SE02E07- Give me FREEDOM and give me SEX_mixdown
Thu, 9/2 9:58AM • 59:41
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, consent, club, casual, communities, happening, kink, discriminated, freedom, events, lifestyle, talk, monogamy, business, deal, polyamory, sexuality, sell, issue, money
SPEAKERS
Susan Wright – NCSF, Mickey Gordon, Mallory Gordon
Mallory Gordon 00:08
Welcome to casual swinger. If you’re under 18, the following podcast is not appropriate for you. The subjects and language are for mature audiences only. If you’re not mature in nature, just make sure you’re old enough to vote. We don’t take ourselves seriously ever. no guarantee is given regarding the accuracy of any opinions or statements made on this podcast or website or a blog. It’s all in fun, folks. This isn’t Dr. Phil. Now consider yourself the listener properly advise.
Mickey Gordon 00:54
Hey, everybody, welcome to casual swinger. My name is Mickey. And I’m Mallory, and it’s gonna rain.
Mallory Gordon 00:59
It’s definitely going rain. It’s gonna rain. We’re sitting here watching the track of Hurricane Dorian. And located outside Orlando here in Central Florida. We’re still holding their breath a little bit in our heart goes out to those folks down in the Caribbean, specifically the Bahamas right now.
Mickey Gordon 01:15
Yeah, they’re getting hammered as we record this right now. So it’s a Sunday afternoon and we thought, you know what, we got some time. So let’s sit down and put this thing together. There’s hurricane parties going on? Yeah, over the pamphlet
Mallory Gordon 01:28
there is I mean, I only came out of my pillow for it to record this. I’m going immediately back as soon as we finish. You know, I
Mickey Gordon 01:35
saw a meme was it yesterday, and it was like the Spartans, you know, like the 300 and it’s Floridians during a hurricane. And then it was like the money Python like goofy ass like, you know, army men hiding in a in a trench. Yeah, Floridians if it’s under 60 degrees.
Mallory Gordon 01:51
Yeah. We party right up until the line of imminent danger,
Mickey Gordon 01:55
right. Like you’re gonna die. Okay, I’ll go hide. Yeah. But you know, we’ve, we’ve got a really really cool episode for these guys. Today.
Mallory Gordon 02:03
We do And again, I apologize for going rogue on you. We got to talk with Susan right of ncsf. And typically, we have like, our cadence and we and we stay incommunicado when we’re talking to these people who are interviewing and I was just so I want to say starstruck and captivated.
Mickey Gordon 02:23
enraptured. raptured. Yeah. And raptured. I just went rogue. She did it, but I liked it because I really loved it. She had things to say that really resonated with you, which I love. So Susan rate is the chairperson of the National Coalition for sexual freedom. And we talked with her today about some of the things they’ve been up to what’s going on in Fort Wayne, Indiana, or was going on anyway. We had a lot of conversation with her. So I think you guys are gonna love it. And we called this episode in her honor. And this is a this was a cool little addition for Mallory. Give me freedom. And give me six
Mallory Gordon 02:59
wasn’t that for like Braveheart? Like
Mickey Gordon 03:02
No, no dream freedom like an asshole. And then he got his balls got off. I don’t want anybody cut my balls off. I’m a big boy like them. Very tasty, like to keep them. But you know, speaking of Braveheart, in oppression in freedom, right. So yeah, casual toys has been taken a beating here.
Mallory Gordon 03:21
Like literally fuck the patriarchy. I’m so over this bullshit that we’ve been trying to go through which ironically kind of started that the tip of the iceberg for us. And what led us to this conversation was Susan Yeah, I mean, we we we saw these folks at Nadi Nolan’s right out in the out in the wilds, talking with them, you know, finding out what they do, because that was the first time I had ever been exposed. And I felt like I’ve been living under a rock.
Mickey Gordon 03:49
Yeah, well, me too. I mean, I just I remember the girl with purple hair. And I was like, okay, there’s another ticker performer. Welcome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it’s like Kira. And I was like, okay, purple here. Cool. And then we realized the huge job those folks have. And of course, the folks from the champagne club were there and I don’t really think anything of it. I’m like, a another swinger club. But then, you know, in my mind, when I started seeing all the troubles we were dealing with, with casual toys, and the family values driven old fart white guy patriarchy that we’ve been dealing with. I’m gonna be an old white guy. At some point. I won’t like me either, then.
Mallory Gordon 04:22
Yeah. And I won’t let you have the kind of hypocrisy and you know, quote, unquote, one version of morality for all
Mickey Gordon 04:31
right, yeah, my version zero version.
Mallory Gordon 04:33
Jeez, Louise. It’s just it’s just silly. It’s absolutely silly. And I was dumbfounded that this still happens in this day and age. Oh, yeah. So
Mickey Gordon 04:42
let’s just talk casual toys for a hot second. This is not an ad for casual toys. By the way. This is the bullshit we deal with. So we get questions from prospective customers on our little chat bot. And they’re like, Hey, where are the you know, flesh colored dildos. For example. I can’t find a dildo with balls and a suction cup on your website. Why not? Because we’re not allowed to carry it
Mallory Gordon 05:05
now because it looks like a real penis and that is bad that is dirty and not allowed. It’s fucking ridic What about what about a nice little Flogger? Or maybe some fuzzy handcuffs? No,
Mickey Gordon 05:15
we’re not allowed to sell BDSM items. I can’t sell a Flogger. I can’t sell fuzzy handcuffs. We can’t sell a harness of any kind.
Mallory Gordon 05:23
Yeah, because they’re they that takes us into too high of a risk.
Mickey Gordon 05:29
Yeah, that’s high risk because we’re selling opioids Are you guys
Mallory Gordon 05:31
like sex a little too much? That’s ridiculous. So it looks like it’s for more than just you know, a middle aged white guy.
Mickey Gordon 05:39
Barely. I can’t I can sell Smurf dick. I can sell Hulk dick. Yeah, I can’t sell a white dick. Yes. Yeah, if there’s a trick, it can’t be fleshly. It can be blue, purple. It can be green. It can be yellow. But you know what? It can also be black. They don’t think black is a flesh color.
Mallory Gordon 05:58
Oh, so now they’re racist sometime now
Mickey Gordon 06:00
the racist assholes on top of being sexually aggressive. So it’s a credit card processors that are keeping us from doing that sort of thing. Did you know we can’t solve vaginas honey, unless they’re made by fleshlight?
Mallory Gordon 06:11
Yes. Yeah, that’s which is obviously like, hilarious. I’m like, who put that lobbyist in
Mickey Gordon 06:17
that race?
Mallory Gordon 06:18
Because fleshlight definitely looks like, you know, the mold of a vagina with some lips and sometimes a little hair on there. And that one’s allowed.
Mickey Gordon 06:28
Explain the fuzzy hair on that.
Mallory Gordon 06:29
It’s weird, dude. I’ve only seen a couple in person that I’ve had the hair and I’m like, it feels like fishing line, right?
Mickey Gordon 06:37
to do is that supposed to tell you’re not fucking a tube?
Mallory Gordon 06:41
I don’t know. Maybe it’s just I think it’s got to be aesthetics. I don’t know that there’s a physical application like, does it like I don’t know. Maybe you’re shaved? And it tickles a little? I have no idea. I don’t have those mechanics.
Mickey Gordon 06:53
Does it tickle their nose when they lick it?
Mallory Gordon 06:55
I don’t know. Let’s try it on you. And you can tell
Mickey Gordon 06:57
them in a second. Hey, did we ever talk about the date? We went on where the dude sold his flashlight on eBay?
Mallory Gordon 07:04
No, I don’t think we should because I think they listen.
Mickey Gordon 07:07
I was proud of him. Like dude, rock on. somebody bought a used flashlight on eBay. I’m not. I’m not judging the man.
Mallory Gordon 07:14
Okay. All right. I couldn’t tell if it had an error judgment. Okay, so good. Good on you.
Mickey Gordon 07:19
Man. You he’s the best salesman in America because I don’t know how many dudes would buy a used flashlight. There is a guy out there that did it. I
Mallory Gordon 07:25
got a little excited. I was just like, yelled into the microphone.
Mickey Gordon 07:30
So you know, the other thing we can’t do is we can’t market sexually oriented business.
Mallory Gordon 07:35
Yes, social media is like no
Mickey Gordon 07:37
well, right. So today you know there’s a lot less marketing on webpages it’s it’s not skyscrapers and banners and shit anymore. It’s all social media, right? Any? I mean, yeah, it’s everywhere. It’s Instagram and YouTube and, and we can’t market anything. We can’t monetize anything we create on YouTube. We can’t do we can’t market on Facebook. Yeah, we got kicked off of Facebook. Yeah, but yeah, Facebook.
Mallory Gordon 07:56
Yeah, cuz, yeah, the way our society and even the way we’re interpreting information is totally different than it was like five and eight years ago. We want to socialize the information but nobody wants it, like popping up right in their face in the middle of reading an article or scrolling through their feed. They want it to feel organic, so it’s almost like slub subliminal advertising is how I describe it. Does that make sense? A
Mickey Gordon 08:20
little bit. Yeah. Be very surreptitious.
Mallory Gordon 08:22
Yes. surreptitious. I couldn’t have pulled that one out of my out. Yeah. Nope. Not happening. I couldn’t even speak last night. I was using words incorrectly. Like by the sixth one. I was like these motherfuckers know what I’m
Mickey Gordon 08:34
talking about. Just wave it off. It’s fine. By the way, we got we got hurricane drunk last night, folks. It was fun. We had some folks over and ended that sort of thing. But you know, and I guess the last thing that I wanted to throw out about oppression is no one will take our money. No Pay Pal. Doesn’t want to clover doesn’t want it.
Mallory Gordon 08:51
wipe my vagina with it. Like it’s not dirty.
Mickey Gordon 08:55
I take it if you wipe your vagina not putting money in my busy. Okay, can I just
Mallory Gordon 09:01
babies? germs,
Mickey Gordon 09:02
germs, germs. So yeah, we’re considered high risk by our credit card processor. And that’s why there’s a lot of weird, you know, stuff missing from our site. We have 29 pages of lube, that’s fine. But yes, we can’t have a flesh color deck.
Mallory Gordon 09:17
Speaking of oppression, it was really great. Honestly. I feel empowered, inspired. You know, after our conversation with Susan, I love what these guys are doing. I would personally love to work with him more in our you know, podcast life as well as our personal life. You know, because you and I experience you know, the, the the fear that comes with not being able to be who we are in our everyday life specifically with work, because it’s just, it’s not okay. And that’s 99.9 of the reason while we’re not out in the ether and showing our faces and, and taking a more of an advocacy role is because we can’t do it. livelihood depends on it.
Mickey Gordon 10:01
Well, and that’s where you want to be known for the work you do you want to be known for the shared effort you put in, in your day job. Sure. And if everybody’s wondering, you know, if you’re getting your groove on, right, I mean, we went to Chicago for work, and and we’re like, Hey, you know, we’re done. We’re gonna stay here an extra couple of days, maybe we’ll have a little bit of fun. You’re scared to Yeah, you know, I
Mallory Gordon 10:23
had to it was really difficult, because there were a lot of stragglers from, you know, my neck of the woods, as far as you know, the professional side of things that were still hanging around. And Whoo, man, it was just cutting it a little close for me because I I don’t want to be discriminated against. And I don’t want to put my job on the line.
Mickey Gordon 10:41
Yeah. And have to defend. You know, I mean, Your Honor, my honor. Right. I mean it to have somebody and, you know, in the past and my past life, I’ve had people call me out and and say, you know, what kind of person are you to let your wife do something? Yeah. Well, you just told me everything about you. By the way, you said that I don’t let her to a fucking thing. Yeah,
Mallory Gordon 11:01
it’s, I use I’ve been confronted twice so far, in the last two years. And I took it as an opportunity to educate them on who I am, as a person as a whole, that that’s just a facet of my life. And realistically, it’s none of their business. But since they wanted to open the dialogue, I was happy to, but I also had to ask for their confidence. You know, that, you know, we’re friends, and not just colleagues, I will be an open book, as long as I can trust you,
Mickey Gordon 11:32
right? If we’re gonna have this conversation, you need to understand
Mallory Gordon 11:36
that this is not public information.
Mickey Gordon 11:39
And and, you know, the place where I run into that is when I do have that conversation with somebody, and then maybe they get drunk, and they tell somebody else. Yeah, now I have to deal with it again.
Mallory Gordon 11:48
Yes. And I haven’t had that as of yet. Or that I know of. So I haven’t been confronted or, or there’s not been anything that that tells me that that has transpired. So fingers crossed.
Mickey Gordon 12:00
So things like this. Yeah. That’s why the ncsf exists. Exactly. Yeah. Right. This is this. This is leading into this conversation with Susan. Right. Yeah. And I think it’s, I think it’s really useful.
Mallory Gordon 12:11
I do too. And I love the article you wrote for us. And I know you’re not going to toot your own horn here. But it gives the ability to, to take both your worlds right, because they’re kind of segregated, and put them on paper. And it was beautifully written if you guys have not read it. It’s in this month’s ASN magazine as well as the the fat magazine. Correct.
Mickey Gordon 12:36
It’s the extreme lifestyle issue, which just came out today. But that’s a pay to play issue, you got to pay six bucks for that one. So he’s going to put it in the October issue, which, interestingly enough, is the women of the lifestyle issue in October, so it’s going to be in both. Wow. Well, congratulations
Mallory Gordon 12:53
again. I love you. I’m so proud of you. Thank you for doing that. It’s just an amazing article. It’s called what the secret war.
Mickey Gordon 13:01
It’s called secret war hero. And what it talks about is what we’re fighting for, right? The war against sexual freedom that’s being led by the morality police, the religious right. And the champagne Club’s efforts to stay open in the face of it. So we talked about that particular instance, we talked about the National Coalition for sexual freedom. And we talked about kind of how it happens. So this whole oppression of sexuality, and, you know, Mike Ramos at ASN was nice enough to give me a platform to say what I had to say.
Mallory Gordon 13:36
I love it. Good job, honey.
Mickey Gordon 13:39
Thank you very much. I thought it was pretty cool. Yes. And I did a lot of research. I’m sure you’re happy to not have books laying around. You know, I
Mallory Gordon 13:46
really don’t have anything against the books. I mean, you know, me, I basically collect them. I think I have last count was 23 that I ordered next to the bed that I’m like, Okay, I know I’ve I’ve taken a step I’ve placed them in the correct sequence have to be read? No. Again, I know your head down and I get a little frustrating. Some like, I’d like the six. You’re just you know, your research mode and writer mode. So I tried not to disrupt that.
Mickey Gordon 14:13
Oh, I love you anyway. Well, look, what can you do to defend your rights join the National Coalition for sexual freedom. We’re gonna bring you in just a minute. Susan, right from the National Coalition for sexual freedom. She’s the chairperson, She’s the founder. And their mission is to defend the right of kingster lifestyles and poly people everywhere. So I think that’s going to be a really good time. I think they’re going to enjoy it. And maybe learn a thing or two you want to tell us
Mallory Gordon 14:40
so you guys know where we are. We’re casual swinger everywhere. That is Twitter, Instagram, not Facebook because they suck. Welcome youtube. slsc see Cassidy Doubleday nation as well as kick Yeah, yeah. Got some really great message. Just like kick recently totally made me days super sweet. And if you guys have more kudos to give, please look at iTunes and give us a review there as well. If you’d like to send us a message via email or ask us questions podcast at casual swinger.com is us and feel free to check out casual toys. Oh, God, you know, pitch decks, no flesh color Dix, folks,
Mickey Gordon 15:20
you can get any color other than peach or Caucasian. But yeah, check out casual toys. And hey, if you want to code for casual toys, let’s see how about let’s throw some love to the pineapples today are having a pineapple party on September 6, in Jacksonville. So that’s their monthly party in Jacksonville. That’s the pineapples. And the code for pineapples if you want to go on casual toys is pineapple. So if you type shocker Yeah, no shocker. Right and I could have come up with something better. The fruit did eat Shabak. But hey, if you had like, you would like to check it out. 20% off coupon from casual toys. Ladies and gentlemen. Enjoy this interview with Susan rate from the ncsf. We’ll be right back with you in just a second. You’ve been listening to casual swinger.
Mallory Gordon 16:30
Welcome back to casual swinger everybody. This is Mallory, and this is Mickey and we have a wonderful guest for you guys today. This is Susan Wright, with the National Coalition for sexual freedom. Welcome, Susan. Hey, Susan.
Susan Wright – NCSF 16:44
Hey, thank you so much for having me on.
Mickey Gordon 16:46
Oh, we’re excited to have you won. You guys. His work is legendary for us. The more I learn about ncsf, the more excited I get. And Mallory and I’ve been talking about about you guys and the things we’re doing in the country for the last like month and a half.
Mallory Gordon 16:58
Yeah, yeah, you guys have been pretty busy.
Susan Wright – NCSF 17:01
We are very busy. You know, we’ve been around for 22 years. And we are a grassroots organization. So that means we’re made up of people who are out there running the clubs, running the events, you know, running the membership organizations, and so they all all letting us know the issues that they’re having. So we’re constantly jumping in from one place to the next trying to help people be able to have their freedom.
Mallory Gordon 17:27
Love it. And again, we’re so appreciative you joining us, can you tell our listeners what you do for the organization?
Susan Wright – NCSF 17:35
Yes, right now I am the chairperson of the National Coalition for sexual freedom I have been for about the past year and a half. And my specific jobs for ncsf are the director of incident reporting and response. And that’s our crisis management. When an individual needs help, or a group or a business, they come to our IRR. And our team of volunteers, does what we can to help make a difference.
Mickey Gordon 18:01
Awesome. So let’s start at the beginning. Right? Tell us about ncsf. What is its mission? What do you guys do in support of sexual freedoms? And you mentioned just a second ago incidents? What’s an incident? Give us an example of what that is? So let tell us about yourselves and what you do and what is an incident?
Susan Wright – NCSF 18:20
Well, the National Coalition for sexual freedom is a coalition of groups and businesses. We have 96 coalition partners right now, and that’s groups and businesses and events. And we also have supporting members and individual members, so anybody can join and support this coalition. And what we do is we fight for the rights of people who are non monogamous and are kinky, who have fetishes cross dressing, any sort of variant sexuality, that is being discriminated against, and and historically has been. So what we call an incident is when one of these incidents of discrimination takes place. We go in, and we try to help resolve what’s happening, whether it’s a person who’s fighting a child custody battle, because they live with two of their partners, or it’s a club that is facing, you know, a zoning issue. And so they have to try to deal with the city, or it’s an event where the hotel has been, you know, hit up with letters by religious political extremist groups. And being told, you know, you should cancel this terrible event. And we have to come in and speak for the event event on their side to make sure that their contract is not canceled. That’s an incident. Got it.
Mallory Gordon 19:45
Thank you for clarifying that. So since we’re already talking about incidents, I was on your website, and I was looking at the reports on statistics that you guys had going back to 2014. For example, there was 184 and then let’s jump to 2010 16 oh 109. But in 2018, there were 279 reports and requests. Can you talk a little bit about why the increase?
Susan Wright – NCSF 20:11
Yes, it’s very important to note because we track everything that’s happening so we can let the communities know, hey, these are the trends. And what you picked up on is a very important trend. We used to have, you know, a high of like 400 500 incidents a year. And then when we worked with the American Psychological Association, and they did pass pologize BDSM, they basically said, people who are kinky are mentally healthy, that changed a lot of things, child custody, job discrimination. And so the numbers really started plummeting, and we had that low in 2016. And then suddenly, in August, September of 2016, things started going back up again, we started seeing a lot more discrimination, by hotels against events, by these political groups, these religious extremist political groups, being more active and try like pixels, not porn, targeting certain events, it just was an upsurge in this year, we’re on track to do even more, it looks like the numbers are trending towards 300. and above. So this really just shows us that discrimination is on the rise in the past few years. And as far as we can tell, it’s it’s the rhetoric of us versus them, that seeps in to the social discourse, when people start drawing walls and saying, No, we’re protecting folk like this, but not folk like that. We’re, you know, we’re we’re variant, you know, we’re the ones that people are going to look at and go, Oh, they’re different from us, we’re gonna discriminate against them. So we have to work much harder nowadays than we did several years ago to help people.
Mallory Gordon 22:01
I believe it. I definitely do. There’s this subconscious fear of the unknown, or what people don’t understand. And I think that’s one of the Personally, I think that one of the leading causes of that type of discrimination is either a lack of understanding or acceptance, right?
Susan Wright – NCSF 22:19
I think so. Yeah. It’s like ignorance. It’s not like people are evil, or, you know, bad intentions. I think they all think that they have the best intentions to try to help other people, but they don’t know what it is that you’re talking about, especially when it comes to these kinds of communities, the fact that we’re educational communities, the fact that we’re gathering places for peers, like minded people to come together, the fact that we have to be able to talk about these things, so that we can learn how to talk to our partners. So
Mallory Gordon 22:53
yeah, and I just learned something you mentioned, like in these court cases, that was it the the American Association of psychologists or psychiatrists, I can’t remember exactly what you said. But they deemed qinq mentally healthy. And literally, my face dropped like, Whoa, that that was an issue. They they thought they weren’t mentally we’re not mentally sound.
Susan Wright – NCSF 23:14
Wow, it’s crazy. No, that’s why people’s kids got taken away from them in 2008. When this was still happening, we had 124 parents come to us for help because their child custody been threatened just because they were kinky. You know, the attorneys were taking this DSM manual, and flipping it over in court and pointing to this very confused text that started out with spanking and ended up with like, you know, murder, like one paragraph and was like, ooh, the slippery slope, and it says here, if you have one paraphilia you might have another one, which means that you could be a pedophile, so we have to take your kids away.
Mallory Gordon 23:51
There wasn’t really too much criminal
Mickey Gordon 23:53
thing is really hard. You watch too much criminal minds. But let me get this straight because this is in in we’re definitely off text here. And I’m fine with it, because I love this conversation. But, you know, there have been cases in the case of LGBT, where, you know, transsexuals, were identified as having body dysmorphia. And and they were actually there’s something wrong with their brain. And that’s how they were categorized for a very long time. That’s that that’s not a mistaken identity. It’s not a different identity. They actually were told they had an issue. Are we saying that psychologists in some places of this country actually assign or used to assign kink is some sort of mental disorder.
Mallory Gordon 24:35
Yeah, exactly what was happening right. That’s just my I can’t wrap my head around it in this moment.
Mickey Gordon 24:42
I mean, that’s, that’s utterly maddening. And, you know, kink goes way beyond just kink, right King can be lifestyle swinging. It can be polyamory. There’s a lot of
Susan Wright – NCSF 24:53
no it really is kind of like an umbrella. But you know, our numbers last year, we had only 20 parents come to us for help. Even though the discrimination is up, and that’s actually kind of gone up in the past few years, it really dipped down and went back up a little bit. And we’re seeing almost as many cases regarding non monogamy as we are kink now, but it’s much harder for family courts to discriminate against people, just because they’re kinky after the APA came out with this. But we’re still now we’re seeing problems with non monogamy So,
Mickey Gordon 25:26
so you guys aren’t just involved in public matters and things like clubs or public policy, you guys also get involved in personal incidents of discrimination. So do you see a lot of reports of families dealing with discrimination? Is it is it mostly poly? Or does it happen in cases of maybe like, a parent is lifestyle or maybe a noncustodial parent is found to be in the lifestyle and is suffering from discrimination? Do you see those types of issues,
Susan Wright – NCSF 25:52
yet normally at this point is people who are polyamorous and actually living with their partners. But I think part of that is because a lot of people who are in the lifestyle, don’t realize that ncsf as a resource exists, it could be that it’s happening. And people have no idea who to reach out to, to try to get help. And so that’s one reason I mentioned it, because we really want your listeners to know and to spread the word. If you hear somebody having a problem with this, it’s typically in a divorce case, where you know, one parent wants to try to get custody. And we have seen issues with, you know, job discrimination around the lifestyle, not so much child custody issues. So we’re starting a new program where we were going to be really actively reaching out to seek out people who might be having this issue.
Mallory Gordon 26:40
Right on. So the first time I ran into NC Fs in the wild was when we were at not in Orleans recently, this past July. So how is the organization kind of disseminating or socializing their presence out here to the ether so that people can find them? are you guys doing other events? Is there like, social media marketing that you guys are doing? How are you? How are you trying to get the word out? You’ve been around for 22 years, but it feels it sounds like a lot of people that may need you don’t know you’re there.
Susan Wright – NCSF 27:12
Right? Well, within the kink community, we’re extremely well not just because there’s a lot of regular conferences that we can go to, we hit probably 60 conferences a year, nice, as well as Yeah, as well as doing individual workshops. So for example, Nadia Norman’s is a great conference for us, because that’s one place where we can go and reach a lot of people in the lifestyle. We’ve done couples cruises before, and we’re looking actively for more events that we can do. For example, like we’re going to hold our annual meeting in March in Houston. And, you know, we’ve asked collect clubs, if we can have a consent social on Sunday at their club, and they’ve agreed. So we try to do things like that to just reach out to people in person. And we also, of course, have our Facebook page and CES freedom. And we also have our website, which is NCS freedom.org. And so we have Twitter. And you know, we’re putting up our consent signs on Instagram. So we have a variety of channels.
Mallory Gordon 28:16
Love it. So I’ll back that up a little bit and eat my words. So you guys are very good at socializing. The messaging is just participating on our end and the exposure. So that’s great, because I also looked at your events calendar, which I found fascinating. You guys are all over the place. super busy. And the next event coming up. That was on there was sex down south.
Susan Wright – NCSF 28:38
Yes, sex down south. It’s an amazing, diverse conference. If anybody’s interested in going and socializing with people who are very progressive and interested in talking about these issues, that’s a great place to go. Oh, yeah.
Mallory Gordon 28:51
I mean, it’s it covers so many things. I was really impressed anything between, you know, non monogamy, polyamory. And what was it? Oh, age, race disabilities, sexual out sexuality. You sex it? I mean, it literally covered everything. Yeah,
Susan Wright – NCSF 29:11
yeah. It’s an amazing conference. And that’s the kind of conferences we try to, you know, have a presence that, you know, there’s more and more polyamory conferences happening. Like, we just went to Minnesota, poly con. And, of course, you know, it’s, we’re trying to reach into all different areas.
Mickey Gordon 29:28
Got it. So, you know, let’s talk a little bit about some of the challenges that people in alternative lifestyles face and some of their fears, and maybe how ncsf helps address some of those fears. You know, I was reading an article recently, actually, we have an article that we published for ASN magazine talking with you specifically. And one of the things that we talked about in there is some recent reports that even people that are LGBT with all the strides that LGBT has made. In the last 25 years, that more than 50% of the LGBT community still is in the closet at work. And if they with all the strides they’ve made, are still in the closet and don’t feel comfortable coming out for varying degrees, various reasons. What’s it like for a lifestyle? Or what’s it like for somebody that is in the kink community, the poly community? Is it hard for them to come out? And what are they afraid of? And I bet that percentage is actually nearly 100% don’t come out of the closet at work. So what does NCS SF do for them? And are there any online resources available for those folks to help them deal with this feelings and fears that they have?
Susan Wright – NCSF 30:37
Well, we do we have a study out that we did five years ago, and it was 80% of gangsters are closeted. And we’re getting ready to put out our consent survey that’s going to be asking the same question of people who are polyamorous people who are in the lifestyle, I’m thinking it’s probably even more for people in their lifestyle, maybe slightly less for people who are polyamorous because it like people who are LGBTQ they have relationships, you know what I mean? So it’s, it’s their, their day to day the people they’re living with. So it’s hard to harder to hide that. You know, just like when you’re talking about your husband, if you’re, if you’re a man or your wife, if you’re a woman, you know, if you’re talking about your partners, so it’s I think that’s one reason that jetting polyamory kind of into the social discourse. So we do, we have a narrative project that we’re working on, and we’re gathering people’s stories. And one of the things we’re gathering stories on is about people who have been outed, and people who have outed themselves, and things that happened to them, and things that would that would have helped them, if they could have had access to it, things that did help them that they did, and we’re having a team right now analyze these very long stories, to find commonality. So we can put that out as a resource to people because it is becoming much more of an issue. I mean, you know, face it, we were really underground 20 years ago, nobody without, you know, and now that more people are wanting to like to talk about this, this is, you know, our life, this is who we are, you know, we should be able to mention, yes, we went on a couple of cruise, you know, for our vacation, or, yes, we’re going away for the weekend to have this amazing time to be able to stay that casually without being sexually harassed at work, or be seen as you know, not somebody that they want to promote because of that.
Mallory Gordon 32:31
Yeah, or socially right with your your peers, like getting, you know, you become some sort of pariah.
Susan Wright – NCSF 32:37
Oh, absolutely. And that’s what it is you get sexually harassed, because then people feel free to come and talk to you about your sexuality, you know, the whole slut shaming thing. They assume that you’re available, much less, you know, all this period interest. And then what happens is, the workplace fires you for being a disruption in the workplace. They don’t, they don’t now censure the other people for sexually harassing, you
Mallory Gordon 33:01
know, they identify as the nuisance.
Susan Wright – NCSF 33:03
Yeah, right. Yes. And that is a real problem. I mean, Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. No, that’s what we’re trying to change. And that’s why we’re trying to encourage the media, that’s one thing we really do is we interact with the media quite a bit to try to change the dialogue around this, because that’s really where the change comes.
Mallory Gordon 33:23
I couldn’t agree more now, in that you had mentioned consent. And that’s a big word. that’s a that’s a hot topic, hot button item. Can you tell me what NTFS is approaches to consent, how you’re helping to spread the word on that a little more on what the philosophy is behind it?
Susan Wright – NCSF 33:40
Well, ntsf has our consent counts project that’s been going on for over a decade. And we’ve been talking as as our communities about consent and calling each other out and calling out leaders long before the me to movement started publicly. So ntsf has gone back to the communities to find out what is your definition of consent? To find out? You know, it’s not black and white. I mean, there’s all sorts of gray areas that like coercion, when is something coercive? When is something manipulative? When is somebody in a sound mind or not? You know, how much does drugs or alcohol play into when you can consent or not? So there’s a lot of areas that we’ve dived into. And we’ve created our consent statement that talks about legal and ethical issues, we go out and we do consciousness raising about consent, often at these conferences where we’re at. We’re doing a consent discussion where we all sit in a circle and we talk about consent, and we get this feedback from people about what they need. So one of the things we started doing was working with groups and clubs and creating, you know, our community assistant guides, which tells people how to deal with a consent incident if it happens at your event. How to, you know, deal with trauma because there is a certain thing that happens to people who are traumatized, they may laugh, you know, or say, Oh, no, nothing happened even though clearly you saw something happen. So, you know, these sorts of AIDS we have for groups to create a better consent culture. And their latest thing is our consent signs that not just groups can post on the wall, they can pick out which ones reflect their consent culture, but people can post on social media. And this is my, you know, this is my favorite consent sign. And we have all different varieties of people in those signs, all different configurations, diversity, and a diversity of consent slogans, so people can find what suits them to help better message that because really, consent is about communication, and keeping that communication open.
Mickey Gordon 35:52
So we’ve come a long way since key parties is what you’re saying.
Susan Wright – NCSF 35:57
And yet, that’s still the stereotype. Oh, isn’t that horrible that it’s like still this idea that it’s some sort of freefall when it’s really the exact opposite. We are each deciding what we want our relationships with other people to look like, it’s the most empowering thing in the world, and yet they constantly use the stereotype of disempowerment
Mickey Gordon 36:19
to represent us. If key parties were a thing, there would be no such thing as a casual swinger, I think.
Susan Wright – NCSF 36:27
Yeah, yeah. You know, it was just I think it came out of an era. And I don’t even know if there were that many that happened. But it was so outrageous, I think that it just kind of stayed in the public discourse. Because from what I understand, the real origin of the lifestyle came out of the military came out of the Air Force came out of, you know, consoling people and forming that tight bond, because everybody was at such risk. That’s more the spirit, the true spirit of the lifestyle. is people kind of coming together and forming these bonds with each other. beyond just the husband and wife.
Mallory Gordon 37:02
I’m not gonna lie snickered a little bit at coming together.
Mickey Gordon 37:07
I ideally, no, I
Mallory Gordon 37:10
yeah, I have to agree with you. And I didn’t know that I’ll have to research that and look it up and, you know, read some commentary on that spawning from the military, because it does make a lot more sense as far as the connection and the emotional and mental facets of you know, swinging or non monogamy.
Susan Wright – NCSF 37:30
Yeah, the both the both the leather community, the ordinance of the kink community, the modern kink community also came out of the military when a lot of servicemen came back, and they had their leather jackets and their motorcycles and they loved the come up camaraderie of the service. And, you know, there was gay men among them. And they, they kept that going. And also, it was World War Two with the Air Force officers and their wives. And yeah, they had formed this very close bond. That is, that’s the modern origins. Yeah,
Mickey Gordon 38:03
really cool. Why smoothed out? I’m like, No shit. That’s where it started.
Susan Wright – NCSF 38:08
Huh? Well, it’s been going on forever. But the modern community, you know what I mean?
Mickey Gordon 38:14
humans aren’t monogamous, biologically speaking. But so we talked a little bit about, you know, the resources that you guys offer and some of the ways you approach things in helping people. Do you have any legal aid resources for people that are running into problems or a repository of let’s say, first amendment friendly lawyers for maybe somebody that’s that’s struggling with the freedom of speech issue, when it as relates to their sexuality? Do you guys have any resources legally speaking, that people can draw upon?
Susan Wright – NCSF 38:43
Yes, ntsf does not provide legal aid ourselves. But we have our kink and poly aware professionals list, which has over 2000 professionals, we also were allied with gay law net, which has many 1000s of different kinds of attorneys. And they some of their attorneys identify as kink aware, but even the ones that are LGBTQ friendly, often are very sympathetic to our issues. So what what we do is we refer people to these lists, all often searching for for people when they come to us for help. And, and we’re always recruiting more professionals for these lists. That’s one reason like we went to the American Psychological Association in Chicago earlier this month. I mean, in August, because we do outreach, and we try to sign up more professionals for these lists, whether it’s a therapist or an attorney or a doctor. So that’s a resource that people need to know about. Because often if you do get into trouble, you really want an attorney that is knowledgeable about our communities and sympathetic to our communities. You do not want to have to be trying to explain. You know who you are and what you were doing to your attorney who’s sitting there like looking like, you know, a blank wall at you. You want your attorney to be You’re a defender, and be able to be articulate, articulate in defending you and your case,
Mallory Gordon 40:06
that’s awesome. We actually, we did an episode, and this has nothing to do with legal stuff. But in talking about, like, what happens, I believe it was the STD STI episode, where we had a doctor and a therapist on that our life stylers because it’s a lot easier to talk about those things, once they already understand and have the background and the first hand experience is almost invaluable. Now, me locally where I live, like I don’t have a doctor that, you know, I could have, like looked into and say, you know, okay, I don’t have to explain non monogamy to them, I may have to, you know, have that dialogue. And if they have a personal objection to it, that I’m just gonna have to, you know, move on, you know, and find someone who is not opposed and won’t lecture me and all the rights and wrongs of my my choices in my lifestyle, because I’ve run into that before. So it’s great that that that’s a resource that people can look to when they’re looking for legal aid, even though you guys don’t provide it directly, you give them the ability to find it.
Susan Wright – NCSF 41:09
Right, we’re an ncsf is a networker, we really try to bring people together with the people that they need. And we try to make those connections and we look outward from the communities we really try to educate outwards. And we also try to look back at the communities and educate people in our communities about what they need to know to interface with the mainstream without being discriminated against.
Mallory Gordon 41:31
And Love it. Love it. Now, I haven’t met you face to face, but I can tell on our short conversation that you’re very knowledgeable, you’re dedicated and you’re passionate about working with the organization. Can you tell me how long you’ve been with them overall, and why you decided to become part of ncsf?
Susan Wright – NCSF 41:51
Well, I actually founded ncsf. I founded ncsf, because I was working on a project in the mid 90s. For the National Organization for Women, I was going around the country, to regional conferences, and you know, local chapters, and we were trying to get them to rescind their anti BDSM policy, their anti BDSM policy equated, you know, power exchange with, you know, reinforcing the patriarchy. And so I did this for several years. And as I was doing this, I kept on getting women coming up to me and saying, you know, I’ve been discriminated, I lost my job, I’ve been sexually harassed I, I lost child custody, because I’m kinky. And so I had made all these, you know, connections around the country. So I just started gathering groups up and said, we really need to have a coalition because the groups couldn’t deal with it, they were too busy educating and holding parties and, you know, doing the stuff that needed to be done to keep the community going. So I really kind of just kind of drag the first five groups together, and it’s grown from the five groups. They picked it up and ran with it. And now it’s 9696 a coalition partners. And you know, I’ve never actually been in charge of ncsf. It’s really kind of funny. This is the first time in 22 years that I’ve actually been the chairperson of ncsf. I was I’ve always worked with incident recording a response, because that’s where I came in. That was the impetus of this is to help people who needed it. And then along the way, because I was outed, I became the spokesperson, because I’m a writer, I’m okay with using my name out there. And it’s caused me problems. I’ve lost contracts before, but because I was one of the few people out, I was able to be out there and vocal and talking on the news and things like that. So that’s been kind of my journey through ncsf Wow,
Mickey Gordon 43:42
that’s awesome. I’m
Mallory Gordon 43:43
awestruck. Yeah.
Mickey Gordon 43:46
You know, it’s funny, you brought up the ban on BDSM. And I laugh about that, because we talked about it during the intro here today. You know, for casual toys, casual toys is is our business that, you know, we sell toys, and we have a really hard time selling toys when credit card companies using family values as an umbrella and risk. They won’t let us sell certain things on our store or we can’t accept credit cards through their company and one of those things is BDSM items like fuzzy handcuffs. And it’s and it’s like wow, so his family values another word for patriarchy. I think it is. Yeah,
Susan Wright – NCSF 44:22
it really is. It’s just trying to restrict other people’s abilities to express themselves because you know, it goes against some some word that they’ve read. Although, you know, the hypocrisy involved in this is often very deep, where people who are fighting this are often themselves doing it, you know, privately, which is is really wrong. But companies now can discriminate against us. I just got an email from somebody who lost their their email account, because and they’re a sex educator, and now they have no way to contact us. They’re people that they’ve, you know, 1000s of people who have contacted them and are on their list and want to get this education and boom, a company was able to justify it on their own. Nope, that’s it, you don’t fit our terms of service, and you can no longer use it. And it’s even worse when a bank takes your bank account away.
Mickey Gordon 45:19
2016 they did that to several adult film stars and people that were associated with the industry Chase Bank.
Susan Wright – NCSF 45:25
continued. Yeah, they’ve been they’ve continued to do it. ntsf when we filed our amicus brief against the foster, that’s the law, we really kind of summed up different you know, people who’ve come to us and said, this has been a problem, we sum that up real people who have been affected adversely by this, this law, because it’s not just trying to stop sex trafficking. It’s trying to stop prostitution, any form of sex for sale, including illegal stuff like camerawork and adult entertainment. They it and and now, it’s just like laughing over into sex toys. And being a sex educator or a sex therapist, we’ve had sex therapists have their ad, which they’ve run on Facebook for years and years and years, suddenly, they can’t do that anymore.
Mickey Gordon 46:13
Well, and Kate from swinging down under had her Pay Pal taken away, and they don’t Korea, they don’t do anything. I don’t sell anything wrong. I mean, that this damn swinging in their name, and that happened. And, you know, every we actually did an episode, we did a segment on sesta foster early on, we first started casual swinger, and we talked about what happened, you know, all the dating sites, all of the free dating sites went away. You can’t do shit for free anymore.
Susan Wright – NCSF 46:41
Right? And that’s, well, you can’t because because they’re so worried that if anybody offers any kind of sex for sale, and a sting happens, and the person’s arrested, they can then go after the website, which is crazy. So we have a long list of websites that have just disappeared.
Mickey Gordon 46:58
Well, so earlier this week, stcs Lexi silver asked a question on Twitter. She said, if you could change one thing about the way people think about sexuality, what would it be? And I you know, I handle our Twitter, and I usually answer most of the stuff on Twitter because Mallory does everything else. So I answered that mine is their business. I would like to change that. Because other people think about sexuality, and they think that my sexuality has anything to do with them whatsoever. It doesn’t. So my question for you is, what is your answer to that? If you could change one thing about the way people think about sexuality, what would it be? Yeah, that
Susan Wright – NCSF 47:36
is what if it’s consenting adults, it’s nobody’s business as as long as nobody’s being harmed, you know, seriously injured. There’s, there’s, it should be nobody else’s business than the people involved, including, you know, city council, zoning regulators. I mean, we should be able to have our places to be able to meet and to be able to talk to each other. And that’s just under a big threat right now.
Mallory Gordon 48:06
Right on, um, something I wanted to bring up. So Mickey wrote an article, I guess, and he mentioned earlier, spoke to you. And there’s a club called the champion club in Fort Wayne, they needed your guys’s help recently. Are you able to talk about even just a little bit? How you helped mobilize and assisted the owners and their struggles?
Susan Wright – NCSF 48:31
Well, yes, we ended up they put out a call, they wanted people to write to the city council. So we put that call out on our website and Facebook page and let everybody know, what the what was happening, which was the city council was trying to was considering passing a regulation that’s based on the Phoenix ordinance, which outlaws swing clubs. And, and there was this lovely swing club in Fort Wayne champagne club. They were doing everything right. You know, just a really wonderful place. And and yet, this regulation, if it’s been passed, could have put them out of business. So we put that up. I contacted each one of the city council people, we actually posted online the letter that we sent to them, which said, you know, you really you’re not you’re not elected to decide how people should live their lives in Fort Wayne, you are not the arbiter of other people’s morals. And if this really does come down to a moral issue, you should not be be telling other people they cannot do this. And thankfully, the City Council listened. A ton of people showed up at the meeting. And there was some very thoughtful council members who really thought about the issue. I think one of them went down and like took a look at the club, which is exactly what we want, you know, people to be knowledgeable, and they did not pass this ordinance. Which we were thrilled, thrilled about.
Mickey Gordon 50:04
So interestingly enough, that was one of two ordinances for the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, the second one was implementing some serious limitations on the strip clubs in that very same area. Specifically, one of the rules was a distance limitation, where people have to be a certain distance from the dancers. And that’s been struck down many, many times. Because stripping is protected speech under the First Amendment. It’s an expressive dance, and it’s been defended multiple times across the country. But sexual preference, sexual freedom and sexual activity is not a protected activity under the Constitution in any way, shape, or form. So when we talk about things like the champagne club, yeah, that’s a victory. But they’re still they’re still attacking us in other ways. Have you guys heard anything from Fort Wayne since then, about, you know, what they’re gonna do after the fact or zero z, I heard that, you know, they’re gonna go after him in zoning, to see what they can do
Susan Wright – NCSF 51:01
that you know, and that’s unfortunately, likely they often do. zoning is often the the big club that’s put against and beaten down people because you know, all these zoning regulations, it could be things like oh, my gosh, your, your, your exit is six inches too close to the door jamb. Like, they can find the smallest reason to shut you down when it comes to zoning. So I certainly hope that they don’t do that. I was hoping that the the publicity of this, and the fact that it appeared to be very politically motivated, would keep them from going after champagne club. They have, of course, been super busy and dealing with the fallout of all of this, I wouldn’t be surprised, they also have to look to Texas, which is trying to pass it’s got this sexually oriented business tax at $5 a person. And so if your, your club is deemed to be a sexually oriented business, you can follow that a foul of you know, state law,
Mallory Gordon 52:03
isn’t that like every singles bar
Susan Wright – NCSF 52:06
in the country. I know that you know, what there’s, there’s, there’s a lot of money and an industry behind like nightclubs. And but even things like that, like in New York suffered for many years, New York City because you couldn’t dance in a bar, because you had to have a cabaret license. So these kinds of regulations are used to to really restrict the kinds of businesses that are allowed.
Mickey Gordon 52:32
That’s utterly ridiculous that they continue to get away with some of these things. So are you aware as the ncsf of any other clubs that are under scrutiny today, or that are facing similar battles to the champagne club? Or it was just kind of a one off?
Susan Wright – NCSF 52:47
Oh, no, there’s there’s a couple more clubs that are actively dealing with issues right now. So and it’s pretty ongoing, I actually have a list of events that are dealing with hotels as well, because hotels have historically been a very safe place for us to produce events. And they’re being pressured more and more by these groups. So we have clubs, and we have events that are under siege right now.
Mickey Gordon 53:13
Why is there a list of those available for the public to get involved, if they want to write letters to city councilmen or to these hotel operators and let them know that their business is at risk?
Susan Wright – NCSF 53:23
And nothing right now, a lot of times these have to try to like work behind the scenes, to resolve things, the champagne club was a very unique situation in that we were able to like, raise awareness right before and it was like a week before the meeting. You know, it happens that. And so that’s when we really put the public call out. And so when we do that, it’s so important for people to respond and so important for people to show up because it was the bodies in the in the at the meeting, it was the letters that they bought, that really helped kind of turn the tide on that.
Mallory Gordon 54:00
Gotcha. So if we want to tell our listeners how to help ncsf the coalition and supporting members, there’s that option, there’s donors, what are the difference between them? And how do they do either?
Susan Wright – NCSF 54:16
Well, you can certainly join it an individual member for $25 any kind of business or event or club can, or nonprofit group can join as a coalition partner, that’s $100. You get listed on our website and you vote in our board. You decide what projects and programs we’re working on. And we also have supporting memberships, which is $100. And you also get listed on our website, but you don’t have the responsibilities. We love it when people hold fundraisers for us because if you hold a fundraiser even if it’s just passing the hat, you say a few words about ncsf that helped raise awareness 100% of our money comes from memberships and donations, whether it’s remote or fundraiser or from an individual, we do have a foundation. So it’s tax deductible, so people can make a donation to us. It’s our institute for 21st century relationships is our ncsf. foundation. Yes. So, but we love it when people do fundraisers for us. We don’t have any paid stuff. So all of the money that comes to ncss goes into our advocacy efforts. That’s how we’re able to go to all these conferences, and the APA, which we were the only sexually oriented booth at the APA. And it was crowded, there was so many people trying to get information. And it shows the lack of education that’s being done. Wow. So spending that money to go do that, to create the guidelines for we were handing out our brand new guidelines that we created with the APA division 44 taskforce on consensual non monogamy. And it’s guidelines for therapists on how to treat people who are non monogamous. So that you won’t be discriminated against. So that’s the sort of thing that we spend our money doing.
Mallory Gordon 56:06
Bless you all. My goodness.
Mickey Gordon 56:10
It is something I mean, just looking at it, the massive work you have in front of you, is probably very daunting. But you guys should also look behind you and see all the good, you’ve done already. Be proud of yourselves.
Susan Wright – NCSF 56:23
Well, it’s very true. We are a coalition, we are so much stronger, working with all of these hundreds of people. I mean, we have 30 regular volunteers. And then like I say it’s 96 coalition partners, those people are all actively involved, it just shows the power of a collective. Well,
Mickey Gordon 56:44
all right, well, let’s, you know, this has been a really entertaining 45 minutes for us. And I think in in more importantly, there’s a lot of information here and resources available to everybody because of the things you do. So before we let you go, why don’t you tell our listeners how to find the ncsf and how to request assistance, should they need it, fill them in, and this is your opportunity, right? advertise
Susan Wright – NCSF 57:08
where we are NCS freedom.org. That is our website. And on our website, we have under our programs, our consent counts program, we have our incident reporting your response. On our front page, we have a big button that says Get help now. So you can just click that and fill out our form. And somebody will be back to you usually within 24 hours. But at the most 48 hours, we try to help people right away because usually they they really need to have that support. Right away. We’re also on Facebook, it’s MCs freedom, or you can just look up National Coalition for sexual freedom. And definitely follow us because we put media updates up there about mentions of kink and non monogamy in the media. So that’s very interesting, as well as our call to action like we did with the champagne club. And we’re National Coalition for sexual freedom on Instagram, and we’re ncsf on Twitter. Well, thank you for all that you
Mallory Gordon 58:07
do all that you have done for being here with us today and exposing you know, maybe a listener to or 20 that could use your help. So well. Thank
Susan Wright – NCSF 58:17
you so much. It really is very helpful for us to be able to reach out to people this way.
Mallory Gordon 58:22
Oh, the pleasures definitely all ours 100%.
Mickey Gordon 58:25
So Mallory, you want to tell everybody how to find us and we will let the beautiful Miss right go? Yeah, these
Mallory Gordon 58:31
guys know where we are. We’re casual swinger everywhere, folks. That’s Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, SLS. SDC Cassidy and double date nation. If you’d like to reach out to us, please hit us up podcast at casual swinger.com. And I think that’s it. Right? That’s most of
Mickey Gordon 58:49
you on iTunes. Come talk to us. Whatever. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been this right from the National Coalition from sir for sexual freedom. See, I can’t even get it right. But thank you so much for joining us. And ladies and gentlemen, you’ve been listening to casual swinger.
