Photo: Weheartit
It's not only single Cougars who are HOT AF.
By Trey Lyon — Written on May 04, 2017
As a now-32-year-old swinger who’s been in the lifestyle for a decade, I’ve always found it incredibly curious and frustrating that I was often either one of very few — or the only — “young” person at swinger events. And hilariously, I often still am.
The same thing seems to even be the case in nudism, for which I’m also an advocate, only in nudism it’s even WORSE. The age gap in American nudism continues to increase as the Millennial generation, whose helicopter parents raised them in a constant state of fear of “stranger danger” and the natural human form, resist these kinds of activities, lest they grow up with any semblance of a confident perception of self and others. But I digress.
It has been my experience that many twenty- and thirty-somethings suffer from irrational delusions of physical grandiosity and infallibility.
And I state this as a decently fit male who has undoubtedly benefitted quite a bit from my own “body privilege.”
I’m writing about this because I hear these kinds of things said to me today ALL the time from young people. So much so, in fact, that many times in the past when I’ve attempted organizing groups of people my age to take weekend trips to swinger and nudist resorts or events, I have always received negative feedback and pushback from people my age.
These are some of the common judgmental responses:
- “Well, how many other people our age will be there?”
- “We’re going to be the hottest looking there, which means everyone will attack us and we don’t want to be around any fatties.”
- “I don’t want to be around all those ugly old people.”
In this day and age, when not only mainstream entertainment but also pornography horribly depicts flawless bodies with perfectly-proportioned parts as the norm, and where websites and apps have turned us into some sort of dystopian society of mindless judgmental jerks accustomed to “swiping left” or “swiping right” on a human being after mere seconds based solely on someone’s image, it’s no wonder we’ve become a seemingly much more disconnected, polarized people who prioritize glitz, glam and a six pack over heart-centered connection and bonding with our fellow human.
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” — Carl G. Jung
We rush into relationships to fill a void within us that is only our job to fill, and then we project our bullshit back onto our partners when they don’t match up to the projections we unfairly place on them while they’re on that imaginary pedestal we place them on early in the relationship. We are a mess.
And at our core we are insecure, wounded children who unconsciously continue to project our shadows onto other people by harshly judging them about everything that’s really begging for healing within us.
One of my heroes, Swiss psychiatrist Carl G. Jung, suggested that everything we feel about (or see in) another person is comprised of about 75% of our own bullshit — our infamous shadow (that is, the unconscious aspects of ourselves) — which we project (in either positive or negative ways) onto others.
“The shadow is, so to say, the blind spot in your nature. It’s that which you won’t look at about yourself. …You can recognize who it is by simply thinking of the people you don’t like. They correspond to that person whom you might have been — otherwise they wouldn’t mean very much to you. People who excite you either positively or negatively have caught something projected from yourself ... I don’t know whether you’ve had similar experiences in your life, but there are people I despise the minute I see them. These people represent those aspects of myself, the existence of which I refuse to admit to myself.” — Joseph Campbell
Writer Bernhard Guenther elaborates:
“All of us can engage in shadow projection at any given moment, without exception. Ask yourself, how many times have you looked at photos of a person and projected qualities (good or bad) onto her/him that are actually completely off-base? How often have you been 'attracted to' or 'infatuated' with — or 'repelled' and 'offended' by — a person, based solely on the content of his/her posts or their appearance in pics? How often do we project emotions and 'tone' onto other people’s posts that are not really there in the context of the content, but are merely arising out of our own unconscious shadow?”
So what does it say about us when we look at something in another person (positive or negative) and judge them for it? If that which we are judging THEM for wasn’t also present in ourselves, would we even be able to perceive it?
Back to applying this to swinging and nudism, I say it’s these millennials' loss.
Some of my VERY best experiences in the swinger lifestyle have been with folks not of my generation. Not only have I found most (read: not all) of these "older" people to be much more laid back, kind and generous in personality and pleasure giving, but their experience and wisdom have proven incomparable.
There was a time in our culture when it was cool to hang around older people and gain knowledge from their insight and wisdom.
But in today’s TMZ, reality-TV, youth-idolizing, often materialistic society, we’ve not only lost that, but we glamorize and prioritize the antithesis.
Nevermind the fact that the stereotype of swinging events being mostly attended by older, unattractive, and out of shape people is demonstrably untrue, but if more of these judgmental "young" people would just simply get over their shit, take the plunge and be a little adventurous, they’d see that truth for themselves.
Not only that, but they’d help CONTRIBUTE to the tide turning and there actually being MORE young people at these events.
But for some reason, it's much easier for most people to shirk personal responsibility and remain judgmental of others.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you’re a body shamer or if you have issues with “old people,” “fat people,” or “unfit people,” then you probably shouldn’t go anywhere near swinging or nudism ... OR public pools, shopping malls, theme parks (and DEFINITELY not shopping at Wal-Mart) or any social gathering that challenges your paradigm.
If you did, I guarantee you'd find several sure signs you’re dealing with some less than healthy self-judgment that you’re not wanting to look at critically — and everywhere you go will likely cause someone to trigger this discomfort in you.
Porn is fantastic, but it’s important to understand that this. shit. is. FANTASY, you guys. That isn’t real life.
So many of us aren’t even cognizant of how we’re being programmed by the entertainment we constantly feed to our minds, which instructs us to prefer certain races, body types, looks and ages.
Consider (and mind) your programming.
Let all that judgy shit go. Life is MUCH too short to mess around and miss out on the potential you have for immeasurable fun now. By the time YOU are in your 40s, 50s, and older, you’ll be sitting around complaining about how you wish you had done all that wild and crazy stuff back in your younger days, “when you had your youthful body.”
Trust me, I hear it from older people ALL the time.
Hindsight’s not only a bitch, but it’s 20/20. Don’t be “that guy” or “that gal” who wakes up one day in middle-age and realizes you wasted your youth away being judgmental of all the “old, fat, ugly people,” only to realize … you’ve become one.
Project LOVE and tolerance onto others and that is what will greet you everywhere you go.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” — Mark Twain
This article was originally published at Tumblr. Reprinted with permission from the author.