Stories

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, because I will next week. Welcome to the Other Lifestyle Podcast. I'm your host, Jason. Leave Vanilla behind as we talk about stories. This show is for adults only. We will talk about sex, relationships, the lifestyle, and ethical non-monogamy in an honest way with lots of real talk. If you are under 18, this is your only warning to get the hell out and go find a different show. Around here on the beaches of sexual freedom, consent, education, good times, everyone is welcome. Lifestyle, vanilla, or the curious. Whatever your gender, identity, expression, truth, or flavor, you are welcome here. I 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 or go to my website, thatotherlifestyle.com. Use promo code TOL15 for 15% off your order at Go to STDHero. Go to STDHero. If you go to Amazon, you can't use my promo code. You can't save money. Go to STDHero and use my promo code. Testing takes the community to make a difference, so please 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. Bit of housekeeping before I start rambling for the day. Next week, February. Next week? Yeah, February. My wife and I will be on the Fantasy Cruise. They're not paying me to mention this, but I want to share in case you are on the cruise, come say hi, give me a hug, tell me you listen. We'll be hanging out with the Risqué Lifestyle Cruise, so that's an easy place to find us. Look, I am not so vain as to believe that people will go on this cruise because I am, that I will be on this boat. Other podcasters, yes, me, no, and that's some honesty right there. If you find me, say hi. We will talk and hang out and go on adventures. I am not doing shit on this cruise, constructive or useful, besides relaxing and looking at boobies all day. Since I will be on the cruise, I haven't decided I may do an episode next week, I may not, or I may not do it the week after. It is officially the two-week anniversary of this show on February 16th, so I do need to do a special episode for that and maybe have a little birthday party, wear a birthday hat, some candles, definitely boobies. A few weeks ago, I shared a short story I wrote about a newbie couple, and oh, the feedback was fucking fun. The day after I dropped it, people were texting me. They were, everybody seemed to agree that one person in particular was the villain in the story. Look, there are no villains. The characters are just human. Characters that any of us could inhabit at any time. I purposefully did not want to provide any interpretation as the I didn't even give the damn thing a proper ending. I wanted people to listen and decide on their own, hopefully sparking some interesting discussions along the way. And I was part of one of those interesting discussions. The damn thing spun up around me. So we had a gathering of friends come over a few days ago. We had an impromptu celebration of life for my dog. They all listen to the show because they're awesome like that. And one dude brought up the episode and it was fucking on. In between trying on Costin, for the cruise, my friends were fired up. They started interpreting and inferring and discussing the hidden meanings and messages and motivations of these characters. One of my buddies was yelling out cucumbers. Another lady started telling her own story of going on a date just like this. And then there was me, sitting on the couch, watching all of this. I wrote the motherfucking story and people are analyzing this like it's an actual piece of literary work and not just a hot mess of prose about four people figuring out fucking. Going to be honest here, I loved it since I am a vain bastard. Loved having a story I wrote and shared discussed by people, by my friends in my living room. And I just listened. I didn't add anything to the conversation. With this podcast, I feel like I am talking into the void a lot. I write early in the morning with my cat on my desk, and my dog's empty bed is still at my feet, as tragic as it is. I record by myself talking to a stuffed pineapple on a shelf in my office named Irma. can be a lonely hobby. To have people interacting with my creation in my own house was a really cool experience. A good experience and I liked it. For my friends, let them take away whatever meaning they wanted from the story. Everyone can take whatever meaning they want from that story. But that did get me thinking on a whole different line. Stories. The value of our stories in the lifestyle. How many times have you sat around with your friends and shared horror stories of dates? Because I know I have. It's the way we connect with with new couples and friends fast. What's the most fucked up date or encounter you've ever had? What's something stupid y'all did when you started? Tell me about a time where consent got fuzzy and buttholes got penetrated. These stories, all told from our own personal human perspectives, connect us going through this very human experience of ethical non-monogamy. We all have our own journey, our own play styles, our own code of ethics in the lifestyle. Stories are a way to define those features of ourselves to others. This sharing is usually done in other cultures through a collective mythology. Cultures can share their values through their stories about gods and legends and sagas and epics. We don't have that in the lifestyle. The lifestyle is a culture without myths. The lifestyle is a culture where a tapestry of stories that weave together to create the larger narrative of what we do told from a very personal level, one person, one couple at a time. The lifestyle is the opposite of other societies and cultures in that the narrative we that holds us together is made up of hundreds of thousands, millions of individual stories that come together to create the whole versus a top-down structure like other communities. We have no bards to share our hero's tales. We have no good book, no great book of wisdom. We have no epic poems to study. We have no handbooks. No one will give you an official swinger guide when you decide to become ethically non-monogamous. you declare, I am E&M, and the swinger van drives by and throws a pineapple at you. That's it. That's all you fucking get. Figure out the rest on your own. And yeah, the internet does offer way more guidance than in previous years, and you can find out the jargon and lexicon and expectations pretty easy with some research. But again, we don't have codified rules for every situation. Every couple is different and unique in how they do this. Some couples have straight-up open marriages. Some play separately. Some only play together. Some people only do gangbangs. Some people only swing once a year. There is no single guiding mantra that says you have to be a swinger. You have to do the lifestyle in this way. The lifestyle even lacks a creation myth. How fucking wild is that? Other societies have a story about how they came about. They have a history that can be cited, and we don't. No one is really exactly sure where the word swinger came from. When I mentioned this to my wife while I was writing this episode, she cited the often-cited story of pilots after World War II in the States engaged in what we would call wife-swapping, swinging as a way to reinforce the bonds between those pilots. But really, there's no historical evidence for that. Nobody wrote down what the fuck they were doing. There's no historical evidence for any of this. This hobby, this lifestyle exists in the shadows for a reason. That's secret spaces. So there is no grand historical library that we can walk into and do nerd shit. What we lack in formal history, we can make up for with our oral tradition. And I'm going to say oral a lot in this episode. And if you giggle, every time I do, we can be friends. My friends the other night were sharing in this oral history together. My fictional short story prompted them to start sharing their own personal stories of triumph and ick, dating stories, sexual adventures together as a group while I'm just sitting on the couch listening. live lives that other people dream about and collect those dreams and share those stories to save them. We become unwitting characters in stories of others to serve as moral warnings or validation or encouragement. I will admit there is a hole in one of my points. The oral history of the stories are not as relevant today for sharing the social norms in the lifestyle as they were years ago. Granted, with the internet. Yes, anyone can go on the right forums and learn a whole bunch of shit really fast. But that's learning. That is not living. Big difference between learning about consent and putting it into practice every time. Shit gets weird. It can get weird out there. Newbies can go online, find guides and workbooks and coloring pages that explain what is a swinger, what is ethical non-monogamy, what is consensual non-monogamy, what is the lifestyle, what to do. All in this very sanitized way that's easy to digest. All those fancy words mean absolutely nothing when a person is in a hotel room trying to figure out when to start sexy time. And pro tip, just yell it out. Yell out, let's get naked and whip your pecker out. If it's going to be awkward, embrace the awkward. I never said I have good advice all the time, okay? Etiquette and stories. When we share a story with another couple, there's a huge value to this. We are showing this other couple the etiquette that we find acceptable. If a couple tells a story about surprise anal and the wife did not like that, note and make a mental fucking note not to try surprise anal. Never try surprise anal ever. Always ask first. It requires some prep. You two swinger couples together and they're going to share stories. Good stories or bad stories or horror stories. When we share a story, let's say about a bad date, what we are subconsciously doing is sharing behavior with others that we ourselves find unacceptable or questionable. We are then judging and evaluating the other couple for their reaction to see if they align with the same norms that we do. You can't really ask like, so how often do you flake on dates or ghost people? But we can share a story about people ghosting us to see how they react. We gain information about them through sharing these narratives. This works for newbies too. When an experienced couple shares a story with a newbie couple, that experienced couple is sharing with them their personal values and the values of the lifestyle and the expected etiquette for all the wild shit that we do. So for instance, if we talk about an orgy with a newbie couple, we can get into logistics and emotions in the situation, give them the narrative of how it started, how it ended. take that knowledge, be it good or bad, and use it to inform their personal decisions if they're ever in that situation. This can cut both ways. If you share a story about an orgy that was planned, thoughtful, people ask consent and use protection, da-da-da-da, then the newbies will go into their encounter with those expectations. If you share a story that makes an orgy sound like a free-for-all, then the newbies will go into it with those expectations too. The future behavior can be influenced positively or negatively by your That's some wild fucking power there. Continuing with the orgy example as a way to explain personal outlook. Depending on how you frame this story, it's either going to come across as a communal activity for considerate adults or a fucking free-for-all. As in, free-for-all fucking shows your personal values. Do you value connection over sex? Do you want sex to mean something? Are you looking for pure sexual fulfillment regardless of the participants? There's no right or wrong answer. But you reveal that in your story. When we share stories, we are checking to see if the person we are talking to shares our values. So let's say you share a story about playing separately. Some couples are going to be interested in this dynamic. They're going to lean forward. Some are not going to care. Some are going to find the idea unacceptable. All these are valid responses and it tells others, hey, this is where we stand and this is how we operate as a couple. Stories are also a good way to learn about new dynamics. I didn't know what the fuck Stag Vixen mentioned. Until somebody told me. I didn't know a bunch of shit in this until somebody told me. The difference between reading the term stack vixen on the internet, the actual definition of it, versus talking to a person who does it? Questions, clarifications, details. Tell me more. If the dynamic interests you and you meet people who do it, ask questions. And here's a pro tip. People love to talk about themselves. They will think you are the most interesting person ever on the planet if you ask them questions. Stories also serve as a way to gauge attraction. Attraction and lifestyle is made up of more than physical attraction. What? I know there's a person listening right now who is arguing with my recorded voice that no, all we need is physical attraction and it is game on. Really, fucker? We need play styles to align. We need space and time to fuck around. Sharing a story about a situation where couples play styles did not align with your own or sharing a story about a couple that had trouble making time for fuckery. All these are broadcast to potential fuck-friends. Hey, these are the values we think are important without outright saying it. Now, I've met people who are very direct and forthright on what they want, how they want to do it, how they operate, and how they expect you to operate. I know a dude, he has this shit down to a science. Him and his wife are fucking direct about it. They have a codified list of do's and don'ts and wants and expectations, and holy shit, I respect it. But most people don't have the courage or any fucking clue how to articulate all of this. have no idea what they are looking for until they stumble into a hotel room full of naked people and suddenly have to decide if this is worth taking off their pants. The stories we share give people windows into the what we find attractive in others. If we talk about a good experience, we're sharing what we liked about it. Or on the other side, if we talk about a really rough night and have a laugh, our stories can show that we as a couple can handle misalignment, weird situations, consent breakdowns. this shows that you can handle accountability too. If the idea, alright, if the idea that you are part of someone else's narrative scares the fuck out of you, tough. You're a part of someone else's story. I promise you that. You are now a myth, a legend. Be fucking legendary if you're gonna do it. Give them something to talk about. If you have ever been on a date, been on a dating site, anywhere remotely close to swingers, there is a chance, however small, that you are now part of someone else's story. It may not be a good story. It might be a bad story. It could be a weird fucking story. I love the weird stories. Okay, don't sweat this too much. It is normal and a natural thing in the lifestyle. If this realization that you could be part of someone else's story just slapped you in the face, I am so sorry. It's the truth, though. I know I am in a bunch of fucking stories, and I have absolutely no control over the narrative that they are saying. Most of the time, though, it is innocent. Most of the time, you are not the subject of someone else's horror story. I have learned in the lifestyle that the same couples tend to be the subject of multiple people's horror stories. This is called having a reputation. A bad reputation. Conversely, you could have a good reputation. Not all stories about couples are bad. Some could be good. When people ask us about couples we know, I leave it vague as a motherfucker. I will say whether or not they're welcome in my house, whether or not we think they're cool people, maybe mention we've hung out before. What I will never, ever fucking do is talk about the sex. Stop sharing details of your sexual encounters. Okay? That's it. This is fucking locker room talk and it does not belong to the lifestyle. We are better than this and need to hold each other accountable to be better than this. I don't engage in this behavior and it is an instant turn off when men do it around me. Whatever man does this, you are not touching my wife. I promise the woman you were talking about in graphic fucking detail about fucking her doesn't want this information shared. You don't know how that story is going to land on the nervous system of someone else. You putting your dick inside of a woman is not permission to tell everyone that you put your dick inside of her. I know why guys do it. Let's create a bond through our love and appreciation of sex. Vanilla men do this all the fucking time. I have been around vanilla men doing it, and I don't fucking like it, okay? Fuck that. The story you are sharing is not doing what you think it is. It is a form of slut-shaming. It is degrading to women. It is turning a human into a sex object. Stop it. If you want details, go fuck them yourself, okay? Be better. How would you feel if someone started telling stories about your wife? Went into fucking details about the elasticity of her vagina or her breast or her blowjob technique. Your wife. The love of your life distilled down to a physical act she performed with another man, now being shared with other men to establish dominance and reinforce their delicate confidence and even their fragile male ego. Don't feed this behavior. Women, y'all ain't getting off easy either, okay? do this shit too. From grading the sex to measurement, y'all do this shit too. How would you feel if a bunch of women were making jokes about the size of your husband's dick in a bathroom together, alright? Be better. Model the fucking behavior you expect from other people. There are ethics to sharing stories. Yes, you had a horrible date and you want to tell somebody about it. That is human. This is a way to connect. Some people will never share a single fucking story ever. I know people who are bank vaults. They might drop a single line about a single encounter If you're talking to somebody like this, don't dig into it. Don't ask for more details. When you are on the receiving end of a story, don't press for details. Don't ask for names. Be respectful of what is being shared and not shared. You can. Something safe to share, I guess. You can share your own origin story. Origin stories are fucking gold in the lifestyle. Sharing how people get into this tells me so much about couples. What are their values coming in? What are they doing this for? Sex? Fulfill a fantasy? social connections, boredom, the dreaded fix-a-marriage refrain. Origin stories are just like superhero origin stories. They can be complicated and convoluted or as simple as, hey, we watched a porn and decided to try this. That's okay. I've shared our origin story on a previous episode. We got into the lifestyle for friendship and connections. That tells people those values are important to us. We are much less likely to have one-night stands or go into any encounter as a one-and-done thing. That also says that we want long-term friendships. For some couples, sharing our origin story is a turn-off. I get that. They know what we are looking for. They're honest in what they're looking for, and they decide not to pursue us, which is totally fine. I don't want to chase a misalignment or go into anything under false pretense. Sharing our own story, we can be honest and upfront. Everybody should be about that. A nuance I did think about. Origin stories can grow and evolve over time. their marriage, hopefully they found therapy instead. This goes back to humans being unreliable narrators in that the story can change with each telling and each time. Your origin story can get longer the longer you're in this. If you are going to share a story that involves other humans, be ethical about it. Right off, do not share names unless you completely 100% trust the people you are talking to. There is a difference between storytelling and gossip. Storytelling can be good. Gossip can be bad. What's the difference between storytelling and gossip and a third category no one ever talks about? Warning people. When you tell a story that does not name specific people in a very anonymous way, you leave out all identifiable information, that is good. When you specifically call out people or mention details that someone could possibly connect in their heads, that is bad. There's a fine line between gossip and storytelling. And I feel the distinction is about identity. If you can specifically call out a person or a couple, in a negative way, that's gossip. If you leave a trail of breadcrumbs in your story for someone to figure out who you're talking about, that's gossip too. People in a lifestyle love to fucking gossip. It is their second favorite thing after fucking. We have a closed society, limited members. This is a recipe for gossiping, okay? At the simplest level, storytelling is about meaning. Gossip is about leverage. For instance, storytelling is, I'm sharing this because it taught me something or changed my behavior in a positive way. Gossip is I'm sharing this because I want to change how you perceive someone or judge them with me. Storytelling focuses on lived experiences as we know an unreliable narrator. Gossip defines and focuses on the identity of others, be it actions, flaws, or drama. And I do want to add in a third category that I feel is legitimate in addition to gossip and storytelling. people of shit is different than gossip in that it is about actions, harm prevention, shared with the appropriate people. I feel it is acceptable to give warnings if a couple performs an act that is egregious, insurmountable, downright disrespectful to you and your spouse and the lifestyle. If they act in a dangerous or immoral way, yeah, name names, warn people about this shit. It might be an unpopular opinion, but usually the ones who don't like this are the ones who are of bad shit anyway. Safety warnings should be about preventing harm, not punishing someone socially. Yes, people are going to share stories. Maybe good, maybe bad. Understand that everyone is a reliable narrator with these stories. They're going to leave out details. They may leave out the details that make them look bad. They may smooth over sections to get to a punchline. The couple that story is about may have had a completely different perspective about what happened. What's really wild is when you hear the same story from two different And they're both trying to be vague as shit, but you know enough to put the details together and then you stand back and go, oh yeah, that was fucked up. And then you never mention it or let anyone know that you know what the fuck actually happened. I am standing in the middle of all this with a big shit-eating grin on my face, talking on my wife's sleeve. Yeah. My wife, my spouse, someone else, audience matters. Audience size matters. Let's build a privacy ladder together. Spouses. I mentioned my spouse, you know, Whenever I can put a story together from two different angles, like, oh my god, I figured it out. Look, I'm under no pretense when I believe that people will not share every fucking story in secret I tell them with their spouses. I know as soon as I get done talking, they are making mental notes on what to tell their spouse at the first fucking opportunity they will get you to tell them. We are human. Telling your spouse is one thing. I never liked the idea of keeping secrets from anyone's spouse, so sharing a story with your wife or husband gets a pass from me. They probably want to know too, and would probably have shared with them if they were all in the same room. Going down the privacy ladder. Trusted friends. This one is sticky, right? Do you trust people with your own stories? Can you share a story and the lessons involved? Maybe a little texture and spice, but you keep the details privileged. Know that the story is safe with them. This is the point to ask, are we close enough to tell the story? Time helps with this one in a weird way. Like, we can share a story that happened two years ago. Now, with trusted friends, we feel comfortable sharing with friends a story that is way back in the past, not necessarily last week. Further down, a casual community setting or a party. At a party or something, if you're telling a story, number one, it barely be fucking positive or funny. Don't make anyone look bad. All these people in the room need are the headline, the lesson, and the punchline. No names, no recognizable details, no being vague in the way where you really want people to figure it out on their own so then you can verify it. This is the point where stories become reputations. And even bigger than that, chat groups. Motherfucker. I have seen people put some dumb shit in chat groups, and I felt their buttholes pucker as soon as they did it. Don't share stories that could be tied back to anyone in the same group in that fucking group. It's a bad form. You are now airing out their business in addition to yours. They may not fucking want you to do that. They may not want people to know they fucked you. I have had my business aired out in a chat group before, and I didn't like it. I imagine at least one other person out there doesn't like it. Hi, we both don't like it. Be conscious of what you were sharing in these groups. My outlook is nobody needs to know who I'm fucking when and where. It's our business not to be spread around. In these tight social circles, otherwise known as cliques, stories have the power to make people into heroes or villains super fucking easy depending on who is telling the story to whom. Watch out for shit. If there is one person spreading a story around to multiple people, what are they trying to accomplish? with this, especially if the story holds no real value to the lifestyle, then it's gossip and this person is trying to reframe a narrative to make themselves look better or someone look worse. Don't fall into the trap that the loudest narrative is the right one. Here's some easy guidance. For all of these stories in public spaces, check with the person, the subject of your story, check with that person before you share the story. People have done this for me and to me and I appreciated it. Sometimes I've said yes, sometimes I've said no. If there's any hesitation, about checking in before you share the story with someone? Easy answer. You probably shouldn't share it in the first place. The goal is consent and dignity. Let people consent and keep their fucking dignity. Stories build up our culture, but at scale, they can become weapons of embarrassment, siege weapons of embarrassment, reputation destroying catapults, humor disguised as insult cannons. Here's a novel idea. Story consent. This is a real kind of consent. I don't know if anybody's ever talked about this. Just because you have sex with someone doesn't give you permission to share that story or your part in their story. Deep fucking thought there. I'm not saying you should add to your list of consent questions. Hey can I tell people we fucked? But be aware of this. Consent matters so much in what we do in the lifestyle. This is beyond physical consent. This is beyond emotional consent. This is the kind of consent that can live on for years. So story consent. Just something to ponder. We share as a community show our values and actions. They teach others our positive values like consent and safety. And the best stories are the ones that show our friends in a positive light. Remember that. STD Hero has a big announcement coming soon. A new feature that people have been asking for in the lifestyle for fucking years. I will keep everyone posted on when it is released. Risk A Lifestyle Parties. Need to talk about what they have coming up. Go to riskalifestyleparties.com for information on all these events. In March, March 13th to the 15th, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, will be the Risque Mardi Gras party. Then the first week of May is Luminous, which is going to be a wild fucking glow party in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. That is the April 30th to May 2nd. You may want to double check those dates. Go to the website and look. Back to School is April 28th in Baton Rouge, and the second annual Pulsify event will be October 1st through the 4th in Fort Walton Beach. Go get your tickets, make your plans. My wife and I will be at all of these parties, so come party with us. 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 wife, my wife, who is on this wonderful journey with me. If you want to reach out, ask a question, suggest a topic, send me an email to host at thatotherlifestyle.com. Personal disclaimer, I am 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 Go to stdhero.com, use my promo code TOL15 for 15% off your order, and get tested. Whatever you may do tonight or tonight, tomorrow, this weekend, I hope you do it with enthusiasm, consent, curiosity, and a little bit of spice. You are appreciated, loved, and I will see you for the next episode.