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.

That is a good poster but I think it misses a very important form of abuser, the false victim, who uses covert control and victim posturing to control. The text for that one might say

• complains you don’t consider his needs enough
• uses guilt and obligation to get you to say yes
• acts hurt when asked for accountability
• calls you oversensitive
• says nothing he does is good enough for you

etc. I think the above kind of guy is actually the sort most likely to manipulate their partner into a situation like the poor woman in that story because they make everything about how their spouse is constantly failing to meet their Very Important Needs.

@CamillaMcCauley You are so right. This sort of covert victim manipulator is one of the worst, and secretly the angriest, most aggrieved, and vicious; acting the part of being sensitive, and almost humble, but seeking out control at all cost.

They are never responsible for anything either, it is always someone else or something else that is the problem. They feel highly entitled.

One point I have noticed about how a lot of modern stories are repeated in the media is the way that blame is placed on things and not people. The problem here is the abusive husband. Regardless of the existence of particular sites on the Internet he would be abusive, so that is arguably the key to the problem. It's like the reporting on the crocodile story, where there have been widespread headlines blaming the crocodile, and not the man who pitched the child into the crocodile pit...

I'm not surprised at all, I feel lots of women in swinging are not really into it but just trying to please their men.

I agree with this ^ (sorry, I realise this is an old thread, but I have just listened to the series and wanted to see what the sensible women of FWR felt about it, and feel moved to write to sort out my own conflicted thoughts).

I struggled with this series. I think Ruth is brave for speaking out and describing honestly what she went through. If it helps other women look at their lives differently and escape their situations, then great.

But I did struggle with the portrayal of Ruth's lack of agency. She was (and is) a strong, articulate, professional woman until she became unwell (which isn't explained - people don't usually become psychotic out of nowhere). She did agree to joining the website, even organising some of the meets, and you could see, if you were a single-minded, obsessed man like Chris, that you might conclude that she was playing 'hard to get' and actually was enjoying it. Clearly what she thought would be swinging was actually Chris enjoying seeing her degraded - so perhaps not what she agreed to. But >100 hook-ups? STIs? Pregnancy? The clinic even asked her if she needed help, and she said no.

I do get that the frog was boiled and that coercion is indeed very complex. And I agree that normalising non-monogamy or fetishes nearly always puts women in more vulnerable position which should be more widely recognised. I agree that our young women need to understand their own boundaries and how to hold them (which ultimately comes from self-esteem). But I can also totally see why the police did not think they would get a conviction. They felt that Ruth initially wanted to take part, and then only regretted it later - and to a certain extent I did get this impression too. I don't think there is a clear story of good and bad here and I think it is a super difficult area of law. Where does her autonomy start and finish?

Finally, I did think that the series was a bit prurient, repetitive and simplistic - I wish it had been made my Tortoise, who I think are better at exploring grey areas like this! I wish Ruth all the best.

Fifty women have told the BBC they were pressured or coerced by their partners into having sex with strangers.

They got in contact following an investigation which told the story of a woman who said she had been pressured into having sex with more than 100 people she did not know.

Many of the women who came forward said they had sex through swinging despite not wanting to, either because they feared the consequences of refusing or felt they had to keep their partners happy.

They spoke of deep, long-lasting trauma.

"I remember many nights of my partner keeping me up all night screaming at me, threatening me, and attempting to gaslight me into believing this was something I wanted," said one woman. "It was never what I wanted."

Another told us: "I felt like I had been given away. I felt used. I felt so dirty."

Most encounters were arranged via the website FabSwingers, say the women, which claims to have more than half a million UK active monthly accounts.

Six women told BBC News they had been raped by men met through the site.

Full article at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly5vvw77pzo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

But >100 hook-ups? STIs? Pregnancy? The clinic even asked her if she needed help, and she said no.

This bit of your post stood out to me. Are you suggesting that, because it was so many hook ups, or she got an STI that she wasn't coerced?

You're right, coercion is complex and the boiled frog analogy is a good one. Its not black and white; someone can be in control of one area of their life eg professional but not within their relationship.

People in coercive relationships will often decline help. It can be that they are in that situation because on some level they believe they deserve it. Or receiving help means confronting the fact that there is something they need help with.

You're right, I agree Chris wanted to see her degraded. Good men don't do this!

He felt like he was raping those women and he didn't stop. And more tellingly, he didn't lose his erection.

"Then, in 2021, after Ruth suffered a mental health crisis, he became her named carer."

This is shocking

Does it carry legal responsibilities?

I am surprised there is not more detail on this in the article