Here Be Dragons

Transcript

Speaker1: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Wherever you are, I hope you have blue skies, a breeze on your back, and sand between your toes. Welcome to the Other Lifestyle Podcast. I'm your host, Jason. Leave vanilla behind as we talk about dynamics. This show is for adults only. We will be talking about sex, relationships, the lifestyle, and ethical non-monogamy in an honest way with lots of honest talk. If you are under 18, this is your only warning to go the hell away and find a different show. Around here on the beaches of sexual freedom, consent, education, and good times, everyone is welcome, lifestyle, vanilla, or the curious. Whatever your gender, identity, expression, truth, flavor, you are welcome here. I will do my best to use inclusive language, though you may hear words like husband or wife or man or woman to keep things simple. You want to connect, you can send me an email to host at thatotherlifestyle.com. Go to my website, thatotherlifestyle.com, Go to STDHero.com. Use my promo code TOL15 for 15% off your order. Testing takes the community to make a difference, so go get STI tested and be safe out there. For the best lifestyle parties, check out RiskeLifestyleParties.com. We love their vibe, attitude, and always have fun, and I promise you will too. In the eons of time, before man knew the lay of all the land of the planet, hands and hearts of brave souls would venture out past the known world, past the breakers, past the horizon, to bear witness to the places where fools and the cowards scrawled in the margins of maps, here be dragons, here be darkness. Then I say to you today in that darkness, on the edge of the world, there is freedom. Where the timid are afraid to tread, there are dragons and there is freedom. Freedom from the vanilla tyranny, freedom to be and fuck and dance and vibe all wherever you want. Beyond the pale, through the fog, in the land of magic and mystery. In previous episodes, I have talked about play styles, dynamics, the way we like to fuck each other in the lifestyle, the way we desire, reciprocate, interact. I need to own a mistake today. My mistake. I placed all these play styles and or dynamics on a ladder or hierarchy, and we need to change this. This is not a book. This is an atlas, a map laid out before us. This is the domain of geographers, not record keepers. What we do is not a menu of services, no more so than any participant is merely a sex object. What we do is not a list for internet consumption, important conversations and distinctions being compressed to 60 frames a minute of flatness. The touch of another person should not be referenced on page 154 of the Big Book of Swinging. Flipping through a book implies locked directions. left to right right to left a proper and correct way to do this we are humans we are explorers and explorers need a direction a destination for our wants and our dynamics a compass a map bordered by the cardinal directions of desire power and needs not all compasses need four directions by the way where is your desire centered in an engagement where does the power flow between two people what need are you trying to fulfill and also what risk are you willing to It can get weird out there. You can sail so far you lose yourself, your partner, your marriage. But you can also find yourself, find compersion, and bring abundance to your marriage instead of wreckage. Everyone I have met in the lifestyle starts this journey as one diet. and will inevitably. They usually end up traveling to a new land to explore new playstyles. Dynamics are how we interact with other couples. Singles, couples, groups, no one. Every couple has a playstyle and most can articulate it well enough to be understood. If it takes more than four sentences to explain your playstyle, you're fucking up and that's too many sentences. Dynamics are the flags we fly from our ships. It lets others know if we are friends and fuckable, pirates and porn stars, swingers, at this point in my personal lifestyle journey, I like the word dynamic better than playstyle, and I'm not really sure why. We do have a shared lexicon in this, shorthand the same as a pirate code, to make this exchange of expectations and desires easier. Hot wife, full swap, soft swap, girl and girl, singles, the list goes on and on and on, and I've never found a definitive universal language for the lifestyle. Every region, country, community has its own variation on terms and what they mean. And even within those terms that you think are simple, there's nuances. Girl on girl, for instance, implies that only the women in the engagement are going to interact while the men sit around with hard dicks and stare at the show, I guess. The term girl on girl communicates the what but not the how. What the fuck am I supposed to do while these two women are going at it? Make awkward eye contact with the other dude while we play with her dicks? And it's useful, but it's not always the whole truth, not the truth of a touch, not the truth of a moment, not the truth of a person, nor their sexual choices and preferences. The words we use to describe our dynamics can fall short or completely miss what we really want when we want to get naked. I'm positive someone out there has made a big Venn diagram or three-dimensional model mapping fucking nerds of different sexualities and play styles in the lifestyle. Since this is an audio show, it would be completely pointless for me to find it and share it. If it does exist, great. We can see how different play styles meet each other, how close they are in relation to what people want and power dynamics, and I bet it has a lot of insight. This is way too fucking advanced from my analogy that I'm trying to run with here, okay? Sticking with maps and boats and hoes. This episode is not going to be about defining different dynamics. There are plenty of resources online for you to get very technical definitions, of what a hot wife is or a full swap. And I can promise you this, no two lists are going to be exactly the same unless they actually just fucking copied off of each other, which happens a lot. They're not going to use the same terms. They're not going to use the same framing, which goes back to the failure of language to capture what we do. People in the lifestyle need to be comfortable looking at this big-ass fucking map, figuring out what direction they want to go, why, and how to explain what they want without shame or judgment. some other pejorative term. It's shitty. I know people who are into gangbangs, for instance, and they have received judgment and scorn and ridicule publicly from others in their social circle in their community. Those exact same motherfuckers who flap their lips in public are messaging them in private to learn how to organize gangbangs. Fucking hypocrites here. Or another one, something we run into as a full swap couple. and then they judge us, my wife and I, for going full penetration. As fucked up as it is to say, my wife and I have been slut-shamed for being full-swapped by another couple, stood in their fucking kitchen, and the other wife has given us shit for fucking in a way we enjoy. This happens, unfortunately, and it is a dirty secret in the lifestyle. Not all sunshines and roses and hard dicks. People get in their heads that their particular way, their playstyle, is the only right and proper way way to do this and then they decide to judge others for their preferences. Look, I have no basis to judge anyone. As long as it is fun and safe and consensual, rock on with your bad self. And no one can judge you for what you enjoy as long as it's legal, okay? And no one gets hurt. Judgment takes our precious lifestyle map, the map people have fought to give us the freedom to explore in our own ways, and it rips and tears it up. Judgment and the lifestyle is anathema to what we do every fucking weekend. Judgment is the ugly stepsister of shame. Anyone who judges you for what you do is secretly ashamed that they want to do it too and they cannot bring themselves to admit it. Judgment is done to us by others trying to make us feel shame for our actions so that we change them and become like them. If we erase a whole part of the map, if we declare a whole area terra incognito, then all those who want to explore that land as well, well, you fucking can, okay? Let's talk about bisexuality as an example. I need to do a whole episode on bisexuality one day right now this is going to be a heavy truth and this whole fucking episode is about heavy truths and I don't know if you signed up for that so let's get ready okay here it comes not all women and the lifestyle are bisexual as in not all women want to lick pussy and make out with your wife not all men and the lifestyle are 100% straight and some are comfortable touching a dick every now and then it pisses me off when I run into this mindset and there are definitely groups, communities, misogynistic places out there in the lifestyle that reinforces fucking attitude. A circle of men gawking and cheering while their wives put on a little show for them. It's fucking disgusting. If you were a new couple joining the lifestyle, hear me well, oh traveler of perversion and freedom. Not all women are bisexual. I know women who are truly bisexual as in they feel attracted to men and women equally. I know women who are not at all bisexual. Some people are bisexual, some people are bi-curious. I don't get into the labels too hard or the degrees on this. Either you want to touch and interact with the genitals of a person of the same sex as you, or you don't. A person may not be comfortable with that, and they are allowed to say that too. We should not collectively assume the sexuality of other people. There are bisexual men in this who will never admit their feelings or their desires or wants, which is kind of sad. It's much easier to pretend that all men are straight and that the whole land of male bisexuality doesn't exist, is their way. That's the only acceptable way, using shame and judgment as the pen to strike out new routes across the sea. A handful of close-minded individuals don't get to declare that the only places worth visiting on the map are the places they feel safe. Oh no, another man might touch your pee-pee. How fucking often does that same dude who's freaking out about that grab a woman's boob without permission? That's not exploration. That's fear dressed up as morality. This isn't about forcing anyone to do If you have ever felt judged, erased, or shamed in the lifestyle, there is nothing wrong with you. You didn't choose the wrong desire or playstyle or dynamic. You just wandered into someone else's fear somewhere on the map they are unwilling to look. I respect the ones who can say what they want, be it a threesome or just tie them down and spank them. They know what they want. They looked at the compass of desire, power, and connection, need, and said, this is the spot we're going. They looked at the risk involved, the rocks along the shoreline, and said, nope, not today. We are sailing away from safe vanilla harbors to new experiences. Walking through a real example with this, and this is not to call it anyone specifically. I'm not talking directly to you. I'm just picking an easy one here. Let's say a couple is interested in a female-female-male threesome. Note the arrangement of those people, FFM. Their interest in having the wife, a single woman, I'm assuming the husband, so you got a single woman, a wife, a husband, with a caveat that the husband will not interact, i.e. not stick his dick into the third woman. They have a desire for a threesome. It's a very popular reason people get into the lifestyle. They want to explore their sexuality and open up their marriage to this. The power in this situation sits with the wife since she is the hinge or the middle point of the interaction. They have to decide what kind of connection they want with this mysterious, unnamed third woman. woman that's out there. Will it be a one-and-done thing, or is the couple looking for a long-term engagement, possibly poly? So that's where the need slash connection comes in. And then finally, there is risk to think about. This couple has to talk through the risk associated with this. Even a brief one-night stand runs the risk of causing weird feelings in people. Maybe the wife will decide she just doesn't like dick anymore after trying vagina. Maybe the husband needs to set his expectations for the night. Feelings happen in this no matter how much people try to downplay it, and that's not even counting the physical risk involved. And shameless ad plug here, go to stdhero.com for at-home pain-free STI testing. Use my promo code TOL15 for 15% off your order. See, I just slip it in there. All this assumes that the couple that we're talking about here talked ahead of time and shared and worked all this out. This doesn't cover like random situations that may come up like having a co-worker in the hot tub with you and too many margaritas and a titty pops out and then things get weird and you make out. Then you have to look at her on Monday morning and wonder if she liked it and wants to do it again because you want to do it again. You can talk about all this stuff ahead of time. Life is still going to find a way to just make shit weird. Sticking with the same couple in my example, they could shift direction and go for a female-male-female dynamic where the man interacts with both women. That's a completely different route. That's a completely different dynamic and play style. Yes, you were looking for a single woman, but you're interacting with her differently. new power flows, new emotional risk, new conversations that have to happen ahead of time. For instance, the risk profile is different for an FMF versus an FFM. There could be jealousy dynamics or comparisons because the dude is now fucking a different woman. How is the woman going to feel about that? There could be performance anxiety because now the husband's going to be fucking two different women. I want to call this out. Again, an FFM and an FMF are different. This couple can say, oh, we want to a single woman. We want to find a unicorn to join us for the fuckery. But what role do you expect the extra woman to fulfill? What role are you asking her to step into? What power dynamic are you asking her to be a part of? Is she there to connect with both of you, to focus on one partner, to be seen, desired, pursued, and quietly consumed and then sent home? These are all questions that need to be answered and figured out, and they're not adequately described whenever someone just throws out the place, This is where language fails us. Saying we are looking for a single woman, that want in that phrase, it doesn't answer the whole question. You're going to need to clarify with more. You're going to have to say something else to effectively communicate to others what you're looking for. If you don't have that extra clarification, you are setting up everyone to walk into the room expecting different things. This example also shows why I don't like high art. I don't like the hierarchy anymore. I fucked up. I fucked up when I started and came up with this hierarchy. And you know what? I'm throwing out the fucking window. An FFM and an FMF are not the same thing. Yes, another woman is involved and people will say that they're looking for a single woman, but they're not the same. The dynamics are not the same. They're not on the same rung on the ladder. And there's no metric to figure out where to put this in relation to other dynamics. Another thing. There's a fucking 12-lane superhighway. running straight to full swap land in the lifestyle. When people think of swingers, this is the dynamic that they are picturing. Four people, two couples, and pineapple shirts playing hide the pickle. Most people in the lifestyle fall into this category and they visit this land often. There are nuances though. There are variations even within this dynamic. It could be a hot wife scenario where one husband just wants to sit out and watch. It could be a girl-on-girl situation where the husbands don't interact with the other wives a lot. As much? Really? Say that you're a full swap. It gets the meaning across, but beware of its own variations and preferences, and you have to communicate all this. It is important that you communicate all this. You don't have to provide justification for what you're into, though. If you're the kind of guy or woman who just wants to watch, you just say, I prefer being a voyeur to the action. If you're the kind of woman who wants to do girl-on-girl in addition to the fucking, communicate it. Granted, asking in the moment, like when everyone is naked right Then and there, probably not the best time. Couples get tripped up on this, and yeah, when you're trying to say which you want, probably when you're sitting around naked, not the best time to drop it. I'm a big fan of setting expectations and dropping our personal dynamic into conversations early. Just lay the fuck out there. Most other people are okay with this too. Don't be hesitant to share your personal dynamic. We're all collectively sizing each other up, determining if a conversation is worth happening, And two couples can be misaligned on what they're asking and looking for within a full swap dynamic, just like two people in a relationship can be misaligned. Going back to the couple looking for a single woman, the wife could be looking to explore her sexuality while the man is looking to have sex with two women. Those goals can be opposed or in sync depending on which way this is played. One partner, for instance, might be intrigued by BDSM, power dynamics, DOM, sub, control, surrender, while the other their partner has no interest in that shit at all. Does it mean the curious partner can never acknowledge that desire? No. If their spouse is aware, consenting and genuinely okay with it, the lifestyle can create space to explore that with someone else. But this only works if everyone is enthusiastically on board. If the husband pursues a dynamic outside of the relationship, pursues power dynamics or people without his wife's knowledge or consent, that is no longer exploration. That is secretly. normalize desires, yours, mine, anyone's, and we pair it with communication and consent, we stop treating our curiosity about it as a threat. We stop forcing people to lie to themselves or their partners just to feel acceptable. If you're trying to communicate to others your desires, your play style, your wants, goals, all of that stuff, know that, okay, hard words, they don't have to accept it. But not accepting something is not the same as judging. Saying no is a complete sentence in what we do. But saying no does not mean that they are rejecting you as a person, judging you, dismissing you, telling you to go walk the plank. What another couple wants may not be in alignment with what you want. You may be the single woman being propositioned by a couple that would like to do the fuckery with you. As a single woman, you can choose how you interact with this couple. This imaginary couple wants a threesome where the husband is expecting to have sex with you. That's what they're going into this looking for. Okay, are you okay with that? If that's something you don't want, then that's an example of being misaligned. No one is the bad person in this. No one should be judged for turning anyone down. That's just how it goes. And speaking of turning people down, how do we speak to others without judging them or making it sound harsh? How do we say no without coming across negatively? If I met a couple, for instance, who is really into cock and ball torture, which is totally not my thing, please don't hurt my balls, and I really don't want to be involved with hurting the testicles, of others. Instead of saying, oh my god, that's fucking weird, I can just say that's not a dynamic we're interested in exploring right now. Instead of saying, we don't do that, we can say, oh, that's an activity that really doesn't interest us right now or that doesn't work for us. Instead of saying, oh my god, no, I can just say that desire is not aligned with what we're looking for. And alignment of direction, speaking of this, is important within a marriage. A couple will look at the map and the husband, ha ha, maybe he wants to head to BDSM Valley and his wife wants to head over to, I don't know, I can't think of a good example, wants to head somewhere else. Two desires, one marriage. In respect to this imaginary couple for speaking what they want to each other right off the top, it happens where one spouse wants something out of their ordinary play style dynamic and they never say a word. Your spouse cannot read your mind. No one can read your mind. And if they could, if someone could read your mind, they're not going to tell you because then everyone would know they have a superpower. It is okay for couples to have different desires from the lifestyle and want different things. Can this be navigated? Maybe. This is not about who wins, but what structure can hold this, these different desires, without resentment. So let's say there's a wife who really likes the wordies. The husband doesn't. Should the husband have to give in to what his wife wants or should his wife understand his reservations and respect his desire to not join a 10-person fuckfest? This is hard. There is no good set answer for this and it all depends on the couple. And this is not necessarily about the activity itself. It is about the participation in the activity. At the core, you do not need both people to be involved in the activity, but are they okay with not participating? So the husband does not want to be in an orgy. Period. Would he allow her to participate without him? That's a heavy fucking question. Some couples will only operate together. Others can do separate activities. Prime example are couples who date separately and have a true open marriage, as in they pursue sexual and romantic partners without their primary partner involved. Does this skirt kind of close to poly? A little bit. A little bit open marriage. So maybe we gotta go to a different land on this one. Misalignment of desires between a couple is not failure. It is not a failure of communication or compromise, or the marriage as a whole. Misalignment of wanting a dynamic can exist even with perfect communication on that deep soul level. It is not about bending your spouse to your desires. A couple, though, has to figure this out. They have to figure out how to do this. The answer could just be not doing it. If they cannot find a way to reconcile their desires, then they don't progress, which could lead to resentment. I will say, unspoken desires lead to fucking resentment. Avoidance of these discussions does not mean peace. Be open to your spouse sharing, which does not mean you have to be open to doing. Even in a marriage, a person has full body autonomy. No can still be given within the confines of a marriage. Does that end the discussion, though? Possibly not. Instead of both people heading towards a destination, ask, is there space on this map to go different directions together? want to put on this map and it might surprise you. You're allowed to stop sailing. Not every journey has to be endless. Not every couple has to keep sailing further out just because the map exists and keeps unfolding. There is no lifestyle rulebook that says growth only counts if it involves more people, more risk, more novelty, more. There's a big fucking difference between doing a threesome and a 12-person gangbang. Somewhere between those two numbers, there might be a happy space for you to stay. It felt thrilling once, might feel exhausting later. You are allowed to redraw your map as many times as you need. You can decide that a porridge you once loved is no longer home. You can decide that it is home and stay there. Exploration is only healthy when it's chosen freely, when it's rooted in curiosity, not pressure from others, when it's driven by desire, not comparison with others. And oh boy, our friends did an hour-long anal session. Guess we need to do that too. The fuck? In order to maintain social standing and swinger groups that are functionally using high school dynamics, we have to go harder and longer and do more than everyone else. No, you fucking don't. Sit down. The lifestyle does not owe you an escalation, and you do not owe the lifestyle an escalation in return. This map exists to serve you, not to dare you, shame you, or push you off a fucking cliff you never wanted to climb, flapping your arms desperately trying to keep up. And another point. Naming a Desire does not create obligation for anyone to fulfill it. Yes, but Jason, I was so brave and I said what I wanted. Good, good for you. Does not mean people have to agree to join you. Charting a new course on this big lifestyle map does not mean people have to come with you. It does not mean your spouse has to go with you like we talked about. But you can't go alone. That is possible in this. And I will guarantee there are absolutely no lands on this map that are truly fucking empty. There are already people there who will enjoy the thing you do just as much as you want to enjoy it. As long as your spouse is consenting to you having fun on your own, go fucking exploring. For couples, sit down with your partner and ask each other, what part of the map, what part of the lifestyle excites me now? What parts of all this am I scared to go to? What is off limits for now? And be ready with your own answers to those questions. This is not about going into deep fantasies and details. is just about naming dynamics that interest you. It could be BDSM. It could be awful fucking electrocution. If someone out there does enjoy shock play, go for it. Go for it. Enjoy it. Please don't fucking tase me ever. As you have this conversation, do not outright reject anything. If an idea hits a little hard, ask questions. Also, often conversations like this get shut the fuck down because when someone expresses the desire that might be outside the norm, the other person instantly reacts with dismissal or revulsion. None of that shit tonight, okay? Don't do that. Ask questions. Ask of your partner, well, what about this excites you? Where did you learn about it? How much do you know about it? Tell me more. This is how fucking conversations work, not just one-sided talking into a wall. I often hear the argument of how do you know, oh yeah, yeah, this one, this one, yeah. I hear the argument, how do you know you won't like it unless you try it? I'm sure there are things out there that I will not enjoy. One of them being electric play. I've been electrocuted and it was not very pleasant. I don't give a shit how much someone else enjoys it. They are not convincing me and I'm not budging on getting electrocuted. There are facets to this or types of fucker in the lifestyle that don't appeal to you at all. This is not misalignment. This is you making a decision you align with yourself. If a couple agrees, for instance, like they're only going to play with condoms, this couple is agreed on that together. And no one should try to change their mind. And they shouldn't change their mind to make anyone happy. Be daring. Chart a course to those lands the vanillas are scared to sail. Find the edges of the map and on the first island you land. Scratch a hereby dragons on a rock to show the way for all those others who may follow you and join you. Party with the natives and wave your flag high and proud. Thank you for listening and tuning in every week. Make sure you tell a friend about the show. Thank you to the love of my life, my wife, who is on this wonderful journey with me if you want to reach out ask a question suggest a topic see me an email to host at thatofthelifestyle.com and again my website is thatofthelifestyle.com my personal disclaimer i'm not a medical professional nor a trained and certified educator of any kind in any way i am 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 go to stdhero.com use my promo code t-o-l-15 for 15% off your order and get tested today. Whatever you may do today, or tonight, or tomorrow, I hope you do it with enthusiasm, consent, curiosity, and a little bit of spice. You are appreciated and loved, and I will see you for the next episode.