or the other.
That seeking of knowledge that Ed and I did 10 years ago when we first got into swinging, we experienced the same thing that you guys did where there just wasn't anyone to talk to. And we did and we searched for answers. We scoured the internet. They weren't there. And we listened to the podcast and they were all the revisionist history of stuff. And, of course, everything was rainbows and unicorns and nothing really talked about the pitfalls of what happens. Like, not every night is exciting. Not every experience is great. Not every conversation is lovely.
And it's hard to, I think, we've noticed, too, that there's a lot of people in that space, podcasts and therapy and counsellors, and there is actually a lot of information out there. Right. Now there is. Now, yes. Definitely. In the last month. Even in the last 12 months. A couple of years, yeah. And the academic research, there's a lot more academic research in the space now. A little bit, yeah.
I don lot but comparatively yeah but but we we realized that well we wanted to I guess we wanted to be a part of that culture of of information and advocacy and awareness and I guess this is what we can contribute in that space as theater makers and performers this is how we can do that yeah but i think also that that theater like nikki was saying earlier it's kind of the original virtual reality you can kind of you can kind of live it it's vicariously through us doing it smell the perfume i'm wearing as i'm sitting right next to you with my hand on your leg which i asked if i could do while I tell you the next story, you know, and that's a different thing again, you know.
But I think on what you were saying, Phoebe, before about not everything is beautiful in the lifestyle and that, see, that is definitely one of the traps that I fell into. I just thought it was so fantasy and so glamorous and so exciting and all of those things.
And I guess where that led me was exploring a whole heap of fantasies and woo-hoo's and away from um from the from compersion yeah and i kind of realized that around that point that um you know there's there maybe there uh there is that element there's a lot of people out there who who um who just love that part of it and that's their shtick that's their thing and that's okay um but for a lot of us it that that lifestyle is you know especially if you have family and work and all sorts of other things that that glamour and that fantasy is is not really the thing that's magical about it it's right yeah it's not the thing that's magical the thing that's magical is the compersion and the relationship yeah yes the relationships the experiences those intimate moments where you have aha moments and experiences that you would have never had between the two of you and yes yes yeah that bring profound happiness yes i think there's something great to your point about having a play where you can see real people acting it out as much as i love our content and our kind of genre of content podcaster in a sense academic you can academic.
You can hear about it, you can read about it, but until you actually see it happening in that first person, watching people have that conversation, watching couples engage with other couples, right, that kind of confusion thing, wait, didn't they come in with different people now?
And, you know, sorting out that whole interchange And I think what's really nice is that this play gives you a happy medium between jumping into the pool and being able to watch people swim around and kind of get a sense of what it's like and not watch a movie of it where you don't get that sensory interaction, it's it's a nice kind of segue into the experience which is really really cool okay can we talk about october for a second oh my god yeah i've been waiting for this we were invited to be guest speakers for two engagements on a six-star crystal cruise ship with 310 lifestyle couples and it sails from montreal to boston during the peak foliage season i'm super excited and honestly i'm really nervous yeah it's kind of a version of like a swinger ted talk that we're gonna have to do oh my god i know and more importantly We'll be right back.
nervous yeah it's kind of a version of like a swinger ted talk that we're gonna have to do oh my god i know and more importantly if you know the brand it's llv luxury lifestyle vacations you may have seen them and they're sexy playmakers with their fun red hats this ship the crystal symphony is classy. Butler service for every single room, Michelin rated restaurants, full spa, clothing optional, sensual playrooms, like everything, theme nights and international DJ. So it's luxury and nudity? Oh man, this is going to be great. The bottom line is we want you there with us.
It's 310 couples and like all their vacations, they book up fast. They really do. Their vacations are extremely popular. So please come with us. And in order to find it, all you have to do is go to ourswingerlinks.com and look for the LLV Sensual Voyage. We hope you'll join us. We noticed, too, that in some of the polyamory and swinging is sort of cropping up in more and more mainstream media and TV shows and things like that. And even in that space, it's good. It's good drama and they're good writers and they're good at what they do.
But let's face it, what you're watching is a highly processed content. It's gone through a lot of layers of censorship or creative decision-making. And, you know, they cast people that look beautiful, that don't look like me, that don't look like me. So it can actually be alienating. And so we think there's, we hope anyway. Well, you know, we're certainly not supermodels and we're certainly not glamorous celebrities. What you see is what you get. And we do have that discussion. If we do this show, we're not supermodels. We are not young.
But we also recognise that it is actually people our age that make up the great majority of the A&M lifestyle at this point in time we also recognize that I would really dislike a 23 year old pretending to like playing a role of how they got into do you know what I mean yes actually I don't want to watch you tell me this because you're 23 and you know I like I would struggle with that as an audience member you know like but if but i so we kind of yeah i did go through that whole thing i don't even know if i want to get up on stage and strip at all right to be honest because it's different than being at a party or a an event or a session and uh but yeah in the end you know what this is also the truth of the lifestyle we are real people we're not the black and white peaches with the beautiful models and all that you know we are beautiful and we are incredible but we're you know and we're not 23 anymore and we're not any of these things and we're incredible and happy still you know know.
Right, right. Exactly. Yeah. So you've been married, what, 20 years now? Yeah. 20 years this year, yeah. And then how long have you? We've been together for 35, I think, something like that. We met when we were 14 and 13, respectively. Wow. I know.
And I still admit that i fell in love at first sight but you know i took a few years to to convince the other way around i was a very free spirit that's amazing and then so then when how did the first conversation start how did you even discover you know swinging or opening up your relationship to somebody well yeah we get asked that question we get asked the question who asked the question first quite a lot and and you know it i fully recognize why that question is asked but it didn't happen that way for us so it it's kind um we were probably always non-monogamous but we just you know i think we just kept blaming it on the booze or the atmosphere or what they were wearing or you know and then we just put it away for a while and forget we did that until the next time we were and so so they're really they're the vanilla couple that gets together with friends for vanilla barbecue they end up in the hot tub and everyone swaps and then they go well that was fun let's never do that again and then it's a it's a hot tub effect it only happens it's localized that is true um but yeah it was always incidental and we kind of went what is that oh i don't know it was kind of fun to let we'll let it go you know and um and then we kind of incidentally happened upon e&m lifestyle somewhere online we just started, well, we just sort of, I think, went, what the heck is this and what's going on and what are we, maybe we need to look for an outlet.
And so we just started looking around our local town and we found this club and we thought, oh, hey, that sounds like a good experience. Let's go. What the heck's all this going on? Oh, wow, I didn't know this existed. And so, yeah, we didn't really have that kind of. But the more we learnt about A&M, the more we went, oh. Maybe we should have been doing this a long time ago. I don't get it. But by then we'd had 20, you know, we'd had, I don't know, 15 years or so of patterned behaviours in a, you know. What we thought was the right way to be married. The way to be married sort of thing.
So then it was the unpicking of all that happily and willingly, but wow, what a journey. Wow. I love that. I just love everybody's journey and how it's so, so different. Fascinates me. Yeah.
We have heard of other couples that have kind of just stumbled into the the whole thing and realized that there was a name for it yes yeah oh this is just what we do yeah it was like oh we found our people oh right i mean we knew what we knew what swinging was but for us uh when we discovered you this, we kind of associated it just with swinging as we knew it, which was keys in the jar and more closer probably to dogging than actual swinging. That was our image of it. And so, yeah, the initial reaction was that it was just a bad shame job. If anyone knows you are this, you're out socially.
You're an outcast. Right. This is not acceptable behavior. And if you hear about people that are doing it, then it's a, did you know? You know, and so that was the image we had of swinging. And then when we started really opening it up and discovering more about the A&M as a lifestyle, as a choice, as an ethical. Oh, my gosh. Then we realized, no, this is something else. This is, yeah. So, you know, our audience is predominantly the United States. And I'm familiar with the term dogging. But I'm not sure the rest of our audience is. I'm not. Phoebe is not.
I may spend a little time online looking at porn. But for the audience, could you explain a little bit of what that term is and what it means? Pretty. It is. I mean, it's got like every term, it's got variations to it.
But essentially, it's more more engaging in you might go to a park or a car park that has been maybe um flagged online somewhere that people will be coming and going from this area there are actual areas that are well known for dogging um so you just go in your car and you wait and you and you get the kind of look from someone and then you just go and have a raunchy hot hard fast time with a complete stranger or a few complete strangers in a very public um place really um yeah so yeah it's not my idea of a rush but i can i get it i totally get it but yeah yeah but it's more about that just hard and fast sex with someone who's an anonymous and a stranger and that kind of environment they're new it's in a risky spot the equivalent that we have here is the whole glory hole experience where you show up to the show up to the adult bookstore, you know, you don't know who you're going to meet kind of a thing.
This is, it's interesting. But it's all anonymous. Anonymous risky kind of behavior kind of thing. And that's fine. Like, you know, totally get that, but just not us.
Unfortunately, though, you could go spend your whole day sitting in that car park be second guessing everything that happens you know and nothing happens so was that the signal i don't know i don't know i'm not gonna go check yeah he's just flicking his lights oh damn right right so you're the the experiences that you're drawing from in the play, these are the experiences that are after you discovered E&M and swinging was a real thing? Or do some of them, these experiences go back to when you were just doing you and you didn't even know what swinging was?
Yeah start they pretty much start from where from that moment where we went oh this is what what we're into okay let's actively go and look let's go and practice and so right how do you do that how do you meet people how do you like we had experiences with people where um especially when we were we were new we had uh experiences of people who had claimed to be in the lifestyle for a long time and so we went into that experience and we had a few dates and meet and greets and that all went well and then we we had the the night where we all hooked up and and because we thought they were seasoned swingers we thought they had and we were new and there's so much ooh about being a newbie yeah you know we thought that they must have the same level of knowledge about consent and communication they would guide us they would they would be okay with that we would we would be but what turned out is that that didn't happen at all we never had a conversation there was no consent and it would just turn it got very messy very quickly so that was one of those that was one of those experiences but you know earlier in the week or that i can't remember earlier in the week we'd had another brand new experience that was that went really really well like something out of a movie you know hotel room photographer our own lighting set oh my god it was amazing fun so we're going yeah so we went from our highs yeah we've got this we know what we're doing and let's go into the next experience oh and and you know and all the bits and pieces you learn along the way about consent and how to achieve it.
And there's practical tips too. There's practical tips like don't eat a spicy meal when you go out on a date because that will come back to bite you in the butt later. There's handy hints and tips. Don't eat asparagus. We, we do the same thing. We're always calculating what meal we're going to have a few days ahead before we have a date. They're the sort of things that I don't think we ever read or heard about those conversations. They were learnt on the job, you know, kind of range.
The other thing is, you know, like after you've had kids for a certain amount of years especially if you live in a smaller house um you know for us we didn't we didn't we we have to be quiet and so basically and so when we went to the lifestyle we realized we'd lost our voices yeah not just yeah we didn't know how to talk at all anymore didn't even know know how to orgasm on voice anymore. It was like, everything's quiet, you know. You know, and these are things we don't talk about either, yeah. We didn't even realise we'd sort of forgotten that we hadn't done it.
It was like, oh, my God, we've just lived this life for so long, we've completely forgotten that we used to do this all the time. Right.
That sort of stuff, yeah suppressing all of the noises that you make in the bedroom is is also something that we went through where yep you know they were one floor above us and a couple doors down and we got very good at being quiet and when you can take that muffler off yeah like you said you've forgotten that you can make noise and how to make noise it's it's crazy although you're allowed to yeah so when you don't have a voice to to express your uh pleasure or whatever you also don't have a voice to express your concerns or your issues or to be able to say actually no i'd rather you didn't do that or you know actually could you do that could you do that right right exactly exactly yeah if that took a lot that was harder than i ever expected it to be and was the cause of a few hard knocks because i just couldn't say something yes you know and then you walk away away, you beat yourself up, you go, you know, you're a strong, very independent woman.
What was that? Yeah. Are you 15 again? What is it? You know, and you go back and you go again. Yeah. That is a hard learned skill. And I think it's something that we still struggle with too even after having been in the lifestyle for for 10 years here's why we sail on virgin it's adults only no kids screaming at breakfast no family buffet Just champagne at noon. Late night pool parties and people who actually want to be there. The vibe? Think boutique hotel that happens to float. Tattoo parlors, drag brunch, restaurants you'd actually pay for on land.
plus when you're looking to connect with other couples who know how to have fun let's just say virgin attracts a very specific type of adventurous no wonder bread cruisers here just your people yeah i really had to learn to ask for what i wanted in order to have a good experience and absolutely comfortable doing that standing you know in your own body and saying yeah I deserve to feel this and I deserve to have that and I'm gonna ask for it and you know if it if it's not pleasurable you know then you know I don't to lay there for a subjective set of time just because my partner's having a good time.
I can get up anytime I want to and leave, right? I mean, or move to the different side of the bed or, you know, do something different. So, there's all these things that you think that, well, my partner's still engaged with this other individual so i must stay here too but no get up go go to the bathroom get a drink of water come back you know like do something different yeah so yeah all that no one talks about any of that right so how did you pick or decide on what content you were going to put in the play? And do you rotate out scenes?
We started by, it started probably as almost a journaling exercise for each of us. We just wanted to write, like we realized when we'd had a shared experience, but we'd had individual experiences of it. Gotcha.
And that was probably, you know, that was often part of some of the more unfortunate conversations we had with each other after events is that one person had a perception of what was going on and the other one saw something completely different we just started with journaling made another assumption maybe yeah started journaling those stories from each of our own individual perspectives and and then we sort of swapped them over and they were just sort of we let each other kind of edit so so michael might write a whole scene about his his childhood and and um how he was introduced to sexual education by his father or something like that you know and and he'd go i think it's all right but have a read and so we'd swap over um and then we'd talk back to that which initially i'm going to be really honest was a little bit painful sometimes because you think you've been honest with each other and with yourself till you sit down and start writing it out and reflecting and then it all comes out and then you go oh do you know what I think the real truth of this whole shebang that happened here was actually all about this you know and then you're discussing that so yeah it did crack open some stuff for a while did and having to relive some of the moments that you maybe didn't enjoy or to stage them on yeah to restage a moment that was awful um okay how do we and to yeah so sometimes we did recognize that that um we recognized that certain stories didn't actually serve any purpose towards what we wanted our audience to come out with you know it was great for us cathartic to write it down might make another great play.
We'll put it aside. But this one, this one, and this one, these are powerful because this one demonstrates consent. This one demonstrates consent backwards from the male, you know, sorry, abuse, sexual abuse, but from the male, not the female having had it done to them. This one demonstrates this, and this demonstrates that and this one shares this truth. And so I think we collectively picked what all of those elements we wanted to really harness and cover and each story that did that best. Yeah. And then we shelved the rest.
And then we had to change hats and sort of act as that sort of script writer, that separate person for the client and just act as a dramaturg and a script writer and go, okay, what's going to make sense in terms of that? Right, right. And then it was a different hat again when we went, okay, now we've got to put it on the floor.
How do you that how do you how do you represent that how do you how do you cope with sight lines and costume changes and well it doesn't make sense if we go from here to here okay so let's put that scene there and we'll move that one over there and we and so it started very i guess overall it started very kind of formless and shapeless as an expression and then as the process goes along we sort of refine it and refine it and and even now that this new season that we're doing now where we're still refining the performance we're still developing moments we're still like that moment like you know we might do a run a performance and we go oh've got a reaction from the audience there that we haven't got before.
So what are they picking up on? How can we enhance that moment? How can we make more of it? So it's constantly evolving and refining as we go on. Yeah, and we will still sit down in rehearsal and say, okay, what is the purpose of this thing? Why are we here? Are we just doing this so we can say we get to hook up with a massage therapist regularly? Well, that is cool. We should shout that from the treetops. But is that the only purpose of this scene? No, the actual purpose is the friendship and the connection this person gave to us. Yes.
And the returned connection that he gave to us ah right well let's not focus too hard on that that's me you know and so it is it is important to keep questioning um and keep and and like i say that gets determined also by the responses of the audience as well i mean that's that that's the also the beauty of theater it's a two-way conversation every show is different every audience comes in some audiences laugh a lot and respond a lot other audiences It's a two-way conversation. Every show is different. Every audience comes in. Some audiences laugh a lot and respond a lot.
Other audiences are really quiet. They're the ones that are listening really hard. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So we had you guys on. I had a request that you guys would recite a few lines are you are you able to do that yeah sure i've got um well i've got here uh the one of my opening monologues um i can a little sample this will be yeah it's sort of this monologue sort of, it's early in the play, so it's kind of trying to set up what the play's about and where the journey is going to take us towards the end. We're honored, everyone.
We've officially welcomed, we've explained who we are, what we're doing here, what the play's about to be about. We've given a very quick demonstration on consent with an audience member, which is good fun. And we've stripped naked, and that's only the first five minutes. And this is when Mick does this speech. Hey there, podcast listeners. You've been tuning in to our episodes, but have you ever wondered about the steamy details of our adventures or maybe hungry for some sultry, erotic stories? Well, guess what? We've got something special just for you. Our exclusive Patreon page.
It's like a VIP pass to the saucier side of of our world so if you're ready for an exclusive behind the mic experience head over to our patreon page now trust us this is where the magic happens see you there patrons when was the last time you had a brand new feeling for the very first time? Can you remember? I'm not talking about new experiences that redefine existing feelings. I mean a new feeling, an emotional, psychological, physical sensation that is not connected to any previous experience. I don't know.
An emotional, psychological, physical sensation that is not connected to any previous experience. Maybe you've had a feeling, but not the word for it. Schadenfreude. Great word. It means to take pleasure from someone else's misfortune. It's German for suck eggs. But what's the opposite? Have you ever had that? Do you even know what it is? Okay, different example, jealousy or envy. Now, they are different, but for now, we're just going to bundle them up under a definition of anger or bitterness at another's joy or pleasure. We all know that one. But can you imagine the opposite?
Have you ever desired that? Does it even exist? And how can you know a feeling that has no vocabulary, no way to express it? Some of the happiest moments I've ever had in my life have involved watching Mrs. S.R. have sex with other people, mostly men. Now, believe me, that's something I thought I would never say, but it's true. It's a feeling that is so full of happiness that my whole body glows. And there is a word for it. Now, you may be sitting there wondering how on God's green earth did you get there? I can't possibly imagine that.
Maybe it triggers a reflex response in you, in your body, right now. Tight, hot, or prickly. There is a gap between that feeling and mine. It's a fog-filled chasm without a floor, safety net, or a rope bridge. It's too far to jump. But Thank you. without a floor, a safety net, or a rope bridge. It's too far to jump. But I wanted to be there. We both did. It was calling us.
So we walked into the fog, into that chasm, the great unknown we read and we researched we had new experiences some successful some not we yelled we hit and we hurt each other because it was scary because it was hard it was a lonely journey of self-discovery of riddles puzzles and of knots but learning anything new takes practice yes very well written oh my gosh i love the choice of words because i i they resonated with me and a lot of the experiences that we went through and just just dead on to that kind of vague sensation that you you wander through you know that fog yeah and without a language or or if no one's ever told you like i was i was thinking about it and talking about it with someone the other day you know like jealousy envy anger all of those things they're just if you look through literature if you look through theater and all the plays we study all the great characters that's what drives them right Iago is jealous Iago is envious like they're all they're all driven that's what caught that's what creates drama and that's fantastic but I can't think of a character that's ever been written that that sort of celebrates the opposite it's like there's no drama in that there's no drama and being happy for someone else generally a character who celebrates the opposite is an innocent or a fool yeah um and you look at ted lasso he's probably as close as you can get to a compulsive human being on television character character on television and um but he's still portrayed as that kind of right and yeah yeah and i think this is a yeah it was that process of man there's got to be another way to think this way of thinking doesn't work but what is it i don't know what it is and i can feel it but i can can't.
And then we discovered the word.
Even the social definition that you run into in the lifestyle all the time about drama, and we don't deal with couples who have drama, that's that very definition of strife or conflict or all of those things that you talked about that really focus around jealousy or envy or anger or frustration but the the that opposite feeling is really kind of a passive thing it's an it's an internal thing and you you don't really even see it on the outside other than a really nice smile and it is something that it like we can we can pull apart jealousy and envy we can you know um compartmentalize where where bits of it get triggered or where it happens or what circumstances it might happen under but it's like we it's almost like an active process to constantly redefine what jealousy and envy is.
But like you say, the opposite just seems to live in this benign, passive, vague kind of experience. Well, what if we actually invested some time into practicing that and applying that?
And I think that's more broadly what we also liked about the word and the idea is that just outside of the lifestyle it's not a bad idea to apply in your life generally right someone was saying to me the other day that they were they were looking at it in this beautiful way it just knocked my brain they're not even in the lifestyle it's just that we were talking about compersion because i just apply it you know to whatever and they and they said oh i get it you know what that's like when when you're watching a baby a really young kid get a birthday cake you know or their first cake and they they just take that thing and they put it all over their face and this is the most happiest most explosive amount of joy in that room and you don't feel like you're peed off that you didn't get any cake all you're doing and you you know or that the cake is ruined you're just completely full of joy watching their happiness like watching their happiness makes you feel so much joy and and he and he looked at me and he goes yeah you don't do that that, do you?
Gets knocked out of you after that, though. And I just went, he's absolutely correct. You're allowed to have your cake and eat it too and enjoy your life and be happy when you're little.
But when you're older, you know that you shouldn't be doing that with the cake and the right thing to do is share it and the right thing to do is use your knife and fork and the right thing to do is so i when when you were reading i just wanted to touch on one last thing before we wrap up because i i really want to tell our listeners where they can see you and if you're going to be on tour and all that good stuff um but when you were reading, I instantly, I closed my eyes for a little bit because I just dropped down into the space.
And I realized I already started feeling, you know, what you were saying. And I already started to deeply process your words. And the reason that was is because there was silence around me. There wasn't loud music. There wasn't voices.
And so this is why I think the play is so impactful because it's like you're in a bubble where you're just focusing on that and you're processing all that information in that moment, not in a environment not listening to a podcast while you're driving or in the gym you're getting bits and pieces of it you're not really comprehending everything that's there but in the play you've got the smells the visual the even contextual if you're like you know you're if you're a participant in the play um you it's almost meditative yes but you're not alone which is something you are a lot in the lifestyle now that sounds really odd to say that you're often alone yeah yeah but it's nice to be given that time and space but to not be alone in it for a change yeah that's true oh my gosh I love what you guys are doing so so much we're so happy so where can everyone let me yeah where can they find you what are some potential tours how do people find you what kind of feedback are you getting all this good stuff and how can people support you Thank you.
find you? What are some potential tours? How do people find you? What kind of feedback are you getting? All this good stuff. And how can people support you? Okay. Well, probably the best place to start is the website, which is just steamyromantics.com. Okay. From there, you'll be able to pretty much find everywhere else we are. We have a Patreon page for supporters to help us continue creating and that was based, thank you very much for that advice. That was fantastic. Yeah, it's been working already. It's awesome.
Patreon's great for us too because it's actually a space where we're not, we can talk about the creative process and all of the bits and pieces of our lives that we generally wouldn't share on Twitter or Instagram or other places. It's kind of like we've kind of used it like a kind of, I don't know, if you were to go to an artist or a pottery studio, it would be the place where they sort of put up the new work and put up the new idea. Yes.
Or something I can't or a brain worm, you know, one of those thoughts that just keeps going around and i can't get through or maybe someone out there is feeling it too or someone had experience and it's very nice to be able to um share those thoughts somewhere into the internet if you're uh if you're a twitter follower then this whole thing started when we created a shared twitter account and really we created created it almost as like our own photo journal. When we were all decrepit and we can't do this anymore, we want to look back on the things we did. So we started it like that.
So good right there. And it just kind of grew from there, really. But most immediately, we have a season coming up in Adelaide, South Australia in April, middle of April, 17, 18 and 19. The details are on the website. And by the end of this year, we're working towards being in Sydney, Melbourne and hopefully Gold Coast as well. And in the meantime, we are advocating and working our butts off to try and organise some tours to Europe and USA as well. And like I say, it's a parlour show. It really does fit into a suitcase. It's just us, our costumes and a boombox.
There's not a lot of costumes, really. Not a lot of costumes either. They're very scanty. Carry on luggage kind of stuff. so we're we're looking to um to yeah broaden it out and start touring and start i think creatively we're really excited to start taking this uh overseas because we we for a couple of reasons one we want to see how this work responds inter-curally, like this is, you know, particularly an Australian experience, particularly Australian Adelaide experience, but how does that resonate with people from different cultural backgrounds? That's the anthropologist in me, obviously.
But also because of the way we work, it's by mingling and having exchanges and conversations with people that informs the next piece. That's where the next story comes from. And all the work that we want to create in this space, we want it to be reflective of genuine experiences. And if people aren't sharing these experiences with each other, God, they must be dying to just get some of this stuff out or to say, you know, like, hey, I have this story, right? You know, I don't want to be named.
But it's, you know, or I have this issue or this real thing in the lifestyle and I really want to talk about it. I want to talk about this. I think that gives us this beautiful ability to represent more voices and the more voices that we can get out there, the more we realise we're all okay. Yes, all okay. In that sense too, that's what we hope the Patreon page is for as well because we recognise there's other aspects to the community. We're both advocates of diversity, neurological, physical diversity, ethnic diversity, all sorts as well.
And we are obviously two middle-aged white people, and we don't really feel like we can represent that. But we would like to try and find a way of incorporating a voice for those people as well. Right, right. I want to wrap up today's show by a quote that you had. I'm not sure if you said it in your opening monologue, but I just love it. You had expressed it earlier when we had a meeting. And you said, compersion is learning to grow through the other feelings to get to that one.
And I feel like that is so true of our journey and that that is expressed perfectly of of what we have experienced and what i see has been our process as well so i i think that's really important to for everyone to to honor all those other feelings it's an important journey you're not're not going to just get there magically. It is a journey, and it's not a journey for the lighthearted. It's not. No, it's relationship on the hard level, extreme God mode. It is. On God mode. Well, thank you so much.
We are so glad to have you on our on our podcast and um we we will definitely follow you and promote you every and follow you wherever you are going and opening so please we keep in touch we will we already follow you on social media so i'm sure we'll we'll know what you're doing Look forward to being able to sit in the studio with you. Absolutely. And maybe we'll be reciting the next lines from the next one as well. That would be amazing. That would be. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you both. It's been absolutely delightful. Oh, one last thing before you go.
If this episode helped you in any way the single best thing you can do to support the show is leaving a rating and review it takes 60 seconds and helps new people find us when they're searching for relationship education and we've made it easy Visit swingeruniversity.com forward slash review. All the instructions are there. Thank you for being part of this community. We'll see you again soon.
