In this enriching episode of our lifestyle podcast, we explore the nuanced concept of compersion – the joy derived from witnessing the joy of others. Although a vital component of healthy relationships, compersion remains a predominantly understudied and under-discussed phenomenon.
The focus of this episode is primarily on couples who practice ethical non-monogamy or swinging, yet the insights gleaned are universally applicable. With discussions ranging from breaking down misconceptions about jealousy, to the significance of shared linguistics in our lifestyle community, we delve deep into a multitude of fascinating themes.
Our exploration spans the realm of language and emotions, emphasizing the influence of words in crafting our identities and enhancing our shared experiences. We weave our way through the intricate connection between ethical non-monogamy, polyamory, and swinging that intersect with compersion. This episode transcends sexual contexts and serves as a reminder that compersion can be experienced in a variety of joyful situations, such as rejoicing in your child's achievements or your partner's accomplishments.
We delve into jealousy's evolutionary roots, the transformative capacity we have to transmute it into compersion and how this greater awareness and application can foster stronger communal ties. We explore the triggers of jealousy in a swinging environment and guide listeners on reacting constructively.
Further, the episode addresses scenarios where individuals do not experience compersion or jealousy and assures them that they are still valid in their experiences.
We wrap up the episode by drawing parallels between the emotions of compersion in swinging and polyamorous relationships, reinforcing that compersion serves as a common linguistic link that can bolster growth within the community. With instructive, reassuring, and elevating content throughout, this episode is a comprehensive guide to navigating complex emotions within swinging lifestyle communities.
Transcript
welcome to that other lifestyle podcast where we talk about the good the bad the ugly and the weird sides of this wild lifestyle have i mentioned today how amazing you are you are intelligent funny and attractive and everyone deserves to hear that more often so i'm here to remind you thank you for taking the time to listen. If you have the option to follow, comment, or subscribe on the platform you're listening to my voice, please do so. But even if you don't, I still think you're a fantastic person. I have a website. Stop by and check it out, thatotherlifestyle.com.
We have a blog and a merchandise store, and you can send me a message anytime. I would love to connect with all the fans of this show. We also have a group on SDC.com, and if you're thinking about checking out the lifestyle, dipping your toes in, making that big jump from vanilla to swinger, there is a link to sign up on SDC on my page as well. You can support the show directly by becoming a member of my Patreon at patreon.com slash that other lifestyle.
Members receive bedtime stories narrated by me me unedited ramblings by me and other exclusive content please note that this podcast is intended for adults only and should not be listened to in a work environment our discussions will cover adult and sexual topics and i may use explicit language at times including the occasional bad word this content is intended for entertainment purposes only and is suitable for individuals aged 18 years and above. I also try to be as inclusive with my language and terms as I can.
It can be challenging to formulate and write and say all the inclusive terms in every instance. For simplicity's sake and time management, I may use terms like husband or wife or partner or spouse for the purpose of the narrative I am sharing. This podcast is for everyone though, no matter your background, gender identity, gender expression, or whatever truth you may be living. Everyone is welcome. Today we are talking about a subject I have been wanting to talk about since I started this podcast, compersion. Before I go any further, there are a lot of things I ain't.
I am not a psychologist or a therapist or a certified health or mental anything. Just a guy with a microphone sharing my personal experiences and research with you. This is all for entertainment purposes only anyway. We are diving into some heavy concepts today, so I want to throw out my disclaimer again.
I have mentioned compersion before, and I wanted to devote an entire episode to defining this term, term explaining it dismantling and sharing how it applies to those in the lifestyle this might also serve as a really good way to explain what we do and why to vanilla people we will be paying a visit to our neighbors in the ethical non-monogamy world polyamorous people as well as i was doing research for this episode i came across a cornucopia of words and phrases and terms that modern dictionaries and word processing software do not recognize yet, which may say more about the slow speed new words are adopted into the English language or the frantic pace new terms are created to explain the minutiae of human interactions.
Language and the words we use in the lifestyle are important. Our shared linguistics add to the culture of the lifestyle and ethical non-monogamy as a whole. Words add to our collective culture, and yes, we do have a culture, albeit fragmented and mostly secretive and mostly naked. Words add to our identity as a subculture in a community. That's one of the powers that words have. Think about the pineapple, how that has been embraced as a symbol, albeit debatable, for the lifestyle.
This adds to our identity as a people, and all of our jargon and words and lingo and sayings all contribute to making what we do special and different. Words have power. Given a feeling or a concept, a name gives it power, makes it real. How many times have you felt an emotion, a brand new emotion, and you just didn't have a word for it? Your current vocabulary, nothing in your brain, did this feeling justice. I see this often in the lifestyle.
That's where discussions and shared experiences also help to build up the community by helping each other define and create the terms that we need to communicate better, to better share and enhance our own stories. With all good stories, let us begin at the beginning. As my wife and I hang out with our lifestyle friends, our friends will often mention how much they enjoy seeing their spouses being intimate with another person. The bliss, the sensual experience, the good vibes it brings them to see and hear and know that their partner is having a stellar sexual encounter.
Even if the partner is just watching and not participating, there is satisfaction there. There's a feeling, a hard-to-define feeling. You may have felt this feeling, this super hard-to-name emotion already in the lifestyle, or maybe you're a newbie and want to know more about it. Or you're vanilla and wondering what you could possibly learn from lifestyle couples to make your own monogamous marriage better. The feeling can be called sympathetic joy, vicarious joy. I see another person happy. Their joy does not directly involve me though.
I am not the cause nor the source nor the recipient of their happiness. You watch your wife getting some really good dickening or you hear the moment your husband makes from across the room. Throw in some BDSM in there. Your spouse is receiving great aftercare from her play partners and it makes you smile, while your partner is getting ready for a date as a third with another couple while you stay home, waiting for sexy text messages and updates. There is a term for this feeling. Compersion. C-O-M-P-E-R-S-I-O-N.
The meaning as best I can synthesize from the internet is the sympathetic joy of seeing another experience joy. This term is not strictly sexual, by the way. We may use it in that context for the discussion today, especially in the ethical non-monogamy world, but it is applicable in so many situations we may never think about. You feel joy for your child when they accomplish a big task like finally hitting a baseball off the tee and actually making it to first base on the first try and not getting distracted.
You feel joy when you see your child ride their bike without your help or training wheels for the first time. You are ecstatic for your spouse when you get a promotion at work or your partner changes the oil in the car for the first time and beams with pride. These are all examples of compersion. These are examples of seeing another person happy and you are happy as as a result of their happiness, and this happiness does not involve you. This is pure selfish joy for another. You have felt this emotion in your life and just never gave it a name.
In the English language, we do not have a word for this feeling that is accepted by those jerk bastards at the dictionary. And who appointed them to decide what words are words? I don't remember electing any local dictionary representatives, but I digress. There is a German word that I will butcher the pronunciation of horribly, and I apologize to any German-speaking people, schadenfreuden, which would denote the exact opposite of compersion, total complete opposite. Schadenfreuden is when you take sheer pleasure and delight in the misfortune of others.
Someone at work got passed over for a promotion. Good, they didn't deserve it anyway. Your kid smacks his head into a wall after you told him to stop running around so much. That guy that flew past you on the highway got caught by a cop and pulled over. That is Schadenfreuden. I will never say this word right. It's the devious glee you get at the suffering of others. In the lifestyle, you might hear about another couple getting rejected or rejected you a few weeks ago and you think, good, now they know how it feels. Or a couple did not get an invite to a party you're attending.
We're all adults in this hobby. I never said people always act like adults though. People are just as capable, though I wish they weren't, just as capable being snarky, jealous, petty shitheads as everywhere else. But back to the nice words. By defining its opposite, we get a better picture of compersion. The word itself may have French origins, but was popularized in the early 1990s by the Carista community, a San Francisco-based polyamorous group that has since disbanded, as the feeling of taking joy in the joy that others you love share among themselves.
It is also possible that this word came from people playing with Ouija boards and drugs. That's what the internet told me. So yeah, no matter the origins though, this term is still useful to us. As a side note, have you ever started researching a topic and then dived down a rabbit hole for three hours learning about a sex commune and got completely distracted from what you were doing, and then you start thinking, all right, some of this sounds pretty crazy, but I could get behind a few of these ideas? It happened to me this week. Let me know if you want a full episode on the Karista commune.
It is some wild stuff. Might put that out on the Patreon, though. We have a word now, though the feeling and the concept are not new. In Buddhism, sympathetic joy is called mudita. It is one of the four immeasurable states or qualities of an enlightened person along with loving-kindness, compassion, and equanimity, all traits that our world desperately needs more of. Practitioners of Buddhism may use mantras to reinforce the concept of feeling joy for another.
In the context of ethical non-monogamy, the lifestyle, and the polyamory community, compersion comes into play when we feel joy for our spouse's happiness or good experiences. For swingers, which might be when they are being physically intimate with another person or having a really good time, loudly, with moaning. For polyamory, which is way more relationship-based than swinging, compersion involves your partner experiencing various kinds of intimacy just beyond the physical that may not involve you. As usual, I ain't here to judge anyone, just sharing what I need to share.
I believe in live and let live and you do you. My content today is from the lens of swingers, but remember, we are like next-door neighbors to polyamory. We share a driveway, y'all. We got a nice shorthead between us and we invite each other over for coffee every day. I never want anyone to take away that I am judging polyamory or intentionally separating polyamory and swinging. I think as a community we can learn from our ethical non-monogamy neighbors, be it polyamory or BDSM or other play styles.
We as swingers have more in common with our polyamorous friends than we certainly do with our vanilla friends. We live in the same neighborhood called ethical non-monogamy, one of the nice suburban neighborhoods with cul-de-sacs and streetlights and a sidewalk. Compersion ain't just for Ethical Non-Monogamy couples either. Vanilla couples can and do experience compersion. Maybe your spouse made a TikTok that got a hundred likes and you're delighted for them. Or they built a swing set and you see the pride they have in their work and that makes you happy.
You can be cheerful for your spouse in a non-sexual manner. Oh, and go compliment your spouse today, right now. Say something nice to them. Don't announce it or expect anything in return. Run up to them at full speed. Say they look sexy and run away, like physically run away. Make them question what the hell just happened. One more example of how this concept applies to the entire human race. You offer compassion to someone who is suffering. You want to help them. You want to fix or lift them up when they are suffering. You offer clothing to the cold and bread to the hungry.
But what about when someone is happy? You can offer a joyful person that same compassion they still needed. Your compassion should not be dependent on someone's mental or physical state. Suffering is not needed for compassion and love. And also never take away someone's happiness. Happiness is not gold that should be hoarded. It is a candle, a light that should be shared. A single flame can light a thousand candles and never be diminished. Make your happiness a candle and let it shine to the world. And when you need a light, others will remember you and bring you the light that you need.
Poorly planned transition back to the main topic after I went off on a heartfelt rant trying to make the world a better place with positive encouragement of others and activate. For swingers, compersion looks different than it does for poly people. We actively do not get involved romantically with other couples. We try not to catch the feels. If you start to catch the feels for someone else, you might be doing this wrong. We can be great friends with another couple, but it stops at friendship. Once you catch the feelings for another person, you are no longer in lifestyle town.
You are now in Pollyville, population awkward. I would say occasionally, lifestyle people experience compersion, which is in the realm of naked, lustful situations. Seeing your partner with someone else, seeing them experience pleasure with someone else, fulfilling a fantasy you may share with your spouse. We can't talk about compersion, though, without bringing up jealousy. In my research, it is often said that compersion is the opposite of jealousy. I've said this myself. Upon further review, though, I don't see it that way.
I see Shade and Freudian as the complete total opposite of compersion, taking demonically in the misfortune of others, which is the true opposite of selfish ecstatic vibes. We need to talk about jealousy and how it relates to compersion. I have racked my brain trying to come up with a good description of how these two emotions exist and co-mingle. I thought about the yin-yang concept where one is part of the other and they're interconnected and necessary for the existence of the other one.
But this idea falls short because you can feel jealous without the possibility of ever being happy for another person. These two emotions can exist independently. You can feel compersion without ever feeling jealousy. I do not see these emotions as two sides of the same coin either because then what is the coin? If heads is compersion and tails is jealousy, what is the coin? A penny, a quarter, what do we call the coin that these two emotions exist on? And I'm not making up another word to convey that concept. I feel these emotions. I feel one flows into the other like a river.
A feeling manifest and begins floating down the river of our consciousness. That feeling, like a leaf, can get caught up in a whirlpool or an eddy and just spin around and around until it sinks into the abyss of jealousy, or the leaf can dodge the rocks and make it all the way to the ocean one day and bask in the radiant sun of compersion. Jealousy is a primal emotion. It is your unevolved lizard brain talking to you, telling you there is a social threat, telling you that someone, somewhere, possibly, could be a threat, and they want to take away your relationship or possessions.
I totally see an evolutionary need for jealousy. It can motivate us to protect resources or people we care about. It can become righteous anger when needed or infuriating anxiety when there is no real threat. Often with jealousy, there is no real threat. Like general anxiety, we may create or imagine a threat is out there without any logic or reason to back it up. So then what is the evolutionary benefit of compersion? What is the benefit to our prehistoric human ancestors to be happy for another in a way that does not benefit us?
Why should I be glad for Grok, my fellow prehistoric caveman, when he caught a fish that's not big enough for him to share with me? Yippee, you caught one fish, Grok, that's not enough to feed me, just for you, and plus it's an ugly fish. Would my joy create a closer societal bond so the next time Grok catches a fish, he would be inclined to share because I was happy for him last time? Because celebrating Grok encouraged him to share next time. Grok could like me more in the future because I was nice to him without an obvious benefit to myself.
Jealousy is an emotion born from your personal past. It is solely centered on you. You carry this emotion from the past, past traumas, fears, or insecurities. Compersion is an elevated state. It is the evolution of jealousy into a feeling that is good. It makes us feel good, like a beautiful dinosaur becoming a bird and flying off. Somewhere between the lizard brain and the higher logic brain, there is a little neuron that connects the two, and when jealousy passes by, that little neuron can flip it around into compersion.
I am not a brain science person though, but I can tell you that jealousy can be useful for swingers when utilized correctly. I want you to think of jealousy as an alarm going off in your head when you feel it. Just run with me on this one. When you hear a fire alarm, for instance, you think fire. You know you need to either leave the location or address the fire. Our primal emotions are like that. They are fire alarms. They are telling us that there may be a threat, a threat that could warrant your attention, a big flashing red sign that says you are in danger.
Granted, the sign will never be specific on what kind of danger, but damn it, that sign will flash in your head. How does a vanilla couple use the jealousy alarm? Let's say a wife sees an attractive younger woman flirting with her husband. The husband is smiling black and he is, quite frankly, so damn dense, he doesn't even notice the other woman has any interest in him. This is real because I am certainly that dense. To the husband, the other lady is just being nice, but the wife, she sees a threat.
In her mind, this random woman who has been talking to her husband for all of three minutes is a threat to the life the couple has built together. This woman is a hazard to their relationship and the wife's possessions. You know exactly the type of situation I am talking about here. The wife may react with anger, get angry at her husband for having the conversation and the other woman for starting it.
I ain't saying she is wrong for being angry at the situation, but if your husband is going to run off and leave you after a three-minute conversation with another woman, your fucking marriage ain't that great to begin with. The wife might even cause a big old scene. Her jealousy has become fear. Fear that she will lose what she has and that another woman will take what she has. Here's the truth. Unless that other woman pops out a titty and plays grab-a-dick with a husband in the middle of a bar, the degree or nature of the threat is probably exaggerated. But degrees do not matter to jealousy.
It is an alarm. It just flashes on and off, on and off. There is no color-coded scale for jealousy. I am making jokes, but if your relationship is secure and on a good foundation, no amount of flirting with another person will threaten it. For vanilla couples, be happy that another person finds your spouse attractive. Be happy for them that they're getting attention. Granted, not all flirting is innocent and there are malicious people out there who want to smash apart a marriage, but that's a topic for another episode.
Talking about swingers now, we don't have a problem when someone flirts with our spouse, so that action will not set off the jealousy alarm. But we're still capable of the emotion, we just have different triggers. Let's say you and your wife are with another couple. The husband is making your wife happy, physically.
She is making noises you have never heard come from her mouth, like a velociraptor singing tunes she is shaking her legs give out she's a sweaty mess she has received one of those full scale intense fuckings that will require three days to recover from for the ladies say your husband is getting the greatest blowjob of his life his eyes roll in the back of his head he can't even moan he just grunts a tear rolls down his cheek. The other woman makes him orgasm from a blowjob, which is something you can never quite seem to pull off. I know a person in the audience.
You just got triggered by one of these stories. I just kicked a hornet's nest in your brain because this has happened to you, and I bet you got a little jealous. You thought, how come they're having so much fun with that other person? And now you feel threatened. This is the inflection point. You can either choose jealousy or rise above and choose compersion. Be glad your wife is getting some top-tier dick. Be happy your husband is on the receiving end of a mouth that is trained in the Glug Glug 3000 blowjob technique.
Your spouse will still love you and adore you and go home with you when the session is over. You will have fantastic reclaimed sex. Your marriage is not under threat from one good sexual encounter. It should not be. Flipping an emotion from jealousy to compersion is hard. So let's run through a checklist in your brain when you feel the slightest tickle of jealousy. First, am I under direct physical threat? Probably not, but let's start with the basics. Physical safety, secure, check. So this is an emotional brain feeling thing. Ask yourself, why am I bothered in this moment?
What about this behavior is bothering me? What do you feel is missing or lacking in this situation? Is this an intentional slide? And I can tell you it usually is not intentional unless you have that dynamic with your partner. Do you feel hurt? Identify the scenario as best you can. Here's a pro tip no one talks about in the lifestyle. You need to get in touch with your feelings.
You need to learn how to talk about your feelings because there are all these wonderful thoughts in your brain made up of electrical impulses speeding through a highway of life experiences that you need to be able to share. Do not use accusatory words like you do or you always do. Use I statements. I feel, I am, I need. Did someone step over a line in the sand? Did your spouse cross a line or a boundary? More importantly though, did you communicate that there was even a line that should not be crossed? The next step is to talk. You need to talk to your spouse about what you're feeling.
I know men, certainly men, are recoiling in terror at the thought of talking about your feelings, but shut up. Your hobby involves getting naked in front of other humans. They see you in all your majestic naked glory and your ding-dong and your butthole. You can share your feelings. Go slow. Find the right words. take your time to breathe through it. There was a situation that caused you distress. That is valid. Your spouse needs to recognize that your feelings are valid. But your anger, rage, silence, those are not useful.
For a compersion of manifest, we must be open to both the feelings of others and our own feelings. And I bet you thought this whole hobby was just about titties and vajayjays and ding-dongs and sexting. I will guarantee you there will be times when you feel jealous in the lifestyle. You either give in to that emotion or transform that feeling into a positive and use it to communicate better with your spouse and others. Compersion also drives our play styles. I feel that the stag-vixen dynamic is driven primarily by compersion.
And stag and vixen is when the wife of a couple will engage in sexy time while the husband watches. This is different from cuckolding as there is no humiliation aspect in play. Just a husband enjoying his wife having a good time. And he may join in only with his respective spouse as well. The thrill of seeing your partner pleasured as a sexual being, as an erotic soul floating through the universe, is so hard to describe. Even in the same room dynamic with two couples, hearing your partner being sexual is highly arousing. Talking about your partner having a good time might make you horny.
Knowing they are sexually satisfied is a huge turn-on in the lifestyle. You, your lizard brain, and your human brain, they're in sync for sync for once so one last consideration we know what to do when the fire alarm goes off in our lizard brains but what happens or what does it mean when there is no alarm what does it mean when we do not feel compersion or jealousy or we're just numb the alarm in our brains is quiet silent and dark what does the lack of an alarm This is hard. This is a hard one to wrap my head around and offer any guidance on, but I know it happens.
I've seen posts from people, mostly in the polyamorous neighborhood, post about the lack of feeling compersion or really any emotion. I know full well it happens to swingers too. You need to step back and ask yourself honestly, do I derive any pleasure from seeing my partner pleasured? Do I feel joy for them when they're getting a good banging? Do they feel joy for me in the same way? If you do not feel compersion as I've described in the past 20 minutes, you are not broken. You are valid. Compersion is not necessary to be a swinger. It is a nice bonus for sure.
I see swinging as built on three pillars, fun, safety, and consent. We can cover consent and safety at another time, but fun, enjoying the act is so important. So ask yourself, is this hobby fun for you? No one wants to feel like they're being forced to participate or engage in actions, especially sexual actions, that they don't want to. So my first question, do you feel like you're being forced to engage in swinging? If the answer is yes, then full stop, you need to talk to your partner and either stop this hobby immediately or take a break to reconnect.
No one should feel like they're being forced against their will and nature to have sex with another person or couple. Full stop, non-negotiable. That means you're not having fun. Okay, you do not feel like you're being forced to do this. Fair enough. Now what? Next, ask why are you doing this? This hobby involves engaging in sexual relations with other people. Are you on board with that fully and totally? You're sharing your most personal physical self with another person and there should be no hesitation. Nervous is okay. Unsure is okay. But you must be comfortable with doing what we do.
And you have to be comfortable with your partner doing what we do. So is that it? Are you uncomfortable with your partner engaging in physical acts with another person? These are all some really deep questions that, yeah, I can stimulate your brain, but you need to finish these conversations with your partner and express yourself honestly. Going through all that, no, you're not being forced to do this. No, you don't mind your partner doing it. You just don't feel compressed. You don't feel the sympathetic joy. Your partner's moans just do not excite you.
Okay, what does excite you about the lifestyle though? That would be the next question. You don't feel it, that's okay.
If all the other check boxes are checked in be the next question you don't feel it that's okay if all the other check boxes are checked and green some people just don't feel it again this does not make you broken makes you honest and i respect it you could be in this for great sex with other people or the social aspects like parties and friends it's not a problem if you're honest about your motivations and the parts you do enjoy feeling this this overwhelming, eye-watering joy just may not be in your nature.
I do see more mention of the lack of compersion from the polyamory side of the ethical non-monogamy neighborhood. I think this has more to do with knowledge of the term than any difference between lifestyle people and poly people. Going all the way back to the beginning, polyamorous people have so many terms and words for concepts like different degrees of emotions and organizational styles, labels and names and words that split concepts into micro-ideas and shards of emotions. To contrast poly with swingers, for swingers, our compersion primarily comes from sexual encounters.
For poly people, their compersion comes from other types of intimacies. They may experience enjoyment when their primary partner goes on a date with a new person, or they have good vibes when their partner finds a new metamor. New word. A metamor is a person who is a polyamorous partner's partner, that whom the original person has no romantic feelings or relationship with, like your partner having a girlfriend or boyfriend that you don't really deal with. Therein lies a big difference between poly and swingers. We are not actively looking for romantic intimacy.
Romantic intimacy is reserved for our spouse or a partner. While a poly person will have compersion should their primary partner meet a new metamor, swingers will generally have a problem with that as we are not looking for a new boyfriend or girlfriend. Not an absolute thing. There are couples with open relationships where boyfriends and girlfriends are allowed. If that's you, rock on. I just say generally for the sake of comparison. We have covered so much information on compersion today. If you don't feel it, you are not broken. Just figure out why.
Be honest about your feelings and honest with your communication. Compersion, the word may or may not come from an LSD-fueled drug bender, but it's still a good and useful word either way. We now have a word to describe a feeling, a shared vernacular that helps the community grow and develop. So remember, when you get that big smile on your face watching your spouse orgasm harder than they ever orgasmed before, compersion. Thank you for joining us today. If you like the show, please subscribe, like, and follow wherever you may be listening.
Check out our website, thatotherlifestyle.com, and our Patreon at patreon.com slash thatotherlifestyle. I always appreciate hearing your feedback and comments on episodes or suggestions on topics, so feel free to reach out to me anywhere. My personal disclaimer, I'm not a medical professional nor a trained and certified educator of any kind in any way. I'm just a guy with a microphone sharing my personal experiences with you. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only, and please join us for the next episode. Whatever you may do today, I hope you have a fantastic time doing it.
Know that you are appreciated and loved. Have a great day.
