These bisexual swingers shocked their Alabama town. Now they're on a mission to spread acceptance.
Scott and April Shirley were stuck in the wrong marriages. Marriages that felt constricting amid their burgeoning bisexuality and quest for sexual freedom.
The pair had been friends for years – Scott, 51, then co-owned a CrossFit gym in Decatur, Alabama, and April, 45, was a women and children's pastor.
By the end of 2015, however, the two began a 10 month-long affair that cost them their jobs. Reputations. Everything. Now they're happily in a non-monogamous marriage.
Once the affair became public, they were ostracized in their town. And when they opened their business, Naughty Gym, it just added fuel to the fire.
Naughty Gym is an online community the pair started during the pandemic in 2020 – workouts people could do at home along with a built-in platform for sex-positive users to connect, similar to how you'd talk in a Facebook group. For $20 per month, their 300 members get access to daily workouts. Each primary workout comes with a version that doesn't require any equipment ("nude"); one that requires dumbbells ("topless") and so on.
"These (workouts) have nothing to do with sex," Scott clarifies. "It's just playful names."
Still, it attracted the non-monogamous community – not that you have to be non-monogamous to join the platform - including swingers. Scott and April finalized their respective divorces in 2017 and got married in 2020, planning to partake in ethical non-monogamy and embrace their LGBTQ+ identities. They want people to know that it's possible to embrace who you are and lift up others – even if it means a mid-life change and facing judgment from those around you.
"I didn't know a gay person growing up," Scott says. "It's just been a crazy turn for me and I know that a lot of people in our community would disagree with this, but I feel like I'm a much better person because of all of this."
'Isolated from a large part of the community'
A fellow Decatur resident ultimately outed the pair as swingers, and Scott later came out as bisexual on a podcast in 2021. "That was almost worse than being outed as a swinger," April says.
Scott adds: "We don't know in our town, what the general public views as worse: the fact that we had an affair, that we're now agnostic or atheists, that we are bisexual ... or that we're swingers. I don't know which is the worst one. But it's a hodgepodge of problems that keeps us isolated from a large part of the community."
Swinging is the practice of exchanging partners for sex, according to a 2014 article in the Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality. It's unclear how many partake in swinging today – some estimates have said 2% or less – though one study from the North American Swing Club Alliance said 15% of U.S. couples have tried it at least once in their married lives.
Their swinging journey has gone through different iterations. "We don't have as many rules as we did when we started," April says. "When we started, I had like a Santa scroll of things that maybe I was uncomfortable with. But the beautiful thing about being in (an) open relationship is you communicate so much."
Now, it's more situational. They like to be friends with people they sleep with.
"The newness of (swinging) has sort of worn off," Scott says. "And we've realized that for us, it's much more meaningful, and a much more impactful experience if we've really gotten to know the people well."
More on swingers:They had a loving marriage and their sex life was great. Here's why they started swinging.
'It's obviously always optional'
They haven't let the judgment from those around them shake their confidence, in life nor in business.
For example, Naughty Gym has spun off from solely an online endeavor.
The Shirleys began organizing small wellness retreats for members, which have now snowballed into quarterly trips with sometimes hundreds of attendees at resorts like clothing-optional Hedonism II in Negril, Jamaica. They hosted a sexual health and wellness summit there in January that included psychiatrists and sex coaches.
None of the trips, though, have any specific sexual party arrangements or practices.
In case you missed:The swinging community hid in the shadows. Then came #SwingTok.
'There has been a little bit of a shift'
The pair hope to further make in-roads in their local LGBTQ+ community and beyond; Decatur just had its first Pride event last June.
"It's been slow, but there has been a little bit of a shift in our town," April says. "And we've been fortunate enough to be able to be involved with that."
And they've seen success in creating healthy outlet for swingers. "At least maybe for a few minutes out of every day, they would have access to other people like themselves and could be open and talk about lifestyle or non monogamous-related issues along with working out and getting healthier," Scott says.
Ethical non-monogamy isn't right for everyone, but it can be a good fit for some individuals and couples, Allison Moon, author of "Getting It: A Guide to Hot, Healthy Hookups and Shame-Free Sex," previously told USA TODAY.
"Opening up a relationship works best when the relationship as it is feels stable, honest, and communicative," Moon explained. "Swinging won’t fix a broken relationship, but it can add new adventure and excitement to already solid ones."
An adventure indeed – one the Shirleys cherish.
"I would not go back and change any of it now," Scott says, "because now I get to have family and friends who support me, authentically who I actually am and not who I pretended to be for a long time."