Swingers symbol/emblem/sign representing the lifestyle
I’ll admit it, I’m an Internet research junkie. I don’t spend my time on social networking sites but I do spend my time teaching myself new things. One of my favorite subjects in the last couple of years has been anything lifestyle related. The topic of swingers not having a symbol or emblem or sign to represent themselves keeps coming up at regular intervals. It seems that a few swingers get together, someone has the bright idea that there is no sign in existence and they decide to create one. The results are often mixed with the ideas working for one part of the community but not for the other. Where some folks go wrong is to actually take their design and trade-mark it so none came make a buck from it except them. Well, as you can imagine this is plain greedy and has no chance of actually becoming known since it cannot be freely distributed and copied…therefore no chance of growing virally.
In fact, the swinging lifestyle already has all sorts of different symbols. One swingers meeting site has its own charm and symbol. Double gold circles representing the unique circle of friends/lifestyle, and the X in the middle (white gold) representing how the lifestyle can come together. There is also the Chameleon. Let me quote:
“The Chameleon is natures colourful creature of change, something that swingers can relate to. It changes colour like we do our sexual habits, the perfect compliment for our identity. A chameleon sitting on a pink branch means bisexuality and on a yellow branch means heterosexual. From what I can find the gecko is the Australian version of the chameleon. ” - This is their version of but already it is flawed. If you don’t like animals, how are you supposed to be wearing a chameleon/gecko pin in your everyday life? Yellow for straight and pink for bi? Aren’t they missing quite a few different kinks such as looking for singles only, looking for couples only, looking for soft swap only…and so on? The fact that they have 2 symbols and they chose an animal means this design is also doomed to failure, well in my opinion anyways lol! The other problem with the chameleon is that the designers of this design have resorted to spamming Adult FriendFinder forums to promote their wares…also have spammed other sites ‘pretending’ to be a customer which is just totally un-cool and they deserve a lashing just for treating us stupid! There is also the use of the wrist band and I’ve seen it come in over 2 dozen colors to represent every kind of kink you could imagine. Well, there are already many users of bracelets with pink probably being the best known for breast cancer awareness. I don’t think adding another bracelet is the solution, besides this is a fad at best and I’m sure it’s close to having run it’s course.
Another commonly seen item is the jewelry. It seems that some folks figure that designing a piece of jewelry is all that it takes to get swingers to accept a new symbol. There are bands, rings, necklaces, earrings, ankle bracelets and even watches for the community. What’s the problem with all of this? If I am wearing a watch, or a ring, trust me no one will ever figure it out as they would have to get too close to see the ’symbol’. Sure, it may happen that you are wearing a necklace, someone walks by and notices that the necklace has the ’swinger’ sign attached to it and they strike up a conversation. This is leaving too much to chance to work. Also, it seems that every major swingers club all over the world has their own symbol to identify its own members which is probably the best idea at this time but more on that later.
What is really needed is a sign that is recognized and then, and only then can this sign be made into jewelry, shirts, stickers, buttons, and all the other useless promotional crap that is available out there…don’t you need another coffee cup with a bad logo on it? The sign cannot be owned by anyone and must be released into the public domain for it to ever have a hope of catching on internationally. The best place to start would be at the local level where the club owners could agree on at least using the same symbol across a city or province (state). Having a local symbol probably makes the most sense since getting something adopted across the board is not seemingly coming anytime soon.
So, how do we get a symbol to represent the community? Well, we already have one sort of…the apple with the bite taken out of it. It’s the symbol that NASCA (National Association of Swingers) uses to represent it’s association. Do any search on the topic of creating a new symbol for the lifestyle and almost every time someone mentions that apple as being the closest symbol available. the problem is that NASCA seems to be dead…well at least the complaints haven’t stopped coming in that emails to NASCA are never returned and new membership applications aren’t being processed. And if you have ever taken a look at the NASCA site, it’s pitiful at best and sorely lacking information. But, they do have the apple and it is probably the most universally recognized symbol out there today. In fact, research showed there was a time when you could purchase the apple from NASCA on all sorts of items but those days seem to be long gone as none can find these items for sale anymore. Next, we have Adult FriendFinder, easily the largest community of swingers in the world and with the power they have, could easily spearhead this new venture but like any other business, would want to profit from the symbol and as I already said, that wouldn’t work. Who’s left, well there is the ‘lifestyle’ organization which organizes the largest swing-fests going but nothing seems to be happening there either.
We have many large organizations that could sit down together and get this hashed out once and for all…it could only make the community stronger and attract more people to it bringing more dollars with them. It’s a win-win for everyone from the single guy to the big money making companies. If anyone reading this has contacts at any of these companies, please forward this post to them as the community needs an identifying symbol to call our own. Here are these organizations that could make this happen in my opinion…sorry if I forgot anyone.
-NASCA
-Adult FriendFinder
-Lifestyles
-Swingers Club Owners
-Hedonism (even these folks would benefit)
There are also those out there that would claim a symbol is too much for them and they don’t require one, since anonymity is key for them and to be exposed in public is not their desire. No problem, just as many gay men have not outed themselves publicly, not all swingers should out themselves as well. But for those out there and there are probably hundreds of thousands that wish to identify themselves, an internationally recognized sign of our community is indeed overdue. The usual political blabber to get action going is to ask you to write your MLA or in the case of the USA, congressman and implore them to act immediately. Well, let’s do the same as a community of like minded people, can we not get this going?
What can you do? Write a message or letter to the orgs listed above and request that they review and act on this matter without delay. Talk to your local club owners and get them to understand that this issue is important to you and ask them to also contact other club owners and make them aware of this issue. This is the Internet folks, this can grow virally in a matter of minutes if everyone that is interested puts in a little effort in promoting this idea.
