At first glance, Bob & Tess Hannaford wouldn’t strike you as your typical party promoters, and you’d be right. With indefatigable smiles they seem to treat everyone they meet as if they were old friends. Bob speaks with the warmth and wit of your best friend delivering a wedding toast. Hearing Tess laugh, it’s difficult to resist the urge to hug her. If you didn’t know better you might think you had just met the nice married couple who owned that corner bakery in your hometown, rather than the masterminds behind some of the largest, sexiest and most innovative lifestyle events in the country.

They are the owners of French Connection Events, and they are raising the bar when it comes to national (and international) lifestyle travel.

Kasidie had the pleasure of sitting down with Bob Hannaford, the right side of the brain that is French Connection Events.

KASIDIE: Let’s start at the beginning. How did you and Tess meet?

BOB: We met in college. Were were two young and crazy art students. I had never kissed a single woman in my whole life. Tess definitely had me beat there.

KASIDIE: You mean Tess had kissed more women?

BOB: [Laughs] Well, both sides of the rainbow. She had more experience than I did. She had actually been engaged and had lots of boyfriends and had experimented when she was young with different women. So when we met she was a very experienced person and I was a very inexperienced person. But we became best friends throughout college. It was after we became friends that we got together romantically and quickly moved on from there.

KASIDIE: Why hadn’t you ever kissed a girl before?

BOB: I was a shy religious person. It was a tough decision whether to go to art school or to… well… not seminary school, because I wasn’t catholic. But I was looking to get a degree in religious studies and instead I went to art school. So, Tess found me as a very shy, insecure christian zealot. I guess she robbed me of my morals and quite changed my life. We dated a couple of years, then we got married.

KASIDIE: How did you end up in the lifestyle?

BOB: I guess there was an innate curiosity in me to know what other women would be like, since I’d only been with one in my life. Tess was very experimental and she actually approached me about the idea. First she said, “Bob, you need to sit down.” So I sat. Then she says, “What I’m about to tell you doesn’t mean I love you any less.” I started freaking out! Her big surprise was, “I’d like to bring a girl home one night and see what that’s like” So I said, “I have to sit down for this!?” So I stood up and started doing cartwheels.

KASIDIE: (laughing) You really did cartwheels?

BOB: Yeah. But afterward I asked, “Well how on earth will we find a girl like that? Where do we go, where do we start? How do we look?” In those days we didn’t have the internet. Tess says, “Well you know our neighbor? She’s coming over tonight if that’s okay. I’ve already arranged it all.” And that’s how it started. We’ve been together 23 years now… almost 24… I’ll have to do the math there. It was a long time ago. But at that time we still didn’t have the internet to meet people. We were just fucking our friends.

KASIDIE: How on earth did you broach that subject with friends?

BOB: Well we didn’t know that there was a subculture out there of other people like us. We just had friends over and had a few drinks… One thing led to another and we’d tell them about our crazy time with our other friends and then they would say “Hey, lets give that a try!”

KASIDIE: Did that ever backfire on you?

BOB: Not so much. There were a few couples that afterwards said something like, “I can’t believe we just did that! That was so crazy! Oh my God, what were we thinking?!” And Tess and I thought, “I dunno, we thought it was pretty cool” A few friends we never progressed with but some became regular partners for many years.

KASIDIE: Did any couples actually straight out say: “No”?

Bob : Oh yeah of course. A couple people. Yeah we can’t all bat a thousand like you!

KASIDIE: [Laughs] Yeah, I wish!

BOB: We didn’t do too bad- – ‘course we were young back then. We didn’t have too much trouble. Some of those people we keep in touch with over the course of 18 years. So anyway that progressed to going online. AOL was the only option for awhile. I remember one day going into a couples chat room and people were talking about this stuff. All of the sudden it hit me that there were other people like us actively going out and finding other couples. We weren’t the only ones! That was a big epiphany in our lives. Soon after, I was transferred to New York City and we started going to clubs. Back then 9 out of 10 people on the internet were fakes or single men or just wouldn’t show up. So we went to many clubs, Le Trapeze and Anita’s, Michael’s. Then we eventually got transferred to New Orleans which had no clubs.

KASIDIE: Transferred? What were you doing at the time?

BOB: I worked for the Coast Guard. They transferred me and of course Tess went along wherever I went. We picked New Orleans because of its adult party reputation. We had a choice between middle-of-nowhere, Oregon, the middle of nowhere Northern California, really the middle of nowhere, Alaska… Alabama and New Orleans. We jumped on New Orleans, “That’s gotta be a party place!” We were really disappointed. There were no clubs. So we spent a lot of time on the internet cultivating lists of people in the area and inviting them to our home. Eventually one night we had 75 couples in our home – Which is a lot of people to have in your house – and I said, “Man, I wish someone would open a club in New Orleans!” One of our friends said, “Are you kidding me, Bob? You’re those people!” We’d built up this network of people, so we decided, “Let’s do it!” So we rented out a restaurant in downtown New Orleans in the French Quarter. It was on our 11th wedding anniversary and we threw our first real party where we charged admission. We didn’t charge much, didn’t care who came. We had 22 couples at that first party. We quickly grew to where we were having hundreds of people coming to our monthly socials around the country. So French Connection events was born.

KASIDIE: Where did you come up with the name “French Connection”?

BOB: Well, we threw our parties in the French Quarter and we wanted to be a place where open minded people could connect. We didn’t want a name that sounded like ‘swingers’ or anything bad. We wanted to be able to talk to people about it and be discreet. We threw our parties for the next few years which were themed parties mainly. Our next big career move was the result of a Halloween event a few years later. The local ABC affiliate did an undercover story on swingers and they went to one of our parties with hidden cameras. So there we were, front and center for all of New Orleans to see. They blurred out all the faces and even went as far as to synthesize the voices. But being in the Coast Guard – that was not a good career move. Especially because of my genius decision to wear my Coast Guard flight suit as my Halloween costume.

KASIDIE: But I thought your face was blurred out?

BOB: It was, but there were five of us at the party wearing our Coast Guard flight suits! So when that made the news they immediately launched an investigation to find out who the hell in the Coast Guard is throwing sex parties? So it really shook me up because I had 15 years working for the government.

KASIDIE: You were still employed by the government? You hadn’t given up the Coast Guard to host these parties?

BOB: No, we were just doing the parties for fun. We figured it was no big deal doing a party once a month. We thought, “What does the government care what we do in our own time behind closed doors?”… Well, we found out that they do care. Thankfully, I never got brought up on charges.

KASIDIE: Did they discover it was you? Did the investigation make it to you?

BOB: Well there were a lot of people that I was stationed with that knew it was me. I even knew some of the investigators and they absolutely knew it was me. So I think the investigation came dangerously close. Some people helped keep the heat off of me. It just so happened to be my time to re-enlist… and if I did reenlist for another 4 years they would probably move me somewhere else and we would have left all our friends behind in New Orleans. We fell in love with New Orleans, so we had a choice to make. We could stop doing our parties, go underground, get transferred somewhere else or… I made the choice not to re-enlist. We got real jobs working for a graphics company. We love the city of New Orleans so we wanted to make that our permanent home and to move forward. So that was a pretty major career move for us. Our parties continued to grow and we traveled around the country going to conventions.

KASIDIE: What types of conventions?

BOB: lifestyle conventions. lifestyles in Vegas, Visions in Tampa. When we told people we were from New Orleans, they’d always say, “That’s the #1 city we’ve always wanted to go to!” or they’d say, “That’s our favorite town!” So we started getting the feeling that New Orleans was a very high demand destination for lifestyle couples. Around that time the restaurant we were renting closed down, so we had to find another venue. We started throwing parties at a hotel near the airport. We were renting 50-100 rooms per night. Some of them for 2-3 nights, and holding pretty large balls. So eventually we approached the hotel about buying out the entire hotel and putting on a real weekend-long convention like we had seen in other places. Our first convention was a huge success, because we got 178 couples to come to it… But financially it was a huge failure, because the hotel had 300 rooms. So we only filled up 1/2 the hotel. I had to take a loan out for $20,000 to pay off the debt incurred for the weekend. But the good news was that everyone had a great time. Our guests thought that we did some things very differently from other conventions they’d been to, and they loved the city of New Orleans. So we thought we should give it another try.

KASIDIE: $20,000 a lot of money to lose. Not a lot of people would look at that loss and say, “Hey, let’s do that again!”

BOB: Yeah it really was a very difficult decision. But during the event we had almost 100 couples come up to us and want to pre-register for next year. We said we didn’t even know what the dates were – and of course I kept worrying that we already owed a lot of money to this hotel that we didn’t fill up. But these guests said, “We don’t care about the dates. Let us just give you a deposit, lock us in! We’re going to tell all our friends and we’re coming back in force next year.” So with that 100 couples’ deposits committing to us for the next year and telling us they’d tell other people, we made the educated decision that if everyone brought back one couple, we’ll be okay. Sure enough we sold out a month and a half early next year and it was a wild success. We did several more sellouts in the next couple years and even had to use two or three other hotels for overflow. Eventually we moved to downtown New Orleans. Once we moved on to Bourbon Street that’s what put us over the edge. People loved to be able to walk out of their hotel on to Bourbon Street, the whole atmosphere of being downtown. We grew from three-hundred guests our first year to over two-thousand people in 2004.

KASIDIE: That’s quite a growth. You mentioned that you do things differently than other events. I’ve been to many conventions all over the country by different promoters and I’ve also been to a lot of your events. I’ll agree that there definitely is a difference. What is it about your events that makes them stand apart?

BOB: Well our philosophy, first and foremost, is we want to put together a party that we would want to go to. We saw a lot of great things at other parties and we also saw a lot of not so great things. I really wanted to spend the extra money to make people feel they were getting a little extra. In New Orleans there’s a term; Lagniappe, its a Cajun term. It means; A little something extra. That became our mantra. Something else I think separates us is when we go to a convention, be it in Vegas, Chicago or Tampa, we’re there for that convention – but we also want to see that city. So we decided with our events to expand beyond the hotel onto Bourbon street, into clubs, into places like the House of Blues, strip clubs, famous party places. We decided to do a parade right down Bourbon Street to give a true Mardi Gras experience with beads, floats, stilt walkers, a brass band. We had crawfish, oysters, shrimp and jambalaya… We wanted to give them the true New Orleans experience. At a lot of conventions you never leave the hotel. You could be in a hotel in Des Moines, Iowa and never know the difference. We wanted to show the difference. We wanted to make sure anywhere we did an event, you felt like you were there and saw that town and experienced the food, the music, whatever makes that town special. Another thing we did that I think really separated us from everyone else is that we had very elaborate hospitality suites.

KASIDIE: Hospitality suites?

BOB: A lot of times during conventions you might meet people and you’re dancing sexy, flirting and having a good time. They might invite you up to their room… But if nobody asks you up to their room what do you do? A lot of people at these dances stay till the very end, don’t meet anybody and then they end up going back to their rooms by themselves. So we created some very intimate, sensual, beautiful areas where people would feel comfortable. We’ve been to some events where they just take a regular hotel room and they say, “There you go! Shizzam! There’s your hospitality suite.” Then you end up with a lot of people sitting around, basically just another reflection of the dance. We took our hospitality suites and used a lot of silks, fabrics from India, elaborate lighting, special music. We put incense and different fragrances in each room creating individual and different atmospheres. We might have Indian music playing in one room and jazz in another, electronica in another. In a lot of clubs we’ve been to if you throw six mattresses into an empty room with white walls everybody was satisfied… Well, maybe the guys were satisfied. What we did was turn those white walls into red velvet walls or blue peacock silk or into a white gauze fabric with soft light shining through. Then we would break the areas up into lots of different themes; dungeon, electric room – People could explore their own sexuality in a safe sensual place, where for the first time the women were appreciative of the atmosphere. Guys don’t really care in most cases. In most cases if the women feel comfortable, then everybody’s happy. Our hospitality suites are not for everyone but they created a sensual place that people could go to if they didn’t hook up at the party… Or maybe they did meet someone, but just didn’t want to go back to their rooms. It gave them a central location for really exploring all kinds of sexuality. So we became well known for our hospitality suites, for the entertainment and for the little something extra… the Lagniappe, that we put into our events. That’s what got us off the ground.

KASIDIE: Something I’m always amazed by at your events is how you completely take over these big clubs and hotels which are really nice places. In Vegas you were able to to take over some of the top nightclubs in town… That’s an accomplishment in itself. But you’re walking into these famous high-end venues and saying, “Hey, I wanna bring in a couple thousand swingers and take over your place.” I’m surprised you don’t get tossed out the door!

BOB: I can answer that with two words: Money Talks. We learned a long time ago that you need a good reputation. If we rented out the House of Blues for instance, then we’d go to a club in Vegas like Studio 54 at the MGM or Tao at the Venetian. Once you do a couple of them you can use them as references. But it really all comes down to money. They all want a pretty substantial deposit and guarantees. One thing we learned is not to be greedy. We give back to our audience. If they’re going to spend the money to come to our events, then we need to spend money to make sure they have an experience that they won’t forget and one they’ll definitely want to come back to. So by reinvesting our money into the next event and we feel like we’re investing in our future success because people come back. One of the things we hear over and over again from our guests is, “We can really see where our money was spent when we come to your events.” We put on a real production. At a recent event we did we had a 100 foot dome to simulate a Space Center. It really transformed the space and people were like “Wow!”. It cost $12,000 to do, but its something everybody remembers. Then everyone’s always wondering what we’re going to do next year.

KASIDIE: I remember your LLIVE New Orleans event in 2006 had a huge pre-booking, then Hurricane Katrina happened and you had a massive amount of cancellations. But rather than cutting corners on the event like most people probably would, you actually poured more money into the event in order to make sure it was extra spectacular for the smaller crowd that did show up. I’ve always been impressed by that.

BOB: Katrina was definitely a setback for our business. New Orleans suffered a big hit, it was such a large disaster to the entire city as a whole, the work force, the reputation. The way the media portrayed it didn’t help and people cancelled out of fear. But if our event doesn’t have as many people as we planned for and therefore doesn’t make the revenue that we planned for… It is not the fault of the attendees that those other people cancelled. They should expect the same quality event whether five hundred people or a thousand showed up. That’s about what happened with the LLIVE in New Orleans event. We were expecting a thousand people and ended up with about half that. We started thinking about what we could cut out. Can we cut out the shrimp? Can we cut out the ice sculptures? Should we not do the parade? But just because the numbers were down the year after Katrina we decided we couldn’t cut our quality down. So instead of trying to save the money, we saved the customers. That’s the mantra we use with our company. Instead of looking at this one event we’re looking long term. We have a lot of repeat customers that come back year after year after year. A lot of people tell their friends, “You gotta go to one of Bob & Tess’ events!” We don’t want the one time they come to be the time we cut back on stuff. We probably could’ve gotten away with it the year after Katrina, but we decided against it. It’s a good thing we didn’t because a year later we sold out that event in Vegas and the next year in New Orleans we did very well and sold that hotel out. So we were able to rebound faster than I think we would have if we had cut back.

KASIDIE: You have some events that attract predominantly younger couples in their 20′s and 30′s, other events attract a more mature and affluent crowd. Yet I’ve also seen a mixture of both demographics at many of your events. That’s something I haven’t seen many other promoters do. How exactly do you manage to do that?

BOB: We make a decided effort to market to many different areas, not just demographics. We try to market to different ethnicities, different ages and we market on different sites. Some sites cater to younger folks, like lifestyle Lounge and some that cater to a more mature crowd, like Swing lifestyle. I think we’re giving every customer the opportunity to find what they’re looking for. There’s a lot of event planners that try to seek only the young and beautiful and that’s fine. But what we’ve found is when people come to an event like ours they’re looking to expand their horizons and we challenge them to come with an open mind. I can’t tell you how many people have told us, “We never would have met this couple at another party and we’re so glad we came here when we did!” It’s true that birds of a feather flock together and at our events you might get a certain age group sitting together at a table but we give them enough places to mix and mingle. There might not be 20 year old couples partying with 60 year old couples, but we’ve found that you learn something from everybody, from their experience, from their history. You learn something at every event you go to. I think by having a diverse crowd we’ve created a very diverse event and I think people take more away from it.

KASIDIE: You’ve gone beyond doing only events and also expanded into the lifestyle travel business?

BOB: We have an innate love for travel, for seeing the world, for seeing diverse cultures. We like to see beyond “Our Town USA”. We started with Caribbean Reef Club then group trips to Hedonism. Eventually we started putting together lifestyle trips to places like Amsterdam and the Mediterranean Cruise we just went on. We found that open minded people love to travel… And if you’re going to take the time to go on a Mediterranean Cruise, or a cruise to Mexico, or go visit Europe, how much more fun would it be to go with a group of open minded people? That way you can not only see these great destinations but you get to party a little bit on the side. At the very least you can talk openly and honestly and really have a fun sexy time traveling the world and seeing things. Instead of travel vacations, we’ve developed a company that produces travel adventures. Our adventures are hosted personally by Tess and me. We’re right there experiencing it with you. We always go and research it beforehand. Everywhere from Jamaica to Mexico to Europe – We figure out all the best places to go beforehand, then take a group of people so they can experience it with a bunch of fun friends instead of being alone on a tour bus with a bunch of strangers. We’re hoping to take a group to the Far East soon.

KASIDIE: What’s your favorite thing about the lifestyle?

BOB: My first answer would be just the sheer openness. I can be who I am. We can be who we are and not have any regrets. When I go out with people in the lifestyle, I don’t have to care about what I say. I can be Bob. Tess can be Tess. We love being Bob & Tess. I think that freedom is the #1 satisfaction for us. We’ve met a lot of people that have become really good friends. It doesn’t mean we’ve slept with a lot of people… (laughing) Okay, maybe we have slept with a lot of people. But the thing is if we’re in Jamaica by ourselves we’re able to make friends because we have something in common. The friendliness, the sociableness and the openness is the #1 thing that we love about the lifestyle. The second thing we love is the pleasure we get from being able to step back in the middle of one of our events, put our backs to the wall and see thousands of people dancing partying laughing having a good time, hugging, kissing and multiple levels beyond that… and knowing that we put this together. We helped these people come together and have a weekend that they’ll never forget. For some of them this might be their only experience. For some this might be the beginning of a whole new lifestyle. For others it’s just another party in a long line of parties. But either way, we pulled off a party that everybody else is enjoying it and that brings us a lot of pleasure.

KASIDIE: You two are both public about your involvement in the lifestyle and have even appeared on 20/20. It’s rare to meet people who are so open about being involved in the lifestyle.

BOB: Well its important to differentiate that we’re in the lifestyle business. We do a lot of business seminars for a lot of new club owners and one of the first things we tell people is, “If you’re in this business you have to be ready and accept that everybody’s gonna know.” We were outed by the media, by this ABC show and that’s what pretty much put us out there. We think that discretion and privacy are of utmost importance because most people simply can’t be out. We long for a day when everybody can be open and honest with no repercussions. But we’re not in that place yet.

KASIDIE: Do you feel we’re closer to that place than we were a few years ago?

BOB: Without a doubt. I think sexual freedom movement has been growing rapidly over the last hundred years. For people to think we’re sexually repressed, go back to the 1800′s and think about how repressed sexuality was back then. Think of the 1920′s when your bathing suit came down below your knee. Go back to the 1950′s where everybody had a crew cut and wore long dresses and girls weren’t even allowed to wear pants. It has been a progression. The 60′s of course became more wild. The 70′s and the disco times became even more wild. The progress of sexual freedom is not a straight line, its more like sine wave. You get a big jump in freedom and then there’s sometimes a backlash. Then after the backlash there’s another jump in sexual freedom. But if you look at reproduction rights, sexual history and sexual rights, we’re much better off today than we were even twenty years ago… And I hope that we’ll be much better off twenty years from now. But there’s a lot of people that have to be discreet because of their jobs their family. So we do everything in our power to make sure nobody finds out anything about people who come to our parties. But because Tess and I are in this business – Well, if you can’t deal with your family knowing, your friends knowing and your work knowing, you shouldn’t be in this business. I’m on the board of the NCSF (National Coalition for Sexual Freedom) and we’re working every week to try to make what we do a little less tabloid, a little less titillating, so we’re a little more tolerated and accepted. People thought gays would never get rights. People thought there would never be legal strip clubs. But all these things have happened as we’ve progressed as a society. Europe is way ahead of us on this stuff and America is slowly coming along.

KASIDIE: Your son knows what you do. Was there an actual time when you told your son or did he just grow up knowing that you were in this business?

BOB: He heard some things and disseminated information to a point where he knew there was something going on. Things really came out when we were on TV, when they did the undercover story on us. The phone rang while we were watching the story. It was our son’s friends calling up to say, “Is that your mom and dad?”

KASIDIE: Oh no! How did he handle that?

BOB: We sat him down and had a long talk with him. The first thing I asked him was, “How many of your friends have both their mom and dad still together?” And he said almost none. I said, “Your mom and dad have been together for almost 20 years. We’ve never had a fight, we’ve never had a big argument, we love each other.” I told him that people are going to ask him things… and they might even say really mean things, especially about his mom, that’s going to really upset him. I told him that all he needed to say is, “Look I don’t know what my parents do in private. Do you know what your parents do? All I know is my parents are together and they love each other” That’s all there is to say. We didn’t try to explain to him our values or our morals. We try to lead by example. He sees that his parents love and trust each other. Most people only figure this out on their second marriage. Most can’t figure it out in their first. A majority of people we meet in the lifestyle are on their second marriages and they’ve finally gotten to the “Me” part of their lives where they say, “You know what? I wanna have some fun! I wanna explore some things! I’m not afraid like I was in my first relationship!” They’re finally getting it. Well, Tess and I are just lucky we got it early. So we lead like that to our son. I don’t think he truly understands the full extent of what the lifestyle is or what we do. Probably just like when I think about my parents… I don’t wanna think about it. I think my parents were probably swingers too. In fact, I have no doubt… But I don’t like thinking about that.

KASIDIE: [Laughs] You suspected your parents? Do you think this might run in your blood then?

BOB: I think its a possibility. I just thought my parents were cool… And I hope our kid thinks we’re cool. We’ve tried to keep our lifestyle business separate from him. He’s worked for us once or twice when we were understaffed. But he didn’t actually work inside the event… and we prefer to keep it that way. There’s a lot of kids that work for the parents in the lifestyle industry. It is a difficult job for hiring. We usually can’t put an ad in the newspaper, so a lot of people turn to their families, just like any other business. He’s in the Coast Guard now. Who knows, in a couple years when he’s 25 or 30 and has experienced life a little bit more, if he wants to be more involved and actually work at one of our events we’ll talk about it. But for now he’s gotta grow up and figure out his life. Whatever his path, I just hope he gets lucky and finds the right girl early in his life like I did…

KASIDIE: Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.

No related posts.

So, tell us about your swinging lifestyle. How long have you been swingers?

GIRL: Well, it was really early, actually.

GUY: Yeah, I don’t think we were dating more than three months before we had a threesome. And even then, it wasn’t awkward. We brought up the idea kind of as a joke, but we were both really into it. And we’ve been swinging ever since.

Swinging is such a different type of relationship than most have. Why did you guys choose to make swinging a part of your sex life?

GIRL: We’re not really strict swingers. We’re more like a really horny couple who invites and pursues other people into the bedroom. We love sex, and we love lots of it. It’s like live porn, and I get to star in it. It’s so exciting because I really enjoy watching people have sex, and I love being there to watch it live. I have fun trying out new techniques on people and seeing what it takes to make someone come. It’s my favorite hobby!

GUY: I figure you get to try new things with different people. Having sex with other people is fun. It kind of combines the nice things of a steady relationship with the nice things of an erotic fling. You have someone who is your best friend and a good lover, and then you have someone who is a new and different lover. And that’s exciting. You get the excitement of a lover who you know and then the thrill of a fling. It’s the best of both worlds if you do it right.

What is your relationship like?

GIRL: Our relationship is like…have you seen “Girls Next Door”? I mean, we’re like Holly and Hef minus the money and fame. We love each other, and he’s my number one lover. We have number twos and number threes, and we play around with other couples, but he’s my favorite. He’s the one who knows how to make me feel the best. No matter whose bed we’ve spent the night in or whose cock I’ve sucked, at the end of the day, we just want each other.

GUY: Yeah, just because you’re in a relationship with someone doesn’t mean you can’t have other friends. She’s my best friend in bed and out of bed. It can still be fun to have conversations with other people. If you have a relaxed attitude about sex, it’s really no different having sex with other people than having other friends.

So you can cheat anytime you want, and it’s okay?

GUY: No, it’s not okay. We have to discuss it first. You have to be okay with the person, time and place. You don’t want to keep secrets about this kind of thing.

GIRL: Yeah, and for the most part our swinging depends on the other partner being there. We’re in this together, you know? I think he’s sexy, and I love to see him giving other people pleasure. It’s hot. But, I mean, there are exceptions. There are two people that he’s okay with, and I can play alone with them. It’s not cheating because he knows about it, and he gets excited about it.

GUY: Yeah, and if there were girls that she was okay with, I’d have the same sort of deal. It’s not that she isn’t cool with it; she’s always asking if I have any prospects. It’s just that I’m pretty shy.

How often do you swing?

GUY: Uh…I don’t know, about once a month. Kind of hard to plan it. It usually just sort of happens.

GIRL: Yeah, but I don’t think it happens enough. We have so much fun, and the sex we have just the two of us after it is amazing.

What happens if you disagree about who to swing with?

GUY: Well, we haven’t really had that problem yet, but you have to keep communication honest about this sort of thing. If one person is feeling jealous, you definitely need to address it. You have to be willing not to sleep with someone. It’s not like anything goes. We obviously still care about each other and don’t want to hurt the other.

GIRL: He’s still my boyfriend, and I care about him more than I do about a certain lay. Yeah, it’d be great to have sex with someone new, but not at the cost of hurting my boyfriend! He always beats out other guys.

What do you do about STDs?

GIRL: Condoms! And testing regularly.You can’t be stupid about this. No strangers!

GUY: We’re always safe with other people. We made that a rule. We try to do it with people we trust only.

Do you have a particular type?

GUY: A type of girl? I don’t know. I guess, I mean, there are girls that I think are cute and get crushes on. I don’t think I can reduce it to a single type. I like short, petite girls who are fun, adventurous and like to laugh. You have to have a sense of humor about sex, and so I like girls who have a sense of humor.

GIRL: I’m much more picky than he is. I have a lot of quirks. I need a guy who has a sexy voice. I need a guy with a really nice body, preferably abs. I need a guy who I can be friends with, too. It’s more than just a night of pleasure. He’s gotta be my friend, and hopefully, my boyfriend’s friend, too.

Where do you find other couples to swing with?

GUY: Amongst friends. You know, you talk about sex and it just sort of comes up. Sometimes among people we’re just meeting, you know, new friends. That works well because you aren’t jeopardizing an old friendship over sex.

GIRL: For a while we had profiles on swingers Web sites, but that just got creepy. People on those sites are lonely and unattractive. And usually unreliable. Once we had success with some of our friends, we abandoned the Internet in exchange for our Clemson circle of friends.

How long do you plan on having this sort of relationship?

GUY: As long as we can attract fun, attractive people.

GIRL: Totally.

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Kara Smith started selling sex toys years ago. Recently she realized she had more to offer: lots of swinging experience and a load of good advice. She now works as a lifestyle consultant, helping couples achieve their sexual fantasies. Her website, exsexories.com, offers an abundance of toys, tips and a sign-up for a personal consultation. For our own tête-à-tête with Kara, we brought along a camera and tape recorder just in case things got interesting-which they did, naturally.

PLAYBOY: How did you get into the lifestyle?

KARA: About five years ago I got the urge to be with another woman. I told my husband, and he refused. When our marriage ended I met a woman who wanted to be with me while her husband watched, and it was incredible. I was working as a dancer at the time, and I started fooling around with other dancers. I met a few couples in Vegas, and it flourished from there.

PLAYBOY: So you turned your hobby into your profession?

KARA: It just came naturally for me to talk about sexuality, so I started consulting with couples who wanted to join the lifestyle. I judge what level of swinging they’re ready for, help them set boundaries and prepare them for any situation that may arise. Then I give tips on finding the right people, and I follow up afterward to make sure their experience was fulfilling. Nine times out of 10, swinging makes the relationship stronger.

PLAYBOY: You can plan everything, but sex is still about the unexpected, don’t you think?

KARA: Yes. The night before my Playboy shoot I was with my boyfriend and another couple. Just as I was climaxing I got too excited, fell off the bed and kneed myself in the eye. It was hilarious, but at the time, I was so worried about having a black eye that I wasn’t laughing. Luckily, a little makeup did the trick.

PLAYBOY: You look pretty good to us. What does a would-be swinger need to know?

KARA: Make sure your “playing field” is big enough so you don’t end up on the floor like me. Have your toys clean and ready-a delay can kill the mood. Don’t drink too much: You don’t want to do something you’ll regret later. And most important, discuss boundaries beforehand and stick to them. You can always loosen the rules next time if everyone wants to go further.

PLAYBOY: People say the sexual revolution is a thing of the past. Are they right?

KARA: They couldn’t be more wrong. People are more accepting and confident in their sexuality than ever before. The Internet has made the lifestyle so much more mainstream. Just punch in what you’re looking for and you’ll get a huge list of people ready to join you. When you get into it, you realize this isn’t a fringe movement. These are normal, loving people. They have kids; they’re on the soccer field and in the grocery store. They’re your neighbors, and they’re living out their deepest sexual fantasies.

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Deliciously Erotic… Anyone who’s been to Desire Resort in Cancun knows that those two words describe it perfectly. Since it opened in April of 2003, Desire has become a household name… Well, at least among swinger households. Known for it’s upscale erotic environment, indulgent amenities and an unbeatable staff who will cater to your every wish, Desire Cancun is easily one of the most popular clothing optional and swinging lifestyle friendly vacation destinations in the world.

On a recent vacation to Desire Cancun, Kasidie sat down with Desire Cancun’s General Manager, Miguel Soto. Joining him was Silvina Modelo, Desire’s Director of Public Relations.

Kasidie: Was this resort originally built to be a swingers hotel?

Miguel: This property was originally built as a family hotel.

Silvina: Yeah, the smaller pool… That was the children’s pool. Where the little kids would go. The bigger pool was for the adults.

Miguel: It was a family resort for four years.

Kasidie: Wow, so what happened?

Silvina: The current owners bought the property and converted it into Desire.

Kasidie: Why? Were they swingers?

Silvina: No, no, no, the owners are not in the lifestyle, but they had traveled a lot and they had spoken a lot with people who were involved in the lifestyle, or that were with lifestyle related businesses. They became aware that there was a market for this – for the lifestyle. So they decided to look around at some different locations. Puerto Vallarta was one of the areas that they looked at, and then Cancun. When they found this property, everything seemed to fit perfectly. Like the beach, the distance from the airport, things like that.

Kasidie: Where are the owners based?

Silvina: Here in Cancun. They have other hotels here too, Blue Bay Getaway… Blue Bay Club which they are changing to Temptation, remodeling it.

Kasidie: Temptation? Is that going to become a swinger resort too?

Silvina: [Laughing] The name sounds like it, but no.

Kasidie: When they bought this hotel how long was the process of turning it from a wholesome family resort into a Mecca for swingers around the world?

Miguel: About Four months.

Kasidie: That’s all? How long ago was that now?

Silvina: Well, Desire first opened on April 28, 2003. So 4 1/2 years ago.

Kasidie: What was that first year like?

Silvina: [Nervous Laughing] Difficult, like any beginning.

Kasidie: Were you (Silvina) working here from the start?

Silvina: I came about 5 months after they opened.

Kasidie: And how did you happen to end up working here?

Silvina: I was duped! [Laughing]

Kasidie: So you are not a swinger?

Silvina: No, I’m not.

Kasidie: Were you ever in the lifestyle?

Silvina: [Sarcastically] Oh sure, then I came to Desire and was suddenly convinced not to be a swinger!
[All Laughing]

Kasidie: Good point. So how did you get recruited to come here? Did they say, “Hey, want to come work at a swingers resort?”

Silvina: No. I was actually working at a resort in Puerto Vallarta and the manager of entertainment here at Desire asked me to come over, saying it was just like the hotel I worked at. He forgot to mention that it was clothing optional and lifestyle friendly. I didn’t realize what this place actually was until after I got here!

Kasidie: What about you Miguel? How did you end up here?

Miguel: They hired me because I am a famous triple-X actor.
[All Laughing]

Miguel: No No. The real story is a little funny. I was working in a very famous and important Mexican branch. When they offered the opportunity to work in Desire… They never told me about the concept.

Kasidie: Oh they didn’t?…

Miguel: No. For four years now my family hasn’t known the place where I am working. Right now, they still don’t know. It’s funny now, but in the process of working at Desire, I sometimes had problems. It was very hard for me when first I came here.

Kasidie: Was it a problem with your wife?

Miguel: I’m divorced. [Laughing], But not because of this.
[All Laughing]

Miguel: The whole concept, the environment of the lifestyle. It was a very different environment from what I was used to. It was a difficult change for me.

Kasidie: How is it hiring staff here? Everyone universally loves the staff at Desire. The people you have here are just amazing. It must be difficult in mostly conservative country like Mexico. Many must have difficulties with the concept, like you did.

Miguel: It’s easy to find people to work here. But it is not always the type of people we’d want to hire. The process is slow, it’s not an easy process. We work with a strict quality control program when hiring staff. It’s a very important program. The screening process takes about two years.

Kasidie: You include psychological testing, and profiling?

Silvina: Exactly.

Miguel: They have to fill out tests about personality, and knowledge. Every trip and errand is double-checked with the employer. If we think an employee wants to be here at Desire for any reason other than to do a professional job, we remove them.

Kasidie: The people who work here are genuinely service orientated. They really seem to care that the guests are happy.

Silvina: Hand selected. It’s like he said, the process that we follow is not just, “Can you wait tables?” or “Can you clean rooms?”… No, that’s not what we look for. First thing is personality. I’m not Mexican, but I’ve noticed the people from this area (Cancun) are very service orientated. They take great pride in their service. It is part of their culture. That really helps and makes a huge difference. You can travel to different places in Mexico and you are not going to get the same level of service. You won’t ever hear a “No” or, “I can’t” or, “We don’t have that.” People here want to help and they want to do everything possible to make sure that you have a good time, and that you are happy, and that you want to come back. Not that you just have a good time now. The goal is that you like it so much that you are coming back.

Miguel: Another important thing is how we work with our employees to keep open ongoing communication. Employee orientation is a continuous program.

Kasidie: So you do continuous training?

Miguel: Sure, all the time. But I avoid acting like,”I’m the boss and I’m going to see how you are doing your job.” Instead I try to be very close with them. The employees have to feel like they can talk to the General Manager at any time, any day, any moment. They have to feel free to say, “I need to talk with you.” If they feel that way, then they can serve better. It’s part of the philosophy of the owners. Treat the employees with care and respect, and they will do the same for the guests.

Silvina: The principles, our mission, our future goals; What we want to achieve, how we are going to achieve them, that fact that we are going to achieve them together… It’s important that all our employees share in these goals. That’s basically what we have at the resort.

Kasidie: We noticed that most of the entertainment staff at Desire are from other countries. Like when we are at Desire Cabo, the girls were from Canada. We’ve seen other entertainment staff here from the Caribbean and Europe.

Silvina: They have more direct contact with the guests. The mentality is a little different for the entertaiment staff. So it’s a little easier, from what I’ve experienced, having a Canadian girl who is maybe a little more liberal. People who are from this area are usually not too accustomed to being outgoing in the ways that are required for those positions. Don’t get me wrong, we have some entertainment staff that are Mexican as well.

Kasidie: When you hire people from this area, considering the culture here, how do the families deal with it?

Silvina: They usually don’t know.
[All Laughing]

Silvina: Temptations or Blue Bay, that’s where they say they work!
[All Laughing]

Kasidie: Most of these people have families, and I would think in this culture… I would think it would be like saying you are an IRS agent in the USA. It’s not something you want your friends to know.

Silvina: It’s just a job and I think that is how a lot of them see it. It’s a job whether they work here or they work in a regular hotel. They come and they do their job. We have days where we actually bring in the kids of our employees. Obviously not out to the nude area. But we bring them here and we take pictures of their moms and dads at their jobs at the bar, or cleaning a room. We show them that so that the families feel involved. They see that mom and dad are cleaning a room… That’s what she does, she cleans a room. Granted there are people walking by naked. But we don’t show that. I think that is how some of them deal with it.

Kasidie: So they just don’t talk about it?

Silvina: Don’t talk about it, that’s the main thing, because what happens here stay here. There are a lot of people that when you tell them that you work at Desire they are like, “AHHHHH…You work there!?” and they automatically assume all sorts of things that are not true.

Miguel: They respect the guests, they respect the hotel. There are strict rules for the employees.

Silvina: The guests sometimes don’t understand that. Some assume things about the employees just because they work at Desire. So they flirt with the employees a little too much. Sometimes that can cause trouble.

Miguel: But our staff knows how to keep things under control.

Kasidie: How about you, Miguel? You said you thought about quitting at first, why did you stay? You are an established professional in the hospitality industry, you could get work elsewhere, so why did you stay?

Miguel: This job was a challenge for me, because… The challenge was not only for me… The challenge was for my staff, the hotel and a hundred employees behind me. But we remained focused on business and we worked on the satisfaction of the guests — What you have to do is serve and do your best with that… And that’s it. It was not easy but I think that if you are a true professional and you lead by example, then people follow you. We lost a lot of people in the beginning. We lost many very good employees.

Kasidie: Because?

Miguel: The guests at Desire like to try and have fun with the staff. Most employees weren’t used to situations like that. For example, a guest would say to a bartender “Have a drink with me! One tequila! Two tequilas! Another!…”

Kasidie: Ahh…

Miguel: I try to have a professional team. It’s not easy being on staff here.

Silvina: When the hurricane came a couple years ago a lot of people decided to leave as well. But since the hurricane, the management has been a steady and strong team and have been together for the past two years. After the hurricane the majority of the staff, 95 percent, stayed and were very true to the resort. “We have to pick up the hotel!” “We have to clean!” “We have to do whatever it takes to re-open the resort!” Even the managers and owners were sweeping, cleaning, painting and hammering. The staff sees this as their home. They spend most of their week here.

Miguel: We have now the lowest percent of employee turnover in the Cancun area.

Kasidie: When Desire first opened how were you marketing it? Because you weren’t initially on Travelocity and Orbitz and those kinds of sites. You are now, but not back then. So how did you start to get the word out?

Silvina: We advertised with people who were already in the lifestyle industry. We weren’t really branching out too much because we didn’t know where to branch out to. At first it was going with who had the market, and learning. As time went on and the years went on, more people started contacting us because the word got out. So we started branching out, and promoting it in all the different areas.

Kasidie: How has it changed now that you are on Travelocity and Orbitz? Are you getting a different crowd? Are you getting more nudists? Are you losing the lifestyle core?

Silvina: No, not at all. We have a mix; we have a good mix of lifestyle and nudists. We always did. When we first opened it was always promoted as clothing optional… And that’s how we still promote it. We promote it as ‘lifestyle friendly’. So on one week you can find 80 percent swingers and 20 percent nudists. But on another week you will find 80 percent nudists and 20 percent swingers.

Kasidie: Do you ever have a problem with those booking agencies where people show up and go, “Whoa, I didn’t understand what this place was!”

Silvina: Well one or two, but that was way back when the hotel was first opening. Everybody who sells us knows what we are, who we are.

Kasidie: Well Travelocity and Orbitz don’t. People who are just searching for a hotel in Cancun, you just come up on the list like any other hotel.

Silvina: Right, but when they check our website then they see that our concept is a little different than the other hotels in Cancun.

Kasidie: When the hotel started, did you have any specific challenges with zoning and government? Because there are not a lot of nude beaches in Mexico, it’s generally not allowed.

Miguel: Because the area is secluded, is private, it’s not a problem.

Kasidie: So, what’s the future hold? What improvements do you have planned?

Miguel: Higher quality in food and beverage. Our guests have been asking about a real Mexican fusion buffet. Improvements on rooms too.

Kasidie: Any new buildings?

Miguel: We can’t build anything new because we have limits and not enough space. The government won’t permit any more. We are at our limit on how much we can build on a certain property.

Kasidie: So this is as big as it’s going to get then?

Miguel: Yes.

Kasidie: And it’s how many rooms now?

Silvina: 114 in total, with 5 different categories.

Kasidie: Miguel, you’ve been here since the beginning. What are you most proud of?

Miguel: The satisfaction of our guests is part of what makes me proud. That and the progress of the employees.

Kasidie: The staff are not the owners, but they are the architects, the people who make Desire what it is.

Miguel: We love this resort. It is like our baby.

Kasidie: Do you have any funny stories about the area? Like has a crocodile ever come walking up into the resort?

Silvina: No, we have it fenced off; we have it protected, because we can’t have something like that happen. We can’t have a crocodile come on the property. It’s impossible for a crocodile to get up onto our property. Plus we have security guards. So a crocodile might get a security guard but …
[All Laughing]

Kasidie: So you don’t have a wild and funny story about the craziest thing that you’ve seen happen here?

Silvina: Ummm.. Yeah nothing I can publish. I want to keep my job!
[All Laughing]

Kasidie: Fair enough. For people who are new to the lifestyle or who may have never heard of Desire, what would you want them to know? What would you want to tell them?

Silvina: First and foremost, there is no pressure. You come and you do as much or as little as you want with whoever you want or nobody at all. It’s really a place for couples to come, get reacquainted and experience new things. The hotel provides an atmosphere which is romantic, sensual, fun and exciting. They have the disco, the entertainment staff and many other things to help those who are a little shy, or timid. We give them an atmosphere to relax and go at their own pace. Most people first come here for the concept, but we are trying to make it a complete package. We offer them the best we can at the bars, service, liquor, top shelf brands. In the restaurants we change our menu often, adding new things, going to other places and seeing what they are doing. Even the buffet is up a notch with things that you wouldn’t see in a regular buffet. That’s the main thing here: Class. We want to maintain that class. Our guests get that feeling as well. So if we promote classiness in all areas, then that’s the kind of clientele that we are going to get. That’s the kind of clientele that we would like to keep, those who are classy and fun.

Kasidie: Ok. I have one last question. Did you change the guacamole recipe?

Silvina: Is it different?

Kasidie: I remember it being chunkier.

Silvina: Ahhhh… Hopefully it’s just a fluke. I’m glad you told me. I’ll tell the kitchen staff. A lot of guests wouldn’t have mentioned something like that because they don’t want to complain. But they are not complaints to us, they are suggestions. It helps us make things better for next time. If something goes wrong when you are here, no matter how small, we’d like to know, so we can fix it. All the little things help us make the bigger things better.

Kasidie: Well it’s not a complaint. I still love Desire… And I still love the guacamole!
[All Laughing]

Silvina: We’ll make sure it is even better the next time you try it.

Kasidie: I don’t doubt it. Thank you both for taking the time to talk with me.

Silvina: Our pleasure.

Miguel: Enjoy the rest of your time here.

Kasidie: Oh, you have no idea!
[All Laughing]

No related posts.

Located on 10 tropical acres of oceanfront property in Runaway Bay, Jamaica, Hedonism III has been the synonymous with the word “Swingers” since it first opened its doors in 1999. I sat down with Kevin Levee, the resort’s General Manager, to find out the story behind this Mecca for the sexually liberated.

KASIDIE: Anyone who is in the swinging lifestyle has heard of Hedonism II and Hedonism III. So I’m going to ask the obvious question that many people are wondering… Where’s Hedonism I?

KEVIN LEVEE: The original Hedonism Resort opened in 1976 in Negril. It was actually called Negril Beach Village, not Hedonism. But their slogan was, “Come and experience Hedonism at Negril Beach Village.” In 1981 the resort changed management. They wanted to keep a connection to the past while doing something new. So they changed the name to Hedonism II. They wanted people to know that it was the same property but a change of management.

KASIDIE: So Hedonism II was technically the first and second Hedonism resort?

KEVIN LEVEE: Exactly.

KASIDIE: Were the Hedonism resorts originally built to be a ‘lifestyle friendly’ resorts or did they start as simply nudist resorts?

KEVIN LEVEE: The whole Hedonism concept and experience has very much been an evolution. It didn’t start as a nude beach, it just evolved. Very much it started in the 70s, right after the 60′s and free love. Negril used to be a place where a lot of the hippies used to come and hang out. Negril is like ‘Jamaica’s California.’ Back then there was probably two hotels on the seven mile stretch and Hedonism II was on the very end, so people just started going topless and eventually nude. At first the hotel would just bring a cooler with some beers for the guests. Then after a few years that evolved into a little beach bar. Then in the early 90′s they added an au natural pool and nude bar.

KASIDIE: Was it mostly couples or singles who came?

KEVIN LEVEE: I started working there in 1984 and at that time it was 70% singles 30% couples. But that began to change.

KASIDIE: What changed it?

KEVIN LEVEE: Hedonism is really a barometer of human behavior. You could see people coming from that free love era, they had no fear. Then came the big AIDS scare and things changed tremendously from about the mid 80′s to the early 90′s. People changed and it toned down tremendously. During that time that the demographic changed from singles into couples. Back then the lifestyle was taboo. These were the folks who used to have the parties in the basements. This was before the days of lifestyle clubs or websites. The one convention at that time was the Lifestyles Convention. Hedo 2 was the only resort they could find that said, “Yes we want your business, we embrace your customers.” Now our relationship with the lifestyle community is over 20 years old. There is no resort that has the knowledge and experience that we have.

KASIDIE: You say that Hedonism becoming a “swinger friendly” was a natural evolution, but it still had to be a natural evolution that someone allowed to happen. A lot of resorts allow nudity or toplessness, but if anything sexual starts to happen in public they’d put a stop to it. How was tit decided that Hedo would be okay with that?

KEVIN LEVEE: The whole concept of Hedonism has always been that we have one basic rule: You can do whatever you want as long as you don’t interfere with somebody else’s vacation. So it has always been kind of self balancing. We’ve always said that …extreme sexual activity, if we walk by and we see it, we will stop it. It’s a balance. If I walk past the nude pool at three in the afternoon and I see a sexual activity going on, I’ll probably say something. If I walk past at 3 in the morning, I’ll probably leave it alone.

KASIDIE: What changes have you witnessed in the lifestyle over the years that you’ve been around it?

KEVIN LEVEE: The biggest change that I’ve seen is back in those days women had to travel far far away if they wanted to have fun because there were these morals and values. They were looked down upon if they expressed themselves sexually. You don’t have to do that so much anymore. The age range has change a great deal too. Twenty years ago most of the guests were older, nowadays with conventions and events you’ll see people in their early 20′s.

KASIDIE: why do you think that is?

KEVIN LEVEE: Again, its just a way society has changed. It’s not such a big thing anymore. You turn on the TV and you see Girls Gone Wild. That behavior is not as taboo as it was twenty years ago.

KASIDIE: You said you started working at Hedonism II in 1984. What brought you there?

KEVIN LEVEE: I was in my early 20′s. I finished school. I am Jamaican, born in Jamaica, went to high school in Jamaica, went abroad to a college in Florida for a few years. I then went up to New York and worked there for a year. I decided I wanted to come back home. So I came back home and got a job at Hedonism II.

KASIDIE: What did you think when you first got to Hedonism? Was it a shock to you?

KEVIN LEVEE: I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

[Everyone Laughs]

KEVIN LEVEE: I’d tell people all the time. All you have to do is feed me and give me somewhere to sleep and I’ll be fine. I was the water sports manager… And if it wasn’t for people in Superclubs promoting me, I would still be a water sports manager. It was the best job I ever had in my life. Being on the beach in Negril surrounded by nude ladies, I mean life doesn’t get any better! Then I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to move up the ranks at Hedo and Superclubs and I eventually became the general manager at Hedonism II in 1995. I was the manager until 1999 when I came over here and opened this property.

KASIDIE: Now what was the impetus to open Hedonism III? Was Hedo 2 doing so well that they saw the need to expand to another resort?

KEVIN LEVEE: Hedonism II did exceptionally well all through those years. Originally another hotel developer had this property and they were going to make it into a completely different brand. That deal fell thru and this property became available. Superclubs had the opportunity to check out the property and they figured that a Hedonism resort would be the best fit for it. At the time Hedonism 2 was a 3 star property. It was more of a Club Med model. Not a lot of amenities, only 2 restaurants, no TVs in the room.

KASIDIE: Well, if you’re in your room watching TV while at Hedo, there’s something wrong with you.

KEVIN LEVEE: [Laughs] Right. We didn’t want to open a property that was going to split the business of Hedonism II. We wanted a property that was going to create a whole new market. A lot of the business partners that we did business with at Hedo 2, I purposefully did not go to them. I went to new people, such as Lifestyle Lounge. We created a whole new market. A more upscale property, more amenities, jacuzzis in the rooms, the 4 restaurants, the multiple pools. We wanted to take it up a notch when we opened this property. Hedonism III has a younger demographic. We don’t exclude anyone or target anyone but Lifestyle Lounge is more representative of the crowd you get here at Hedonism III than the crowd you get at Hedonism II. The people who do visit Hedonism II are very upscale. We’ve just got a younger crowd and our rooms our a little nicer, as this is a newer resort. Although since we’ve opened Hedonism II has added some other amenities and upgraded as well.

KASIDIE: How does Hedonism III compare to the other Superclubs resorts?

KEVIN LEVEE: Hedo 3 is an amazing property and the friendships and the unique connection formed between the guests and the staff is very different than it is at other hotels. Often people have a perception of Hedonism and say, “Oh that’s that place where all the people have sex.” We don’t deny that… But it’s much more than that. It’s and adult vacation for people who like to have fun.

KASIDIE: When we describe the lifestyle we tell people that: “Its not about the sex, its about the sexuality.” Our experiences don’t always involve sex. But we love the openness and sexuality charged atmosphere.

KEVIN LEVEE: That’s a perfect explanation. I tell people, “If seeing a naked person is going to upset you, then don’t come to Hedonism. I can’t guarantee you won’t see a naked person once you get here.”

KASIDIE: Are you kidding me? You can’t even guarantee that you won’t see naked people on the bus ride from the airport!

[Everyone Laughs]

KEVIN LEVEE: People just want to be in an atmosphere that’s erotically charged and sometimes things happen and sometimes they don’t.

KASIDIE: With some newer competing lifestyle resorts opening up, with perhaps more modern looking rooms and decor, what would you say Hedonism III has over these other places that would persuade guests to come here instead?

KEVIN LEVEE: Without question it’s the people who work here. You have your hardcore base. All your resorts and conventions have their hardcore base of loyal supporters. But there’s a much bigger mass out there that moves with whatever is perceived to be the heat of the moment. That’s fine…That’s competition. But what I don’t think anyone has been able to match anywhere is the people that work here. The team is very important and I see one of my important functions is to keep my team happy. If I keep my team happy, then they look after the guests and keep them happy.

KASIDIE: You mentioned your staff. Over everything else, the staff is the one thing that’s brought us back to Hedonism III time and time again. Guests here tend to remember certain Hedo staff members for years and want to come back to see them again and again. Especially the entertainment staff. The first thing people ask us when we’ve just visited Hedo is, “How is so-and-so doing?” and they of course are referring to their favorite Hedo staff member. Is there something in particular you look for when you hire staff?

KEVIN LEVEE: It’s really a common Jamaican personality trait. Jamaicans are very open very straight forward people. What you see is what you get. We have especially key areas such as entertainment. I always interview those people. I try to interview everyone who might possibly come to work at the hotel. But definitely in the entertainment coordinators, I look for a certain personality. I look for someone that has a natural energy. The guests who come here tend to be more open and more relaxed than at other resorts. Our whole entertainment program is designed to get people to interact. So the games that we play, the whole idea is to get people to break the barriers, get people to laugh at themselves a little bit. Once people do that, friendships form and the staff is very much a big part of that.

KASIDIE: I have heard that Jamaica is a very religious country. Is it ever hard for any of the staff who work here, coming into this environment and seeing some things get a little wild? Have you ever had a bartender tell you that they can’t be around this wild environment?

KEVIN LEVEE: Jamaica is a very conservative country. I think that we have the most churches and rum bars per capita. But when people come to work here, especially entertainment coordinators, we ask them if they are aware of the environment here. If someone has a problem with that, then we let them know that Hedo might not be a good fit. There’s nothing wrong with that. We also let them know that there is absolutely no expectations on their part other than coming here and doing their job. As a matter of fact, we have very strict fraternization policies.

KASIDIE: I’m sure that after a few drinks a lot of guests will often try and put those policies to the test!

KEVIN LEVEE: We have a zero tolerance policy. Also… It happens rarely but if a guest is abusive or coerces my staff I will ask that guest to leave the resort. The staff understands that all the management expects is for them to do their job and treat the guests with respect. But also we also expect our guests to be respectful of our staff.

KASIDIE: Is working at Hedo considered a coveted job in Jamaica?

KEVIN LEVEE: Well its a double edge sword. People are always curious and excited. You walk into Hedonism and you know where you are. There’s an excitement and an energy and the guests you meet here are very different than other resort guests. The guests here are open, straightforward, and outgoing… So in a lot of ways is seen as being a “hotter” resort to work at. But at Hedonism there is no downtime, the action is constant day and night. The issues that the staff have to deal with is different than other resorts. So it goes both ways. Working at Hedo has its challenges. But overall, I wouldn’t change my job. I love my job.

KASIDIE: I’ve been coming here for four years and I’ve noticed a few new changes, such as the cabanas by the ocean. I heard thru the grapevine that some other big changes might also be happening soon. Can you give us the scoop on any future changes to Hedonism III?

KEVIN LEVEE: Well, when we opened Hedonism III we raised the bar for the lifestyle properties. At that time there was really only Hedo 2 and 3. Since then a lot of new players have come in. To be frank, they’ve done a good job. They have good products. That is what business is all about. Competition is good. It ultimately makes it better for the customers and the guests. We are aware that the market has changed tremendously over the last nine years and I have spoken to architects and designers. We are continuing to do enhancements to the property. Some of the projects on the front burner are upgrades to the nightclub and the Jamaican seaside restaurant. Our goal is to again revolutionize the lifestyle travel experience. What we come up with will be something great to take it to the next level.

KASIDIE: Well we’ll look forward to that… Wow, you got me all curious now. I want to find your top secret blueprints!

[Everyone Laughs]

KASIDIE: Do you have any stand-out moments from working here at Hedonism 3 or any proud moments that you’d like to share?

KEVIN LEVEE: We have a wet t-shirt contest every friday. I don’t think that Hugh Hefner has seen as many naked people as I have in my lifetime. I’ve seen a tremendous amount of naked people, so nakedness doesn’t have the same effect on me as on the majority of the population. One time there was this young lady from somewhere from the midwest. A fairly plain lady, you could tell she was the self conscious type. If you would have said to her a week earlier that she was going to be strutting buck naked in front of a bunch of strangers, she would have sworn on every female ancestor that you were lying. But somehow, somewhere, she gets the courage and she gets out there and does it. Often times what you find that with the wet t-shirt contest it is not the most beautiful woman that wins… Its the person who goes out there and captures the audience… And this girl went out there and did her dance and the whole place went crazy. Every single man was desiring her. Now that girl is changed for the rest of her life. That girl goes back home with confidence she never knew she had. She’s a brand new human being. I’ve seen that happen over and over at Hedonism.

KASIDIE: What about on the flip side? What has been the biggest challenge for you in running this resort? Have you ever had issues with the government in Jamaica?

KEVIN LEVEE: Sometimes you get a call and have to deliver some bad news. Because Jamaica is very conservative, I have always felt like a soldier and there’s a hundred snipers hiding out there just waiting for you to lift your head. So one of the things we’ve done is stayed under the radar. In Jamaica we keep a very low profile. We would really like to show what the resort is is like and take pictures of the activities and guests to put on our website… But we can’t. We have to protect people’s privacy. So that’s been a difficulty. I’ve always thought if we could just show what Hedonism was, we would be taking numbers. We’d be like Studio 54.

KASIDIE: So I take it you won’t be telling us about all the celebrities that have stayed here.

KEVIN LEVEE: We actually don’t get as many celebrities as the other resorts. When you’re at Hedo it doesn’t matter who you are at home. Other resorts will take that information, like who you are and what you do… But we don’t do that at Hedo. Everyone is equal here. There are people that I’ve seen visit the resort many many times and after several visits I discover their profession and say, “Oh that’s really what you do?” Their congressmen, or a doctors, or along those lines.

KASIDIE: Do you see a big difference between U.S. visitors and international visitors?

KEVIN LEVEE: Probably 80% of our business is from the USA. 10% Canadian, 4 or 5% European and the rest are Jamaican. 75% of our business is couples. In the winter there’s a much higher percentage of couples, and in the summer the singles percentage goes up. But mostly American couples. That goes for all Jamaica’s resorts, not just Hedonism’s guest breakdown.

KASIDIE: What would you want to tell someone who is considering coming to Hedonism III?

KEVIN LEVEE: I’d like them to know that there is no one type of Hedonism vacation. Hedo is what you make of it. If you want to come here and spend the week swinging on a hammock between the palm trees that’s fine. If you wanna come and bounce off the walls… We’ll scrape you off in the morning. That’s fine too. It’s whatever you want it to be. We don’t instigate we facilitate. We never tell you what you have to do on your vacation. It’s whatever you’re comfortable with.

KASIDIE: Thank you for talking with me. Before I go, I have one last extremely important question… What’s the next drink I should order at the bar?

KEVIN LEVEE: Hmm… Have you tried a Monkey Brain?

KASIDIE: Monkey Brain? I’ve been here four times and have never tried one of those… Monkey Brain, here I come!!!

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Terry Gould is the best selling author of The Lifestyle: A Look at the Erotic Rites of Swingers, a book that has been profiled on ABC’s 20/20 and CBS’s 48 Hours, and is widely considered to be the only serious investigation of the modern swinging subculture by a mainstream journalist.

Kasidie: I’ve really been looking forward to speaking with you. Your book has had a huge impact on me. When I started reading The Lifestyle, A Look at the Erotic Rites of Swingers, I couldn’t put it down. In many ways it has greatly affected the way I view the lifestyle, and it has actually been a driving force behind much of the ideology behind Kasidie Magazine.

Terry Gould: Thank you, I’m honored.

Kasidie: Your book is unique in contrast to other books about the swinging lifestyle in that you are not actually a swinger yourself. You wrote it purely as an outside observer of lifestyle. Most people who go that deep into the lifestyle or spend that much time around swingers are usually people who are interested in getting into the lifestyle themselves.

Terry Gould: Yeah, let me start by saying it was just a professional engagement of journalism. That’s what I do when I tell a story, I stay with it. I’ve written several books and studied the subject matter for years. That’s not unusual for any journalist. In my case, sometimes organized crime sometimes social phenomena. It takes a long time to treat a subject seriously and understand it and explain it. Not just on the most obvious and spectacular manifestations you see on the outside that can be covered by a daily newspaper but culturally historically morally ethically biologically.

Kasidie: I understand that this book and its research resulted from an earlier article you wrote for a magazine?

Terry Gould: In this case the book was published in 1999 and if we go back ten years before then, I was senior editor of a magazine and I was covering a story on swingers. So I did what a lot of journalists did in those days. I found an ad in a local newspaper, went to a club party and from that wrote an article. The people I encountered that particular night in that particular club were not very flattering to that subculture.

Kasidie: You mean physically?

Terry Gould: In all respects. They didn’t have a heavy degree of self-consciousness. So I wrote an article about that. The important thing to recognize is that when people come in from the outside, as I did, they tend to notice the things they don’t like about the lifestyle first. Because when the subject of sex comes up it becomes personal and you’re more prone to be judgmental. But about a year or two later, I met a woman who was familiar with the lifestyle and she explained that what I had done was given a skewed survey based on this one club of something that was actually a very wide-spread phenomenon and had a lot of other aspects to it. For instance, if I were to do a story of the gay lifestyle and I went to a bondage S&M club and I walked in there and saw people walking around in dog collars. If I walked away and said “This is what it means to be gay”, I’d be giving the readers a skewed survey of a multi-faceted complex subculture, but I would be drawing out the one manifestation of it that actually belied what was going on in all other areas.

Kasidie: That sounds like the standard for most current television journalism.

Terry Gould: Well, especially with sex. Sex is such an easy target. So, anyway this woman invited me to see the other side of things. She belonged to what she called a “Cadillac Club.” It was a ranch out in the country. I was actually very startled. I went to a dance and I saw upper middle class professionals. They were basically from all walks of life, but there was a preponderance of upper middle class people there. They were articulate.

Kasidie: It wasn’t what you expected? Were you shocked?

Terry Gould: I was shocked because there was really nothing to be shocked about. They were sunny suburbanites they basically had an optimistic view of life. They danced, they self-parodied, they had an awareness that the outfits they were wearing could only be worn at a place like this. Some of them had been in it for years. Some went to clubs every Saturday night, others went only once or twice a year. They all knew each other. I got intrigued. I started researching around 1992 or 93 and discovered this was a verifiable subculture which was virtually uniform across the continent. It had rules, etiquette, a main demographic, a travel industry, clubs and rituals. It was like the jazz scene. There was accepted lingo and forms of behavior and they had a name for it, “The lifestyle.”

Kasidie: This is pre-internet?

Terry Gould: I don’t think anybody was on the internet back then.

Kasidie: So this subculture was the same uniformly across the country even before the swinger dating websites popped up?

Terry Gould: Because it had attracted a culture of people who were in it for pretty much the same reason. They called it “the lifestyle” because they lived in a certain kind of style that allowed them to combine their North American middle class values, emotional monogamy, raising children with their North American fantasies of dressing like movie stars and going to exciting parties. They had no where else to express that longing to go to a Mardi Gras party with their spouse. They were primarily in that subculture not to sleep with other people, but to eroticize their own marriages. So you had this cohort of middle and upper middle class people. But they couldn’t show up in a Frederick’s of Hollywood outfit to regular bars or they’d get in trouble. But in the safe bounds of this subculture they could express their sexuality in a very safe environment. I got very intrigued, most journalists in the 80′s took the easy shots at the lifestyle.

“At some level most men believe that their wives could behave very licentiously if given the opportunity to do so, and that’s why there’s jealousy and fear.”

Kasidie: I often feel that a lot of this fear of swingers comes from a belief that swingers are going to somehow corrupt the rest of society. As if we’re trying to force our lifestyle on others… which has not been my experience.

Terry Gould: The swinger subculture is basically set up as a conservative institution. The misconception of the lifestyle by the straight world is that it’s just a vehicle for men to have sex with other women while their wives come along. But that’s not what it’s about at all. If it were about that, it would not have grown by such leaps & bounds over the last 20 years, penetrating all ends of the continent and Europe and Australia and doubling and tripling in numbers. Most people use it to spice up their own marriages. Most people will tell you that it wouldn’t be as exciting to just to go to these clubs alone to have mechanical sex with a stranger. They wouldn’t consider it a lifestyle if that was the case.

Kasidie: Your book talks a lot about women and their sexual “power”. I think you used the term “the insatiable female”. You said that a lot of our society’s sexual stigmas stem from fearing the full sexual potential of women.

Terry Gould: At some level most men believe that their wives could behave very licentiously if given the opportunity to do so, and that’s why there’s jealousy and fear. Everything inside us comes down to us from millions of years of natural selection and evolution. If a biological trait served some purpose it stayed with us. If it didn’t serve a purpose it left us. One of the traits that women have is the ability to have multiple orgasms. Some women can have fifty orgasms.

Kasidie: I know some of those women!

Terry Gould: [laughs] Right, so why is that? Why does man have one orgasm at a time and women can have a train of them? There’s a postulate that at some point in our evolutional history were receptive to more than one partner. When you look at the biology of sperm, you discover that only 1% are design to fertilize the egg. So at some point in our past history, sperm were competing in the women and may the best man win. So at this time there was no such thing as natural female monogamy. There was no chastity belt that nature provided women and men were very aware of that. So they stayed near them to keep other men away so they could be sure that the child she bore was his. So this is why we have all these rules and male dominance today, because men didn’t want to end up raising someone else’s child.

Kasidie: But we’re skipping a big block of time in human history here, aren’t we? Between now and the cave-dwelling days, haven’t there been civilized and educated cultures that have practiced non-monogamous sex, even group sex?

Terry Gould: There was a study in the late 1940s that found that 39% of cultures and societies throughout history have practiced some form of approved extra marital liaison. The spring festivals and solstice festivals, and in many cultures permit licentiousness. We have a day of the week we call Saturday. Saturday is named after the god Saturn and that’s where you get the word Saturnalian which means “Orgy”. So Saturday literally translates to “Orgy Day”. So it’s written in our culture.

Kasidie: Hold on… Saturday means “Orgy Day!?”… Most swingers already celebrate that!

Terry Gould: Well, Saturday is traditionally the day we can loosen up and do what we wouldn’t normally do on Tuesday.

Kasidie: [laughs] Speak for yourself!

Terry Gould: The origin of the day goes back to an orgiastic festival. Sure it feels good, but it benefits them in other ways. That’s what I found in the lifestyle. The rituals and erotic rites benefit them in social ways that keep them coming back. Those social ways are adventatious, usually towards their family life. It seems extremely paradoxical. They gain benefits from that lifestyle by meeting a slew of people they would not meet in their straight life. These people are invested in each other. They form non-sexual mutually beneficial relationships. You meet a computer guy at the club and he helps you out with a computer problem and you give him tips on stocks or investment advice. There’s constantly an exchange of knowledge or services.

Kasidie: It probably seems paradoxical to those who are not in the lifestyle… But to those of us in it, it’s very natural. Many relationships developed among swingers are completely non-sexual.

Terry Gould: Absolutely, and I think it’s a relief to a lot of people, that they can develop non-sexual relationships and to be able to engage others intellectually as well as physically. Something I’ve noticed is that those connections are not unique to the swinging lifestyle. When I would go to these swinger events I would feel like I was in Prague in the 1500s or in the Amazon amongst the Syriono tribe. It’s one species behaving in a way that gives you a window to other cultures at other times within that same species. I was amazed that people weren’t aware of it and nobody was already studying it. I went to a huge convention in 1996 and I asked couples to fill out an anonymous survey. 1/3 of the people had post graduate degree, 1/3 voted republican in the last election. 40% of the people actively belonged to a major religion and 80% were married. Very rarely did you see casual couples there.

“If you look at warrior cultures from way back throughout human history, you’ll find that there’s a large degree of spouse sharing. The reason there is because the warriors that get killed left their widows behind.”

Kasidie: So we’ve established that much of this sexual behavior is not new to human history. But where does the modern concept of the lifestyle come from?

Terry Gould: In World War II, the United States & Canadian Air-force had all these bases across North America, training pilots to go overseas. These were officers usually the rank of captain or up, fairly well paid, and they usually brought their wives to live on the bases. If you look at warrior cultures from way back throughout human history, you’ll find that there’s a large degree of spouse sharing. The reason there is because the warriors that get killed left their widows behind. Those warriors that didn’t get killed took care of the widows.

Kasidie: So it was like a life insurance plan for the widows?

Terry Gould: Exactly. So you have this society of Air Force pilots living on the bases with their wives around them. These pilots had a very high death rate- higher than the death-rate of the other armed services. 1/3 got killed in combat so there were a lot of widows left. So swinging was going on all over these bases. These pilot were exceptional men. The Air Force chose the best of the best, and their wives were exceptional too. So you have these good looking guys and their beautiful wives who are risk takers. So when the survivors came back home after World War II, they moved to the suburbs but they still kept at it, and still kept sharing wives.

Kasidie: How did they find each other now that they were among civilians?

Terry Gould: There was this guy named Leidy, a former pilot who now travelled the country as a salesmen. He’d call up his buddies from the Air Force and he began making a list, which became known as “the Leidy list”. Every town he visited, the list grew a little longer. Then he passed copies of the list around to everyone who was on it. The Leidy list was basically the first swinger magazine because it was a way for people to get in touch with each other. That was the modern origin of the lifestyle. That list was passed around to upper middle class, suburban, married people and that’s basically where it stayed for the next 50 years. That’s why you see a lot of clean-cut people with healthy attitudes and above average intelligence in the lifestyle, because that cohort stayed the same right from its origins right after World War II.

Kasidie: Not being a swinger yourself, I’m curious what preconceived notions you had about swingers beforehand. Before you went to that first party- the unflattering one you found in the newspaper- what did you expect to find?

Terry Gould: First of all, that first dance I went to was in a dingy basement.

Kasidie: I’m not surprised, most parties that are advertised in a paper are not the highest quality. You usually need to know someone and be trusted by them in order to find out about the better events.

Terry Gould: Yeah it was really tacky. The music was loud. Lets face it, sex is a very personal experience. You could go into a board meeting and get along fine with fifteen people sitting around a table. But when the subject of sex, or the possibility of sex comes up, it immediately becomes a personal experience. You’re either aroused or turned off. That’s why a lot of journalists when they walk into that lifestyle, if they’re not intrigued by it, their repulsed by it. They don’t give themselves the same discipline of mind that they do when they analyze the gay lifestyle, which is to treat them with dignity and respect.

Kasidie: Why do you think that is?

Terry Gould: Because we’re dealing with primarily heterosexual middle class people and I guess the mainstream media feels they’re well guarded enough that they can protect themselves and they’re no real oppression going on. When in fact, over the course of my book there was this constant pounding by mainstream media that portrayed swingers as gluttonous, weird and dangerous. It enabled conservative elements in society to start arresting them, raiding their clubs for all kinds of spurious reasons, like illegal alcohol sales and running whore houses. Law enforcement or DA or captain who wanted to make a name for themselves would phone the press before raiding a swinger club. In one instance in Montreal, the police phoned the press and then ushered these fifty swingers right out into the cameras. If you’d seen the video footage you’d see people with raincoats over their heads like it’s a mafia bust. This happened again and again.

“If people have control of their own sexuality, then that means they’re not under the control of society.”

Kasidie: That part of your book got made me want to scream. Those situations made me really angry.

Terry Gould: What wasn’t understood is that good people were getting severely hurt. When these people came to court you saw they were pharmacists and airline pilots and DEA agents. So basically they came from mainstream society and were being arrested for what? For nothing!

Kasidie: So what is the inherent danger that people feel from swingers? Why the animosity?

Terry Gould: Well, it goes something like this: If people have control of their own sexuality, then that means they’re not under the control of society. From 6000 years ago we’ve had a controlling caste of rulers priests and scribes. The rulers are close to god, the priests sanctify their relationship with god, and the scribes write it all down in the text. The main preoccupation of these religious texts are sex. It’s like a relationship of a mafia boss to people on his block. He says to them: “You’ve done something wrong! I can punish you for it… but if you pay me I can speak to the big boss and he’ll absolve you of it.” So you have this relationship where sex is wrong. There’s a wrong way to have sex and a right way… and the right way is with one spouse, only in a certain way, and only for procreation. If you did it the wrong way, it means you’ve sinned and are going to hell. But you could get absolution from the rulers, priests and scribes if you paid them. People from the beginning of time were condemned to sin again and again and again.

Kasidie: So all this fuss about sex basically stems from a big money scam?

Terry Gould: People were told they couldn’t do something they had to do. Then they had to get absolution of their sin and were therefore constantly beholden to the very people who set these rules. So it was a perfect way to control everyone. And this still happens today, right down to our liberate world. When you walk in the supermarket you go down a virtual tunnel of popular magazines where all you see are all the nearly naked movie stars. Their sex lives emblazoned and celebrated on the covers yet when you turn to the advice columns inside, they tell us we should act in the exact opposite manner.

Kasidie: I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that the moralistic behavior expected of regular people somehow doesn’t apply to celebrities or people of influence. For instance, Snoop Dogg glorifies marijuana and has produced his own line of porno films, yet he’s also appeared on Sesame Street. Parents are okay with their kids looking up to Snoop Dogg, yet they’ll petition to remove another child from their own child’s school if it is found out that his parents are swingers.

Terry Gould: What research into the lifestyle taught me is that there is a real big difference between morals and ethics. Most people do not understand that difference. Morals are fashion, they change all the time. In the 1950s it was immoral to have oral sex. Now it’s promoted between married people. It’s considered a perfectly moral act now. It used to be immoral for a woman to look directly into a man’s eyes. Morals will always change. There is no rock hard moral prescription that is unchanging thru the ages. What does not change is ethics. There is only one ethical principle from which all others derive. Its very simple to remember, you could live your life by it. It is “Do not do unto others that which you do not want others to do unto you.” You can approach every situation and decide how to act based on that simple principle. What I found in with the lifestyle is that while some people might think it’s immoral, it’s actually completely ethical because it follows that maxim. It’s the one rule of etiquette that cannot be broken in the swinger subculture. It’s an ethical framework. Within that framework they can exhibit all sorts of sexual variety that does not impact their ethical behavior in other areas of their lives. They do not become less ethical people by behaving “immorally”.

Kasidie: So, by that very definition, these religious and political groups that are always trying to impose their own moral values onto sexual subcultures… are actally the ones who are behaving unethically?

Terry Gould: Absolutely, it’s a true paradox. The people who impose their own morals, which are not universal, upon people who are behaving ethically, is actually immoral. That is what that lifestyle highlights when other people criticize them. Because they are ethical people behaving in a way that society considers immoral. That is why they pose a threat because people confuse morals and ethics.

Kasidie: You make a point in your book (which is constantly being validated by recent news events) that the people who most aggressively impose their morality on others, and who are quickest to condemn certain acts as immoral… are usually the ones who are secretly partaking in those acts themselves.

Terry Gould: Always! They do it for two reasons. One being that they lighten their own sense of sin when they condemn others. Second, the alpha male in primates, will always try to suppress the sexual urges of the other males. If you can suppress the sexuality of competitors then you can breed more effectively. By eliminating the competition, you have increased your odds. That’s where it comes from. And it never ends. You’ve got the preacher who speaks out against homosexuals and then drives over to the next city on a Saturday night and partakes in homosexual activity. The hypocrisy never ends. I think the world needs a lesson and it needs it really badly. What is moral and normal for today is not necessarily what is ethical and natural. Morality and normality are ideas we impose. But what is ethical and natural is always universal. In the lifestyle what swingers try to do is accept ethical behavior and combine it with natural behavior. They enjoy sexuality and are kind and forgiving to one another instead of focusing on the “morality of the day” and getting angry about people that are not following it. So we really need to distinguish the two. People in the lifestyle seem to get what is ethical and natural. The practice of ethical and natural behavior can only result in kindness… and if you have kindness you need nothing else.

Kasidie: I’d like to thank you for talking with me today. But I’d especially like to thank you for writing this book. It’s not only an incredible insight into the psychology and culture of the lifestyle for anyone who is not familiar with the inner workings of swinging… but it’s also an informative, inspiring and personally vindicating book for those of us in the lifestyle. It is filled with some of the most eloquently and intellectually argued justifications for the swinger lifestyle that could easily disarm any and all of the criticisms that are so often flung at us by moral opposition. Frankly, after reading The Lifestyle, I felt like I could hold my own against Bill O’Reilly if I had to.

Terry Gould: I think sexual subcultures like this have been going on for thousands of years, and they will continue to keep going in their own style. I believe that until there’s some obvious damage can be shown from them, they should be left alone and treated with dignity and respect.

Kasidie: That certainly means a lot to us. Thank you.

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