Curious about some of the most commonly searched google terms about swinging, swinging lifestyle, hotwifing, cuckolding and more? We dig into some funny google analytics about what people commonly search about our alternative lifestyle on the internet.
In the second half of this episode we talk about the recent media articles covering the Swinging Lifestyle. Some articles are positive and talk about the shift to virtual parties or how people can support sex positivity, other articles (the viral ones) aren't so friendly towards the swinging lifestyle. We talk about the potential impact to the lifestyle from the public perception.
**note; this is a bonus episode and is a bit of a negative at times, we hope you still find value in our open discussions **
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We are a swinging lifestyle podcast, we talk about sex, being a hotwife and non-monogamy, please ensure you are of legal age to be listening to our sexy stories.
Transcript
you're listening to swinging down under 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 a bonus episode of Swinging Down Under. Welcome Daryl. Hello. How are you doing? I'm doing all right. You doing okay? On this Tuesday, I believe, if I'm not wrong? Yeah, not sure. Yeah, I don't know. It ends in why. Doesn't matter. Doesn't apply. The rules don't apply in 2020.
This bonus episode is all about swinging in the media. All right, guys, now a quick disclaimer about this particular podcast. Look, it is a bonus episode. It's a little bit grim. It's not an upbeat podcast. I know we have a bit of fun at the beginning of this talking about commonly searched Google terms. But yes, we are going to be digging into some of the negative news that the swinging lifestyle has received recently over the last few months. Just be aware of that.
If you are interested in this kind of topic please carry on if you're not then please stop the podcast now yes if you're feeling covert depressed this is a good time to go somewhere else yeah for sure also just to mention this is not going to be a podcast episode debating whether or not people should or shouldn't be hosting events during a pandemic that's a very large conversation one that contains many facets especially from a global outlook and we are certainly not professionals and able to articulate whether or not and we're certainly not epidemiologists so we can't really really debate that so if you're looking for a podcast to debate that there are many out there at the moment talking about just events globally not swinging lifestyle events do go check those out but that's not what we're doing today so just a bit of a disclaimer up front hope that you get something out of this episode certainly would like to hear from you see and D at swinging down calm if you want to drop us an email or jump on our website and leave us a voicemail let's get into it now if you follow our monthly newsletter then I have a section in there about you know kind of like non monogamy in the news news articles that I pick up on a monthly basis and of course there's hundreds normally sometimes in a month that can be about the swinging lifestyle can be bet non-monogamy in the news, news articles that I pick up on a monthly basis and of course there's hundreds normally sometimes in a month that can be about the swinging lifestyle, can be about non-monogamy, could be about polyamory, really just a big gambit of everything and I normally include them in this monthly newsletter.
Now over the last month I have noticed, we've noticed, a flurry of internet activity relating to the lifestyle, swinging and events and so we wanted to talk a little bit about swinging in the media what impact that might have on the swinging lifestyle if any at all and then we're going to talk about before we get into that though some fun searched topics and commonly searched items that people look for in google and daryl this is your idea so do you want to tell everybody the whole like peeling the the sticker off the board normally people would do that on on youtube but you know this is audio only so you want to tell people about that while i find them so i'm wasting time here okay um so basically what we're looking at is the common searched things when it comes to swing up so swinging so i'm sure kate's punching that into google right now to give us at least the first one and whether we one and whether it freaks us out, whether it's normal, what the crack is.
So these are commonly searched items in Google. So when you type in a word, there'll be multiple phrases that come up underneath that word as trying to be super helpful. Like, hey, you typed in, I don't know, cactus. Are you looking for cactus costumes to wear for a Halloween party?
I'm'm confident most people have experienced the google drop down menu before are you sure given it's the default setting just just saying i only have four so i spent a little while trying to find these and it was actually harder than i thought it was going to be to be for it to be quite honest so the first one's hot wife i typed in hot wife and this is what I got hot wife bracelets hot wife charm bracelet hot wife insinity symbol meaning hot wife infinity symbol hot wife clothing and jewelry hot wife pray say insinity or infinity it was infinity I bugged it up hot wife clothing and jewelry hot wife bracelets for sale hot wife charm bracelet meanings hot wife clothing jewelry what does that tell you about the term hot wife I love my ass off I feel like there's a lot of people looking for whole of jewelry yeah that's what it feels like there's a lot I don't know really I'm gonna I'm gonna guess it's probably the husband.
Yeah. But I don't actually know. This is actually a common question that comes up in a lot of the forums. Sometimes we get it as well on email is, you know, how do we identify a hot wife? You know, is there a bracelet? Is she wearing an anklet? Oh, if she's got a toe ring on, that means she's a hot wife.
And I tell you what, how you what how do you identify one you ask her that's it like there is no definitive global everybody every hot wife out there is wearing a toe ring or an anklet because that's just bullshit and it's not true right okay so that was um bit of a tangent so here's my next one yeah you ready yeah i didn't realize that we were going through like all different ones. Yeah, we're doing four. Okay, cool. Swinging is, what do you reckon one of the, actually here you go, so I've got like 10 responses for this.
Swinging is, what would you say would be one of the common Google recommendations for this? No idea. No guess? No, I have Google in front of me if we want to do the guessing game. I can just Google it. No. Okay, so what is swinging 60s, right? And there's a whole heap of stuff about here, about a bridge in Gattenburg. Thank you.
guessing game i can just google it no okay so what is swinging 60s right and there's a whole heap of stuff about here about a bridge in gatlinburg gatlinburg as well which you know interesting um which is the swinging bridge which we looked at recently um what is the meaning of swinging and also why swinging is good for a marriage that's it that's a look up for that one i thought there was going to be something juicier in there but it's just all about like swinging chairs and outdoor lounge furniture. Yeah, that's not really a surprise. Yeah, but weird.
Okay, swinging lifestyle is one I did next. Why didn't you just do swinging? I tried to. It doesn't bring up anything that's actually worthwhile. Okay. Unless you've got it in front of you and you're able to achieve that, but I couldn't get it to. Maybe I searched swinging too much, so it's like surely you don't mean this. Swinging meaning? Okay.
Swinging fences yeah see so i put in swinging lifestyle and i got swinging lifestyle symbols lifestyle swinging meaning and then lifestyle swinging doors so again people are looking for symbols looking for meaning trying to find other people it's super weird uh go to dating sites guys if you're out there listening go to a dating site that's you can find people. Okay. I then typed in swinging will. Swinging will ruin my marriage. Swinging will help induce labor. What? I don't think they mean swinging sex.
I think they mean like I'm just going to start swinging from the rafters and I might induce labor. Yes. Or maybe they do mean swinging. Like if you just go out and have an orgy, it might induce labor. I'm not saying it won't.
I'm not saying it won't I'm not saying well I'm not a medical professional that's what I'm saying yeah so you're really not saying a lot I'm not saying a lot what I'm doing is sitting on the fence do you like it yeah you get splinters if you sit there too long now that's the rule about sitting on the fence yeah all right so we're gonna talk about recent articles in the news you forgot about you didn't look for non monogamy I tried I couldn't find any what do you find non monogamy search I opened how did look for non-monogamy i tried i couldn't find any what did you find non-monogamy search uh opened how did you spell non-monogamy i think that's the problem uh i spelt it with a dash and then without a dash okay then your google's broken right what do you got then what's your open to non-monogamy okay cupid that's the first one number one huh yep non-monogamy versus polyamory wow-monogamy.
Oh, good. Yep. Types of non-monogamy. Ooh. God, this is too hard a word to say. Non-monogamous relationships chart. That's one I'm actually going to click on a little later and see what that's all about. I know what that is. I love a bit of charting. I bet you I know what that is. Ethical non-monogamy versus open relationship. That's actually one I want to know about as well because that recently came up in a search – sorry, a – That's on a new dating website that we've joined recently in Europe. So I think I know what you're talking about there.
There was a tick box to say, like, what kind of a relationship are you? And I think there was one that was open relationship and one that was ethical non-monogamy, right? Yeah, and there was also swinging.
Yeah, and and there was swinging as well so probably should have looked up that before we ticked all of them just fyi yeah hey europeans i feel like you're over complicating matters there maybe not don't don't overstate you haven't pressed the little search button on this yet to figure out what the difference is it might be stark they were also suggesting that you were interested in mating if i'm not wrong wrong, which was actually the English conversion. No, that was just Google Translate.
That was Google Translate, but I thought it was hella funny that it said that C&D Swinger therefore interested in mating. Well, look. Yes. I mean, again, I'm not saying we're not interested in mating. Maybe we are. Well, no, we're not. We're not actually. Because mating gives the outcome that we're not looking for. Ethical non-monogamy and cheating is the next one. non-monogamous marriage is the final one. Nice. So non-monogamous seems to be a little bit better in terms of the responses than the ones I came up with then. Maybe. Maybe. More broader terms. All right.
Let's talk about some of the news articles and let's go through some of these.
And I want to i just basically went on went online searched some commonly used terms and looked at recent news articles i will say there has been a flurry of these more in the last yeah like month than i think i've seen generally happen month on month first one here a former catholic school turned nashville swingers club is reborn as a homeless shelter so this used this is a club club in Nashville it's actually um a club that I know double date nation used to uh attend it used to be a church it's it was then a swingers club for many years it's called menages and then now they've been uh removed from that particular venue and they're now turning it into a homeless shelter so a former catholic school turned Nashville swingers club reborn as aingers Club reborn as a homeless shelter.
How do you feel about that headline? I don't know why it matters. You don't see Garage reborn as, I don't know, sex therapist's office. Can I read one of the lines out of this? Yeah, go nuts. The former menages club needed a lot of work and prayer to be ready for that new mission. Prayer. Was the executive director of the room in the end, which is a not-for-profit company. Okay. So why does it need this headline is a bloody good question because it's shocking. It gets news. It gets people reading it as opposed to just saying like, hey, there's a new homeless shelter opened up in Tennessee.
Well done, guys. Right? You need to be able to get that kind of that clickbait, don't you reckon? Prayer. I'm still praying. I'm still praying for my soul over here. You are? Yeah. Okay. Good on you guys though. Opening up a homeless shelter. Congratulations to the room in the inn. Really bad name, but congratulations to you guys opening up a homeless shelter in Tennessee. Hang on. Room in the inn. Yeah. As in room in- Yeah. No, I got you. Yeah. I know what it, I know. Yeah. I was clarifying. So that's that one. That was in Tennessee. Let's move on. What else have we got?
Swingers party relocated from Nashville. So still heading into Tennessee here. I don't know why there's a lot of news happening for swingers parties in Tennessee. But swingers party relocated from Nashville. Now, I actually was reading this as it was happening, as this was unfolding. Get out. Yes, I know. True story. Earlier in the month. Sounds really exciting.
Because the reason I was reading about this is because it's actually with the Vibe Social Club or Vibe Swingers Parties, and they were one of the unfortunate event organisers that were, I guess, exposed to the news, and then as a result of that have had to move and shut and they were one of the unfortunate event organisers that were, I guess, exposed to the news. And then as a result of that have had to move and shut down their website and those sorts of things. This happened a couple of times in the last few months. Really? Yeah.
So these particular people, they were hosting a Christmas party that at the time the Tennessee, I guess, governor had allowed. And they'd been all through that. Now the news got a hold of it and approached the hotel that they were hosting at, approached a number of different parties, and then eventually approached the host of the Vibe Social Club. And as a result of that, what's happening in this particular article is they're now moving to Mississippi.
So they're going out of state and have temporarily shut down their website and have had to move out of all of they're arranging for their party in Nashville. So if you click on that, you can actually see all the associated articles from where they were hosting and now they're not. So why did that happen? What's the issue? Controversy, I guess. So originally, although it might be, and this is a good point, although the organisers might be... I only make good points.
They might be talking to local council members getting approval, seeking approval from the fire department, etc., it doesn't mean that it's approved by the general public. And so, of course, once people start getting a hold of this and news reporting gets a hold of it, then that's when it becomes very difficult to manage. And so as a result of that, many news articles went up, the hotel was contacted, and as a result of that, they've moved. Okay.
Just because of the pure factor, i guess of of concerns about the attendees being outed i would imagine so there's no real reason or is that what we're saying well so here's the situation so it says here that the health department spokesperson brian todd told the news that the club's application so they did go through an application process was met and they met all of the requirements the permit application so the masks were going to be worn etc they limited the number of guests oh this is during covid yeah this is now okay so they limited the number of guests it was all approved by the local council etc and then of course news headlines made and now they've got to move so yeah it's for december it was for christmas party yeah so okay so it's during covid so the issue is that it's during COVID.
That's what the real issue is. That's the issue. Yes. Okay. So, sorry, you seem to be skirting around that, that the issue is that people have an issue with swingers getting together during COVID. Yeah. So that's the issue at its core. I guess my point here, though, is that it's interesting that they went through the application process.
Yeah, but I think what you're lacking there is the fact that the government is run in fact by the people not by the government so no matter what their policies say if the people then voice their opinion and that changes uh what the opinion what the outcome is for then you know that's kind of how government works it's meant to be a voice for the people right okay and and the reason that i wanted to bring up that particular party first before i talk about the next party that also made news headlines this week i feel like if they're all this week they're all gonna be about covid oh they are all about covid yeah essentially i mean at its core cool the interesting thing though is that that one was operating regardless of whether or not you think it's ethical to host or moral to host that one was operating under approval right That, though, is that that one was operating, regardless of whether or not you think it's ethical to host or moral to host, that one was operating under approval, right?
That was, in essence, it was illegal to operate. Yeah, but its approval was revoked. Right. That happened because approvals aren't guaranteed no matter how well you get them approved. Well, correct. I mean, even if you do see the approval, as you say, once the population goes into an uproar and news articles get a hold of it, then pretty quickly I would imagine that the health department would then pull your approval for that event, right? Yes. I'm not saying that's what did happen, I'm just, you know, suggesting that.
But what made headlines in the last week, and this has been circulated so many times, so it was originally picked up by a smaller couple of news articles, it then grew and grew and grew, it eventually made the New York Post. And it was an underground... Is the New York Post a big thing? Yeah, yeah. Okay. It also went on CNN. Yeah. Just joking.
It also went on CNN and it went on a few different other bits and pieces it's been picked up I saw that it's been picked up by 50 plus different media outlets around the world so I even saw one that was in France now underground New York City something as party with dozens of people busted by police now I'm sure if you're out there listening you've probably you've probably seen this. There was over 80 people at a party. It was an underground swingers party and it was held by a group called Caligula New York.
And the reason that I wanted to bring this one up very differently, Daryl, is because this one was operating illegally, 100% illegally. So at the moment there is restrictions on what you can actually do in New York City. But take all that away, they were also illegally selling alcohol in a warehouse situation. So, I mean, forget everything else. It doesn't matter whether they were swingers or not, they were doing something illegal. So biff, baff, boff. That is my point here. Out the door.
So my point about this whole thing and what I've been saying this entire time, because people, of course, you know, they're going, oh, I can't believe swingers, you know, they're doing this. They're really harming the public, you know, this is unacceptable. But interestingly enough, there was a business meeting that was busted the evening before, also in New York City, that had over 80 people at it as well, that was also operating illegally. But the police were unable to get in there because I think there was other rioters that stopped the police from being able to actually bust it up.
But that was exactly my point. Regardless of whether it's a swingers party or not, they were operating illegally. They were operating without a license. They were selling alcohol without an alcoholic license or liquor license in a warehouse. So I don't know. Do you think... So my question about these things... I think it was illegal. Bang. Job done. Walking away. My question though... Don't wear a seatbelt. You might get fined. Aside from the ethical and moral standpoint of hosting or not hosting during COVID, let's take that completely off the table. I don't want to talk about that.
What I want to ask you is, do you think these news headlines impact the swinging lifestyle? Do you think they hinder the community in any way directly, directly in the community? Do you think they hinder? Yeah, of course they don't. People are concerned already about these fringe, any fringe events, whether it be swinging or anything else. So, you know, fringe events get more attention and it's negative attention, then the negative attention builds. It's just the nature of life, unfortunately. Yeah. But how do you think it hinders the community? That's what I want to know.
The negative attention. I mean, if you get negative attention, then, you know, you're adding negative attention to everybody else as well along the way. So it means that you end up with a negative groundswell behind the attention that you're gaining. So it obviously detracts from anything that you're trying to achieve. Right. So what you're suggesting is that by these headlines taking place, that it's kind of wiping out other headlines that might be...
don't remember the positive headlines i mean when was people don't write about positive headlines when was the last last time you saw somebody write about you know new baby born that was awesome and nothing wrong with it affects the perception of the lifestyle in the general community that's it so it's a negative perception negative connotation you end up with people looking at the lifestyle negatively, even if they perhaps are on the fringe of getting involved with it, it just becomes more negative. There's already some negativity attached to the lifestyle in general.
So it's just an additional negative that stacks on the other negatives. So what about the governor in another state who reads about this and decides, well, perhaps I might any swingers swingers clubs open or swinger event events run because i don't want the negative press what about the hotels that see this so there is there is negative there is negative connotations it's those are my exact points i'm saying that people are saying that it brings negativity or that a perception it alters people's perceptions who gives a fuck about m Jane in Manhattan, what I'm saying?
And one of my big points, does it hurt or hinder the community? Yes, it does. 100% is our inability to host at hotels, receive event insurance because of these negative issues that are popping up in the press. Because for recently, for example, there have been a number of hotel takeovers all throughout the world, but there's been some recently in the United States and the hotels have been named. They're on social media. People are commenting on them, talking about the hotel, how could you host this, et cetera.
Now that hotel is probably never going to host another swingers event ever because of their one negative experience with one event host during COVID. So that is a direct impact. And to your point as well, that now perhaps the governors of Tennessee or New York City then might make it more difficult for the people who perhaps are trying to do the right thing, create something new to then jump over those hurdles as already a perceived high risk business to then be able to get licenses and other things.
So know it is already difficult enough to get things like you know banking support things like insurance things things like getting a hotel to actually get a contract with you to say hey we are okay with your business coming in and supporting the lifestyle and that's where I absolutely 100% think that it absolutely will hinder our community because I'm sure there's going to be hotels that are in the news that never want to be in the news again with these negative results with their hotel images and logo and name just blasted all over the internet probably all right so that's the new york city one interestingly that party though i forgot to mention they were also charging for access to the beds which is an interesting thing i've never seen that before so there was like a i think the police took a photo of a piece of paper that said you have to pay so much money to be on the bed for a certain amount of time.
So, for example, you had to pay like 50 bucks for 10 minutes on the bed or whatever. I've never seen that before. Don't you think that's a bit interesting? Yes, I do. But it doesn't sound, from what you've described about everything else, it doesn't sound like they're an ethical company. So, you know. Let's talk about something else.
And I'm curious whether or not you remember this swingers party at a train station national police shut down a swingers party which was held in a commercial premises at the train station in zaragoza do you know where that is no remember that giant train station that we went to in spain that was empty that uh they yep zaragoza that was it so we've been to this particular train station i I couldn't believe it. It made the news. Crazy, right? Yeah, absolutely. And so the location had bars, tables, sofas, rooms separated by curtains and been set up by an association for liberated sexual relations.
Officers went to the train station after a phone call from a security guard because music was heard well into the night, found several people inside who were charged with noncompliance with anti-coronavirus measures. The party exceeded a permitted number of people on private premises and was held after the curfew. So it was breaking the law again. Breaking the law, yeah. So breaking the law. But a train station, a swingers party inside of a train station, I don't think I've heard that one before. Like, that's up there.
Yeah, I mean, you're just setting yourself up for failure by doing things like that for sure. Yeah, so that was in Spain. All right, the next one. Police take a year to find independent investigation for swingers' shooting. I'm interested if you remember this. A few years ago, there was a swingers' party in Victoria, in Melbourne, Victoria, in Australia, and two people were shot, a couple. A couple were shot, and during the party, it was a Halloween party, and one of the people were dressed as a character who had a fake gun.
The police went in there for whatever reason, I don't know, and shot two of the patrons. And they've been closed ever since, and they've been investigating what's been happening here. So this happened more than three years ago, and these two people that were at the party were shot. But I think worse, their names are currently plastered all over the internet. What about this one? How do you feel about this?
Well, I mean mean i think it's pretty obvious the police shouldn't have done what they did um the idea of being shot in in australia for holding a fake gun is is pretty laughable actually given the amount of certainly handguns in in australia is so mind-numbingly low that the chances of a police officer coming across somebody with a handgun, I would say, is also fairly low. The idea isn't bad. I mean, people died. No, they didn't die. They lived. Oh, okay. Well, people were shot. Either way, it's not a good outcome. But their names are all over the internet.
So if you Google these two people's names, they're in front of me right now. I can see them.
Their names are associated names are associated so they're actually not together anymore the couple which is probably not surprising given the stress that they'd be under but i want to i want to know what your thoughts are about that were they outed or did they just agree to people using their names i think the newspaper's got a hold of it with the police reports and published their names and then since then because they've now had to appear in court for the last three years uh as a result of that their names are everywhere their photos are everywhere etc so have you got any positive ones that we can read yeah i do good can we get to those so what i do want to say though just to close the the loop on this they just received three million dollars in compensation because the um the police were found to be having misconduct so they were given three million dollars by the state of victoria for i'd rather not be shot and not have the three million dollars just quietly okay let me see one a good one here let me go hold on uh yeah i'm just clicking through i've got like 15 tabs open here ah okay nottingham swiggers club holds online parties after falling into tier three so this is in the uk and the headlining club is actually purple mumba but i happen to know that it's a bunch of clubs all going in together in the UK and hosting virtual parties.
So here's one where it's saying a Nottingham Swingers Club said that it won't let the global pandemic ruin their fun and they've taken their activities online. Virtual swinging parties were launched by Purple Mumba with swingers from the UK, Europe and America jumping online. So there you go. So basically what they're saying here is that, hey, we can't operate right now. We've been forced to close. It's having a negative impact on our ability to host at the club, make money, et cetera, but now we're running virtual parties. It's a good one, right? Yes. Do you think people would see that?
Again, like talking about before, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Do you think people see that headline and go, oh, good for you guys, like trying to do the right thing? Yes, absolutely not. You don't think it happens? Yeah.
It depends on their personal bias that they they have from their perspective and given that we've had four or five negatives already in the beginning of this to lead to this positive then people's personal bias even listening to us may actually see it as a you know that that swinging is a negative during corona i got another one for you state and play the virtual sex party is offering you an escape from isolation during lockdown and they're talking about a number of different companies here they're talking about killing kittens they are talking about not safe for work which is based out of new york city and they're talking about skirt club and purple mumba gets another mention in there as well so there's another positive one where they're saying look people want to be engaged in the lifestyle they can't go indoor anymore to these x-rated clubs and now you can get your kink online without leaving so that's quite a positive spin on one i think okay yeah yeah let's call it let's call it a positive spin here's a question then so i asked you before do you think that the other articles hurt you know hurt or hinder do you think so again i ask you do you think that these ones have a positive depends on your perspective coming into perspective okay do you think that more people might see that then and maybe be interested in giving the virtual parties a go because they might have been too scared to go, like newbies, too scared to go to a club, and so they might see these positive news articles and then go, you know what, I might jump online to a virtual party.
One of the biggest concerns for newbies is that they are going to potentially be seen and outed by somebody at the event or online, and if you're talking about online, it's much easier for that to be the case. You only have just one click of the mouse to make an inappropriate decision to get yourself up on screen, for example. And I think people will find it more concerning in a lot of ways. Okay. At least if you're in a club and your boss walks up to you, you're both in the club. Yeah. Yeah. I understand. Yep.
Fair so it just depends on just depends on how people how au fait people are with technology and the you know the cameras and that are associated with all of this and all that sort of thing and it depends on how the events are set up because some events you don't really have the option to not be involved on video so it just depends on how things are set up additionally so many services that people are using out there right now are not secure you know yeah stop having sex parties on zoom thank you thank you very much not just zoom i know i'm just saying there's many different many different platforms and formats out there that people are using that well for one it's against their terms of uh turn terms of service which immediately sets everybody on that call up for a potential liability.
Then outside of that, you're also exposing people to potential risk by using a base platform that is not secure whatsoever. Yeah, it's not encrypted. I can attest to some of these because I've had people come into a meeting in my time during COVID that they weren't invited to, and in fact, weren't even part of the company that was holding the meeting. So, you know, there's a fairly large chance of things becoming a major problem, especially if you're doing something sexual on chem. Okay, I've got another article from Australia.
I like articles when they come up from Australia, and, you know, it gives me a sense of home. Sex parties allowed, but dancing at weddings banned under Queensland's COVID restrictions. What do you think about that as a headline? I think it was designed to grab people's attention and apply the negativity of their bias immediately. 100%.
Because instead of saying swingers parties are allowed, or sex parties are allowed, but dancing at weddings banned, I mean, they could have just said, hey, how can we uplift the wedding industry and how can we help to make weddings COVID safe right but instead that doesn't grab as many headlines as people can fuck but they can't dance right so this one says uh let me just go down the irony is that if I was invited to a wedding this weekend to attend with my wife and I wanted to dance with her there I wouldn't be allowed to but I can go and have sex with 10 people yeah well I think the biggest problem here is is actually around the fact that lawmakers due to the red tape and the like are unable to keep up with fast moving events like like this you know like a pandemic this is this is also something that's been outlined in the use of drones for for example, in international in flying areas, you know, the lawmakers around aviation weren't able to keep up with that as well.
So it's just fast moving things. I mean, another one is big tech companies, you know, how do you deal with that? Another one is how do you deal with the genetics, your genetics being used in other things? Is it legal, illegal? Can you trademark your genetics? There's a mountain of things that the law can't keep up with and lawmakers are hamstrung to do that. And this is another example of that. They've probably set the laws up in a way that they believed covered everything that was unsafe. And in fact, actually somebody dug and found that if you do this, it's not illegal.
Unfortunately, laws are not just laws for the sake of being laws. And it's only when you get to court where they have to be strictly enforced. There is also a scenario where you can have a law enforced on you because of the design of the law or the way that it was meant to be taken. So, you know, it's something as in contracts, the same thing can happen. You know, it's the intent of the clause or the intent of the law. So just because it doesn't strictly stipulate that swinging is not legal doesn't necessarily mean that you can't. But it's the opposite, as I was saying. Yes.
So, you know, there's implications on people as well for that. If you break the intent of the law, you can still be held liable to that. Yeah. Here's what I want to finish up on as well as we kind of wrap up swinging in the media is that most of this year, because I have a lot of alerts set up where certain keywords come through and I get an email once a day telling me what's happening around the world with that particular keyword. So I get an email a day and I get it.
So that see so many of these articles and 80 of them i would say throughout the year have been extraordinarily positive in nature it's just that the last kind of month month and a half they've been really negative in nature because we're holding events while there's a fucking global pandemic it's not really a surprise so this this kind of comes into my wanting to wrap this up and close this up, is that in your mind, what I've noticed is that sometimes, especially as the events are unfolding and as more and more news articles pick up the events happening, like they might report on day one and then by day two, there's all sorts of different news coming out and another side has maybe picked it up.
What I have found is that the information is incorrect. So they'll misquote things like the location. they'll misquote things like the population at the event, they'll misquote what's actually happening at the event, like whether or not a certain event was taking place, whether or not that's like a bar takeover or whether it's a dance party or whatever, they'll misrepresent in the news.
So do you think that because we've agreed that these definitely hinder the community in one way or another do you think that it hinders it more because these news articles are oftentimes uh you know elaborating on or putting false information in there or misquoting things as opposed to getting it directly from the source and finding out the true information as to like here's what's actually happening does the internet hinder the truth is what you're asking Geez, I don't know. I'm sure there's a few people who can answer that globally right now. I mean, of course it does.
People read one website and assume it's real. So then do you think it's a responsibility of like us, we host events. Do you think it's our responsibility as event hosts then to get on the front foot and talk to these news articles? Or do you think that that would just hinder it even more and you just got to kind of sometimes let it go like what what would be your position on this?
I think my position is fairly obvious and that is that you have to be on the front foot and you have to think about the problems before they happen deal with those as a prequel to the event rather than you know a sequel which is typically how people seem to be dealing with this at the moment.
So rather than actually having, you know, something as logical as a press release or an understanding of how the event will run in terms of the COVID safe or in terms of testing, in terms of all those sorts of things, unless you're willing to get on the front foot and get that information out there, guess what?
You know, somebody's going to find a way to make you look stupid yeah if so say we were hosting an event right now for example and they called us at i don't know say that the event kicked off at 9 a.m by 10 a.m we have news people calling us would you be taking their calls would you be trying to get the facts and the truth out there or would you just be not and trying to like just not silence is by far the worst way to deal with any major issue yeah i think i think that's so what what i've seen a lot of during these these articles being posted in this incorrect information out there which again i know to be factually incorrect because i know what happened at some of these events i think one of my most frustrating things that i've found is that i'm reading these going that's just blatantly not true you know that's just an just an absolute and utter lie.
Well, if the negative starts, the negative will continue. The only way you deal with this is to prevent the negative from starting to start with. Yeah, I just don't see how that could be, how you could completely do that. I mean, you might try to be doing all the... Well, the complete way, the most logical way of doing it is to talk to the people who are posing the negativity.
There's social social media outlets there's a whole lot of different places where people will post their opinions and if you've if you've set up your search notices appropriately you'll get a notice of those and that gives you the chance to then speak to those people on a case by case on a personal level and see whether you can adjust their opinion and if opinions adjust then guess what guess what? The opinions change.
If you change opinions, you may actually even change the broader public opinion, which then stops your particular event from being outed or worse, all of the people who are attending the event being outed. Yeah, that definitely is a concern of mine, is that that impact to the community, I think, is definitely a hindering on the community, is the potential for attendees to be outed.
Because again, at the end of the day, even if you dislike somebody, even if you think that they're doing the wrong thing by what your perceptions are, I don't think that anybody deserves to be outed and then potentially impact their career, their children, the livelihood of everything. I just don't agree with that. I don't think it's appropriate, and I would hope that people wouldn't actively out a community member. There's no way to change minds unless you're speaking to the minds.
Yeah, so even though it might not end up being a positive or work in your favour, at least you've tried, is that kind of what you're saying? Yes. Okay, all right. Okay, so that's really all I've got for swinging in the media. Anything else you want to add? No, thank you. No? That's all? All right, I think it's the elephant in the room is talking about Naughty in New Orleans and the recent media coverage, of course, that the event had. Now, the event has been covered in the media just before it was about to take place.
I think the article started about 48 hours before Nordy and New Orleans was set to take off in New Orleans. And then it carried on throughout the event. And then it kind of went dead for a couple of days. And then after that, it spiked up. And the reason we want to talk about this, and it would be remiss not to, is because this is viral news. This is everywhere around the world. I've had people sending me this article from Australia. People that are even outside of the lifestyle have been sending me this article as outrage, you know, because they know we visit New Orleans.
And so we wanted to kind of take a moment and talk about the potential impact that this is having on the community. Yeah, I mean, the impact's pretty big here, realistically. We've already started to see some roll on now where people are starting to pick up other things and it's starting to adversely affect the rest of the lifestyle as well. So, you know, it seems like this has a fairly significant detrimental effect and I think it'll be ongoing.
Yeah, and I do want to take a moment, whilst we're not debating if events should or shouldn't happen, that doesn't mean that we don't care about the people that were infected and the health of the individuals that were infected. Please don't take that as us not caring. I think the debate, we're not debating on whether events should or shouldn't happen. What we're debating here is, or what I'm talking about, is certainly people voting with their feet. And if you believe that an event shouldn't or should happen, then you need to vote on that by attending or not attending.
I would say for us right now, given the current circumstance, even here where we are in Singapore, it's pretty low chance that we would see any likelihood of infection at an event here. Although there are no events here, so it doesn't really matter. But we still wouldn't attend one. That's where we stand in terms of our personal health and also the health and wellbeing of the people around us and the social responsibility that comes along with, well, not only a member of the lifestyle, but also somebody who exists in the realm of general human social preservation.
Well, one of the things that I wanted to talk about and somewhere that I think we've got a bit of a unique perspective and somewhere we can add, I guess, some insider information to is actually not the impact to the people that attend it. It's not the impact to their health or the medical system and all of that. Again, I don't want to talk about that. What I think we can add a unique perspective to is actually the impact to other aspects of the Swinging Lifestyle and how we may as a community be affected.
And one of those things is actually through other events and other hosts and other hotels and other industries, they're not accepting us as a community. And we've actually already seen the impact of that. Now, to anyone who may have not seen the news, Naughty in New Orleans is an event that happens in New Orleans. Normally we'd have 2,600 people at it. This year it went ahead at a very reduced capacity. It had 259 attendees, of which they understand at this present moment in time that 41 were infected.
Yeah, I think though it's important that we look at the true infection rate here versus what is reported there, because if you break down the people who attended the event who had already had a COVID infection in the past and hence were carrying antibodies, that brings the infection rate up significantly in terms of the people around who could actually be infected. So that brings it up to around the, I think it's the 35% or something like that? It's 32. So at the moment, all the news articles are reporting that there's a 17% infection rate.
So that's obviously 41%, 41 people infected out of the 259 attendees. It's actually around 16% if you take those numbers and divide them, of course. However, there was an article, a blog post that suggested that 50% of the attendees actually already had the antibodies. Now, listen, we're not a medical podcast. We're not going to debate whether or not you can get reinfected. That's still up for debate because we don't know a lot about this virus.
However, if you actually take that 259 attendees minus the 50% that apparently already had antibodies, then you get your 41 infected, the infection rate actually goes up to 32%. So yeah, to your point, Daryl, it is a little bit different than perhaps what the news is currently reporting on.
So perhaps those numbers are skewed right now in the favour of the lifestyle attendees, which is, I'm going to use the word lucky for no other reason than it possibly stops us from being again ostracized by the community because of the the perception here again the perception that the lifestyle community doesn't care about what's happening out there in the rest of the world yeah so what I what I did actually want to mention is where this has gone on the internet so originally it was picked up by nola.com originally it was a few regional newspapers that have picked it up and as i mentioned now it is international so it is in german newspapers it is all over the world that people are talking about this and it has been officially labeled a super spreader event now when i actually looked at that i actually asked myself well what is the super spreader event you know there's 41 people infected gosh i've seen events that have had many hundreds of people um infected that i thought yeah okay yeah that makes sense that it's a super spreader event so I actually went online to try and figure out actually what is a super spreader event because I thought how do we define that and actually there is no definition for what makes a super spreader event according to the CDC so it says here that a 10 person birthday celebration or a 100 person wedding can all be considered super spreader events and they don't even have an infection rate here it doesn't matter that it's like oh if you hit a certain percentage of people that are infected per the attendees then it's super spreader i thought that was interesting that you can just classify something as a super spreader event and of course that's going to be splashed all over the newspaper and it looks fantastic for clickbait but there's no definition of like it has to reach a certain percentage or a number of people it's just the the potential for those people to then infect others.
That's where it comes into play. But again, there's no numbers against it. I just thought that was really interesting. Did you know that? No, I didn't. And I don't know. I mean, it matters, yes, in terms of the realism of the numbers, but this is not about, you know, the numbers of the infection rate from each event is, I suppose, an example of the infection rate. You know, it doesn't matter whether you label it a supernova or, you know, a Cosmo footnose, it's not really of any consequence.
It's just a nice catchphrase that people are using in the news right now to, you to to justify or to justify the criticism or bashing or or appropriate hits that they're pushing toward particular events or whatever it is that's happening yeah and and actually this this particular event has been associated and linked to the the Sturges motorcycle rally which we know actually impacted thousands upon thousands of people and and of course when you when you see those figures when you talk about that population i think in your head you go whoa super spreader event you know so i think it really shocked me that you know you've got one that's being labeled that is being associated with something that's so big it shocked the hell out of me to the point where i actually went and researched what is a super spreader event because i was you know curious now this has as i said it's reached it's reached um you know media viral uh to the point where it was actually in the monologue of the the late night show with steven colbert and you can go and listen to that but i actually just wanted to play this one section because i found it to be pretty funny and what i mean by that is obviously he doesn't write his monologue he has people that write it for him but they obviously did their research and here's a particular part that i really thought was actually quite funny for him from steven colby i'm gonna play it ready event one new orleans spokesman said they expected full compliance with safety guidelines there's your mistake not everyone's into full compliance some people are only compliance curious some just like to stand in the corner and watch other people comply like carl i just want to know who carl is i just think that's hilarious because he used that as a, like obviously like BDSM, consent, like not everyone's full swap, they're soft swap.
I just thought it was bloody hilarious that his writers researched that and added it in. I thought it was quite clever. It is clever, although really quite destructive for the perception of the lifestyle. Yes, it is. And look, now I'm going to take a moment to actually talk about our unique perspective. So the impact that we've already started seeing now for many of you you know that we actually cancelled our own events this year and it is very difficult to actually find people who will work with you in the first place and I mean the broader people who will work with you.
That's everybody from actually securing a contract with a hotel right through to securing a contract with a security company, getting legal support, getting financial support. All of these things are very difficult for the swinging lifestyle because we are considered high risk and of course because we are a fringe.
Now my concern for these recent news articles is that it is going to make this increasingly difficult for the lifestyle to host above ground and legally operating events for the community because of the fact that all of a sudden you now have these viral news articles happening you have a lot of negativity surrounding the lifestyle but furthermore you're actually starting to impact the operating capabilities of some of these suppliers like the hotel for example who are being named in these articles and photos being taken you're really starting to impact there and that's where I think rather than the the current impact or the you know the dirty swingers impact this is where I think it's actually much more dangerous to us as a community and I'll give you an example of that when we had to cancel our event we started looking at getting some legal assistance because obviously cancelling a very large contract with a hotel is not an easy feat now I reached out to about 20 different lawyers in the local area of Miami, because obviously that's where our hotel was, and I asked for assistance.
Ten of those didn't get back to me at all, so we'll wipe those off the table. And of the remaining ten, six outright refused to work with me because of the fact that we're in the swinging lifestyle. Of the remaining few people that worked with me, we did actually come up with one particular legal firm that were going to help us. There was a high cost associated with that. And let me just tell you, one letter to the hotel to engage a force majeure clause in our contract, 8,500 US dollars, much, much higher than the average business would cost purely because of the fact that we are high risk.
Secondary to that, they were, if we had to go to litigation, they were actually going to hand us off to another law firm because they did not want their name associated with our brand being spread all over the news. So that's a very real example of how these sorts of things impact. Now, I did find another article yesterday that was about a different event that was going to be taking place and now isn't. So this one was actually at, and again, the hotel's named, it's at Clarion Hotel in Fort Mill.
The title is Hotel Takeover Cancelled After the WCNC, which is a news site, began asking questions as COVID cases continue to rise.
Why we're talking about this particular event now when we're talking about Naughty in New Orleans is because of the fact that viewers and i quote who contacted the wcnc in charlotte drew comparisons to the swingers convention in new orleans testing positive for coronavirus so these people these news articles and these different states are now starting to use this news and that example of what happened in louisiana against other places being able to be utilized by the Now, the concern here is for us is not for during the COVID, you know, the current COVID crisis, of course.
The real concern here is not for right now. We do hope there's an end to COVID and it does appear that it's coming. We're all really hopeful that this will be gone soon.
So with that in mind, what we're looking to now now as well as the future if we continue to see this sort of detriment from events happening now this is going to have huge problems for us in future in finding events event space and this is for the entire lifestyle not just you know not any particular event but the entire lifestyle will have a lesser chance of finding events because hotels are very wary of their brands being dragged through the mud and if we continue to offer the ability for people to do that then it's only going to make life worse for us for now and into the future yeah and that's what i did want to say So in this particular article, it wasn't actually the lifestyle group who responded to the news people.
So the news reporters went out there, they started harassing people because the public picked this up and the public outcry, as we mentioned earlier in the podcast, is kind of king, right? And what happened was the hotel was getting contacted, they were getting photographed, they were getting contacted by both the news article and by concerned citizens. Now, the hotel is actually the people and so the Clarion Hotel, their photos are up, they're named in here. They are the people that actually responded to the news person.
And a spokesperson for the Clarion Hotel reached the statement that they've been called, they've been updated, and that they're aware of a story that they're going to be doing on an event that's getting held in that particular hotel. We have now had safety concerns and the potential backlash to the event that we do not want. This is directly from the Clarion Hotel. We have cancelled the event. So that's from the hotel. And so the issue now, as we said before, is that all of a sudden you've got contracts that are now being cancelled, possibly last minute again.
It just could even be in the future that can directly impact perhaps those event organisers that are doing the best that they can. And this is where our community will suffer. There's obviously already been some significant detrimental effect on the lifestyle. And that's a big problem for us, for all of us, it should be. So let's just be clear here, though. We are picking one event out of hundreds that have happened. Naughty in New Orleans is just the lucky one that has had enough attention drawn to it that it's gone viral.
There has been hundreds of events that have happened globally during COVID. This is not a one-off scenario. This is many, many different organisers making the same decision as what happened at Naughty in New Orleans.
And I actually do want to mention that because i actually went online and i started to research events that were held at the same time as naughty in new orleans both lifestyle and non-lifestyle related i also looked at events that were held over the halloween period and over thanksgiving now in the united states alone i found 20 hotel takeovers held between those so from when Naughty in New Orleans went live to when Thanksgiving finished, 20 different full hotel takeovers that had almost, if not more, the same number of attendees that Naughty in New Orleans had.
But to your point, unfortunately, Naughty in New Orleans has been the event that's gone viral. You know, there's not a lot of focus on some of these other event hosts. And I think one of the reasons behind that is the fact that Naughty in New Orleans did come forward with a blog post and say, here's our number of infected. Here is actually what happened because they did start to gather some media attention around this.
Whereas I know for a fact that on Thanksgiving, there were hotel takeovers, there were events happening even throughout Florida, even throughout Orlando that had over 250 attendees at them that haven't reached the same sort of media coverage that Naughty New Orleans has. So whilst we're talking about NIN, like Daryl said, they're just one of the ones that have stood out and have just gone viral. But there has been hundreds of other events taking place that haven't gained this same media attention.
All right, guys, to wrap this up, I'm going to try and finish on a positive here because, you know, it has been a bit grim. But if you're wondering how you can support the lifestyle community right now, there are a number of ways that you can do that. And that is to promote the people that you believe are doing the right thing.
And that can be through something as simple as a retweet on Twitter or a comment on Instagram, or just even dropping them a note and saying, like, cheers, guys, really, really appreciate what you are doing that looks like for you that's definitely a way that you can turn this situation turn this frown upside down I don't know.
So I think that the main thing here is to keep the businesses alive that deserve to be kept alive for those who are doing the right thing support them donate to them if necessary if you believe that that's what will help to keep them going you know for all the swingers clubs out there that are closed at the moment or are planning on staying closed for a period of time because of what's happening right now and they're not willing to put them put their their people or their staff in in danger you believe that they're doing the right thing even if they are open but they're doing the right thing in terms of what you believe then support them give them give them the support they deserve tip their staff maybe a little more than you might necessarily do if you can afford it that would be the way that i'd try and support you so look guys i know we're going through some turbulent times at the moment just in general around the world but certainly as a swinging lifestyle community and whilst it might be easy to get bogged down in the negativity of kind of what's happening around our hobby, our lifestyle choice that we are so fond of, try to stick above it.
Try to support those out there that you think are following your belief systems and promote them, retweet them, comment on their stuff, and try to help boost them through these really difficult times.
I think it's super easy to focus on the and certainly the squeaky wheel always gets the grease as they say much harder is it to actually help those people that are really trying their hardest to come out the other side of this and still provide us in the lifestyle community with the services that we love to take part in so if you do see somebody who is hosting a virtual event please retweet them please give them props try props, try to help them out as best you can. That's if they're asking for it of course.
I mean there's other people out there that are doing online events as a stopgap purely to keep people involved and engaged and okay in terms of their mental stability as well.
So there are people out there doing that free of cost because they have the capability to do that because they have enough money in their pockets to allow for it so you know choose who you choose who you're supporting here as well if if you offer to somebody and they say no no no we're doing this because we want to we want to support the lifestyle then then find somebody else who deserves it you know keep keep looking keep hunting find the people find the people who deserve the support and deserve the money and deserve your time and give that to them.
Now, also another thing, if you are somebody who does provide services or who would be willing to provide services to people that are perhaps on the fringe, and I mentioned before, some legal support, if you are somebody who does design work, if you are even somebody who is an accountant willing to work with people that are in the sex positive space please do hit us up cnd at swingingdownunder.com we would love to give you guys a shout out on social media and we may even have need for your services ourselves so please do drop us a note let us know we want to support you because you're supporting us so thank you very much guys we'll chat to you soon thank you that's all folks that's all she wrote all right okay that has been uh swinging in the media a bit of a negative topic i don't know not great but i don't know that's what we're that's what we're living in in 2020 so hopefully we'll see some better news articles coming out about the lifestyle um as we head into 2021 fingers crossed anyway if you're looking for more ways to interact with swinging down under you can catch us on twitter at swing down under you can also catch us on instagram swinging down under or head over to our website swingingdownunder.com we would absolutely love to hear from you so if you would like to send us an email jump online do it at cnd at swingingdownunder.com if you've got podcast topics questions you want to talk about your journey you can also support the podcast through our website by clicking through on any of the affiliate links or alternatively to jumping over to patreon.com forward slash swinging down under and sponsoring the podcast.
If you can't do any of those things, but just want to make a feel good day, leave us a five star review. Cheers, everyone. And thank you again for supporting Swinging Down Under podcast. Thank you.
