Want to send us a message? Do you love your community and want more events? Well, your beloved promoters may not be the event hosts you think they are. We reveal the dirty secrets of the swinging business and how some think it s a zero-sum game. We discuss how some swinging businesses hurt swingers and our community because the drive for money takes priority over doing what s best for the community. 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. Do you love your community and want more events? Well, your beloved promoters may not be who you think they are. We reveal the dirty secrets of the swinging business and how some people think it's a zero-sum game. Welcome to Swinger University. I'm Ed. And I'm Phoebe.
Join us as we explore the exciting world of ethical non-monogamy, sexual health, sex education, with an intellectual and sexy twist. Where do we want to start? This has been an episode that we've kind of had in our notes and in recordings in a car trip since way back in the day. Actually,'ve listened to all of our episodes the colorado house party we came up with this topic back then there have been a number of incidents since then that have continued to kind of fuel the content for this episode yeah along with our personal experience that is on the side of an actual business.
the content for this episode yeah along with our personal experience that is in on the side of an actual business promoter so to speak we're not really a business promoter but right but we we cross into that line a little bit because we are promoting the podcast and we are reaching out to other people and being on their podcast and doing the social media so you were starting to open that window that window starting to crack open yeah and we did promote one event yeah our costa rica event we've touched that line of yeah being a promoter to a certain degree so yeah yeah there's some stuff there it's a bit uh it was eye-opening people warned us and so you know yeah we have learned we have things to share the house part are we going to reveal the the venue it doesn't really matter does it it probably doesn't but you know what let's just refrain from from mentioning the title a very popular swinger venue venue in colorado yes we'll leave it at that there was a a very active member in that community in that club who decided that the house parties that were also being run in Colorado and kind of the general area around where this club was were hurting the business and they wanted to take things into their own hands to help the business because they loved it so much.
They loved that business so much. And so this individual on their own accord, as far as we know, went out of their way to, this is where it gets fun, docks the participants and the attendees and the hosts for these house parties to their entire neighborhood. Yes. Theoretically, the story is that the venue had no idea what this person was doing. And it was just this. Right. We don't know. We can neither confirm nor deny. Right.
But they went to great lengths to go to troll all these people on all their, on the adult platforms that they're all signed up with right to see what the guest list is and this may have been one of the reasons why what was it cassidy or sls would remove the guest list after the party was over yeah they did but i i doubt that it had anything to do with that i think it was just just poor foresight gotcha in terms of what people do with guest lists so then he yeah had their photos he he would take their photos and he i think he printed them out printed them up on flyers and brought them door to door to those individuals neighborhoods and basically said the house parties are running a sex ring a prostitution ring a drug ring like all kinds of crazy shit right to get them shut down well the hoas were up at arms of course because hoas are up at arms about everything and a lot of people got hurt as a direct result of this there were jobs that were impacted community standing was impacted a bunch of house parties shut down because of this yeah and people had to move and they they got fired from jobs or had to leave their jobs it was a massive massive impact right the guy slipped up eventually because he was Let's go.
had to leave their jobs it was a massive massive impact right the guy slipped up eventually because he was bragging about what he had done to try and to help the community right like he was helping the community that was his whole thing and one of the people was friends with one of the house parties at this this dinner event and basically was like oh this is the guy that did all of this and they they blackballed this guy he he had a little bit of karma in what happened to him but the damage was done and we heard all about this from from some of the members at one of the house parties we were at while we were there.
Yeah. So the harm that this does is it creates fear in the community. It's certainly not supporting the community and the growth of the community. Right. And the fact that we all love one another and we all like being with each other and hanging out. And we like diversity. Right. Novelty.
And that's part of the reason why we go to this venue and then to that venue and then we fly out of state for venues or out of the country right right it's it's what we do it's what we love and he really put a damper on that and yeah yeah kind of a fear in the community we've found going to the same party over and over again we get tired of seeing the same venue like sometimes we want to go to a pool party sometimes we want to try a bigger scale party sometimes we want something quiet and intimate because we're just feeling a little overwhelmed by stuff so getting a whole bunch parties shut down just because you think that's not the way that swingers should play, that's ridiculous.
That makes no sense whatsoever. But like I said, super fan of that particular venue. It could have also been, and we're going to touch on this in a bit, that mentality of glass half empty, glass half full. And we have another way of saying that in this next example that we're going to provide. You can draw your own conclusions in terms of whether that was positive or negative for the community.
And we'd love to hear your side of or your opinion about that particular incident and what you would think about that in the comments but let's let's cross into another one this one was a little bit more interesting we didn't hear this we did hear this secondhand again there was a podcast panel so a group of podcasters at an event a couple of the panelists who are expressing some particularly negative opinions um view it's not even that they were they were degrading the people who were their own community their own community and they really like right there in front of the whole audience basically tore the whole thing down, the community down and it's it was really weird to us they got a lot of funny looks like it was strange to hear those words from this group in that context it just didn't make any sense we heard about it afterwards we were like well there's there's a little bit more to that and it kind of makes sense coming from from this particular group but it took a lot of people by surprise they were shocked at that especially their fellow panelists right yeah the other one was in we can say it okay vegas it was in vegas and we had gone to an event and we helped promote it and it it was an event that could have been much better in regard to turnout because once Again, a rival promoter that happened being in the city was creating a bunch of noise they went to great lengths on social media to say the event was canceled when it wasn't so directly impacting this particular promoter's business right and trying to squash the event so a lot of ticket sales were canceled people backed out right wanted refunds of course the promoter did so but it impacted the guests that were there that didn't or couldn't cancel it impacted uh the the entertainment that was showing up for the event a lot of entertainment backed out therefore our experience was less because we we expected more but the promoter couldn't provide more because entertainment wasn't right so it it had this it was a pretty serious cascade effect yeah we were really looking forward to this event because it was supposed to be a it felt like it was going to be a really big event and there were going to be a lot of people there and it it was a really low turnout like there were not nearly as many people as we had expected right and it was really interesting later we after we had done a tour of the Mob Museum in Vegas, we reflected back on that situation.
And we thought, gosh, this kind of plays directly into that Vegas mob mentality. Right. Uh, there really still is a, a lot of that, I guess, mentality, so to speak, in Vegas. The word of mouth around that town is like wildfire. Yeah. So when one person gets a contract shut down, it's heard all the way across the city. Right. That information is shared. Yeah.
And so let's do do that let's jump into the consequences because because you're starting to really touch on them so in that first one the community felt shamed the the fellow panelists felt like they had been called out right basically in front of the whole group and in a sense felt less than because this one opinion of somebody about what had been said it it's one of those things where as my grandmother used to say if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all but but i think it's important to say things.
But you have to think about what are the consequences of what you're saying? It's OK to say negative things.
And we think very deeply about what we're going to say in our episodes before we just spit it out for fear of lawsuits, for fear of consequences or how that might affect other people so for example we had a policy for a long time about not bad mouthing bad experiences so if we go to event house party for example and we don't like it we don't we don't come onto the microphones and tell everybody what a shitty party it was it's not worth it for us well and it's always subjective as well because it could be shitty because we're in a bad headspace or it wasn't our crowd it wasn't our crowd or it wasn't our venue or we didn't like the paint on the walls like i mean it's so subjective so right it'd be asinine for me to think that you're right that i i my opinion is is going to be the same as somebody else's Thank you.
It'd be asinine for me to think that, you're right, that I, I, my opinion is, is going to be the same as somebody else's. Yeah. And for the most part too, I think if we, if we've had conversations about venues with other swingers, personal conversations with our friends about how we wouldn't attend that party again, or we've chosen not to attend certain parties in our area because they don't sound like our cup of tea. Right. So we've had those conversations. Not to say we never say anything bad and we're just, you know, super PC all the time. Right.
It's just we choose not to use our microphones as a way of tearing down other venues. Because don't yuck somebody else's yum as they say exactly exactly the other thing about that we find and have issue with is it makes the community look bad it makes swingers look bad we should be rooted out from society because we can't even get along amongst ourselves and yeah every swingers look bad. We should be rooted out from society because we can't even get along amongst ourselves. And yeah, every swinger is not going to get along with every other swinger, but let's not make it personal. It's not.
And when your business gets in the way of kind of other people's pleasure, that's a big yeah now what also happened unfortunately in vegas was lawsuits were also like several lawsuits were launched because it was just that bad in fact one of the employees i believe at the one of the venues, revealed private contract details to the other promoter. And that is a serious no-no. Right. This wasn't just social engineering or social bad-mouthing. Like, there were some actual illegal things, allegedly.
We don't know what the status of that lawsuit is, but we're assuming they they continued with it or they settled out of court. Who knows? Right. The other cascade effect it had on the community was other hotels that had had been booked by additional promoters that come to the city. Many promoters come to the city wanting to do things for the swinger community.
those well-known hotels said oh in light of that hot mess that just went down right we are not going to allow any swingers or any swinger promoters to come and book our hotel which is hard and hurtful because those venues are few and far between. Right. You can't find swinger clubs on every corner of the city. And even in Vegas, where there are a handful of them, a lot of them got shut down. There were a number of other events that got shut down, at least during that time frame.
I'm sure that they've ramped back up and we've heard about some of the parties back but it's difficult to cultivate those relationships you know how hard it is how hard it is to cultivate a relationship with another couple right it's all equally hard to cultivate that relationship with a business and convince them that we're not weirdos we're not going to destroy the hotel i mean we're we're not running around not naked outside like it takes some convincing right so yeah it it put a kibosh on the community and it was been as unfortunate okay can we talk about october for a second oh my god yeah i've been waiting for this I'll see you next time.
it 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 b 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 going to 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 vacationsations are extremely popular so please come with us and in order to find it all you have to do is go to our swinger links.com and look for the llv sensual voyage we hope you'll join us that that's actually an interesting segue and i'll touch on it briefly and then we'll we'll go back to the kind of the wrap-up that we have and that's we've been talking about promoters and how they kind of backstab and create problems for the community as a whole but participants can also screw a venue too yeah and there have been a number of events that we used to be able to attend or i should say venues that we used to use for our local events that won't do business with the local promoters anymore they they had an incident and they said nope this is bad for business we're not going to do business with with that group anymore right right we all get lumped together because we're a community and there's a whole list of hotels and until they change ownership or they change business policies or something changes yeah we'll never be able to do events at those places again that's where self-policing within the swinger community is important if you see you know if you see someone that maybe has been you know enjoying a little bit too much of you know whatever they're enjoying for that evening to to get their little buzz on help them and help the community yes if if if you go oh that gonna turn out badly like if they're streaking down the hallway yes that is funny and it's hilarious and it's great to capture on your camera but will that impact your ability to come back at that hotel 100 if you get caught because there's cameras and security, so maybe help the other person not make that decision take it in a room maybe check yourself in with yourself and go do i really need that funny video because i may never be able to come back to this state to this hotel again yeah yeah you have to make the call is that one party worth never having a party again and and that's the that's the thought that needs to cross through your head yes because that's quite possible and you think about house parties a lot of house parties are run in people's neighborhoods and their neighbors may or may not want you vomiting on their lawn or leaving condoms all over the place or bottles or parking on their lawn, right?
Like we've heard horror stories about this stuff. So it's like, have a little, A, self-respect, B, respect for the community and C, think about tomorrow and the next day and the day after that and not just live in the moment. Exactly. There's more to it. I agree. So what is our wrap up for this?
Like I said, I've been thinking about this episode for a long time and I felt as podcasters and swingers that we need to do everything we could to support the community and when an individual or a group of people or a promoter does something that impacts the rest of us we need to think about that a little bit as a community and whether we continue to support something like that because it does impact all of us.
And I think taking a stand against that and basically saying, look, money isn't everything, because if your whole scheme is get rich quick, the rest of us are going to suffer as a direct result of this. So let's not let money be the only driver for your business. Let's think about how what you're doing affects the community. But they may not see things that way if they're looking at it as the glass is half empty. Right.
With that scarcity mindset and you are trying to get as many customers and draw as many people as you want to your business and to your dollar, they're not going to necessarily see it that way. Yeah. And I think, and this is kind of where we get into this other phrase besides the zero sum game. I believe that there are a number of businesses and a number of promoters that feel that if I can maximize my profit, in other words, put everybody else out of business, and I'm the only game in town that I'm going to make more money, right?
Because swingers are, they're only going to have one stop to shop. They're going to come to me. The long and short of it is we like variety. And so if there's only one club to go, what's going to happen is you're going to burn out your clientele. They probably won't be back a second or third time, or they may only come occasionally because you know what? Someone is going to put a house party together. Someone's going to have something that's fun and different and a change of pace and a different crowd and a different DJ and better food or whatever.
The other thing that will happen is your venue does your thing and other venues are going to do a different thing. So how the party is run and what gets offered there that's what makes each party unique a rising tide lifts all ships i think it was a john f kennedy quote and the concept and and i really believe this is true in our community and that's if the swinger business is thriving and it helps other businesses thrive, the community gets a better name. Why? Because we have the best parties in town. All of the parties are amazing. And what does that do?
Well, it gets attention and positive attention. Plus, new people coming in, they go, well, a big club isn't intimate enough for me. I feel very scared to go, but I'll go to a house party. It's a gateway to go to that bigger club in six months once they've got their legs under them. But if there's only one place to go, they're not going to show up. So that variety drives the business for everybody and allows for that flexibility and that fun and that variety. So I can't see a way where having more businesses doesn't help everybody. I agree. 100%. That was a really good wrap up, I think.
although i did want to add our own personal experience. Just a small little. Just a little thing. It's a little thing, but it had a large effect. Right.
So as co-promoters of something that we went to, we were shocked and dismayed and honestly pretty pretty upset by a reaction that we got by something innocent that we had done right we thought we were doing it in support of the community to further the community and it was looked at as being blatant self-promotion yeah it shocked me you've worked at the same job six years and uh and your boss all of a sudden blames you for something and you go you you know me by now like we work together every day day in and day out you know i would never do something like that why didn't you just come and ask me first why are you assuming right that was my intention because you know me and so I guess we were hurt because we thought we we knew each other better than that and I guess we didn't and the assumption that we would intentionally harm, that that was the first assumption hurt my feelings.
Yeah, it did mine too.
And I think that from the get-go with our podcast, our sole intent was to educate the community and help them to have better experiences in the lifestyle yeah 100 i mean we're not about jokes we're not about cocktail recipes we're more educational than entertainment hopefully we're a little entertaining trying to be more entertaining but the main driver for what we do is to help the community so yeah that initial assumption that we were doing something to promote ourselves holy like this is not a business venture like we're we tried for like a year to make this like cash money and retire off of it it didn't happen we're still here and working our day jobs like five extra listeners to our podcast is gonna like right out of a group of you know right a few hundred people like really it's just ridiculous it wasn't a thing it was made into a thing that just wasn't a thing and and that that hurt a little bit i think it hurt because we were trying to do something good for the community to help promote and to help make it a better experience for everybody and this zero-sum game mentality came in and kind of took us out yeah kind of side swiped us and yeah that was that was pretty pretty rough for a couple days when we were thinking about that we didn't let it get to us too much but i don't know it did it still bothers us it got to us quite a bit yeah you're being kind but it did and I I uh that's one of the reasons why we don't really want to be event promoters I'm not really interested in it it's it's a lot of work and I so appreciate the those people that can do it yes but uh it's very hard work it's a lot of hard work and it's very stressful.
And there's a lot of risk on the line, a lot of risk. So kudos to those that do do it. And I am happy to support and continue to support them 100%. Absolutely. Thanks, everyone, for listening. 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.
