SWINGING WHILE BLACK

When you think of swinging, what's the first image that comes to your mind? Some key party in the 1970s? Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in masks? A suburban couple revealing their lifestyle on The Oprah Show? I'm going to assume all of those images in your mind have one thing in common.

When you think of swinging, what’s the first image that comes to your mind? Some key party in the 1970s? Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in masks? A suburban couple revealing their lifestyle on The Oprah Show? I’m going to assume all of those images in your mind have one thing in common.

Everybody is white.

If you’ve been paying attention you know it’s already dangerous to be driving while Black.

Outside a store while Black.

Voting while Black.

Riding a train while Black.

Sitting in your car while Black.

Wearing a hoodie while Black.

Walking in your neighborhood with a friend while Black.

Minding your own damn business inside your own damn apartment while Black.

But when it comes being a swinger…do Black people really do that?

Yes they do. And for some…it can be, well, interesting.

On this episode, I talk to one half of a “rarity” in the swinging community: A Black couple. Pursuing the lifestyle of their choice, both he and his wife have experienced all sorts of interesting comments, rejections and flat out fetishization. My guest discusses what it’s like to be at a sex party with Trump supporters, the crazy expectations or blatant racism they encounter on swinger dating sites and also the historic implications of being a Black man watching your wife have sex with a White man.

Everything you think you knew about being in the lifestyle community is about to change.

To contact my guest Mink and his wife Andy, check out the swinging lifestyle site Kasidie.com and search for MinkandAndy. At the very least, you know it's going to be a funny night.

Here’s my Medium.com story about the night I dragged my husband to our first swinger party for research. It did not go well.

It’s important to remember that the racial awareness that's happening right now in this country is not just some trend and we must keep working to educate ourselves to help put an end to systemic racism. White people need to better understand our part in this country’s deeply rooted racist past and the millions of ways we’ve benefited from it without even realizing. There's a lot more work that needs to be done.

Please don’t ask or expect Black people to educate you. You have to listen, learn and do the work yourself. Below is a brief list of books to read that will help you to better understand centuries of systemic oppression. Please do your part to support Black artists, Black-owned business, and use your platform to amplify Black voices whenever you can.

· How to Be an Antiracist/Ibram X. Kendi/2019

· White Fragility/Robin J. Diangelo/June 26, 2018

· Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race/Beverley Daniel Tatum/2017

· White Rage/Carol Anderson/2017

· Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race/Renni Eddo-Lodge/2017

· Between the World and Me/Ta-Nehisi Coates/2015

· The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness/Michelle Alexander/2010

· Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower/Brittney Cooper/2018

· I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings/Maya Angelou/1969

· Just Mercy/Bryan Stevenson/2014

· Me and White Supremacy/Layla F. Saad/2020

· Raising our Hands/Jenna Arnold/2020

· Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love, and So Much More/Janet Mock/2014

· The Bluest Eye/Toni Morrison/1970

· The Fire Next Time/James Baldwin/1962

· This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color/Edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa/1984