Episode 87

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Wherever you are I hope you have blue skies, a breeze on your back and sand between your toes. Welcome to That Other Lifestyle podcast. I am your host Jayson, leave Vanilla behind we talk about asshole ghosts.

This show is for adults only. We will talk about sex, relationships, the lifestyle, and Ethical non-monogamy in an honest way with lots of real talk. If you are under 18, this is your only warning to go find a different show right now. Around here, on the beaches of sex freedom, consent, education and good times, everyone is welcome, lifestyle, vanilla or the curious. Whatever your gender identity, expression, truth, flavor you are welcome here. I do my best to use inclusive language, though you may hear words like husband or wife or man or woman to keep things simple.

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Come in, come in and know me better man. I love that line. So warm and inviting and encapsulates not just the holidays but also the lifestyle in a weird way. That line is from a Christmas Carol and for the three people who have not seen it, the ghosts of Christmas present yells come in come in and know me better man when he greets Scrooge for the first time. In the scene, the Ghosts of Christmas Present is a big hulking man with a beard, reminds me of myself, who is loud and happy. The room is warmly light and there is a feast spread out before him. Have I read the book? Fuck no. But it is a yearly tradition that my wife and I watch the Muppet’s version at least once during the holidays.

There are two Christmas movies we commit to watching around the holidays. Muppet’s Christmas Carol and Arthur Christmas. Last weekend, curled up on the couch, made some spiked hot chocolate and settled in for furry nostalgia with the Muppet’s. I promise this relates to the lifestyle.

The holidays. I am determined to get this episode done this week which will be dropping on Christmas day. My present to all of you. This time of year, the lifestyle goes to sleep, goes quiet because of family and vanilla obligations so if I can provide a little heathen ray of light during the gloom of winter, draw some weird literary connections between Dickens and fuckery, that’s your present.  

I know the awkwardness of having to turn off my lifestyle persona in favor of a muted vanilla countenance. Last weekend we were at a friend’s vanilla Christmas party. Making small talk with a group of people, somehow it came up about costumes. The nice lady we were talking to wanted to throw a costume party for New Years Eve. Now this is 100% vanilla. My wife starts giving advice on where to get costumes, ideas, outfits, themes and the little circle of people were mesmerized. One of them asked where do we go to dress up like this? And my wife without missing a beat. We go to raves. We are in our forties sharing that we go to raves. The women we are talking to, blinked as their brains shut down at the realization that raves still happen.

I could see the longing in their faces at the idea of getting to dress up and party and have fun. We did not disclose the lifestyle at that moment to them. We decided to keep that under wraps at this party. It shows me how badly the vanilla world wants what we do. Even without the sex, they want the energy and the experiences that we sometimes take for granted. Then we watched the Muppet’s Christmas Carol and a line stuck in my head then I went down this rabbit hole and you are coming with me.  

Come in and know me better man. This is the welcome I want to give the vanilla world. I want to throw open the doors and roar this out to everyone. Come in and know our world better, learn about our culture, see that what we do is way more than sex in hot tubs and pineapples. Even for lifestyle couples, is there any better greeting?  Come in and get to know me, figure out if we are compatible for naked time or more. Come in and share space with me, possibly friend spaces, at a minimum a conversation.

The Christmas Carol story on the surface is about morality and generosity and learning to stop being a dickhead. But can we tease out another layer? Scrooge along his travels with the ghosts, gets ego punched in the head by all those assholes. Nothing is as it seems, there is drama and intrigue and, in the end, they get together and have a party. Yeah, let’s do this. The lifestyle Christmas Carol. Who doesn’t want to spend a whole night, talking to ghosts, running around in the cold without shoes on. I am not going to read the original book for this episode; all my research is based on Muppets Christmas Carol.

A Christmas Carol is oddly fitting for a person’s lifestyle journey. You come in hopeful, shown uncomfortable truths, possibly with puppets and songs and come out the other side better and more honest. If you have been in the lifestyle long enough, we all have ghosts that come to visit us in the middle of the night. Memories, hopes, regrets, missed connections.

Everyone thinks Scrooge was visited by three ghosts, but it was actually four. The first ghost is Jacob Marley who catches Scrooge after dinner and on his way to bed. Marley is the one who tells Scrooge he will be visited by three other ghosts that night and drags chains with him. Dragging chains, suffering in an existence that is not right for him, miserable because of the life he lived. Boom vanilla bullshit.

See Jacob Marley followed the rules. He did everything right, worked stupid hard, put success above everything else and look where he ends up. In an old man’s house, moaning and bitching about his life. When Scrooge meets Marley, what does Scrooge tell him, quote: “You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

How many times have you as a lifestyle person tried to share with vanilla people how fucking awesome the lifestyle is only to be met with snark and dismissal? They may not blamed it on undigested food but still tracks.

The symbolism here is good too. Marley is dragging chains. How many of you felt liberated after you joined the lifestyle? When you realized that oh shit we can go to raves in our forties? We can dress sexy? We can have good sex? Can you collect artistic dildos? You can talk about anal sex in the same sentence as doing your taxes.

Marley represents to me at least and now you, the vanilla world holding us back and the consequences of playing by the rules. Right here, is the consequence of letting yourself settle in, forging chains and living by someone else’s rules.

Going back to the vanilla ladies we were talking to at the party. They carry around chains of their own creation. One of the ladies said, oh we couldn’t dress up like that in tone of body self-consciousness. Why the fuck not? No one cares what you look like. We celebrate it. No need to be self-conscious. The secret is we all have stretch marks and scars and pimples and stuff. We are all human. People forge these chains of modesty or being self conscious that they don’t deserve.

Or the other idea is that we are too old for this. Who the fuck said that? I have seen 70-year-olds shuffle their happy asses into play rooms and I hope when I am 70 to still be flirting and fucking. The idea that we age out of fun is devious and pervasive. How many times in sitcoms are people in their forties called old or over the hill? I am 42 and I am in better shape now than when I was 30.

Marley represents vanilla people carrying chains of their own creation and limitations. Marley shakes his chains at Scrooge the same way vanilla people will gasp and clutch their pearls at the idea of people in their 40s. 50s and beyond actually enjoying sex, having fun and living more in three days than most people life in a year.

That is also the fear of judgement speaking here. Fear that people will not approve of what you might do for fun. Oh no people I barely know will have an opinion about what I do with my dick. People I only see once every five years at forced family functions might find out that I have fun. People who’s only connection to me are genetics might decide to pass a moral judgement about me even though them motherfuckers have enough baggage to clog an airport.

Your bitch of a Cousin Barbara, call back to last year’s holiday episode, that bitch Barbara might confront you about being a swinger at the family Christmas dinner. I have found the family members and so-called friends who are most desperate to confront you about what you do are also the ones who are either fundamentally unhappy with their lives and your happiness is a problem for them or they are nosy shitheads with nothing else to entertain themselves than to create drama.

Scrooge and Marley have a whole conversation about life and death and undigested cheese. Marley shakes his chains and warns Scrooge that we will be visited by three ghosts that night.

Scrooge has a reaction I must admit that is similar to mine. Fuck off I am going to bed. I love sleep. I love sleep almost as much as sex. And if a person told me I can’t go to bed because some ghosts are going to keep me up all night, I dare say we are going to fight. Scrooge goes to bed, all alone in his big house. When the clock strikes 10, shit gets weird.

The Ghosts of Past Fuckery does not slide in gracefully. It does not tiptoe into your bedroom and wake you up gently. This is the ghosts that will kick in the door at 2:37am on a Tuesday with a bottle of fireball in one hand and a big black dildo, yelling about it’s time to make bad decisions motherfucker. Then you are laying awake, staring at the ceiling while this one sits on the side of the bed listing off all the places you should not have put your penis.

This is the ghost that makes you cringe. This is the ghost that reminds you of how badly your first dating app profile was written, remember when you said, just looking for fun. Everyone is looking for fun; that’s not a good profile.

This rat bastard will remind you of that time you were at dinner with a new couple and you were so nervous you were shaking and then you accidentally spilled a whole bottle of saki on the table and freaked out trying to clean it. Everyone remembers that and stared at you.

This is the ghost who will remind you of that one time your dick didn’t work and everyone remembers that and stared at you. Or maybe you had a particularly strong bout of vaginal flatulence. I went and looked up the proper term for queefing. Not what I was expecting.

Or that time you were at a house party and walked into the glass back door twice, leaving two separate smears of makeup. Everyone remembers that and stared at you. Or that time you were so drunk on fireball you loudly told a woman she would need a wheelchair to leave that hotel after you go done fucking her. I did that. That one was me. Fireball whiskey causes me to lose all sense of eloquence and decorum.

This ghost is petty, little bitch of a phantom. It reminds you all the stuff you did and all the stuff you didn’t do. The times you should have asked, the times you should have apologized, the times you should have known or grown as a person. Kick that motherfucker in the head.

Even though it does deserve a kick in the head, this is the ghost that will teach you humility, compassion, and find humor in life. We will all do dumb things. The consolation is that people don’t remember them, people don’t care and you will learn to laugh about them one day.

Despite this creepy fucker hanging out on the side of your bed, the important thing to remember is, this is not you today. This is the past. It is not here to punish you, it is here to remind you that everyone starts out as an awkward, underprepared newbie with too much confidence.

The Ghost of Christmas Past drags Scrooge, in his nightclothes, back through old rooms and old memories to show him all the ways he fucked up, the times he hardened his heart instead of softened, all the paths he could have taken. That hot woman at that party, should have talked to her. That text you go asking about what your plans are for this weekend? Should have answered. That time someone asked you about your play style, yeah they were hitting on you and you didn’t catch it.

Our minds can do the same thing without supernatural assistance. We don’t need chains and candlelight for this. Just quiet moments, taking a shower, 3am and you can’t sleep, staring at the ceiling fan spin then your brain goes, remember this? Let’s relive it in stunning 4k.

I am guilty of this to the point of rumination and ruin. Last time it happened, someone texted me in the middle of the night and broke me out of it which was one of the kindest acts another person can do and they have no idea. Like getting a mystery present on Christmas morning.

Here’s the shift that makes this ghost a little less scary. The lesson is not to banish the ghost, you run that motherfucker off with by recognizing the win for what it is, a record of your growth. If you would not make the same fuck ups you would when you started in the lifestyle, congratulations, personal growth. You don’t need to keep reliving these moments because they won’t change. Take the lesson, take the humility and give yourself compassion. Then tell the ghosts to shut up and let you sleep. You can’t sleep for long enough because good news.

The fun ghost will visit you next. The Ghost of Christmas Present. My guy. The ghost that will text you on a Tuesday night and ask if you want to go to a sex club even though you have work tomorrow. This is the ghost who will offer you to sleep in their room for a hotel takeover. This is the ghost who will convince you that yes, that man over there wants to fuck you and you should go talk to him about it. Jolly, happy, this is the ghost who will do shots with you on your birthday. Everything is a good idea when this ghost is around.

If the ghosts of Christmas Past offers fireball whiskey, this is the one that offers tequila.

And yeah, in the Christmas Carol story, the ghost takes scrooge around town to show him all the people talking shit about him, but the ghost is also taking scrooge to a couple of house parties in one day. This ghost doesn’t give a shit that it is Christmas day and people are with their families, he is horny and looking for trouble.

This ghost embodies that feral fun energy we get when we are in the flow state of fuckery. The freedom. The connection with other people. People don’t how much I cherish mid sex conversations, that time between the frantic first round and the second round, that space of time where we are naked and there are no artificial boundaries between people, its beautiful. Very hard to put on a mask when your dick is out.

Recently had this happen between me and woman, I can’t remember what we talked about, I kept on kissing her, not sexually, just happy. It’s a sacred space we can enjoy that looks so bizarre to the outside world. Four people talking, naked, for shame. The ability to laugh during sex, make jokes while we are fucking is a rare gift from the lifestyle.

You know you have true good friends in this when you can laugh during sex. I found one night stands to be too serious, like a military operation. Get in, extract the target and get out. Get dressed and bolt. Now I am getting sentimental here because I am listening to Christmas carols while I write.

That song Where are you Christmas always brings a tear to my eye. Look we are not close to our families for reasons, probably because my side of the family listens to this show and how much shit I talk about them. I have already told everyone I have one vanilla friend. Beyond that, our whole social life and friends are lifestyle. I would rather spend Christmas morning with our lifestyle tribe than forced miserable interaction with family. I wish I had a ghost friend who would give me a ride to go visit everyone on Christmas day.

We did not throw a big lifestyle Christmas party this year, maybe next year. Timing and other parties going on, we couldn’t carve out a Saturday for ourselves and friends. We have thrown those parties, I loved them. Getting everyone together, the decorations, the lights. Seeing people free and happy together. We crank up Christmas songs even though inevitably someone will change the playlist to EDM. We exchange spicy presents. We drink and sing and enjoy a bit of light in this dark season.

For the Christmas parties, I hang a sign on the door, come in and know me better man. 95% sure no one else gets that reference but me. To me though, it means a lot. It means welcome, it means come in and join us, it means I share my table with friends. I share what I have, my home, with others. I have the sign. It’s in my office.

It means a lot to me in a weird way. A lady who attended our first party, I asked her to write the sign on a green piece of paper because she had pretty handwriting, like a school teacher. I have horrible man handwriting, she even added a little heart. That sign is bittersweet, because we don’t talk to that couple anymore. Haven’t seen them in two years.

I keep it because one it is a nice sign and the other, it is a warning to myself, a tangible memory and warning of what could happen in the lifestyle. Connections fray, friendships explode, people drift. Egos flare and humans will be humans unlike single minded ghosts. I keep that sign to remind me that nothing is permanent in this, like the Ghost of Christmas Present.

The funny aspect to this ghost is that it brings abundance and opportunity and visibility, indifferent to your ego. We will call this non-personalized abundance. This ghost was going to have a party in Scrooge’s house whether Scrooge woke up for it or not.

There are plenty of people at a  house party, but you may not be the focus, even if it’s your house where you pay the mortgage. There is plenty of sex, none of it promised to you. Plenty of connection but you still must show up. This ghost brings the warmth of the season but you still must be willing to defrost and enjoy it.

The other layer, this is the ghost that checks in on you, doesn’t stop you. You sure you want that next shot? Alright. You sure you want to go yell at that woman you want to fuck her? Okay have fun. Don’t do that. The shock on that woman’s face was not worth it. This ghost doesn’t haunt you like that other asshole, but it monitors you. Your favorite bad influence who is technically never wrong.

This ghost will lead you into wild times and then fucking abandon you. He is a dick. He will leave your happy ass in the hotel parking lot at 3am to wonder how the fuck you ended up here, where you are sleeping tonight and if your spouse is mad at you.

I will mumble randomly to myself, I have a weird life. It’s a mental note to myself. Like planting a flag in my brain to recognize how out of the ordinary what we do really fucking is. Be it realizing that I burned 450 calories during an hour of fucking which is a lot. Or standing on the beach in Destin smoking a cigar at 4am in the morning. Or being surrounded by like seven naked women who need help putting on lingerie. I have a weird fucking life, and the ghost of Christmas Present is the one constantly telling me come in and know me better man. Come get in trouble with me.

But he is not the one that lingers. By the end of the Second arc of the story, the ghost of Christmas Present is fading away because the present is always temporary. The fun moments we enjoy are always temporary unfortunately and when the clock strikes midnight, we are alone again to live with our choices, our actions, our regrets and our wants.

Scrooge goes back to sleep and at the stroke of midnight shit gets weird and intense. In all the versions of Christmas Carol, they try to make the Ghost of Christmas Future scary and foreboding, grim reaper type symbology. This is the Ghost that is intended to scare Scrooge into being a better person by showing him the error of his ways. For us, this is the hangover ghost, waking up the morning after a hotel takeover, your head pounding, your genitals sore and looking for your recovery bag.  

The Ghost of Christmas Future is completely silent. He never makes a sound like the lifestyle when it gets too heavy. There is no crash, there is no yelling, no bombastic explosions, it just gets heavy for a little while, quiet. Invites stop, chats die off, you stop getting propositioned. It’s a gradual process, like a pond freezing over.

There is doubt. You are not really sure if you want to keep going. Not really sure if it is even worth it. The once bright and warm light of a feast has dimmed, the food is cold now, the cups are empty. You are alone save for a shadow of what could be, a fate we convince ourselves we locked into. Somehow, we broke the lifestyle. We froze over and can’t quite figure out when the temperature started to drop.

This ghost is not here for one bad night, one awkward moment, one drunken decision. This ghost is a record keeper, watching for the same choices made repeatedly, boundaries within yourself you allowed others to violate, boundaries in your marriage you decided to push, recording every time you went so hard in the lifestyle you tripped and fell. The future fuckery ghosts isn’t mad about what you did once, it is curious why you keep doing.

In the story, the ghost takes Scrooge, again in his night clothes which sticks with me because I hate the cold and I will bitch so bad if I am cold, through a graveyard and shows everyone ransacking his house. That is an asshole thing to show someone.

This ghost shows us lifestyle people something too. It is not saying you are doomed right now, it is a warning. This ghost shows us the lifestyle graveyard of burned out couples, burned out people, spent, used, discarded. Empty calendars either by accident or design. It shows the folly of going too hard or not hard enough. It stalks the land of those who allowed the lifestyle to ruin them. It is a warning dressed in black rags. The scariest fact this ghosts can show us is boredom and apathy.

Even with this darkness, there is hope. This is the most hopeful of all the ghost because while the past is locked in, the present doesn’t give a shit, this one offers us hope. The hope it gives is a way to enjoy the lifestyle long term in a healthy way, with healthy connections and a healthy marriage. Yes this spirit is meant to be scary and intimidating but it doesn’t have to be. We can learn from it. We can learn from others. I am not saying change our ways like Scrooge but we can figure out what we want from the lifestyle so we can be here for the sunrise.

This ghost is choice, nothing is locked in with this shifty asshole, because he isn’t saying this is the set future, this is a possibility. Your lifestyle experience could look like a graveyard if you avoid hard conversations, novelty without integrity or ignore boundaries. Here lies those who did not communicate, those who allowed resentment to grow, those who lost the spark of compersion, jealousy, anger and of course apathy.

The sun will rise on Christmas morning. Every dark spell in the lifestyle will end. New friends will come along, old friends will come back, wounds heal, and everyone gets a goose.

Another connection. I am finding these things left and right. The party at the end. Everyone comes together in an honest real way. The rich and the poor. Granted I would wander what the fuck was my boss doing at my door on Christmas morning too. The fact that we can come together regardless of socioeconomic backgrounds and just exist together in an inviting space speaks to one of the core philosophies of lifestyle.

We are all equal here. No one is their job. No one is their bank account. I have seen people try to flex their wealth in this and no one gives a shit. Does your dick work is way more important than how much money a person made last year.

How many of us out here can overlay our own journey to this story? Hopeful newbies to wild feral swingers to the couple standing at the party in the corner wondering what the fuck are we doing here? To go from craving an orgy, fucking four women in one night and then deciding, meh, rather be watching tv. The beauty of a Christmas Carol is it shows a redemption arc. It shows Scrooge throughout his life first as a joyful adult then an asshole and then screaming at children in the street.

Did all this make sense? Probably not. Did I get way too excited about writing an episode around one line from a Muppet movie? Yes.

I am not sure if I will do an episode next week. We will be at the Risque New Year’s Eve party in Baton Rouge Louisiana so I don’t know if I will have time. Tickets are available at risquelifestyleparties.com. Come party with us and let’s end 2025 in style. Fuck 2025 a running. Let’s toast to better days, better weather and better times. 2026 will be epic. I can feel it in my bones.

You may not hear me again till 2026. 2026. It’s so fucking close, I can feel it just a few more days and the universe will turn again. 2025 has been the worst year of my life, worse than the year we lost everything in a flood, worse than the year my father died. This has been a rough year for a lot of people I know for a lot of reasons. And I am happy to see it end.

I say Happy new year to you and I mean it. I hope you have a good year. I hope 2026 is an awesome year for you and me. We will all know success and peace and love and good health. We will grow as humans. We will learn to cherish those we have, learn to love those we meet and find comfort in the laughter of others. If there is a balance to the universe then 2026 will balance out all the misery of 2025. For every down there is an up.

If you have listened to this show since the beginning, binged every episode to catch up or told a friend about my unpolished, honest, raw podcast, I thank you. It is the best present you could give me. This show is here to share the good, the bad, the ugly and weird parts of the lifestyle and I try to do that as best I can.  

I am grateful to everyone who listens, reaches out, gave me a hug at a party, shared their own stories with me or just quietly nods along to my ramblings while driving, folding laundry or lying awake at night feeling a little less alone. This show is not about sex, it is about connection. The lifestyle doesn’t belong to the loudest or prettiest people, or the ones who never fuck up. It does not belong to those who assign arbitrary rules to our experience.

It belongs to the humans, the people who are curious, stay kind and committed, communicate and remember it is about connection, not conquest. It belongs to humans who can be fucked up, fragile or complicated. This show is for those who want more from the lifestyle and need to know they are not alone in that desire.

So as the year ends and lights go down for a little bit, the season gets quiet, take care of yourselves. Take care of your partners and friends. Take care of those who are riding this big blue ball through the universe. And when you are ready, when the season turns again, come in. Come in and know me better.

If you want to reach out, ask a question, suggest a topic, send me an email to host@thatotherlifestyle.com. My 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. difference.  Go to STDHero.com, use my promo code TOL15 for 15% your order and get tested.

Whatever you may do today or tonight, I hope you do it with enthusiasm, consent, curiosity and a little bit of spice. You are appreciated, loved and I will see you for the next episode.