Traumatised by swinging

[guinnessguzzler]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c87q7g48y4po

This brave woman, Ruth O'Grady, has spoken out about what her vile husband and lots of other men put her through, facilitated by a swingers website. It must have been incredibly difficult for her to speak out as she will know the level of doubt and judgement she will now face.

These men. I know I say it every time but what the actual fuck is wrong with them?

Sending strength, love and gratitude to Ruth.

Her husband emotionally coerced her and wore her down with emotional abuse. She loved him and she was vulnerable to him using that against her.

I think the point is that she didn't want to do it. Her husband pestered her for years to do it then after she had had a psychotic breakdown and had been in hospital, was unfit to work and he was her fulltime carer he then made it seem to her that due to everything that had happened she owed that to him to fulfil his fantasies. She was totally dependent on him and unwell at the time it all started.

Can't help but wonder what led up to her breakdown. I expect living with an entitled psychopath is not great for your mental health. Did they cover this in the podcast? I really must listen to it, I have only read the article so far. It really is abuse what he did to her.

[Edited to make my first sentence make sense!]

I agree
it’s horrible and this woman is very brave speaking out about it;

however I’d never have agreed to this in the first place, that always surprises me. I’m aware that a lot of women don’t “agree” and are drugged or forced into it but some people do actually consent to this which I find so strange

But it's a lot more subtle than that.

Its like saying 'why did she stay with that man who hit her? I wouldn't. '

Very few abusers show their colours on a first date. Or second. Or third. Its a gradual wearing down of defences and self esteem over time. Making a woman feel she owes it to them, that she's worthless.

Its very complex and very nasty.

@guinnessguzzler They did talk about her breakdown in the podcast but didn't directly link it to her relationships but we do hear how he had been needling at her for years about wanting to see her with other men. The podcast really is worth a listen.

Thanks, I will give it a listen.

So he'd spent years talking her into it and finally got her to agree when she was extremely vulnerable and dependent on him. What a piece of work!

While there are some women who participate eagerly, I suspect there are far more who just do it to please their husbands. The whole thing is grim 😕

Part and parcel of the insidious nature of coercive control ^

Not all pushing women into sex with other men, but the underlying exploitive and manipulative relationship is the common factor.

I remember watching the film Breaking the Waves and wondering how the hell that film was critically acclaimed when it was portraying the gradual manipulation and sexual debasement of Emily Watson’s character as urged by her husband. One reviewer wrote that no one in the film was bad ffs. Humiliation of woman as entertainment. I hated the film.

I'm now wondering about all these polyamorous relationships or ENM couples that are far more prevalent than you'd think, on just standard dating sites like bumble or tinder.
How the fuck would you know if either party is fully consenting?

ET

I'm not so sure it's that they don't realise.

But how can they make something a criminal matter on thf basis of even a strong suspicion that she really didn't want to be involved?

There's a level of being responsible for our own actions that comes with adult autonomy. And it is, sometimes, a burden.

I think as a society we often want to give our cake and eat it too. The fact is that in thf past, wide social disgust around stuff like swinging protected women who felt coerced in a more internal, subtle, indirect way. Everyone understood if they recoiled, told their partner to pound sand, wanted no involvement. Now they feel like it is almost a personal flaw, not being open, etc, and they have to justify that.

That's the result of destigmatising that kind of sex scene.

When was the past?

Because swinging really became a thing in the 70s and I think there probably was a lot of coercion/dark things happening behind the scenes. I'm also not sure if this:
"Everyone understood if they recoiled, told their partner to pound sand, wanted no involvement" is that true. Since it's such a "personal" thing I don't think everyone would have known. And if they did, that's just an additional humiliation. If you came from quite a sheltered environment in the past how could you bring that up with your friends? Even today TBH

I can get on board with a more general point about more extreme sexual practices being normalised. But in this kind of situation I don't think the problem is that everyone around her thought it was normal. I would imagine if someone shared that their husband was nagging them to do swinging constantly most decent friends would be appalled. It's more that she was isolated and didn't feel able to share what was happening. It was behind closed doors.

Not the 70s, we were well into sex positivity by then.

But yes, if you go back to earlier norms about sex, they supported a woman who wanted to tell her husband that crap like that was not on the table. In fact the social norms would have in many cases prevented him from asking.

It's not ok personal, about their friends. It's about society overall.

In one of the last two ‘Rabbit’ books by John Updike (1971, 1981) the main female protagonist is persuaded to try it. The account is very upsetting in a nuanced way in that nothing particularly dramatic happens but it is just awful.

Living with the Dominator book has Mr Right and Mr wrong in it. It is part of the Freedom Programme. You can buy the book of Amazon. Every woman should read it. Saved my life, I would have gone back without attending the course. I've bought so many copies of this little book and given to women. I've lost count.

Here is a poster

www.freedomprogramme.co.uk/docs/fp-poster-landscape.pdf

"What woman would choose to do this?"

You'd be surprised. I've known about - and personally (albeit distantly) - many, many women who have pushed the idea of 'swinging' and 'polyamory' on the men around them because it suits them to have multiple partners whilst they don't especially care for how it affects the men in their lives.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that what happened to this woman is acceptable, but you are utterly naive if you believe no woman is ever guilty of this kind of behaviour.
It may never occur in your comfortable, sheltered, world, but it does occur in the real world. A lot.