Latest / INSIGHT TODAY / She started swinging for her husband. It left her traumatised

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She started swinging for her husband. It left her traumatised · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This is the story of the UK's biggest swinging website
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and Ruth, a woman who says she was pressured into
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: joining it by her husband and ended up having sex
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: with strangers more than a hundred times. All these men
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: are abusing my body to the point where it's getting infected,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: getting unwell. Her story is shocking and upsetting. She wants
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: to tell it because she believes there will be other
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: women who like her, have been left traumatized if they're
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: just that little bit safer, a little bit more aware, or.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: It just plants a seed that would be better for them.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: We've spent months investigating Ruth's case, the website fab Swingers
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: and the wider swinging community. This is what we found.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: He wanted men to come round chat for five minutes,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: you know, so he could make sure he was happy
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: with them, and then it was have sex with my wife.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: I'll come in if I want to look, I'll leave
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: if I don't. But you just do that and then
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: be on your way.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Ruth says she was pressured into joining the UK's most
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: popular swinging website by her husband. She's decided to tell
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: her story because she believes there will be other women
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: who like her have been left traumatized.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: If there's any sort of relatability or some feeling in
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: their gut and maybe they're isolated from everyone, and if
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: they can just hear a little alarm bell ringing.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: The website Ruth joined with her husband was called fab Swingers.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: It claims to have over half a million active accounts
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: in the UK. Swinging typically involves people swapping partners, but
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: can be just one partner having sexual encounters. Ruth says
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: she only did it to keep her husband happy, but
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: things escalated very quickly. She ended up having sex with
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: strangers more than a hundred times.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: I know that can sound absolutely bar me to someone
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: just hearing the story, but remember this isn't overnight. Imagine
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: being with someone for twelve years and them telling you,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: just convincing you of something. Eventually you're going to believe in.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Ruth caught STIs, got pregnant and ended up having an abortion.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: I was going through the termination. It's really really painful,
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: and he invited someone around to have oral. I realized
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: he really doesn't care about my body. All these men
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: are abusing my body to getting infected, getting unwell, and
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: now this termination is happening, and yet I'm still having
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: to meet these men.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Ruth's ex husband declined to be interviewed by the BBC.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: We've been investigating swinging for eight months. Women's charities and
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: experts have told us that it can sometimes be a
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: feature of controlling relationships, but it's an extremely hidden problem
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: that until now has just not been discussed publicly.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: The sense of shame that women feel from having engaged
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: in that they feel embarrassed to even tell their friends
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: about it. It also gives men a lot of AMMO
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: text messages, if not photographs or in videos. They perhaps
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: have thought that they might enjoy it to start with,
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: Very quickly the abusive nature of those liaisons becomes worse
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: and worse.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Ruth told us there were moments when she appeared to
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: be a happy swinger, at times arranging some of the
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: meetings herself. She says she would act enthusiastic to keep
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: her husband happy, but she also repeatedly told him she
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: was scared and traumatized. Her story made me investigate swinging further.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: On the fab Swinger's website, sex is often arranged in
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: advance via message, which means consent is often discussed or
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: presumed ahead of a meeting. I wanted to know whether
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: men using fab swingers consider whether the women they're sleeping
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: with are doing it because they really want to. One man, Martin,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: is in his late forties and uses fab swingers. We've
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: changed his name and voice because he spoke to us
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: on the condition of anonymity. To be clear, Martin never
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: met Ruth on the website. Can I ask how many
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: people you've met through fab swingers and had sex of
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: some kind with a round.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: Them at fifteen to sixty, mainly with married women, whether
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: husbands want to watch.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: One evening, he was at a meet group sex with
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: a married couple in their early forties. Lots of messages
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: had been exchanged beforehand, Martin says. In the messages the
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: woman sounded keen. When Martin got to the house, there
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: was another man there. To me, the women looked.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: She was badged into it. My husband and someone else
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: was saying, yeah, come on this harder, And I think
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: they were coerced into that situation.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: So you felt like she was being made to have
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: sex with you?
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, that's not a turn on for me. That's
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: not something that I'm happy about.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: I'm going to ask a bit of a brutal question here.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Did you feel in that situation like you were raping someone? Yes,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: How many of the women you've slept with that are
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: in couples? Do you think don't want to be doing.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: It over half?
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Martin told us that until that moment he thought this
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: woman was consenting because of messages sent before they met.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: He didn't report the incident to the police and says
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: he now deeply regrets that. Fabswingers told us it ran
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: its website in adherence with the Regulator Ofcom's requirements. It
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: said reports of non consensual activity are treated by them
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: as a priority risk. Women's charities and Ruth told us
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: they hope this investigation will enable other women to speak
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: out
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: If they're just that little bit safer, or a little
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: bit more aware, or it just plants a seed that
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: would be better for them