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Participants List For The Twelfth Virtual Symposium: “International Intrigue”
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Posted:Sep 19, 2015 9:45 pm
Last Updated:Oct 25, 2015 11:05 pm
92206 Views
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Welcome to the twelfth virtual symposium, an informal collection of bloggers who – purely for the hell of it – voted on a single topic ("International Intrigue") and agreed, on or about September 20, to post their interpretations of that topic.
There are no prizes or awards, save for the opportunity to build a more-closely knit blog community. All bloggers are invited to participate in this, as well as all future, virtual symposiums. To participate, watch this blog for future symposium topics: We anticipate doing one per month.
The rules, such as they are, are simple: Once a topic was picked, all bloggers were and are invited to interpret the topic as loosely as they choose, and offer any type of post they like which either tangentially or directly addresses the topic, whether through fantasy/fiction, essay, photographs, image collages, poems, one-liners, or any other form they choose. Contact me through a comment on this post to be included on this list, which I will update as new participants make themselves known.
We (that’s the editorial we – or perhaps I have a tapeworm) hope readers will use these virtual forums to discover new, interesting voices. A request of readers: If you find an entry you especially like, please don’t be shy about leaving an attaboy/attagirl on the appropriate blog. Applause never hurts!
A continually updated list of participants can be found below: Please check back often, as I’ll add new posts as often as appropriate (and as other responsibilities allow). Please leave a note here if I haven’t included your submission!
Note: The site's system is being temperamental about posting hot links: Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't... sometimes they take a few attempts. If a link isn't hot, please track down the appropriate blogs. They're worth it.
AND... BY ALL MEANS, IF YOU HAVEN'T CONTRIBUTED AND WANT TO, PLEASE DO SO! Was hoping to get most of the submissions input at the start of the day... but people do keep checking the list for new contributors... so if you're so moved, write a post and let me know here so I can include you.
Hey, gang, looks like we picked up some new participants! Check the list, and give ‘em an appropriately inappropriate welcome!
In no particular order at all, our participants include:
Gntillhom: La rubrique et de broc [post 3696892]
annielaputain: Annie est dingue [post 3695823]
sweet_VM: In your Dreams International Intrigue topic for this symposium Sailing the world Sea land and Air group
LadyLeo1949: LADYLEO'S DEN OF INIQUITY.... [post 3698004]
aflower2c: My thoughts... [post 3697978]
NaughtyInSO: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad world... Smuggling Ring, Part 1 contribution to 12th Virtual Symposium
NaughtyInSO: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad world... Smuggling Ring, Part 2 contribution to 12th Virtual Symposium
kzoopair: Take two- they're small Billy Whisky
SlenderGal88: To Be Consumed [post 3697828]
Humorlife: Confessions of a Lifestyle Man Virtual Symposium On International Intrigue Frances Cap dAgde A Truly Intriguing Swinging Utopia
Fel7114: Fearless Forties [post 3698162]
SweetCirce: Magic and Mayhem [post 3698150]
keithcancook: The Venting Blog keithcannadanna 12th Virtual Symposium
keithcancook: The Venting Blog Twisted 12th Virtual Symposium
rascalQUALITY: Connect 4... [post 3698180]
nightsoul1962: Tales of a night soul [post 3698186]
Snookeroo1000: Toddy's Open Book [post 3698197]
spunkycumfun: Sexy TIMES FANNIES ARE INTRIGUING
myelin36: Dirty Little Secrets International Intrigue Fish Out of Water
2trythis: Personal Preferences 12th Virtual Symposium International Intrigue
redrockrascal: My Blog International Intrigue The 12th Virtual Symposium
gardenboy321: Thoughts from the Garden... Double Trouble in Prague
TerraNova4Two: Terra Nova [post 3698440]
veryfunnyguy64: Musings and other Thoughts! International Intrigue Shaken Not Stirred
BiggLala: Lalaverse [post 3698538]
yesmamallthetime: Mellifluous Musings [post 3698718]
KItkat1415: Kinks and High Jinks [post 3698618]
ChocolateNinja1:☁☁Cloudy With a Chance Of..... [post 3698918]
Eros_Space: LOVE AND ROCKETS [post 3699034]
ghost90025: Fantasy to Reality? [post 3698646]
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Virtual Symposium On International Intrigue: France’s Cap d’Agde: A Truly Intriguing Swinging Utopia
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Posted:Sep 19, 2015 9:41 pm
Last Updated:Dec 9, 2020 1:30 pm
86518 Views
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This blog entry is part of the twelfth virtual symposium, an informal collection of bloggers who – purely for the hell of it – voted for a single topic (“International Intrigue”) and agreed, on or about September 20, to post their interpretations of that topic. A continually updated list of participants can be found here: Participants List For The Twelfth Virtual Symposium International Intrigue
A tip of the chapeau to [blog annielaputain] for bringing Cap d’Agde ([post 3676153]) to my attention. Cap d’Agde is a town in southern France with a nudist section which is quickly being embraced by swingers. And when a swinger, especially a nudist swinger, embraces something, that something is very, very embraced.
The Feverparties web site gives a few demographic details in its Guide to Cap D’Agde: Swingers, according to Feverparties, are primarily interested in one particular region – The Naturist Quarter, a gated area the size of a small town. People pay around 10 euros ($11.30 U.S., or $15 Canadian) to pass through the section’s gates.
Once inside? Well, with the exception of service workers, it’s all naked, nearly all of the time. During the height of the season, the area hosts around 40,000 people. According to Feverparties, the complex itself is home to around 10 swing clubs, with a small handful of additional venues located nearby.
Location is everything: Cap d'Agde
An aerial view of the gated Naturist Quarter. Street-level photography is within the region is generally frowned upon.
Is every nudist (or, if you prefer, naturist) who passes through the area’s gates a swinger? Probably not, although by many accounts the swinger population has been growing since the 1990s. There’s no exact census, though, so hard numbers aren’t readily available.
Furthermore, when clothes come off, it’s difficult to tell the players from the sun worshippers. According to the capdageinfo site’s swingers section, “...in the old days this was a bit easier, because most swingers were shaving their intimate parts completely. During daytime the difference between a hairy intimate part and a bold one, can be spotted from miles away, so to speak. Anno 2013 more and more non-swingers are shaving themselves also, so if this would be your only selection filter, it could cause some awkward situations. Luckily there are more ways to spot like-minded people. Swingers are usually more open, they make eye contact, they are flirting with each other or they display some sexual behaviour.”
Far be it from me to question the site’s experts… especially because independent research would require significantly greater language skills than I possess. As the Feverparties site notes, “Many English speakers mispronounce the place... Any French you have will help too. Most of the people in Cap are French and German with smaller numbers of Italians, Dutch, Belgians, Scandinavians, Russians and Spaniards. Less English is heard and spoken than in most holiday resorts – which only adds to the exoticism (and the anonymity)!”
Paradoxically, one of the best first-person accounts of Cap d’Agde appeared in an English-language article on the U.K.’s The Guardian website. In an article titled “Welcome to the naked city: sun, swingers and very little shoplifting,” Phil Hoad gives a detailed history of the area, along with a good sense of what visiting it is like. As Hoad tells it, it ain’t all fun and games:
“Signs threaten a year’s imprisonment and a €15,000 fine for any publicly committed sexual acts – evidence of the delicate balancing act performed by law enforcers here. The échangistes (swingers) have grown in number since the early 1990s, supplanting the traditionally chaste naturists. It is a rivalry adored by the media, many outlets of which held radical naturists responsible for a spate of late-noughties fires at sex clubs. As the cavorting inevitably spilled out of the darkrooms into the dunes, the village’s notoriety and censure increased.
“At the same time, however, Cap D’Agde has come to depend economically on its horny newcomers. Fetishwear shops are ubiquitous. ‘It’s a naturist resort, but the most common type of shop sells clothes,’ chuckles Richard, a pizzeria waiter and 11-year naturist veteran of the village. ‘The swingers keep the place going. They’ve got an energy, and they bring in the curious.’
“So policing a naked city requires a light touch, relying on the clubs to keep their own houses in order and liaising carefully with private security to intervene when necessary.”
Wow! Strife and conflict between the nudists and the swingers, complete with arson and economic leverage! Apparently local government officials are quite content to take in the revenue these folks bring in without reinvesting in basic services. According to Hoad: “Virtually everyone I speak to points out the battered roads, the overflowing bins, the drains clogged with sand. There’s a widespread perception that the town hall profits handsomely from controlling the gate – the official figure is [1.3 million euros] a year, but I’m told it’s much more – but doesn’t reinvest enough of the cash… Adrien, at the pharmacy, thinks the fact that so many residents are seasonal, and can’t vote, disadvantages it at the ballot box.”
Lest any would-be visitor be turned off by such reports, know that a nudist/swinger town does have its advantages in regards to pedestrian life: Certain types of misdemeanors, such as pickpocketing and shoplifting, are rare. Notes Hoad: “Petty crime is supposedly lower on the beach than anywhere else in the city. ‘Where’s a shoplifter supposed to hide his swag?’ says Johnnie Walker, the village’s sole foreign bar owner. ‘Up his ass?’”
Note: Yeah, I know how I’ve placed this image. But readers should not, should not, should not infer that this gentleman is a shoplifter. I’ve just seen this photo associated with Cap d’Agde on several sites, and it amused me, so I figured I’d share.
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For A Ms. In the Me Decade, A Miss Of A Swinging Experience
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Posted:Sep 18, 2015 4:36 am
Last Updated:Oct 23, 2015 10:04 am
81983 Views
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There are some experiences which even “What the hell – it was the ‘70s” can’t justify.
Consider the following phrases, and then ask how a remembrance from the 1970s could end in anything but disappointment, if not disaster: Co-worker. First date. Swinger’s party.
Squirming with anticipated discomfort yet? Fortunately Janie Emaus, in a Huffington Post blog piece titled “Come Swing With Me,” didn’t seem to suffer anything worse than a mild case of embarrassment. Furthermore, the 40 or so years that have passed since the incident she describes seem to have blunted the sting.
According to Emaus, a co-worker she’d had a crush on – yellow flag number one – interoffice dating can be tricky, if not downright prohibited by company policy – invited her to a swinger’s party for their first date – yellow flag number two – if two people decide to swing together, it should be after a lot of discussion about respect, potential scenarios, expectations, and repercussions.
Emaus accepted, despite being right in the middle of “my decade of wanting so badly to be loved, to find a husband, to start a family that I was willing to say yes to anything” – yellow flags number three through 16 or so – swinging is an activity which, if done in couples, should be done for the joy of it, and not with ulterior motives. The swinging community ain’t your therapist or your matchmaker.
There are a lot of questions one might ask when first pondering swinging, even in the pre-safer-sex go-go times of the Nixon administration. What will be expected? How many people will be there? Should I bring a covered dish? (There’s some wiggle room on that last question.)
What question immediately jumped to Emaus’s mind? “What should I wear?”
Fair’s fair: As she notes, “Seconds later the word NO swelled to goliath proportions within my mind, but failed to come out.” Ah, love…
Emaus consulted with a friend, who observed that “guys needed dates to get into swinger parties and pointed out he wouldn't have asked me if he wasn't into me.” Of course – because treating someone as a meal ticket and putting that person immediately into an awkward solution is the sincerest form of showing you’re into someone. With friends like that…
Did I mention that this story took place during the ‘70s? To give it that authentic period feel, Emaus notes that on the day of the event, she wore “hip hugger bell bottoms jeans and a yellow crop top, exposing way more skin than I ever had at work.”
I’ve stopped counting warning flags: I think we’re up in the two dozen area. Uncomfortable situation, clothing which causes consternation… what else could Emaus have done to compound her awkwardness?
How about having a date who was a jerk? Once Emaus and her arrived at the party, her date breezed past the gentleman who opened the door, found a group of conventionally dressed people who were discussing daycare issues, didn’t introduce himself – or her – and began making double entendres which fell flat.
Emaus’s conclusion? “It was obvious we were not at a swinger's party. We had crashed a simple friends' get-together.” Alas, her date was a little slower on the uptake: “Suddenly [Emaus’s date] stood and demanded to see the room ‘where all the action took place.’ Without getting an answer, he headed down the hallway toward the back of the house, the owner following on his heels.”
There was no action, of course… and Emaus and her date ended up leaving shortly thereafter, with Emaus’s date cursing the name of the person who had given him the wrong address.
Good God almighty… does anyone else think this is a perfect historical analog for men on this site who email women with the opening line “wanna fuck?” And… if the fact that it was the Me Decade was enough to excuse their behavior back then (it wasn’t, but bear with me) what’s their excuse now?
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Posted:Sep 14, 2015 4:20 am
Last Updated:Oct 4, 2015 6:44 pm
74548 Views
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“International Intrigue” was the blogosphere’s top choice for the upcoming virtual symposium’s topic, narrowly beating out really bad erotica, as written by symposium contributors. To those who pimped this vote, thank you! (And to those of you who voted for one of the runners up, take heart: You’ll be seeing these topics again at some point…)
For those new to the virtual symposium: In short, it’s a simultaneous act of blogging. Here’s how it works: Anybody with a blog on this site is welcome to join in. All choosing to participate will create something – an essay, a cartoon, an erotic story, a memoir, a series of one-line aphorisms, an image collage, a photo montage, a poem, or anything else – relating to “International Intrigue.” At a pre-arranged time and date (see below) all participants post their contributions.
Want a better sense of how it works – or just some good reads? Here’s a link to the participants’ list from the eleventh symposium:
Feel free to take the basic idea of “International Intrigue” and stretch it to as wild an interpretation as you like -- the post should reflect you! The last thing we need is a dozen monotonous texts on the same topic. Anything goes, as long as there is a trace of the original idea in the post.
On the morning of September 20 (this Sunday, for those keeping score), all participants will post their creations. Please, please, post ‘em to your own blogs early: I do want to link to them in a central post here, but I don’t want to be stapled to my desk all day.
I'll be responsible for posting links to your blogs here – I want to make this as effortless for participants as possible! Once you’ve posted, leave a note in the comments section here so I know to link to your submission. I will, of course, post latecomers… people do check back to see whether new participants have joined the symposium. But after the morning of September 20, I may not be updating the list as obsessively.
Additionally, links sometimes take a while to become live. The sooner I can scoop up the link to your contribution, the faster (hopefully) others will be able to click through to it.
As for contributions themselves: The idea is to create something new, as opposed to using posts to respond to other posts (although the comments section will, of course, remain fair game). Leave a note in the blog comments, and I’ll use a post on this blog that day to link to all contributions.
A suggestion: Participants may want to refer to either the virtual symposium or the topic itself in their headline. Not a requirement – there are no requirements, save for originality and participation – but a suggestion which will let the wide blog community know what we’re doing.
This is not a contest. No souvenir mugs will be sent, nor ribbons awarded. The idea here is for those interested to, on a single day, offer an interpretation of a single topic for the sheer fun of it.
By all means, encourage other bloggers to participate – and to let me know they’re doing so through this post, so on the morning of September 20 I can link to their posts. Oh, and please consider this an invitation – if not a request – to the symposium both on your own blogs, and in individual requests to bloggers whom you’d like to see represented. The more the merrier, right? There are some folks with very distinct voices on this site who aren’t yet participating – let’s bring ‘em in and make ‘em one of us, one of us, one of us!
Remember, of course, to keep things in your voice!
Every symposium, there are a few newbies who contribute posts, and don’t let me know about their contributions (I catch some by watching the “recent posts” feed, but that’s hit or miss). So… once you post, please leave me a note on the master list post, or here! (I get messages about the symposium which are attached to the blog a little faster than the ones which are emailed to me.)
Can’t wait to see the results!
the symposium, the symposium, the symposium... the viewers you bring in may be your own. Can't get more (verbally) naked than that...
Final note: When the page with all the contributors goes live, please consider adding the link to your post, even if the contribution has already gone live. Doing so allows people to readily access all the other offerings… which is, after all, one of the purposes of this exercise.
the symposium, the symposium, the symposium... the viewers you bring in may be your own. Can't get more (verbally) naked than that...
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Buzzword Jackpot! Columnist Links Donald Trump, Ashley Madison, And Swinging
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Posted:Sep 9, 2015 7:51 am
Last Updated:Mar 28, 2016 6:57 pm
61591 Views
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There’s a trend among writing outlets that depend on advertising: Writers are urged to pepper their copy, especially headlines and initial paragraphs, with trending buzzwords. These words help the stories appear higher in search results (G—gle and the like). The higher ranking helps generate more clicks, which in turn make the sites hosting these stories more desirable for advertisers.
The problem is that writers are tacitly urged to sacrifice style in an effort to push trending buzzwords into stories that can’t really support them.
Every once in a while, however, the gods smile and a blogger on the swinging community gets a gift… like the ability to comment on presidential candidate Donald Trump, the Ashley Madison data breach, and swinging all in the same piece. And today is that day.
According to “ASHLEY MADISON DUMP: Why is ex-Donald Trump Political Adviser’s Email Address in Hacked Data?,” which appeared on the Gossip Extra site, an email address belonging to Roger Stone, a former political advisor to Trump, Richard Nixon, and Bob Dole, appeared on the data dump of information stolen from Ashley Madison and posted online.
Gossip Extra contacted Stone about the email address. Stone’s response? “Funny. Never had one (an Ashley Madison experience),” Stone wrote in an email. “The next time I pay for sex will be the first time. I’m a proud libertine. Make no bones about it. But pay a lady for sex or finance a ‘girlfriend?’ Not my style. Many political detractors know my email. Bogus.
“I’ve certainly lived an unconventional life style but pay for pussy? Never.”
According to published accounts, it is – or at least was – pretty easy to put someone else’s name into the Ashley Madison database. The company did not offer a confirmation mechanism –a “welcome to our site… Click this link to confirm you meant to sign up” email, which is considered a smart practice among legitimate businesses. But Ashley Madison seems to have been, at least in part, in the business of harvesting emails and charging people to have their accounts purged (and not fulfilling this promise). In short, it had no reason to confirm signups.
The folks at Gossip Extra seem to believe Stone: They note that while his email address was in the data dump, unlike other individuals there was no credit card information. And it’s a lot easier to get an email address than a credit card number.
That said, Stone is by his own admission no stranger to the swinging community: Gossip Extra cites a 2008 New Yorker article, “The Dirty Trickster,” which takes a close look at Stone and is absolutely work reading, if only because of the incredibly unflattering portrait it paints. In part, according to The New Yorker, Stone and his wife “had apparently run personal ads in a magazine called Local Swing Fever and on a Web site that had been set up with [wife] Nydia’s credit card. “Hot, insatiable lady and her handsome body builder husband, experienced swingers, seek similar couples or exceptional muscular . . . single men.”
Stone initially said that the ad had been placed by a political opponent, but later came clean: “When that whole thing hit the fan in 1996, the reason I gave a blanket denial was that my grandparents were still alive,” he told The New Yorker. “I’m not guilty of hypocrisy. I’m a libertarian and a libertine.”
Mm-hm. One who happens to work with candidates who use sexual oppression in various stripes as a plant to get elected, but that inconvenient fact can be swept quietly under the rug when one is well established. Kinda like well-to-do politicians who oppose pro-choice legislation until their daughters need abortions.
Fair’s fair: In addition to his own activities, Stone has used his dalliances in the swing community to undo political opponents. The New Yorker article leads with a story about meeting a high-end in a Miami club – one who ultimately turned over New York governor Elliot Spitzer’s name to him.
For what it’s worth, most swing clubs are pretty adamant about not allowing on site. Why risk getting shut down for soliciting when so many people are willing to pay for entry without it? At any rate, the lass assured Stone that she wasn’t working that night.
Stone either quite or was fired from Donald Trump’s current presidential campaign (sources vary). What’s interesting is that he was involved in it at all. “Roger is a stone-cold loser,” Trump told The New Yorker in 2008. “He always tries taking credit for things he never did.”
Joining Ashley Madison may not have been one of those things… but the man swings. Which shows that the community is a lot more welcoming than some of the candidates Stone has worked for.
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Participants List For The Eleventh Virtual Symposium: On “Doors and/or Bridges and/or Gates”
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Posted:Aug 22, 2015 11:48 pm
Last Updated:Sep 11, 2015 4:35 am
78192 Views
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Welcome to the tenth virtual symposium, an informal collection of bloggers who – purely for the hell of it – voted on a single topic ("Doors and/or Bridges and/or Gates") and agreed, on or about August 23, to post their interpretations of that topic.
There are no prizes or awards, save for the opportunity to build a more-closely knit blog community. All bloggers are invited to participate in this, as well as all future, virtual symposiums. To participate, watch this blog for future symposium topics: We anticipate doing one per month.
The rules, such as they are, are simple: Once a topic was picked, all bloggers were and are invited to interpret the topic as loosely as they choose, and offer any type of post they like which either tangentially or directly addresses the topic, whether through fantasy/fiction, essay, photographs, image collages, poems, one-liners, or any other form they choose. Contact me through a comment on this post to be included on this list, which I will update as new participants make themselves known.
We (that’s the editorial we – or perhaps I have a tapeworm) hope readers will use these virtual forums to discover new, interesting voices. A request of readers: If you find an entry you especially like, please don’t be shy about leaving an attaboy/attagirl on the appropriate blog. Applause never hurts!
A continually updated list of participants can be found below: Please check back often, as I’ll add new posts as often as appropriate (and as other responsibilities allow). Please leave a note here if I haven’t included your submission!
Note: The site's system is being temperamental about posting hot links: Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't... sometimes they take a few attempts. If a link isn't hot, please track down the appropriate blogs. They're worth it.
AND... BY ALL MEANS, IF YOU HAVEN'T CONTRIBUTED AND WANT TO, PLEASE DO SO! Was hoping to get most of the submissions input at the start of the day... but people do keep checking the list for new contributors... so if you're so moved, write a post and let me know here so I can include you.
Hey, gang, looks like we picked up some new participants! Check the list, and give ‘em an appropriately inappropriate welcome!
In no particular order at all, our participants include:
Gntillhom: La rubrique et de broc [post 3682198]
joisygirl: Done and Dusted [post 3683509]
joisygirl: Done and Dusted [post 3683473]
Fel7114: Fearless Forties [post 3683468]
LadyLuck2: Play the Hand You Were Dealt! Paradigm Paradise or Paradigm Purgatory
MyNameIsKay: Hopeful Daydreamer [post 3683526]
lok4fun500: A NORTHERN GENTLEMAN [post 3683523]
kzoopair: Take two- they're small About doors
nightsoul1962: Tales of a night soul [post 3683481]
nightsoul1962: Tales of a night soul [post 3683478]
NaughtyInSO: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad world... 11th Virtual Symposium
SlenderGal88: To Be Consumed [post 3683471]
annielaputain: Annie est dingue [post 3681050]
Humorlife: Confessions of a Lifestyle Man The 11th Virtual Symposium Swing Club Exteriors Offer Discreet Doorways To Pleasure
Eros_Space: LOVE AND ROCKETS [post 3681928]
Keithcancook: The Venting Blog Through The Blogging Glass The Eleventh Virtual Symposium
TimmyDsquid: Sea Stories 11th Virtual Symposium D amp B amp G
Snookeroo1000: Toddy's Open Book [post 3683371]
LadyLeo1949: LADYLEO'S DEN OF INIQUITY.... [post 3683402]
2trythis: Personal Preferences 11th Virtual Symposium Doors andor Bridges andor Gates
rascalQUALITY: Connect 4... [post 3683544]
spunkycumfun: Sexy TIMES A BRIDGE TOO FAR
author51: My Best ASSets [post 3683580]
BiggLala: Lalaverse [post 3683559]
sweet_VM: In your Dreams The bridge over the hollow land The Symposium
myelin36: Dirty Little Secrets 11th Virtual Symposium On Burning Bridges
sexysixties2: A Tale of two Lives [post 3683680]
gardenboy321: Thoughts from the Garden... Across the Bay
itaintagame: Live from the dug out 11th symposium Doors bridges and or gates Doors
missysensual69: Normal By Day Naughty By Night [post 3683757]
TimmyDsquid (a second helping!): Sea Stories 11th Virtual addendum
Eros_Space (another offering!): LOVE AND ROCKETS [post 3505465]
KItkat1415: Kinks and High Jinks [post 3683836]
mature_951: psst, over here.... [post 3683869]
veryfunnyguy64: Musings and other Thoughts! Virtual Symposium Doors and Bridges In My Life
TimmyDsquid: Sea Stories 11th Virtual Scandalous Expos'e
CookiesNMischief: Hands in the Cookie Jar The Eleventh Virtual Symposium What39s Behind Your Green Door, You Troll
apollorising2021: going LOCAL [post 3684457]
Megan6627: Metaphysical Temple of Haiku [post 3684576]
yesmamallthetime: Love, Sex and Poetry [post 3683519]
yesmamallthetime: Love, Sex and Poetry [post 3683507]
ChocolateNinja1: ☁☁Cloudy With a Chance Of..... [post 3686321]
Megan6627: Metaphysical Temple of Haiku [post 3685908]
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The 11th Virtual Symposium: Swing Club Exteriors Offer Discreet Doorways To Pleasure
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Posted:Aug 22, 2015 10:30 pm
Last Updated:Sep 3, 2015 10:05 am
73437 Views
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This blog entry is part of the eleventh virtual symposium, an informal collection of bloggers who – purely for the hell of it – voted for a single topic (“Doors And/Or Bridges And/Or Gates”) and agreed, on or about August 23, to post their interpretations of that topic. A continually updated list of participants can be found here: Participants List For The Eleventh Virtual Symposium On Doors andor Bridges andor Gates
When swinging, does physical location offer any hint as to activities inside? For this month’s virtual symposium I offer a randomly chosen set of swing venue exteriors. I’ve eschewed chain hotel and motel shots (where one-off parties are occasionally held): There’s nothing exclusively swing-y about them, and anyone who wants to know what his or her favorite chain looks like can jolly well do an image search.
Instead, the following images give a taste of the sublime and the ridiculous club exteriors tease. Do they deliver? That depends as much on the participant as the venue: The only caveat I might offer is that in this case goods often don’t reflect their packaging. Readers may take that as a positive or negative as they will.
This post should have six images.
Tabu
The elevated entrance to Cantonsville, MD-based Tabu offers a sense of “event.” A well-designed portal can enhance the sense of “you are leaving the regular world behind”: Whether this particular location has achieved this by luck or design is besides the point. Between the red carpet treatment, the rise of five white steps, and the illuminated blue awning, one couldn’t be blamed for feeling a patriotic swell, as well as any other appropriate stirrings. Not sure how the stairs play with mobility-challenged swingers, but perhaps the club employs footmen to assist with such.
Stratford House
For some swinger clubs, architectural grandeur existed long before the location’s more prurient functions. According to “Pictured: Historic Tudor mansion turned into SWINGERS' CLUB 'complete with dungeon’”, which appeared on the Irish Mirror’s site, “Stratford House, in Highgate, Birmingham, was built in 1601.” As the Irish Mirror notes, “the stunning timber framed property has now been transformed into a sex club for swingers and fetish fans - complete with dungeon.” Those for whom this type of elegance in swing clubs appeals may want to visit soon: The Birmingham City Council is looking into whether the owners’ ten-year lease was obtained under false pretenses.
Zwanglos III
If any swinger club entrance could ever be described as utilitarian, this is the one. The club is located on a Berlin city block’s corner, and signs reading (oddly enough, in English) SWINGER * CLU face each intersecting street. There’s little romance or fantasy to the exterior, design choices which reflect the more literal side of Teutonic practicality. The photos accompany “Just Before Dawn at a Berlin Swinger Club,” a first-person account on the Vice website of a visit to the club by a newbie who is open to participating (many such accounts are written by those who don’t play.) The article’s author comments on the exterior, noting that a “weather-beaten sign next to the door tells us about the admission prices” and observing that “[t]hinking about all the sperm that’s been skeeted inside the bricked-up windows makes me feel a little nauseous.”
United Fellowship Center
I wrote about this Tennessee organization’s efforts to get its swing club classified as a church in Virtual Symposium On Inspiration what inspires us to Swing Club Comes To God, Dodges Zoning Law . I’ve little to add to it, save for the following image, which brings to mind the erotic intrigue of the average strip mall. This is what the exterior of a swing club designed for SUV-driving moms would look like.
Ansonia Hotel/Plato’s Retreat and Bowery Bliss
I often characterize New York City as a city of superlatives. One can find the best, worst, most elegant, seediest, tastiest, foulest, and most other dichotomies of experience one could want. Why should its swinger club exteriors be any different? Compare the exterior of the Ansonia Hotel, which in the housed the first incarnation the legendary (and long-gone) Plato’s Retreat…
with the nondescript exterior of the relatively recently opened Bowery Bliss.
Neither club advertises (or advertised) itself at street level (compared with, say, Le Trapeze, which has a small plaque at its entrance). Oddly enough, Plato’s Retreat, despite the promise seemingly made by the Ansonia’s elegant façade was supposed to be fairly shabby, while Bowery Bliss is being advertised as one of the more elegant swinger venues in Manhattan. Can’t speak to either. Cavete oscillator – swinger beware.
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Posted:Aug 17, 2015 7:02 am
Last Updated:Aug 25, 2015 10:15 am
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“Doors and/or Bridges and/or Gates” was the blogosphere’s top choice for the upcoming virtual symposium’s topic. To those who pimped this vote, thank you!
For those new to the virtual symposium: In short, it’s a simultaneous act of blogging. Here’s how it works: Anybody with a blog on this site is welcome to join in. All choosing to participate will create something – an essay, a cartoon, an erotic story, a memoir, a series of one-line aphorisms, an image collage, a photo montage, a poem, or anything else – relating to “Doors and/or Bridges and/or Gates.” At a pre-arranged time and date (see below) all participants post their contributions.
Want a better sense of how it works – or just some good reads? Here’s a link to the participants’ list from the tenth symposium: Participants List For The Tenth Virtual Symposium On Slut
Feel free to take the basic idea of “Doors and/or Bridges and/or Gates” and stretch it to as wild an interpretation as you like -- the post should reflect you! The last thing we need is a dozen monotonous texts on the same topic. Anything goes, as long as there is a trace of the original idea in the post.
On the morning of August 23 (this Sunday, for those keeping score), all participants will post their creations. Please, please, post ‘em to your own blogs early: I do want to link to them in a central post here, but I don’t want to be stapled to my desk all day.
I'll be responsible for posting links to your blogs here – I want to make this as effortless for participants as possible! Once you’ve posted, leave a note in the comments section here so I know to link to your submission. I will, of course, post latecomers… people do check back to see whether new participants have joined the symposium. But after the morning of August 23, I may not be updating the list as obsessively.
Additionally, links sometimes take a while to become live. The sooner I can scoop up the link to your contribution, the faster (hopefully) others will be able to click through to it.
As for contributions themselves: The idea is to create something new, as opposed to using posts to respond to other posts (although the comments section will, of course, remain fair game). Leave a note in the blog comments, and I’ll use a post on this blog that day to link to all contributions.
A suggestion: Participants may want to refer to either the virtual symposium or the topic itself in their headline. Not a requirement – there are no requirements, save for originality and participation – but a suggestion which will let the wide blog community know what we’re doing.
This is not a contest. No souvenir mugs will be sent, nor ribbons awarded. The idea here is for those interested to, on a single day, offer an interpretation of a single topic for the sheer fun of it.
By all means, encourage other bloggers to participate – and to let me know they’re doing so through this post, so on the morning of August 23 I can link to their posts. Oh, and please consider this an invitation – if not a request – to the symposium both on your own blogs, and in individual requests to bloggers whom you’d like to see represented. The more the merrier, right? There are some folks with very distinct voices on this site who aren’t yet participating – let’s bring ‘em in and make ‘em one of us, one of us, one of us!
Remember, of course, to keep things in your voice!
Every symposium, there are a few newbies who contribute posts, and don’t let me know about their contributions (I catch some by watching the “recent posts” feed, but that’s hit or miss). So… once you post, please leave me a note on the master list post, or here! (I get messages about the symposium which are attached to the blog a little faster than the ones which are emailed to me.)
Can’t wait to see the results!
the symposium, the symposium, the symposium... the viewers you bring in may be your own. Can't get more (verbally) naked than that...
Final note: When the page with all the contributors goes live, please consider adding the link to your post, even if the contribution has already gone live. Doing so allows people to readily access all the other offerings… which is, after all, one of the purposes of this exercise.
the symposium, the symposium, the symposium... the viewers you bring in may be your own. Can't get more (verbally) naked than that...
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Are We Mainstream Yet? Satiric Newspaper The Onion Takes On Swinging
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Posted:Aug 11, 2015 4:39 pm
Last Updated:Nov 23, 2015 9:50 pm
58890 Views
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Good satire requires a norm – a set of circumstances so familiar to readers that when the circumstances are warped, the humor emerges without much explanation needed.
Those with an interest either philosophical or personal in the mainstreaming of swinging may take heart from an article which appeared recently in the satiric newspaper The Onion: “Local Swingers Not Going To Drive Out To Goddamn Oakdale.”
The piece features a fictional couple – Doug and Tiffany Finsky – who, in typical Onion inflate-it-from-the-mundane-to-the-ridiculous style grouse about a 40-mile trip to a swinger event hosted by some friends in suburban Minnesota – the “goddamn Oakdale” of the headline.
Rather than focus (unfairly, in most cases) on the prurient aspects of swinging as many serious media outlets do, The Onion devotes nearly 700 words to travel distances, traffic, ill-considered event starting times, lackluster food offerings, and additional time spent “having to stop by Cub Foods to pick up margarita mix on the way.” Oh, and a lack of reciprocal visits by the hosting couple to the Finsky’s own get-togethers.
The “news” article concludes with the revelation that “At press time, the [Finskys] had decided to stay in for the night and watch Criminal Minds.”
My longtime take on The Onion is that too often the entirety of its jokes are found in its headlines, and that the articles rarely add comic material. For the most part this article follows that trend.
But for this flaw – or perhaps it’s a trait? – it’s good to see swinging being given the gentle pokes The Onion is known for. One can only wonder what the next mainstream acknowledgement will be… listings, perhaps in USA Today?
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Heavy-Handed Hyperventilation: Daily Star Columnist’s Tale of Lecherous Swinging Couple Rings False
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Posted:Aug 5, 2015 12:16 pm
Last Updated:Aug 24, 2015 7:53 am
62492 Views
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Far be it from me to accuse the Fleet Street press of making up stories… oh, hell, there’s no need to be coy. I flat-out call bullshit on a letter to advice columnist Jane O’Gorman which recently appeared in the Daily Star.
The letter, which appears under the headline “Just Jane: Not in the swing with orgy couple” leads off with the breathless tease “OUR neighbours are desperate to have sex with us.”
It goes on to detail how, over a one-month period, the advice-seeker’s predatory neighbors approached a couple, which had apparently just moved into a new neighborhood, three times. The first time was when the swinger husband who was drunk.
(Side note Alas, the paper didn’t use charming colloquialism for drunk such as “hard” or “pissed” or even “squiffy.” I suppose “completely arseholed” wouldn’t have made it into a quality fish-and-chip wrap like the Daily Star.)
At any rate, according to this anonymous and probably fictitious letter writer, the inebriated spouse “started asking me which sex toys I’d like him to get in.”
Get in? That’s an odd construction. It may be valid, though: As George Bernard Shaw may or may not have said (sources are sketchy) “The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language.”
Second, and more important… people rarely talk like that. And anyone in the swinging lifestyle knows that approach represents a sure-fire way to get shot down.
The anonymous letter writer dismisses this fumbling attempt as a joke. But, she notes. “a few days later, the wife sidled up to my partner and suggested a foursome.”
Erm, okay, that’s a little more in line with a calmer discussion/introduction. But again, there are more acceptable – and accepted – methods of raising the topic with vanilla, or unknown, couples.
One of the more effective is to bring it up in the abstract – that is, without referencing people around you. Mention how it is portrayed on television, or in a play, or what have you. Evaluate the response and – just as with political or religious topics – decide whether or not to push the issue. And be prepared to back off – fast – at any hint of negative reaction. The idea is, whether one is a host or guest or just a good human being, not to make people around you uncomfortable.
There is a time and a place for approaching people not in the lifestyle, and the general rule, as I’ve posted earlier, is if there is any chance that it’s not appropriate, don’t do it. Virtual Symposium On Inappropriate Temptations Some Swinging Solicitations Are Not In The Cards I’ve even written about the warning signs one needs to heed when approaching lifestyle couples: Virtual Symposium on Warning Signs Unlike Sales, In Swinging Not All Deals Are Worth Closing
It would seem that the allegedly assaultive couple isn’t privy to this tactic. As the letter writer continues, “But it wasn’t until we were in their home, having a drink, that I realised how serious they are about bedding us.
“The wife asked me to come into the kitchen because she couldn’t reach something on the top shelf.
“Once in there, she pushed herself up against me and start pulling at my trousers. I was outraged and charged back into the front room, where the husband had his tongue in my partner’s ear.”
Wait – what? What? (Or, to keep with the regional theme, wot, wot?) This behavior has nothing to do with swinging: It’s sexual assault. And it’s also very, very improbable. Would a couple versed in the lifestyle really attempt this sort of clumsy – and, let’s face it, unseductive – maneuver? It simply isn’t the way mainstream swingers behave. Makes for good fiction, though.
An astute reader might notice that only two of the three alleged solicitations were listed. Maybe the letter writer ran out of creative energy?
At any rate, the writer moves on to her statement of woe: “We’ve only just moved into this village and simply thought it was a closeknit, friendly community.
“Now the woman who runs the local shop has warned us that virtually everyone is into swapping and swinging.”
Yee-haw! An entire English countryside village filled with swingers! You would have thought the gallon jar of Astrolube in the Welcome Wagon basket should have tipped them off. One has to wonder, though, how the conversation with the woman who “runs the local shop” (apparently the only one in the village) started…
Oh, and for those still clinging to a hope that this story has a shred of reality to it, consider the following information about the woman who runs the local shop: “Apparently her husband left her for the vicar’s wife after a particularly wild party up at one of the bigger houses.”
This isn’t suburban life: This is the outline for a Russ Meyer film.
Our faithful correspondent concludes: “This is not our scene at all. No wonder this place was cheap and the people we bought it from were so keen to get out and move abroad.”
Move abroad, just to get away from those degenerate swingers? I’ve written about English UK Swingers Club Fights Closure Order By Claiming Club Boosts Local Economy and French A Roundup Of French Swing Clubs Highlights What Else Food and Canadian Oh, Canada Outdoor QC Swingers Fest Has Town Leaders Scrambling For Cover swinging scenes… I’ve read about activities in Greece, throughout Asia, and all parts of the compass. It’s hard to know where the former homeowners might flee to in order to escape swinging undercurrents, except perhaps Antarctica.
Jane’s response, for what it’s worth, tells the writer to politely rebuff all advances. Fair enough (again, giving the story the benefit of validity, which doesn’t come easily). Jane acknowledges that the woman in the story might have been having some fun at the writer’s expense.
But Jane goes on to say “I’m sure it can’t be all bad. You just have to find your own people and your own level… The fact is that there is good and bad in all areas and in all communities.”
All bad? In whose eyes? Certainly not the community members, although if the general approach is the assaultive one described, yeah, that crosses the line wrong. But if being in the middle of a community that has swingers within it is bad, I suspect there aren’t many areas which would fall under the category “good.”
But all this gives the story too much credence. The initial letter doesn’t pass the sniff test. Pity it was presented as a real scenario: The lifestyle community just ain’t like that.
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