We're Back!

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. And this is the the Swinger University podcast and if you don't recognize our voices It's probably because we've been gone for a little while and we've been sick Well, there is that too.

We just got back from our epic Hedo trip and had an epic Bout of illness right after that. Yeah, but that actually only accounts for the last month or so. Yes We'll see you next time. And had an epic bout of illness right after that. Yeah. But that actually only accounts for the last month or so. Yes. So what happened, Phoebe? What happened in our lives that made us want to take a break?

Well, it all started probably about two years ago when we decided to reach a broader broader audience with our podcast because if you don't know about podcasts in general you're you're not going to find us right with anything you do in life unless you're extremely fortunate um you have to market it in fact even if you don't actively market it someone's marketed it for you so let's just say you uh you discovered gold in your backyard but you're not going to market that but you know what the general newspaper your local newspaper is going to find out and that's going to be in the news and then all of a sudden you've got a business and're famous.

So, they did the marketing for you. We, of course, weren't that lucky to have anybody market our podcast for us to reach the broader audience. To say, hey, we have a podcast. We have a website. We have some social media. Come check us out. If you want to read stuff, read it. We have a blog. If you want to listen to us, listen to us.

If you want to read stuff read it we have a blog if you want to listen to us listen to us if you want to watch us on youtube watch us but you know if the if you're not there to hear the tree falling in the forest you're not gonna know it's falling so we had to market so now the hobby turned into a full-blown business which was 10 10 times more work. And the work itself started to overshadow the fun. And on top of that, we started creator accounts and not just one creator account. Like Ed had his five creator accounts. I had my five or whatever.

And then everything that goes with that, marketing, research. Right. Like, it's exponentially so much work than I ever even imagined. It is the equivalent of going to school for your master's, working an 80 a week job and and trying to feed yourself and get some sleep and some exercise well a lot of that failed yeah i didn't get a lot of sleep i didn't get a lot of exercise yeah and we didn't quit our day job so to speak and no and spin up the podcast or try to ramp up the podcast and kind of scale back our jobs. We were still working full time, still are working full time.

And obviously taking it to YouTube and going into the third dimension. We've talked about this before. There's a lot more production involved when you start doing video as well as audio.

Whole other ball yeah whole other criteria learning software learning hardware all that algorithms marketing it's it's a whole nother animal new tools new techniques new marketing strategies and marketing tools a lot of investigation for stuff anyway none of that's particularly sexy or exciting it was fascinating to learn and we've learned and grown right but at some point because of all the work it it took a toll we were really really stressed out yeah we were fighting a lot we were totally stressed out we weren't having fun at it anymore and I think that's that was the big thing we took something we started it because it sounded fun we started it because we wanted to help people and when the pain and suffering outweighed the benefit to the the community and certainly the benefit to our own lives i mean like swinging is supposed to be fun right but this had kind of sucked the fun out of it so we took a break we took a break for a little while and reprioritized refigured out what we really wanted to do and yeah and we're still evaluating that like we still haven't a hundred percent committed back to this or or i guess what that means to say that we're committed back to it yeah right now we are we are not actively marketing the podcast like we were on social media because it's just too hard and the the media platforms keep changing the algorithms keep changing the requirements keep changing and that's a whole other level of production that is not fun at all right plus the community at at large has has grown also exponentially there's facebook groups there's telegram groups there's um a whole bunch of other groups where else are people meeting mostly facebook and telegram yeah and so people have found a sense of community in those ways and are oh and reddit and and they're reaching out and and having fun in in those ways so the need to build a community isn't really there it's it's taken off yes it's probably god i don't know 20 30 40 times larger than what we were experiencing when we were started out 11 plus years ago yeah and there's there's also a much larger presence in popular culture.

Television shows, documentaries, movies. Heck, they even did. There was a movie that was filmed at Hedo. A popular mainstream Hollywood movie filmed at Hedo. Oh, that's right. So. That's right. Which now that we've been there, we should probably go back and rewatch. But the landscape that we started in swinging and then started the podcast in, it's different. So we've got to figure out what do we want to contribute to this community? What do we want to offer to the community? Plus, we've covered all the swinging 101 kind of topics.

We've done the educational component, and it's not that we won't do educational stuff anymore. I think that's still our jam. Yes, because I have a treasure trove. Like, oh my gosh, hundreds of curated episodes just waiting to be recorded. Yeah, script ideas, topics, things like that. Yes. For sure. However. But we want to figure out how do we make it new and fresh and different and exciting for us, but also for you, the listeners. Exactly.

Now, you will really want to do things that are a little more controversial or raw i do want to do more controversial stuff and one of the things that kind of gotten our way in terms of happiness was the the amount of research that we did with our episodes it was it was heavy duty and what my idea is to to do some obviously some research because we like fact-based information we don't want to like make shit up right but at the same time we can't go to that level of depth and and still maintain happiness so what we might be doing is stuff to kind of wet your appetite or get you started or give you kind of like a direction to go.

I don't know. We're spitballing here. Or break it up into segments. Because at some point, I will probably go to the depths to research something because she can't help i am innately a researcher it is in my dna i like learning i want to know shit i want to know both sides so that i can be fully informed to walk through life and not be taken advantage of, swayed by someone's bullshit, also taken advantage of. I just, I like knowing stuff. And I like being confident in the information that I have.

And I like to be able to have intelligent and interesting conversations with people right so the more information you have you can ask better questions well in half the media you consume are from medical content creators that are that are medical professionals um dr jen gunter she's got great content you love her stuff she's entertaining i pay her for her stuff you pay her for her stuff that's how much i love her stuff so obviously that influences what you enjoy doing and i love i love researching stuff too and looking for important facts and figuring out how things work. Absolutely.

so we've just got to find a nice balance so that it's not too much of any one thing and to kind of touch back on the controversial thing controversy as we found through our creator accounts if you if you make headlines because you get, you know, you lose your job because you were creating an OnlyFans account or something like that, that's actually a really good thing. Most cases and those people end up going on and being very successful with their OnlyFans. Why? Because they're infamous.

they've created notoriety people are curious it sparks this conversation and the media picked up their story multimedia channels picked up their story and broadcasts across the world so they get free advertising everywhere they don't even have to work right it just basically it's like winning the lottery yes it really is just falls in your lap and all kinds. Not that it's not work. That's true. But it gives you a massive head start.

it's like winning the lottery yes it really is just falls in your lap and all kinds not that it's not work that's true a massive head start i know those people do still work their butts off we know a few of them and they absolutely work their butts off but we haven't been so quote lucky as to lose our jobs etc etc and become internet famous all that being said yes we do want to figure out ways to get people a little bit more fired up emotionally charged about the things that we're talking about so we're going to try and figure out how to do that and have some fun with it and spark conversation for example one of the episodes i want to do, there's two right on my desk right now, but one of them just came to mind, is the pros and cons of chat channels.

Right. These communities that we keep talking about have sprung up all over the place. And, yeah, I want to throw some bombs bombs some molotovs onto some of this stuff frustrate the fuck out of me and because i'm i'm a different animal and and maybe i don't know i'm sure there's other people like me out there and in different walks of life it all depends on where you are as well in your you're trying to get out of it. Yeah, in your swinger cycle, right? And I understand, you know, we are 12 years in. We've seen it, done it, experienced it, breathed it. We have seen boobies before.

We probably have seen it all. So if you're new to it, I can totally understand how chat groups are just like, wee, open cup, it's so exciting, right? Kid in a candy store, totally get that. But my main question will be in that podcast is, what do you get out of it? Right, right.

And that's something that we suspect we'll probably have a lot of conversations surrounding it and a lot of other things that kind of branch off of that uh there was a an episode that we had planned for how swingers fit into the community at large and how vanillas view us like there's a whole bunch we can talk about that yes and how sometimes our community self-sabotages itself because they're trying to be favorable to one place or another so we've got ideas we know you probably have ideas or are just dying to hear us talk about something as a matter of fact there was a comment on YouTube today that I listened to that we never talk about having sex with people of color.

Really? We've never did that? We've never called it out specifically. Yeah, but why would I? Because I don't... We don't think of it that way. And that was my comment that that i made in there on youtube they're sexy it was fun and the and in the context of it doesn't matter an episode it's like we have lots of sexy fun with all kinds of people and every person is unique in some way or another so yeah i didn't we've never felt the need to call out somebody's racial, cultural background.

I kind of get it because of the whole BBC thing is very popular and it fetishizes some people, but that's one belief system.

And other people that are a black penis holder will say yeah fucking i'm gonna rock that label i have if that's what and there is a another perfect episode that is slightly controversial that we would love to talk about because we've had lots of these kinds of conversations with people and it's kind of taking it it it's educational but in a different way yes yes so let us know your thoughts about these topics and others things that you are just burning to know what ed and phoebe's opinion are on we'd love to hear it we'd love to be able to weigh in on it and yeah we're going to try we're going to try some new stuff and and try to bring the fun and the sexy back yes fun and the sexy oh i i kind of am looking forward to it but we are going to take it a little a little slow maybe I don't know.

Who knows? I'm walking back into it with no expectations. Literally. All I know is that I'm going to do an episode. I'm going to put on some makeup, put on some clothes, sit down, read my outline. It's going to be a different format. And I don't have to market it. That's it. That makes me happy. If I don't have to do any marketing for it, I'm happy camper. Yeah. We're going to do well. And to be specific about the marketing, the, the amount of pushing things to Twitter and whatnot, we're going to try and figure out how to do as little of that as possible. Manually. Manually. Yes.

Which which we were we were pretty good at we were starting to get there we're starting to get program was kind of doing it for us automatically but you can also help us by telling other people about our podcast so if you like our podcast if you really want to hear more from us if you're happy that we're back and you're listening to us again and you said, where the hell did they go? I need my damn podcast. Let us know. If you're happy that we're back and you're listening to us again and you said, where the hell did they go? I need my damn podcast. Let us know that, too.

And let your friends know that if they listen and they can help us get more numbers, that's encouraging for us as well. And no, Phoebe's not dying. She's just. No, this is the sick ick from three weeks ago i will tell you i am not a hundred percent yeah it'll probably be a full month i might be 90 yeah and those of you who are watching this on youtube you'll notice that there is no video this is just audio because because i look like crap it looks Ed's got pink eye and it is scary. Yes. Yes. So he finally got medicine.

It may have been because I was spraying chemicals and hit myself in the face. Yeah. I didn't fully hit myself in the face. But as they say, wear eye protection because bad things will happen. He tried to eradicate moss off of his eyeballs at the same time he was trying to eradicate it from the shady side of the house where the moss grows. Boys and girls, wear your eye, ear, and protection for your fingers and any other parts that might be exposed to chemicals. A guy who's always wearing goggles and full body armor every time you ride your motorcycle. I don't know what you were thinking.

I have done stupid things before, and I will continue to do stupid things occasionally. Pluck something off your eyeball with an X-Acto knife, super glue.

I have performed surgery on my eyeball before so little facts about fun facts about ed and phoebe that you didn't know you needed to know so we're back we're back what we look like when we come back in terms of content and yeah i've lost some weight quite a physical appearance yeah we may be seeing more less of phoebe than we did before yes less definitely more of but less of yeah yes and we'll have some episodes we're going to do uh some some recaps of our hito trip that's definitely one that's coming out yes and we're going to get that up um kind of a little travel advisory in our experience in terms of hedonism too in jamaica yes for all you resort lovers for all you all inclusive resort lovers lovers yes all you all-inclusive resort...

Lovers. Lovers. Yes. And I'm still a cruise person after being Tijito. Well, don't give away the spoilers. I know. I had to. I just couldn't resist. All right. We done? We're done. I think this is a good episode to catch people up and to get us caught up before our groceries arrive. So thank you all for listening. We appreciate you more than you can imagine. Absolutely. And you'll hear from us again soon. Real soon. Oh, one last thing before you go.

If this episode helped you in any way 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