Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Wherever you are I hope you have blue skies and let’s talk about a weird idea rolling around in my brain. Welcome to That Other Lifestyle podcast. I am your host Jayson, leave Vanilla behind as we dive into the Lifestyle.
Had a thought rolling around in my brain for a while. You know one of those pesky ideas that you keep coming back to and the more you think about it, the more sense it makes like dipping French fries into ice cream or if I actually go to bed early I will be well rested the next day. This week let’s talk about the lifestyle as a freemium game.
Want to dip your toes into the lifestyle or make the switch to a new adult social site. You can find a link to sign up for a trial account of SDC on my website, thatotherlifestyle.com.
If you are a Single Man looking to join the Lifestyle, not sure where to start I can help. I made a whole course to get you started, tell you exactly what to do and how. I share all the secrets and tips and tricks. There is not a lot of resources out there for Single Men in the Lifestyle and I hope this course can help at least one person be successful.
Speaking of courses, I am currently working on the Men’s Guide to Flirting in the Lifestyle. We do everything different in the Lifestyle including flirting. Whether you are a man who has not flirted with anyone besides your wife for the past 20 years or you jumped in with no idea how to talk to women, I got help for you. The course will take you through how to start a conversation, how to keep a conversation going and I will share the intricacies of how to flirt. There are a lot of self-proclaimed dating gurus and experts out there but guess what? They don’t tell you how to flirt in the Lifestyle.
Is it too early for rant on this? No. My show, I do what I want. I am researching this course, watching and taking the advice of other people on this topic. Dudes, my guys out there, women are not computers that you can use one psychological trick to get them naked. This is fucking bullshit. The amount of bad advice or decent advice presented through this veneer of scummy and sketchy presentation, is disgusting. Fucking sketch.
My course is not going to present women as a rubix cube that has to be solved. My course will present women as what they are, humans. Humans you have to communicate with as an adult while being respectful of them as people. Not computers that need to be hacked. Anyway. Moving on to a happy topics.
Did you hear about National Lifestyle Weekend in Las Vegas next year? July 19-21, three hotel takeovers, topless pools. Afterparties all over town. If you have never been to Las Vegas now is your chance to go with thousands of Lifestyle couples from all over the world. A link to buy tickets is on my website, Thatotherlifesytle.com. I don’t want to cite specific ticket prices because you may listen to this episode in the future when the ticket prices will increase, and I look like an ass. Price is the price it is now, it is a good price and the price will go up in the future so get your tickets early. There. That makes sense right. All the details for the event are available on SDC.com.
Please note this podcast is intended only for adults. Not safe for work. We will talk about adult or sexual topics, and I will use salty language, often. This content is for entertainment purposes only and again only for those over 18 years of age.
I also try to be as inclusive with my language and terms as I can. It can be challenging to formulate and write and say all the inclusive terms in every instance. For simplicity's sake and time management, I may use terms like husband or wife or partner, or spouse for the purpose of the narrative I am sharing. This podcast is for everyone though, no matter your background, gender identity, gender expression, or whatever truth you may be living. Everyone is welcome no matter how you personally experience the lifestyle and ethical non-monogamy.
It is 3am as I start writing this script. I do my best thinking and rambling early in the morning. The world is quiet and dark. I have a cat on my desk who insists on both cuddling my arm and biting me in quick succession. I didn’t mean to wake up so early. I woke up and got excited about writing this episode and then couldn’t go back to sleep. Writing out this episode, figuring out all these connections is fun for me. I dig it. This will be one of those cultural episodes about the Lifestyle. A look, a connection, an observation about our shared culture in the LS.
I know I am not the only one awake right now. I know out there, someone is wide awake, can’t sleep currently holding their cell phone, six inches away from their face, minutes creep by sleep is lost as they click and peck on a freemium game.
It might be colored jewels or a mighty quest. The little awards and trophies of the game incentivizing them to reach the next level or unlock a new character. Bright colors and digitized audio rewards. The comforting chirp or crash of success. These games are addictive. They make you want to chase the next level, the next high. Your progress gives you a little bump of happiness. Someone is out there locked in the dopamine cycle of an addictive freemium game.
Do you know what a freemium game is? The term originated with video games.
According to Google AI, because I asked my tablet, and this is what it told me
A freemium game is a game that is free to download and play but has optional in-app purchases that can unlock additional features or progress. The term "freemium" is a combination of the words "free" and "premium"
Back up on this one.
There are different types of games. There are single player games. I the player buy a game, and I play that game to my heart’s content. I used to be a gamer. I could spend hours zoned out on the couch. I have spent hours zoned out on the couch. I have bought new consoles for a single game. I say used to because when we started the LS, yeah that hobby stopped. If my choices are run around medieval England pretending to be a Viking or real life boobies, boobies win.
The Lifestyle will make demands of your time, and you have choices of what to spend your precious free time on and I went with titties, my gamer habit falling by the wayside years ago.
There are multiplayer video games where I buy the game, and I have the same experience as everyone else playing the game with me. Join together for a match, have virtual social interaction then call it a night.
There are massive multi player online games like world of warcraft is the most famous, where I buy the game, I experience the game with other people, and we all have a similar experience in the game based on how we play.
Then there are freemium games. This term is usually applied to games you play on your phone, like Candy Crush. The free part is that it is completely free to download and play the game. In order to advance in the game though you may have to pay money. If you can’t beat a level, throw a dollar out there and get a hint or a cheat. Not a lot of money. Maybe there is a pesky timer holding up your progress and the game says, give us a nickel and you can get through this barrier right now instead of waiting. No one likes to wait, come on, give us a nickel. It’s just a nickel. Give us ten dollars and you can have this crate full of gold and jewels and stuff.
These games by nature are super addictive with flashing colors and rewards every five minutes. This is the same science as a slot machine in a casino, you keep putting in dollars in the hopes of winning big. Have you seen slot machines now? Full on video playing, animated buttons, a cacophony of lines and flashing lights.
Just so you know when you win free spins on a slot machine, the machine has already calculated the amount you will win and that’s just there to increase your feelings of interactivity, like you actually have any control over the outcome. Which you don’t.
This is all based on something called operant conditioning chamber or the easy name to remember and pronounce, a skinner box, named after the guy who created it named, dramatic pause, B.F. Skinner. Turns out Mr. Skinner does not like his experiment and methods to be referred to as a Skinner Box, but I am pretty sure he ain’t listening, so I am going to run with skinner box instead of operant conditioning chamber which is too many syllables to repeat.
From Wikipedia “An operant conditioning chamber, or skinner box, allows researchers to study animal behavior and response to conditioning. They do this by teaching an animal to perform certain actions (like pressing a lever) in response to specific stimuli. When the correct action is performed the animal receives positive reinforcement in the form of food or other reward. In some cases, the chamber may deliver positive punishment to discourage incorrect responses.”
To expand this out further, if I want you to do an action, like put a dollar into a slot machine or spend a dollar on a freemium game, I will give you a little reward, maybe a virtual gem or a flashing light. Your brain then wants more of that reward, so you put in another dollar. Before you know it you are broke and craving another hit of dopamine.
You will do the action in order to receive a reward, basic positive reinforcement. It is even better when the reward has no true value, like a virtual gem in a video game because that doesn’t cost the creator of the game anything. After a while you will start dropping in coins or time or something of value, just for the chance to receive a possible reward. If I do x then y should happen, or Y will happen eventually because it has to right?
Freemium games take this concept even further. If you want to play this game it is completely free. I know you have seen the ads on You tube for these kind of games. You download the game and instantly get rewarded in air quotes with free stuff. Sweet. You start playing the game. Then you hit a roadblock. Maybe the game has an arbitrary timer on when you could perform an action. Let’s say you cannot interact with the game for 5 minutes. But you want that hit of dopamine and the virtual trophy, so you spend a dollar, real leafy greeny spendy money, in order to reduce the timer or get immediate gratification.
These games want you to devote every available minute you have to playing. The more you play, the more money the game could potentially earn from you. What’s the harm in spending five minutes waiting to pick up your kid from school? What’s the harm in spending a few minutes before bed clicking on imaginary characters?
These games are by nature addictive. Game Monetization Strategy is the ugly hybrid child of science and marketing that informs the design of these games. The game will introduce an element of randomness and make you think, if I try this time I might get rewarded. Well those previous 20 times didn’t work so logically I am due for a reward this time.
By nature these games are designed to short circuit our human brain and go straight to the lizard brain. You want to participate to chase the next high, you think this time I am due based on my immaculate understanding of probabilities. If I achieve the next level, good things will happen.
What the hell does this have to do with the Lifestyle? Well the Lifestyle, as I see it is a freemium game. Is it addictive? Yes. Can we join for free? Yes. Do you have to spend money to get laid or win in this case? Logically no. Do we have to engage with this every day to be successful? Maybe.
To join the Lifestyle is completely free. At the basic level, yes anyone can join. Wake up tomorrow morning and say welp we are now into ethical or consensual non monogamy. Yah. Cool. That cost nothing. All you have to do is stand in your front door at 8am and yell out “I am now going to fuck people I am not married too”. Very specifically 8am, that is when other swingers drive around to take note of who is in the club.
Congratulations, you downloaded the game. You are now in the club. Now what? I guess we have to meet people in order to indulge in our heathen lifestyle. Now we must get out there. As I write this, I realize this is one of those weird intersection points.
New coupes having no idea of where to go and how to meet people, unaware of the entire ecosystems of business. A new couple will go online research how to meet other people into consensual non-monogamy, come across articles online about the secret swinger symbols which are written by vanilla people who don’t understand what we do, thereby perpetuating the myths of secret jewelry or code words.
The new couple goes to a bar, looks for all the secret symbols, mentally questions every single person they see, then goes home empty handed because they followed bad advice from vanilla people they found online.
Lacking any kind of lifestyle social network, you have to spend money. A little bit every month to sign up for one of the adult social network sites. The whole world opens up. Like in a video game when you get past the tutorial and the game lets you loose onto a whole new continent.
Again to be in the lifestyle you don’t have to spend money. To meet people, you don’t have to spend money, but it certainly helps. You could get lucky and stumble your way into a conversation with another spicy couple who then hold your hand and lead you to other people and other tribes of people. It could happen if you are lucky. But who has time for luck, spend a few dollars and skip that part.
Let’s say you make a profile, meet a few local couples but they aren’t really what you are looking for. Next thought well let’s go to a meetup. A free meetup at a bar. Not really free cause you may have to pay a babysitter and then there is the drink cost. That’s okay, throw a few more dollars into this.
You do the meetup thing and strike out. That’s okay, let’s go to the next level. Hotel takeover. You try that, no luck. Damn it, screw it. Let’s go all in and go on a cruise. You could spend 20,000 dollars on a luxury trip around the Mediterranean Sea and never get laid. You could spend 0 dollars, go to a local bar and stumble into an orgy.
In the Lifestyle, the amount of money we spend is completely separate from our potential success. Yes you can spend the money directly on sex but that is something different than the lifestyle that I ain’t going to explain to you.
No amount of money you spend on Lifestyle experiences will guarantee you will have sex. Zero. Spending money does not increase your chances of getting laid.
The Lifestyle is a freemium game because you can get addicted to it. You can spend too much time and energy and bandwidth and money on this hobby. You can devote everything to this and still not get fucked. No matter how much money you have, no matter how much you give to this hobby, it does not mean that you will get luckier than someone who spends nothing besides just showing up. And really in the LS, just showing up is half the battle. Just like downloading that game. Connections.
With all that said, I believe that yes you may have to spend money in order to fully experience the lifestyle but not as much as you think. Not in the way you think. I can’t guarantee anyone will get laid.
Looking at this from a macro level, we have a decentralized subculture of people that all have the same goal, get fucked, and absolutely no guarantee of success. Just to level set here, success is getting fucked. Doesn’t matter if you drive five hours to another state for a takeover, it does not mean you will find anyone at that event who wants to have sex with you.
The Lifestyle can open so many doors to amazing opportunities. You can have experiences you never knew existed in the vanilla world. That’s what it should be about though. The experiences, not the potential. Shift the thinking from, if I spend this money on this event, I will have sex. Change it too, I am spending this money on this experience with the potential of possibly sexy times happening. That shift puts into perspective what is worth prioritizing in the lifestyle.
For experiences you could either look at it as budgeting and saving money for an experience or flip it around to we are prioritizing the experiences we want to enjoy and saving towards that goal.
That’s a big difference in how we frame this. Everyone has to budget in some way in order to afford the parties and events and stuff in the Lifestyle. The other way of thinking about it is, I need to prioritize what I want to do, the aspects of the lifestyle that are important to me and what I am willing to spend money on.
In the freemium games, they usually like to work on your feeling of impatience. You want to build this castle over here, well that is going to take eight hours, or you could spend a nickel now, get it done immediately and continue playing the game. In the Lifestyle, despite lacking any kind of central intelligence, the hobby attacks our sense of FOMO constantly. Oh I don’t want to miss out on this party, so I need to spend money to attend. Connections.
FOMO is okay in tiny bits. If you have a genuine fear of missing out on fun, just the fun of the event, go for it. But if you have FOMO thinking well I am missing out on the potential to have sex with people, no. No matter how much you spend on an event, it does not guarantee you will get laid.
I have heard and talked too and heard from other people, about the rampant disappointment people will feel when they invest time and energy and money into an event and don’t get to do the horizontal cardio. You went into this event with expectations that were outside your control and now you have the sad.
What you should have done is prioritize the experience you want to have and let the sex be a fun bonus if it happens.
Besides FOMO why do people do this? You are paying to level up various aspects of the Lifestyle. We went on a cruise earlier this year. It was our first cruise ever. We wanted to go on a cruise. The fact that it was Lifestyle was an added bonus. For us, we wanted to experience a cruise, we wanted a cruise that was not congested with families and kids, and we wanted to be around other lifestyle people. We did not go into it with a plan. We had no desire to meet any new couples on the trip. For us, the lifestyle offered a way we could get our whole checklist via an experience.
With the LS, there are certainly levels to the experiences and aspects you can have. And people will spend money on perceived benefits of those experiences. Depending on what you are looking for, those benefits may have caveats.
One aspect people will pay money for is privacy. The freedom to go to a location that is only LS people, away from the vanilla world for a more private experience than the local bar on Saturday night. Think like a resort. You are paying money to go to a dedicated Lifestyle space, which allows you freedom to do whatever you want in the way you want. This is a good thing. I can get behind this. It goes along with paying for the experience not the potential.
You and your spouse are taking a vacation. Yall are going to a nice place to relax and unwind in a beautiful location with other like-minded people. So you look at an LS resort. True the potential to have sex with other people is there, but the focus should be on having a nice vacation first.
You are exchanging money for privacy. More privacy than your local environment can provide. To some people, which is a worthy trade. They may have public jobs or just don’t want to deal with people finding out about their hobby.
The next aspect people will pay for is the exclusivity of the event. This is where we start talking about big money. Thousands of dollars to go to exclusive events with other people who are able to spend thousands of dollars on an event at a faraway location.
You are trading money for exclusiveness. This is not a bad thing. If you can afford it and want it, go for it. Keep in mind that the money you are paying does not guarantee you will be surrounded by beautiful people just looking to jump fuck you.
The other aspect people will pay for is discretion. This is where sex clubs come in. I pay money at the door in order to party in an environment that offers discretion and protection from the vanilla world. You could stumble into a dive bar where no one knows you and be discreet. And then suddenly our 1st grade teacher walks in and bust you with your hands down another woman’s pants.
Or you go to a sex club where everyone is in the club, everyone knows the etiquette, and there is very little chance of vanilla people accidently coming into the club. Yes your 1st grade teacher may be there, but she is there doing the same thing you are so again there is discretion.
Ain’t going to sugar coat this, this hobby can be expensive. Between hotels and travel and time and energy, yeah it all adds up. That’s where I come back to prioritizing what is important to you and what you want to spend your money and time on.
There are cost saving measures you can try. Going to a hotel takeover, splitting a room with friends. Go shopping for costumes at thrift stores or wait till post Halloween sales and rack up.
For dates with other couples, y’all know you don’t have to go to dinner and drinks. You are adults you can do whatever in the hell sounds fun. Go play mini-golf instead. Go for a picnic on a Sunday afternoon.
When you are considering attending an event, let’s say a hotel takeover because we went to Risqué Lifestyle party last weekend. It was fantastic as always. If you are curious, I posted a super cute pic of my wife’s outfit in my group on SDC, called That Other Lifestyle. Go join. The takeover was back to school themed so my wife, because she is a beast at costumes, recreated Cher’s yellow plaid outfit from the movie Clueless. If you don’t know what I am talking about, go google it. Then she made a gender swapped 90s inspired version for me.
Anyway, Risqué takeovers. For us they are worth the money. This is how I vet an event, just using Risqué as an example.
First question, how long is the event? Is it two hours long and I have to drive two hours there? That’s a hard sell bud. Is the venue private? As in is this going to be at a vanilla bar, and we are just crashing it, or will there be a dedicated LS space?
Next question, cover or ticket price. Is the ticket price worth what I am getting. At Risqué, one ticket covers both of us and we get the possibility of 14 hours of partying over two nights. That’s worth it. For sex clubs, is the price of admission worth it to you? Remember you are paying money to be there, with no guarantee to get laid. Is getting laid your highest priority? I recommend going on dates if it is.
At a sex club, you are at the mercy of the crowd that night and whether or not you can make a connection. At least on a date, there are much better odds.
What else? Does it include a hotel room or is that a separate price? Yes you need somewhere to sleep. You could try to raw dog life and show up and hope someone lets you crash in their room. Oddly that works. We as a group tend to sleep and gather like a bunch of broke college students, using any available flat surface to sleep it off before we head home.
That’s the monetary side of this freemium discussion. Let’s talk about addiction. Womp womp heavy subject. Just as you can get addicted to a freemium game and those little virtual trophies, you can get addicted to the lifestyle.
The attention, the chatting, the nudes, the encounters, the sex, higher and higher, chasing that dragon. When we started and we got our first nude from another couple, I could hear my pulse in my ears. I was nervous as hell. Looking over at my wife, looking for reassurance that this is okay. Hands shaking from excitement. And the first nude I took. Wasn’t even naked, just a shirtless pic in the mirror at the gym.
Yall before we started this, I didn’t take selfies of any kind. We got wholesome vanilla pics from vacations but just shirtless Jayson flexing in a gym mirror. No. Did not happen. And now I am fully comfortable walking around naked and happy as can be.
That initial rush when we got our first nude, that adrenaline rush is addictive. Then you want another hit. And then another. Pretty soon, full on butthole pics, ain’t enough. Then there is the sexting, the words you are typing, which is another episode by itself.
And then the physical interaction. Kissing gets the blood pumping at first then seeing your first naked person in front of you. More adrenaline. Then the sex. Then more sex. Then group sex.
Yep, addictive. Chasing that dragon, looking for an even greater high every time. Fair warning, there is a point where the lifestyle can consume you. I have heard the horror stories. You dive in too deep and can’t get out. You chase that high so hard you leave your spouse behind. It happens. Just like those damn freemium games demanding your time and attention, the lifestyle is the same way.
If you feel that you are stuck in that dopamine loop of crazy heathen fun and you need to stop. My only recommendation is to go cold turkey. Step away from the LS for a month, three months. Allow your brain to become sensitized to the LS. If you get to the point that you don’t smile anymore when you get random nudes, you need to step back. If the LS is causing marital problems, you need to step back. It is just like deleting the app on your phone. Bop. One click and it is done. Same with the Lifestyle. Delete the apps. Take a step back. Refocus on yourself.
What’s wild is we do this to ourselves. At least with a game, I can point to a creator or owner of that game. They purposefully create a product designed to illicit these reactions in its users. The Lifestyle lacks that. There is no central intelligence driving all this. There are no great governing board or corporate overlords of the lifestyle. Which is pretty damn cool that this culture can exist and evolve free of interference.
But the Lifestyle lacks that. And yet there is a connection, there are similarities there.
Have the experiences you want in the Lifestyle. No where else can you get the same opportunities of freedom and fun that you can in the Lifestyle. But just like a freemium game, there is a cost. Money, time, attention. There is a cost for all our heathen fun. You have to find the balance you are comfortable with, your spouse is comfortable with and prioritize the aspects of the LS that are important to y’all.
The sun is coming up and I am happy to spend this beautiful morning with all of you. If you want to connect with me, you can send comments on You tube, go to my website and send me an email, I am on SDC.com as well.
Single guys, I know you are out there. Get my course, save yourself from having to stumble around for years not knowing what to do. Level up. Ha! Reference back to the topic I talked about. The website is thatotherlifestyle.com.
My personal disclaimer, I am not a medical professional nor a trained and certified educator of any kind in any way. I am a guy with a microphone, sharing my personal experiences with you. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only and please join us for the next episode.
Whatever you may do today, I hope it is a fantastic time doing it. Know that you are appreciated and loved. Have a great day.
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