Yes, yes it does…..

Nothing has made me stop and evaluate my play partners like the recent election of Donald Trump in the United States. This might seem utterly silly, especially if you’re liberally DTF, but let’s work this through…

I’ve seen the meme’s. The ones intended to make you feel silly for questioning the politics of your friends and suggesting you aren’t a good person if you’re judging them. I need to be very clear about what that is and what kind of weak minded people it appeals to. That is an idea intended to make people feel and look silly for taking a stand for human rights. It suggests that a “good person” wouldn’t turn their back on a friend for having such political leanings. Here’s why that’s horseshit, especially for myself: I’m a proud and out bi/pan woman. My closest playmate is a man of colour. My two best lifelong women friends are women of colour. I AM A WOMAN. My world cannot be a selfish one. My world must be inclusive.

It’s convenient to say that supporting Trump “doesn’t make you a racist” (oh, but it does) or that it doesn’t mean you don’t support Black/LGBT/women’s rights (oh, but it does). It’s convenient because sometimes you just want a squeaky clean justification for why you happen to like the guy. But it’s not just him. Supporting his ideology, or his very presence, means you are supporting a whole lot more. His politics cannot be separated into pretty boxes. It’s a Pollock mural of hate. There’s nothing neat and tidy about it waging a war on refugees, women, and human rights in general. Nothing. The people he has aligned with are even more radical than he and that’s no accident. He is a person of constantly changing substance, duping his followers and quite literally appealing to the uneducated and weak minded. He knows this. He doesn’t even pretend to be consistent. He doesn’t have to be. And yes, if you happen to like this piece of human garbage, you are immediately a flake in my eyes. You cannot be a person of substance and agree with the removal of human rights. You can’t claim to be forward-thinking and support backward-moving flawed logic.

Now why does this have anything to do with getting it on? How does this have any place in the swing community? While that answer is so obvious to me that it hurts my heart, it seems some others have missed it completely. I’m not a DTF player. For those swingers who don’t really need to know your name, or even sexual practices to proceed- it probably doesn’t. I have to know you somewhat, I have to like you, and I have to respect you, to fuck you. I play with others who also feel this way. It means I know my safety is important to them – because they value my rights, they value my person, they value me as a woman, and not a pussy to be discarded without any care. They won’t be tossing me out the door at the moment of ejaculation. They will defend me when needed. They will STAND WITH ME when my safety or rights are threatened and have the gumption to say “that is not okay. We are a community”. If you think it’s kinda funny that the 42nd President of the United States brags about grabbin’ em by the pussy like a 13 year old boy trying to impress the boys….if you think it’s okay that he label Mexicans as rapists and criminals….if you think it’s okay that his own advisor referred to slaves as immigrants….you are not the caliber of person whose penis, fingers or tongue I want inside of me. If you think you can separate all of those things about him from “the person, the character, the celebrity” then you are, frankly, delusional. You are an inherently selfish person who doesn’t care about your fellow humans. If you thought he was Making America Great Again…I’ve got news for you. American wasn’t great. America was built on the backs of slaves. It is rich with systemic racism which started long ago. What era are they going back to when they talk about making it great again? I’m so curious to know this answer. WHICH ERA? The one where black people weren’t actually people? The time when women couldn’t vote? The great depression? Where is this pivotal point in history where America was better than, or closer to, what they aspire to be, than October of 2016?

So, abruptly put, if you think that stain on humanity is entertaining, contributing to society in a positive way, or even just funny – you are a selfish douchebag. You stand against women just for not speaking out against him. You stand against your neighbours of colour. You stand against the LGBTQ community. When you share those memes that say “I’m a grown up and I don’t need to sever friendships over politics” you are silently helping to shut down human rights advocacy. You are shaming your friends for having stronger character than you are showing. You are weak. The truth is, it matters. As swingers, we are one of the remaining invisible groups whose lives could change drastically if we were to become visible. Don’t kid yourselves into thinking your life won’t change with a strong conservative twist in politics. This is what leads to our clubs getting shut down, our websites getting hacked and our privacy removed. This. Is. How. It. Starts. We are the rebels of the traditional world (as are the kinksters , nudists and poly people). We get to do this freely BECAUSE the LGBTQ community and so many others have smashed the wall of prejudice around hetero-normative behaviour. It’s a delicate balance though. We should NOT take our freedom for granted, and that means we need to support liberty. Actual liberty. Freedom for all, not freedom when convenient. Not oppression when it’s entertaining. A day will come when we are the ones being judged.

When they start shutting down the play spaces of wealthy, white people-what will you say then? Don’t expect the world to stand with you, when you refused to stand with them, in the name of entertainment.