EP96 – Creating Communities & Multiamory Podcast

Transcript

You're listening to Swinging Down Under, a podcast about the swinging, non-monogamous lifestyle from two crazy Australians with over four years of lifestyle antics to keep you entertained, informed, angry, happy, and horny. Join our international swinging adventures. G'day guys and welcome to Swinging Down Under podcast. This is Kate and I'm here today to talk to you about building communities and the importance of communities. Now in the sex positive lifestyle we are a little bit alternate to normal everyday people that are out there and we are still growing as a community.

We are still trying to find our feet and help people to understand a little bit more about our lifestyle choices and try to normalise them as best we can. So today's episode is all around building communities, the importance of them and how you can also build your own. So I'm actually joined as an interview segment in the middle of this podcast by Double Date Nation and we're talking about their community as well as how they have had communities impact their personal lifestyle journey.

Towards the end of this podcast I'm actually going to share five steps or five topics or kind of key items on how to build your own community. You know oftentimes we say hey if we don't have a community what are we going to do? You know the nearest club club is X, Y, Z, miles or kilometres from us. We don't really have a network of people around us. So I'm going to share how we have built communities throughout our five years in the non-monogamous lifestyle and how you guys can do it as well, including kind of the four cycles of building that community.

So that's towards the end of the podcast. Before we get started on episode 96, I'd like to mention that we have a new Swinging Down Under website. So we've had the same website now for almost five years that we've been podcasting. Bless Daryl, he's the one who built it for us. And I've been playing around with this website for the past few months and finally have launched it. So if you haven't checked our website out for a little while, I'd love you to go to swingingdownunder.com, have a look around, let me know what you think.

And if you have any feedback on the website, we've added new sections in there and different kind of feel about how we're operating our podcast website.

Now we know podcast websites, they don't really tend to be looked at that frequently because you're obviously picking up the podcast on your podcast catcher, but we would really appreciate you to jump on over, over have a look around let us know what you think and give us some feedback on email if you like cnd at swinging down under dot com or you can just contact us through the actual website itself on the website we do have an event section and in that event section we have three different events that are highlighted in 2020 that we'd like you if you're in the area to consider coming along to meeting the other people that are going to be there.

Great opportunity actually folds in really well to the community topic today. Great opportunity to meet like-minded people and help starting to foster and build your community. So January in Orlando, in Florida, there is an event there at Secrets Hideaway Resort. And that is, of course, with Casual Swinger and Double Date Nation. We're co-hosting that particular event. We also have Podcasterpalooza coming up in May. Of course, that's in Miami. And then we also have Naughty in New Orleans in July. Some of those links, of course, they are affiliate-based links.

So if you do sign up through our website, we do receive a kickback from some of those organizations, and we really thank you for supporting the podcast.

so if you'd like to come along to secrets in january miami in may or new orleans in july next year please jump over to the swinging down under website have a look around the events section i'd also like to quickly give a shout out to our newest patreons in november we just had actually the thank you patron day and i just really wanted to take a moment to thank our nine newest members, Double Date Nation, Karen, Mrs2New2M, Andy, Resika, Amit, Sven, Nicholas, Fernando.

Thank you so much guys you're on nine new Patreons for November and we really really appreciate the support that you guys give there. Right guys let's get into this interview again I'd like to thank you to Double Date Nation that is of course Admin Andy and Double Date Dave. I threw some oddball questions at them, so that's this interview coming up. Thank you so much, guys, and I hope you enjoy this interview. All right, welcome back, guys. I am here with Double Date Nation. Of course, that is Admin Andy and Double Date Dave. Thank you so much for joining me, guys. Thank you for having us.

Thank you. We're excited.

Now, Double Date Nation and double date dave are actually from nashville in tennessee now for those out there who may not know that's actually where dolly parton lived dolly parton quite young drove up to nashville tennessee and that's where she started her music career and still lives to this day did you guys know that dolly parton's actually based in nashville yeah oh yeah absolutely being in nashville we have billboards of dolly parton everywhere yeah so fantastic my mom actually made all of my clothes when I was little so the whole coat of many colors thing really really you know gets gets the feels for me whenever I hear that song so if I see Dolly I'm like you go girl you got this damn thing so Double Date Nation guys just if you haven't heard of Double Date Nation it is a fairly dating site started in 2019, kicked off out of Nashville and Tennessee, so in the United States of America.

Now, Double Date Nation was started by these two people that I'm talking to. So Admin Andy, Double Date Dave, they've been in the lifestyle now for just over four years and created this community, and that's what we're talking about today. We're talking about building communities. We're talking about stigma in the lifestyle. We're going to do some speed questions and speed rounds to get to know who these people are. And are you guys ready for this podcast? Super happy to have you on. Yay, we're happy to be here. All right. So let's just get straight into it. Let me see here.

Edmund Andy, your most hated fruit. What is that just for the listeners out there? Really hard-hitting questions here to start. Yeah, exactly. So, kiwi. You hate kiwi fruit? It's horrible. It's an ugly color, and the texture feels like you're chewing little gnats, like little crunchy bodies, and it has a slimy finish, and it's just fucking awful. It's the worst thing on the planet. You're right. Okay, fair enough. All right, well, fine. And Dave, your most loved fruit, what is that then? Is it the kiwi? Please tell me it's the kiwi. My most loved fruit is going to be pears.

For some reason, just I love pears. No, it's so great to have you guys on. So that's a little bit of relaxation questions to get you guys started into the podcast today.

But let's talk about building communities communities so you guys created Double Date Nation and we're going to roll back around to that as we're going through the podcast today but why do you think that communities are important you know in the lifestyle we are I guess you know a little bit different to the average person they classify our lifestyle as being you know alternate to most people and there's things like negative connotations like vanillas and chocolate and those sorts of things. But why do you think a community is important for us?

Well, when we first joined the lifestyle a few years ago, you know, there was not the reach that there is today. As far as information out, I would Google, you know, different, you know, words or stereotypical words, you know, swinger. I had no idea what I was looking for. Communities are good just because the evolution from now, from then to now, there's so much more encouragement. There's more communication.

There's even on social media, there's more interaction with people that aren't necessarily podcasters that just have kind of, you know, hidden accounts that there's a lot of feedback conversation. It's just there's so many outlets now. So the more that we evolve and grow those communities, I think the more it's just more of an influence on people that need that information, especially in the beginning of their journey. And I was going to say, as far as like with me and communities, you know, when we first got into this, I really I had no idea what to expect.

And, you know, I didn't know that what I was feeling was normal, like the certain things that I was wanting to experience in the lifestyle, like getting to actually associate with other men who could tell me about the experiences and how they felt and how their marriage progressed for me was the most important part of finding a community and a group of people I could talk to. Yeah, I think you both touched on some really interesting things there.

Andy, you mentioned, you know, the Twitter presence, which I think a lot of people are very surprised at how just how many lifestylers are on Twitter, you know, and are out there. And that's certainly something that I'm shocked with. Was that a surprise to you to kind of sign up to this social media that in the past has been, I guess it was started as a little bit more business focused and kind of adapted and changed? Was it a huge surprise to you to get on there and see so many swingers out in the open? It really was for sure.

I had people would reach out, even send private messages to us and say, you know, my wife and I have these fantasies or my husband and I have these thoughts. And we just figured that swingers are a bunch of people dressed in 1970s attire at like orgies. And I'm just, you know, and what is this, you know, kind of explain this further. And they they really are. There's so many people are reaching out. So, yeah, I was definitely surprised by it.

It was refreshing though to know they had people to turn to yeah I agree I think having and it kind of goes rolls back into what you were just saying Dave that you know gave you the option to realize that there were other people out there feeling this way and like people are reaching out to you now I guess you could then see those other people and kind of normalize a little bit about what you were feeling or what you were going to I guess start researching and looking into right right it's all about education and exposure of the positive you know stigma if you will or you know the the positive side the positive light to everything there's so many good things that come from it and kind of society as a as a whole just doesn't allow that to shine at all.

Now let's talk about building communities. So each city, each state, each country in the world, there are likely to be some communities. Maybe sometimes they're quite small, however, depending on where you live in the world. What we know is that in some countries and some locations, the lifestyle is actually illegal in some parts, but there's still community being built because, like you, Dave, people felt a certain way and they're reaching out to like-minded folks.

So how do you think we can all help to build communities together and kind of reach out and foster some of those better connections? What have you guys found in Nashville or really out in the States in general? For me, I think it's more just the understanding of the communities. You know, we do. It's not fully acceptable everywhere in the United States right now, but just being able to build an understanding and get rid of that stigma that people believe that the term swinger means something dirty and nasty. And it's really not that.

It's about connections with other human beings, with your spouse, you know, it's just, it's far more than people. or it means something dirty and nasty. And it's really not that. It's about connections with other human beings, with your spouse. You know, it's just it's far more than people assume it is. Until they fully understand and are educated on it, they just don't know. Yeah, and the events that take place, the clubs that are offered, those are becoming more of kind of a safe place to go.

They're building their own reputation where you can get feedback on where's a good place to go where you know otherwise before it was just kind of like okay we hear this this sexy place but we have no idea what we're walking into now you get like a full review and rundown of what the place looked like and what the people were like and so i think again more exposure just gives more comfort in general which is going to help the community community grow. And do you think that's important? I mean, you touched on clubs there, and we'll talk a little bit about stigma in a particular club soon.

But do you think it's important that we as a community are publishing things like video walkthroughs of clubs so we can try to normalize it? Do you think that that was one important for your journey, but do you think it's important for everybody else out there i think it's a great idea i mean even for the resorts you know there's different there's a few different resorts um that are a little more sexually open um just to know what you're walking into i think that there's really no exception to that being a great idea events clubs um on and off premise um res, yeah, you name it.

I think it's a great idea. And it really does kind of make it more mainstream, having it more readily available for everyone to see. Instead of feeling like it's a dark hole or a dirty underground place that, you know, criminals go to or something, you know.

So again, removing that stigma by letting the world see it, even though there may not be people in it at the time just walking through and saying okay this this isn't a dungeon or a terrible place you know yeah because actually i throughout throughout the times when we've traveled around the world you know some clubs do have a little walkthrough video or maybe they just have that 360 view um you know camera around the club so you can do a little walkthrough and i found be particularly helpful for me.

If I'm, if there's multiple clubs in one city and I'm picking a location, one might resonate a little bit more with me. Maybe it's decor, style, the way that they approach things than others. And certainly I think if one has video on the website versus one that maybe doesn't, that one's then more known to me. So I might gravitate towards it. So I do think it's a great idea. you know, if anybody out there is listening, contact your local club if they don't have their videos up and see if they'll create one, put some photos up, something like that, even a gallery.

I think it does help to, as you say, normalize it a little bit more, right? Now, stigma in the US. Let's talk a little bit about that. So obviously, the US is going through some rather drastic changes. And look, we're not politically focused on this this podcast so I won't get into too much of it but you know there has been some changes in certain states in the US. I know in Indiana right now you know the Champagne Club in particular is under some attack from the local council and now going to state and federal.

So I mean is there a way that you know the community in itself or each different separate person, you think, can try to help fight some of that stigma? What can we do as a community to help? Again, I think really just pushing our voice. You know, they showed the clip on the news of the turnout for the hearing for the Champagne Club, and it was really, it was just a positive response. A lot of people came to support them and to speak out and we just need more of that. And it's hard because I know there's, there's discretion and that's, that's very important.

So we're kind of pushed back by that. So it's a, it's a, it's our own barrier. We have to kind of get past in the lifestyle, but the more people that can go to support, um, or write know, it can still be anonymous, any way that they can use social media or any outlet to try to use their voice in whatever way they can just to show support. There's so many people that this affects and there's so many people in this community, but they're just so hidden. And so it's a real challenge a real challenge for, for those of us who aren't that try to represent everybody else.

So the more we can say, the more we can be heard. Yeah. And that's right. And I guess if you're out there listening to this, this is not a request for you guys to all come forward because we do know that not, not everybody has that, that opportunity to do that, you know, until April this year, when I, when I actually quit my job to show my face, to come out, you know, if I'd have done that before, that's it, I would have lost my livelihood.

So, you know until April this year when I when I actually quit my job to show my face to come out you know if I'd have done that before that's it I would have lost my livelihood so you know we don't have children there is a lot of people out there who can't do it but we can do you know to to admin Andy's point is write in you know if you can help local clubs talk about your experiences and the positives of that and the city that it's impacting I mean that's definitely going to help help our cause I guess a little bit so the stigma we're saying yes it does exist but let's flip that on its head what city or state or location in the states do you think is the most open in your opinion you know where is there a huge population where people can be a little bit more free well of all the places that we've traveled i mean it's you know when we go to an event or a location for the lifestyle, you know, it's automatically accepted there.

Like it's good there. As far as, I guess, the most open places that we could think of, it's just an assumption, which would be California and probably Florida. I think just an opinion there is that they're more sexually open minded than what we experience here in the in the Bible Belt in Tennessee. Yeah, it's a little more underground, probably, than more mainstream. But, yeah, I would say I agree with Dave in the sense that when we go to an event, whether it be California or in Pennsylvania in the U.S., we're in an environment where it's just full of folks from the lifestyle.

So it's hard to say what, you know, is outside what's accepted.

But I don't know, I would say the Midwest is most likely the most in the US, the most accepted area, just because we're kind of the south, the southeast area is a little more slow to catch up with everything else in the world but i don't know that may just that's just my opinion no stats to base that on but now for everybody out there who's not based in the u.s midwest can you tell us where that is uh las vegas you know the nevada area california um washington state oregon that type of okay i would say yeah and in terms i mean you guys have obviously your faces are out on social media you're out as See you next time.

Again, that type of zone, I would say, yeah. And in terms of, I mean, you guys have, obviously, your faces are out on social media. You're out as the creators and the operators of Double Date Nation. Were you ever concerned about people finding out about your lifestyle, neighbours, you know, people down at the local grocery store? I mean, were you concerned about that? And who in your inner circle have you made aware? Or have you just kind of let it, you know, just you put it out there, and if people come and approach you, then that's one thing? Or did you go and tell people?

Tell us your story. So we just, of course, when we came out, we knew, okay, this is, we're all in. There's no turning back. You know, Internet, you have that stamp forever. We're really not concerned. We decided, you know, with a lot of thought, we didn't just do this kind of half ass one day. Hey, let's just throw a face out. You know, who all could this affect? We talked to people that it would have mattered the most and we didn't want anybody to be taken by surprise. And then otherwise, you know, friends and it has kind of made its way.

I mean, again, we're, we're all over social media and YouTube and internet. And it's been interesting because we've seen those that would not necessarily support us kind of fade back, but they kind of still watch in a curious manner at a, at a distance. And then we've seen a lot of people too, that we would have never thought that have just really had this curiosity and found us to be kind of a safe place to ask questions. And what about this? And then, you know, I've kind of already thought about this. And it's interesting how that's evolved.

So we're just kind of what you see is what you get. And we're not hiding. And it is refreshing. And we're very fortunate to have that option. A lot of people do not have that. I totally understand that. Well, and I kind of like how the fact of the people that we that do know what we're associated with, they're more open to asking us questions that they typically would never ask. Like and that makes my heart happy. So when somebody comes up and they're just like, so I know I'm going to ask you this question and you're not going to judge me.

And I love that they feel like I'm a safe place, that they are not going to be judged on asking me those things. That is true, actually. We have a friend at the moment who has found out about our lifestyle. So we've actually shared that with this particular individual and couple. And they're now asking us a lot of questions because they themselves were curious.

But I guess it took us to take that initial to say hey you know you've been our friend for a number of years we really want to be you know open and honest with you and this is you know who we who we are and this is part part of part of our lifestyle and it's now given them the opportunity to say hey we were actually having you know like you Dave we were having some similar thoughts and now we've got somebody to actually talk so, you know, some of the questions from them has been really refreshing because one of the particular individuals is very, very like me, so very logistically minded, you know, is asking us, well, how does it all work?

You know, like what happens, how do you find people? How do you then go on a date? Like where do you go? What happens if you have children at home? What happens, do you get a hotel? Who pays for that? You know, very logistically focused. And so that's been really refreshing to allow that individual to kind of come to us and just, again, know there is no judgment, you know, and just talk to us about whatever they want to do. And if they join the lifestyle, fantastic. If they don't, also fantastic, you know, but at least they've got kind of a resource there.

I guess if we hadn't have said that, maybe they would have never discussed it. Who knows? Exactly. Let's now move down to podcasting. Now, you guys obviously have your YouTube channel that has gone and come back a little bit. What's going on with Celibate Swingers? Give us the lowdown on that. Celibate Swingers has been all over the place.

We actually launched the channel, and then we got taken down for content reasons, then we we fought and we were able to come back and uh you know it's essentially our celibate swingers channel is just our opportunity to kind of show who we are and give our insight from certain things that we've experienced inside the lifestyle and then you know we're we're full of it we're all over the place but we i think it's fun to watch that's just me it's a fun outlet for us to really try to kind of legitimize who I don't know it's fun to watch. That's just me.

It's a fun outlet for us to really try to kind of legitimize who we are, that we're just down to earth. We're just silly. And that was really our main focus was just to kind of talk about some of our silly stories, but just kind of let loose and have a have a good time.

And ultimately, I mean, that's what the whole lifestyle is about to me is having fun of course there's a lot of ways to have fun yes letting loose and being yourself exactly and that's just who we are we're just silly and stupid all the time so and actually so tell so you got taken down so what was did you get any feedback on what actually was the reason you got taken down was it you were showing a sex toy was it because you're being overt using you know swear words cuss words curse words whatever you guys want to call it what do you guys call the naughty words down there in nashville right curt curse words yeah you know what was the feedback from youtube well actually we learned that um so we were relatively new to the youtube world and when you register your content on youtube you have to mark whether it adult or not.

And because we are first initial uploads, there was one word that we used in it, but we didn't mark it as adult content. They flagged our channel and started moving our content away. So now that we're back, we mark everything as 18 plus and they allow us to have our content on there. Okay. That's great. Now that's really good news because obviously the SESTA and FOSTA changes did actually impact a lot of sex educators and people who were out there having channels being really sex positive, you know, who may not have been overt.

I saw one recently where a lady was on TikTok and she was just explaining what a condom was. She didn't use the term sex. She didn't use the term penis. She didn't open the condom. She just explained here are the four corners corners of a condom. You know, this is, you know, why it's important and those sorts of things. And she was actually removed from TikTok for being too sexually explicit. And so in a world where, you know, a lot of sex educators are being taken down for purely just trying to help other people, you know, it is really sad. So I'm glad that you guys are back up and running.

I think there was an interview loaded this morning. Am I accurate there? I saw that on Twitter. Okay, fantastic. And that's actually with the Euphoria Chronicles, I believe, as well. So shout out to Ray and Dee. Yeah, and our naughty escapades as well. Oh, fantastic. Our naughty escapades as well. So, I mean, podcasting in general, you guys are kind of part of the medium as well, but there has been a massive explosion in, I would say, about 16 months or so.

So Daryl and I, we've had our podcast going now for I think almost five years and what we've seen in the last 16 months is that there has just been an enormous amount of new sex positive podcasts coming on to mainstream media or being available for people to listen. I'm seeing about five new each month would you believe around, around the world. And why do you guys think that is? Why do you think there's so many people getting out there and producing content these days? Well, there's such an eclectic group of the Lifestyle Podcasters coming from all different angles.

Some people want to talk very graphic about their experiences and some people love that. Some people want to talk about more of the psychological and the emotional type of positive, you know, experiences and negative experience they've had. So there's all different types across the scale, which kind of meets everybody's needs. You know, everybody's looking for something a little bit different. But I think ultimately, people are seeing these podcasters come out and share their stories.

And again, people are finding a medium to express their experiences kind of behind a safe place where nobody can see their faces. Nobody can know their identities, but they can kind of express that part of their life that's been exciting for them. So I think that may be why it's growing.

But more people are just you know they're looking for different things to listen to and and different you know opinions and points of view so and have you found that you know there are i guess you know circling back to this whole idea of communities do you do you have you found that there has been kind of communities forming around these different you know you said there there's such a an eclectic group of podcasters because of the fact that there is so much diversity in the lifestyle.

So have you found that there's communities forming around these different types of, you know, ways of approaching the lifestyle? Well, I have seen, you know, we have, we're friends with many of the podcasters and you can tell that, you know, there's a different group of people that are associated or want to be a part of each one of these podcasters. But one thing that we learned this past weekend, we hosted an event here in Nashville where we had podcasters come in, four different podcasters come in and have like a meet and greet.

I mean, four very different type of people were there and everybody got along like it was just amazing seeing how you can kind of think that there's these segmented worlds based on podcasts but realistically you pull all these people together they just want to have a good time and i i think that was what was amazing to see there's just all these podcasters come together and have an amazing night yeah i think i think you've hit the nail on the head there i think that regardless of you know the way that you approach the lifestyle and maybe the different resources you're either listening to, consuming, reading, whatever your choice might be, there is a commonality there.

So what I've seen as well at different events, whether it's going to a huge event like Naughty in New Orleans, whether it's going to a Desire or Hedonism or just a meet and greet like you just mentioned there, there are very different people, very different approaches to the lifestyle, but they all have come together and I think have a level of respect and admiration for the fact that these people on some form or level are actually going through the same sex positive journey that they are, even though they might be approaching it, you know, a little bit differently, right? Absolutely.

So you spoke then about creating an event, you know, having a meet and greet in your local area and bringing these communities together i mean how how do you think that you know daryl and i for example other other podcast hosts other bloggers other content creators or even event organizers you know how can we build the community and do a better job of building building that community but then also what do you think it's lacking you know what what is one piece uh of the puzzle that you think right now today is is lacking and that if we were somehow magically to create that in in the lifestyle realm that you know 2020 would be even better i mean is there something that you think is the magic dust that we should be sprinkling on the lifestyle right now i think uh the more events the better um the more opportunities in different regions um of the world um give more people that opportunity to to mesh together to meet again to meet the the faces behind the the hidden voices you know the podcasters that do want to be seen um events are just where it's at even small large all different types um it doesn, you know, 5,000 people.

It doesn't have to be 500 people. But that's what essentially connects everybody is, you know, shaking a hand, giving a hug, and you find out you all leave fast friends, sometimes friends for life. And that's what we found was just about any event that we've gone to. It's just the connection. So I think events are just unlimited and that's just, that's where it's at.

And then as, as far as awareness of the lifestyle, I think my biggest thing is, you know, we touched on it at the beginning, as far as the stigma that's associated with the term swinger, you know, and I think when we first got into this, you know, I had that same statement, something I was raised with, what a swinger is in my mind. And I think more than anything is the label that we've been identified as, you know, I like to consider myself, I'm open minded, open sexually, and understanding of other people's, you know, sexual kinks.

And I think, you know, as long as we bring awareness to what a swinger relationship is, an open marriage relationship is, and the true understanding of that, I think that's going to segue us into like a more mainstream world instead of us being labeled with something from the 70s. Yeah, it is tough. That's a terrible word sometimes. I wish it was called something else or something easier to identify it by because it does have that negative connotation, but it is what it is.

Yeah, but we'll see what that leads into as we kind of get into 2020 and beyond because I know that there is certainly a younger generation that is not identifying, actually kind of identifying how you just said, Dave, hey, I'm just open-minded and occasionally I just happen to have sex with my friends. It doesn't need to have a label. It's really interesting how the younger generation are kind of approaching it that way.

And actually, coming up in a future episode, we are actually talking to some younger people who are entering the lifestyle now to really understand what their opinion on that is. You know, do they want to be labeled? Do they not want to be labeled? How are they approaching it? So that's something that we look forward to sharing with everybody. Now, let's do some speed questions. So I like to get people to know a little bit about you guys, but in a very funny, very Kate swinging down the type way. So these may or may not have anything to do with sex guys.

These may or may not have anything to do with the lifestyle, but hopefully you'll find them funny and hopefully you'll get to know admin Andy and Double Date Dave a little bit better. So I'm just going to throw these out there. These are unpracticed. They have no idea what we're going to ask.

let me see here uh andy is cereal soup yes or no and why is it or why is it not cereal or soup no is cereal soup oh is cereal soup oh hell yes it's definitely soup it's just cold soup with with yeah definitely so it just doesn't have as much flavor no a dave is shaking no but she didn't ask you yes hard answer yes stay in your lane dave all right dave what is the uh sexiest name and least sexiest name to you what do you like and what do you dislike oh sexiest name well i'm gonna say amber is the sexiest name personal reasons on that one's my wife's nickname um and then least least sexiest name i'm gonna say barbara for some reason just barbara don't like that yeah sorry barbara's he's breaking your hearts today ladies all right uh let me see andy could you go for a week without your mobile phone absolutely without a doubt you could i think there's a lot of people out there who disagree with you yeah i know i i would i would look forward to that yeah seriously and that's not just a moment of speaking but yeah absolutely i'm going to challenge her next week okay uh dave have you been thrown out of or banned from a public place before and why what'd you do wrong i have not i i think i'm too by the book and by rules so yeah i've never been kicked out of an establishment i'm glad she didn't ask me that.

Andy, what is a movie title that best explains your life currently? Oh, wow. Great question. Hmm. The Titanic. Okay. Explain why. Well, just, you know, we, you know, it's the whole recently in our life, you know, we started a huge project. it's been a lot harder and in more of a challenge than we ever expected. But in the end, I'm going to survive. She's going to take up the entire door floating in the ocean. I just realized the end of the movie is where I was used into that. That is I'm hurt. That was terrible.

Dave, what's the funniest joke you know by heart oh man i'm not funny oh man um i really don't know any jokes you don't know any jokes i don't know any jokes i'm you do too you're just not i can't think if i'm on the spot this speed thing is just throwing me off completely. We'll circle back to you. Let me see. Andy, what's the most embarrassing thing you've ever worn? Let's see. The most embarrassing thing I have ever worn, I had to wear a tuxedo at a high school event on the football field for homecoming. I lost a bet, and I was, yeah, there you go.

So that was humiliating, and it was way too big for me as well. So it wasn't even flattering. So that was embarrassing. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. All right, Dave, if you were a video game, what would your character be? Oh, if I was a video game, I'd have to say Mario. Because I'm always just jumping all over the place.

So I'd have to say Mario Brothers, like the original mario brothers on nintendo like the old school nintendo you want the every time you jumped is that what you're doing you want it with the theme music and the beeps and the bops and everything else as well yeah yeah that exact same thing that's what i would be doing uh let me see uh andy what is the creepiest thing that you could say to a stranger whilst just passing them on the street? And I'm going to say whisper to a stranger as you're passing them on the street. What phrase or word would really creep you out?

I would just think if somebody walked up and just said, I remember, it would just kind of freak me out. Like, remember what, like, where were you? What, what? Yeah. Dave, have you ever let anybody shave a part of your body before? And if so, where? Yes, I would say that would be my wife. And she's shaved south in my back, too. So, you know, I'm an open book. I don't care.

Andy, are you concerned with what other people think about you um to some level yes i mean we wish we could all say no i don't care but of course we're all especially women we all look at each other everybody looks at women because they're gorgeous and beautiful um but yeah absolutely i do care to a point and then i don't care if they're just an asshole uh dave favorite sexual position oh doggy style i love it i just love the view and grabbing onto things from the back end and andy shaved or unshaved where are you at with facial and or body hair um body hair shaved facial hair i like a little scruff like dave's here, but clean, you know, nice and tidy, but little scruff's okay.

And Dave, have you ever won a competition and what was it? And no second prize in a beauty competition in Monopoly doesn't count. Oh, this is going to make me so nerdy. I won a pinball wizard championship when I was like 12, and that was like my biggest prize because I was like statewide.

I was really good at pinball wizard um championship uh when i was like 12 and that was like my biggest prize because i was like statewide i was really good at pinball what what why wizard is it just because it sounds cool as opposed to like pinball champion pinball aficionado yeah wizard just sounded so cool on the trophy so i had the trophy it said wizard that's what i remember you have a trophy do you still have the trophy today i've got it somewhere yeah oh that has to go on social media Yeah you still have the trophy today? I've got it somewhere, yeah.

Oh, that has to go up on social media. Pinball wizard. Everybody else, you can just stop trying to be awesome. Pinball wizard, that should be something you're aiming for. All right, so as we're getting ready to wrap up our community discussion, guys, you have obviously sponsored an event in 2020.

So you have sponsored, and you're actually going to Podcasterpalooza down in down in Miami this is a pretty big huge commitment for you guys and a bit of a leap of faith what are you hoping for you know when you go to an event and I know also that you're off to hedonism with some other great podcasters as well next year in in March when you go to an event what do you actually hope for like what is a successful event to you as as individuals so our plan in the in the big picture with uh double date nation um is to truly meet as many people as possible um that's going to take some time there's only two of us we can only travel so much but that's really our goal is to personalize what we're doing to to talk to people in person about our mission and all of this what our what our statement is what our goals are I don't know.

But that's really our goal is to personalize what we're doing, to talk to people in person about our mission and all of this, what our what our statement is, what our goals are. And that's really what that's really our drive is to meet people, shake hands, give hugs. And, you know, whether it be podcasters or potential members or current members, we love that. And we love podcasters.

So that's I mean, that's one of the biggest reasons we wanted to be a part of pcap was you know we have we are friends with every one of the people that are going to be sponsoring or a part of the event and you're just knowing that we're going to be a part of that group the time the excitement that we can have while we're there i mean i don't know why i wouldn't be a part of that that's going to be awesome now just to close out too you guys are actually heading to to florida you're heading to orlando you're actually coming and we're going to see each other face to face which is fantastic so we will be at secrets resort we are going there on the 4th of january that's a saturday and this is a double date double trouble event we are there of course with with casual swinger podcast as well so if you guys want to actually come and hang out by the pool meet meet everybody as you said before shake hands hug we're going to play some double date games while we're there as well but we'd love to to meet you i will be there on my own so i would absolutely love some lunch lunch dates you know some drinking buddies please come and hang out with me because i'll be lonely and but otherwise yeah that's going to be another great event that we're going to see you guys at.

So I look forward to causing some trouble. Maybe we can be the new hashtag Florida man. We'll see if we can get that going with Casual Swinger. All right. Now, if you guys want to reach out to Double Date Nation, I will add into the notes here. It's, of course, doubledatenation.com, Instagram and Twitter. I'll add the links in there as well so you guys can connect up with admin Andy and Doubledate Dave. Also, if you do sign up to Doubledate Nation, you can use code MIAMI. That will, of course, get you three months of free access to the site.

Go and have a look around, look at the events and look what's going around your area and connect with other people. But it has been a pleasure to chat to you guys on the podcast and thank you for taking the time out of your evening to to chat to me today about building a community thank you so much all right now i really want to talk about how to build communities over the five years that we've been in this sort of sex positive realm daryll and I have spent a lot of time building communities. When we first started out in Sydney, Australia, we started actually doing small pub crawls.

They were free events. We just invited people to come along and we would reach out to different pubs and our local club, of course, our secret spot, and say, hey, we would like to bring people along. And we put that event up on our local dating site.

That was us kind of reaching out in an attempt to build our own tribe and build our own community and next i want to share with you some of those ways that we've managed to do that over the years of course then we moved to asia and we've attempted to do that here and we also have what i like to consider a quite a large community online now some of these people we have never met but do i still consider them to be part of our community? Absolutely. And there's one reason why is because they enrich my life one way or another.

So first of all, I want to share the four engagement cycles of a community. And this is also going to tie in with some of the five steps about setting up a community. But let's get started with those. So the four engagement cycles, one is identity, two is trust, three is participation, and four is a reward. And as I'm breaking some of these down, you'll kind of understand what I mean by each of these things. So how to build a community. The first is actually just to do something.

You know, I know a lot of the time we might sit back and we think, hey, there's not a community in our area, or maybe there is a community, but they really don't match the way that I identify. And so therefore, I'm going to set myself on the sidelines. You cannot achieve something if you don't get that first step forward. And so by doing something about it, you're actually then on your way to creating your own community. So the first thing is to just get out there and do something about it. If you see something that is not happening, try to create it.

If you see a group or an event that isn't quite your cup of tea, go out there and create it. Make it your own. And you can even form small subsets of communities within these larger ones and we'll talk about that. The first way to build a community is through shared experiences. This is a pretty simple one because obviously we all have already a shared experience.

If you are actually listening to this podcast, you are either in the non-monogamous lifestyle, you are curious about the non-monogamous lifestyle, you are sex positive in some way or fashion, or hey, maybe you just like hearing people ramble into a microphone. I don't know, whatever the case may be. You are part of a shared experience. And so this is why communities are actually formed, because there is some version of a shared experience there that we all want to come together and create those tribes. So that's a great way to start. Where in the non-monogamous spectrum do you sit?

Is it more kink-focused, and so therefore your community might be around the kink identity? Are you looking to create an LBGTQI community, you know, something that is within the non-monogamous community, but maybe more of a grouping that suits how you identify? That's all ways to do that, and that's through shared experiences. Now, as I mentioned before, the other way to do this is to segment an existing group. So say, for example, if you own a city where there's a large group or a large event, there is no reason why you can't actually segment an existing group.

And I'm going to give you an example of how this played out in 2019 at Naughty in New Orleans. There was a group of people there who classified themselves as nerdy. Now, that's not a negative connotation. We say nerdy, you know, I think if you look back to when I was in primary school, you'd probably go nerdy. Oh, that's me picking on somebody. This day and age, it is a form of identity and it is actually super, super positive. So a lot of people don't mind saying, hey, I'm nerdy because they're embracing it. It's not a negative word.

And so at Naughty in New Orleans in 2019, there was a group of people that came together, shared experiences. They're all interested in the lifestyle in some way, shape or form. The segmentation of the existing group came when these nerdy people wanted to attend Naughty in New Orleans. They didn't necessarily want to attend one of the day parties. You know, it's not really their thing. They wanted a little bit of a break. And so what they did was they split out and formed a little sub-community, segmented themselves and set out to play some board games at a lifestyle convention.

So that is a great example of where this can work really, really well. And that's not to say that they were sitting out there and they wanted to put up barriers at all. They actually opened the tables up for anybody to come along and play with them. This was about kind of building relationships, but in a different way than perhaps the other people there that were already building those relationships through those day parties. So that's a great example of how that can work really, really well. Everybody had a great time. There was a lot of laughter, a lot of fun.

And for sure, those people have walked away feeling more connected to those particular individuals because of the shared experience and because of the fact that they had some commonalities there as well. So don't be afraid to segment an existing group. That is not necessarily a negative thing. You know, I know that we always say there's cliques, there's this, there's that.

You know, I mean, as we've said in the previous podcast about lifestyle communities and do they really exist, yes, of course there's going to be people who have more in common than somebody else, and that's just the way the world works. If we were all the same, you know, where would we kind of end up?

So that's the so that's the second one segment existing communities the third one is setting your culture now if you don't do this somebody else is going to do this for you so decide how you want your community your group whatever you want to call this to operate you know what are some of the this is going to sound really geeky but what is your mission statement what are some of the ideals that you want your community to focus on are you for example focused on the lgbtqi community and you want to segment that existing group and you want to set your culture that even if people are not part of the lgbtqi that they are absolutely welcomed in our community and that is part of your culture rather than putting up some of those barriers you know like the board game example i gave you before rather than putting up barriers embracing people to come in learn about you Thank you.

and that is part of your culture rather than putting up some of those barriers you know like the board game example I gave you before rather than putting up barriers embracing people to come in learn about you and experience what you're doing as well so set your culture if you're not going to do it somebody else is going to do it and it may be negative and you're wanting to kind of set the scene for other people that are coming in new members that are coming into your community making sure that they really understand what you're about you know what you guys are actually trying to achieve here what you're hoping for as the community gets bigger and as it grows a little bit you know you wanted to make sure that you're kind of sticking to some of those foundations at the at the front that hey this is this is why we got together you know don't lose sight of it now the fourth thing about building communities i'm sorry guys this is a little bit of a negative one and it's about drama.

So there is always going to be drama that is going to surround people and human beings. It is part of human nature that we might look at other people, make certain ideas about them, we might look at somebody else and want what they have and then react in a certain way because we're an emotional being.

There is going be drama it is unavoidable I would like to say that we live in a lovely world where this just doesn't occur but unfortunately it does guys so one of the things is to decide how you're going to let that drama impact you and impact your group based on your culture you know the step four now this this is harder to do and to put into actions than it is to say it it. Let me just tell you that right now. I'm sitting across from the microphone right now talking to you.

This is going to go out onto the internet and you're listening to this in your headphones, in your car, at the gym, wherever you are. And saying this is much easier than putting it into practice. Now, on a personal experience, 2019 has been a particularly difficult year with a lot of concerns around podcasting, a lot of concerns around the medium, how people are kind of interacting with each other. We get our fair share of people bringing drama in and we also, I must, I've got to put myself out in this position, we also put some drama back out there.

We're not faultless in these sorts of things.

But the number one thing is to not let the drama get you down and make a decision on how you're actually going to respond if you are going to respond at all and how you really want to manage that you know because the way that you create your own culture has is going to have an impact on how you let this drama impact you as well so we had many many years ago in sydney we had a situation where there was some last minute requests to come to one of our free pub crawls and by last minute i mean it was about four or five hours before the actual pub crawl a number of couples that were had a group date fail on them wanted to come along one of those couples we had known previously so we'd vetted them we knew that they were okay we knew they were going to fit in well with our culture and our community.

You know, they weren't going to be something outside or perhaps, you know, weren't going to create any problems because we do really take people's privacy quite seriously. And so they requested last minute to come. Unfortunately, we sent them the message saying, hey, you know, we've got a deadline here. If you can call me in the next, I don't know, half an hour, then yeah, let's have a chat and then we'll get you guys to be able to come and, you know, send the details because this was not a public party.

Now, unfortunately, what they decided after that point was that we were, and again, granted, we'd never seen these people, we'd never really spoken to them, we didn't know what they looked like, where they came from, anything like that. And they made some suggestions and wrote a blog about the fact that we were being sizist, ageist, and I think also there was some religious or other background in there as well. And those things actually had nothing to do with it.

It was just purely that I was organizing an event, and I wanted to make sure that everybody coming was going to be happy, safe, and secure. And that really hurt me, of course, because I'm none of those things, and I did really take it to heart. Now, years and years later, this kind of gets thrown at us. Not that particular example, but this sort of stuff can get thrown at people. If you're out there producing content, if you're out there hosting events, you are going to be, unfortunately, the victim of some drama, and it's just then how you respond.

At the time, I was particularly hurt for that individual, and I wrote them a big email, and I said, I'm none of those things and I can't believe you've written a blog about me. Now, I would probably make the decision to just let it go. You know, some of those opinions are entitled to other people, other content creators or other attendees. They're absolutely entitled to have their opinions and so I'd probably just let it go.

If it was something that I felt particularly concerned about, you know, I would absolutely reach out but in a very friendly manner and say manner and say hey you know how can we fix this concern that you perhaps have or how can I help you understand my thought process a little bit more so at the end of the day drama's going to happen don't let it get you down and choose how you're going to react and let that flow through to your culture don't let it impact you because you don't want your attendees of your community then reaching back and thinking, gosh, that was handled really poorly, or I'm not sure if I want to be part of this community anymore because of how that drama actually played out.

So something to be mindful of. So rolling back through, so the four engagement cycles, as I said, identity, trust, participation and reward, why they exist. Identity, obviously, the community's aligning with that shared experiences. The trust levels, they know that you're going to bring them some form of value. The participation, they know they want to participate. Give them a reason to, you know, try to do something a little bit different. And finally, the reward. Now, this is not a financial reward. It can be something that they receive because they have participated.

And can be through building those shared experiences creating friendships creating memories all of those things are a tremendous reward for somebody who joins your community so think of it like that how are you going to identify build that trust get the participation going and the reward at the end of the day is that you get to meet some fantastic people as somebody who's created that community, but also you're actually passing that down.

You know, you're passing it forward where other people then get to meet fantastic like-minded folks just because you've taken that first step and you've done something about it. Look, guys, I think that's probably enough rambling from me from now on how to build a community.

If you're out there and you're struggling to do that, or you want to know some of the more logistical items in building communities building events you know how to reach out how to find people for those events or those communities drop me an email I'm always happy to help I actually have had a number of templated emails over the years where somebody said hey I really want to run a pub crawl how do I do that I've got an email for that so drop me if you want to know. And I'm always happy to hear from you.

And I'm really happy when you guys are out there building communities, because the more people that we get in our communities, of course, the larger the lifestyle becomes, the more normalized our lifestyle comes. So that's really going to help us generally, overall, worldwide, to make other people understand that, hey, this is not necessarily something that is shady. Yeah, so help to normalize it if you can. If you're out there and you have the ability to do something and to create something, please do.

If you don't and you have, for whatever reason, an inability to build your own community or get out there and have your face shown, that is absolutely understandable.

And we hope then that you'll encourage maybe your friends or some other people to actually get out there and create their own community so let's wrap up this section on how to build a community i'm going to be back in a moment to finish out today's episode and i've got an update for you guys also hang in there i'll chat to you soon all right guys that about wraps up episode 96 now we are getting extraordinarily close to episode 100 and i need your help we need your help we have absolutely no idea how to celebrate 100 episodes so of course this podcast has been going for almost the same length of our as our journey which is almost five years you know it is amazing that we've come a long way through really shitty audio through changing countries changing cities and and everything else in between and that you I don't know.

which is almost five years you know it is amazing that we've come a long way through really shitty audio through changing countries changing cities and everything else in between and that you guys have been out there supporting us so if you have an idea on how we could celebrate our 100th episode what to include please drop us an email let us know jump on our website there's a contact us page we're looking for fantastic ideas the more the merrier if you want to be even a part of it also let us know you know we're absolutely open to how we need to celebrate and do it upright because 100.

us page we're looking for fantastic ideas the more the merrier if you want to be even a part of it also let us know you know we're absolutely open to how we need to celebrate and do it upright because 100 episodes is uh you know over 100 hours of us rambling and so we really want to say thank you for everybody out there who continues to support the craziness that is kate and daryl from australia and last but not least guys i was recently on the multi-emory podcast where we spoke about some misconceptions between polyamory and swinging and I would love for you guys to go and check out the entire episode from multi-emory I'm going to put a link in today's show notes instead of our usual ending music I'm going to finish out today's episode with some snippets actually from the multi-emory podcast I had a great opportunity to go and meet Dedeca in singapore we sat in a recording studio again thank you to the crew at multi-emory for having me on and to everybody else i hope you enjoy this snippet but please do go check out the entire episode because we have a great time recording it and there's some funny kind of stones in glass houses moments there in terms of the difference between swinging and polyamory and some misconceptions that we all have perhaps about that.

Thank you again, guys. This has been episode 96 of Swinging Out On A Podcast. I'm, of course, Kate. It's been great to have you part of today's episode. As always, please do consider leaving us a review on iTunes or Stitcher or wherever you've gotten today's podcast from. We really appreciate it when we see those coming through.

If you can't leave some text there and you want to remain anonymous just give us a star rating we really appreciate that and feedback is of course as always very welcome so thank you again guys i'm going to roll out now so we're starting to get toward the end of this episode and we were thinking that it could be fun to go through so we've kind of talked about these big philosophical issues to maybe go through just some of like the little under misunderstandings uh the little myths that swingers might have about polyamorous people and vice versa uh so i feel like you guys are three to one here though so i mean i've got a bunch i got a bunch for polyamorous people but can i can can i get ones can i get somebody on my team oh uh oh gosh uh yeah, I will.

Okay, as in your team of misperceiving polyamory from a swingist perspective. Let's do it. Yeah. Okay, I'll start here. So that polyamorous people have to live together. That swinging people are all married. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's good.

That it's actually maybe a cult oh i like that one i think that one's that one's tied very closely to the living together because i think they i i mean this is not just from swingers obviously but sometimes it can generate these images of everyone living together in the same house and it's like compulsory group sex and all those things like that you know right well so ironically for you saying that polyamorous people are all living together having group sex all the time uh mine for swingers would just be that they're having sex all the time that they're all sex addicts all right i got a funny one for you um polyamorous people don't uh don't shave and don't need to get rid of their body hair and stuff like that because they're just in other long-term relationships they don't need to look sexy oh that's okay i was gonna think it's because it was because it's a bunch of hippies i thought you were going with it's a bunch of hippies but it's but it's because they don't have to try anymore i love that oh gosh i'm trying to think um uh yeah go for it yeah okay that um that people who are swingers just um do their swinging in dungeons or at sex this is what happens when i read messages from our dating site when we head down it's just ridiculous let me see here male 21 years oh riveting he's written to us hello that's just fantastic thank.

I'm just going to delete that one. Let's see what we've also got there. Hey, sexy, how you doing? 37-year-old male. Awesome. He's online now if anybody wants to go and check him out. What else, what do we have here? We have male, 30, male, 31, male, 27, male, 30, male, 29, Wow, I've got some younger guys coming through here. Woo, 25 years old. So what's that, like 40 messages in the past two weeks? I put a travel notice up, so of course, you know, that's gone crazy. So let me see here. Hi, guys, enjoyed your profile. Interesting to get to know you and hopefully meet.

That's actually not too bad technically. I mean, as far as they go. Hi, looking forward to seeing you. Kick. Cool. Yep, awesome. Liked your to profile i've had a lot of experiences hmm okay say it like it is and this one's hey how you guys doing awesome thanks thanks for that male 28 hey look at this guy heading to singapore for two nights prior to heading to asia for. Would love to chat and learn more about each other. That's not too bad. He also gave us his photos. Would like to catch up when you're here. Short and sweet. There you go. So, I don't know, just let me just. Ah, God damn. Yeah.

Doesn't take much, hey, I swear. If there's one well-written email on there, like, you would just kill it. I would kill it. If I was a dude in the lifestyle, man, I would just, I'd be killing it. I don't know about you guys. I just think I'd just be doing so well if I was approaching couples. Although this guy does have a suit in his profile, so that's not at least too bad. Rambling done. That does actually remind me. We do have an upcoming episode, which is going to be explicit, so look out for that one, guys.

We are going to give a warning at the front of our episode because it is a little bit different to our normal carry on so anticipate that we're hoping to get that out before mid-december to roll out the year on but do keep a lookout because as i said there it is going to be actually quite quite explicit so we're going to talk about some of our favorite sexual encounters that we've had in the past five years so if that podcast is of interest to you tune in do keep a lookout though we are going to have a warning at the beginning of the podcast if you don't want to hear about all that sexy stuff and i'm going to lead you guys out again just because i like it with this guy really really grunting there oh he likes it