Experiment #4 getting closer

[Ed]

If I can find a couple who would like to take part in an experiment, we could suddenly be in a position to run Experiment #4. The chance of doing that is rather slim, based on past performance. We’ve had a couple on the waiting list for many, many months and, as of last night, we now have another couple of volunteers.

I’ll do my best, but if any of you know of any couples who might be interested and willing to travel near Birmingham, please point them this way,

Gary likes this

[Gary]

I assume you mean a couple in a relationship rather than needing an additional 2 people…

FYI Birmingham is much more accessible for me than Cardiff #JustSaying

[Auxilia]

Does this mean the Experiment 3 report is imminent??

 

[Ed]

@auxilia, I’m trying on the report but with Christmas and illness etc., I’ve barely even looked at it for well over a week. My priority has to be new experiment sessions. I will eventually catch up with everything! Moneywise the site could really use me getting the 3rd report out ASAP.

@gary, yes I mean a couple in a relationship. Both couples I’ve found so far are only willing to take part with other couples like them. I think it’s a safety/trust thing primarily.

I need to do something with the application form. The last 4 applicants have been men and, outside of these two couples, no women at all are showing any interest at all 🙁 Sometimes it feels like I am the only person trying to persuade more women to get involved in the community and the experiments. Currently, there is one single woman on the waiting list but she won’t do an experiment with male participants. My best hope is getting enough women back from the first two experiments, but that’s not proving to be as easy as I would have thought.

[Anonymous]

As an experiment, it would be interesting to see how an all-female group differed from an all-male group. Would an all-female group need a female host though?

When I was young enough for it not to matter, one of my friends tried to start a strip club. As a group of lads, we practised on a common that had some quite densely treed areas where we wouldn’t be seen and we took it in turns to be the stripper, so it was an all male OON situation. We didn’t dance! The stripper would be persuaded by the group to take the next thing off so it was quite a slow process. The instruction was to face away from the group to take each thing off and then turn round. The intention was to invite a couple of female friends along so it would have been ISYMIYSMY (I’ll show you mine if…) but for some reason I don’t recall we stopped. I imagine it just got boring once we realised we weren’t going to see any female classmates naked.

We were doing an all-male naked experiment. I wonder how different an all-female or mixed one would have been.

Martin likes this

[Ed]

There almost was an all-female experiment a couple of years ago. In that instance, three of the four planned participants were happy with a male moderator and the fourth was willing to tolerate it.

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[Ed]

2020 is definitely looking up. In the last 24 hours, I’ve had TWO(!) couples contact me possibly interested in taking part in an experiment. It’s too early to say how likely things are to progress but I’ve never got this far so quickly before. If we could get an experiment going with four couples, that would be awesome. It will probably come down to location and date but keep your fingers crossed!

Steve and like this

[Ed]

I hope I’m not tempting fate here, but one of the two possible couples have got their hearts set on taking part. Still working on the other couple – fingers crossed!

Steve and like this

[Ed]

Okay, we have three couples booked in and a tentative date picked in February. I’m aiming to use the same location as experiment #2. Now I’m going to be nervous until the experiment actually begins (and all three couples have turned up).

Steve, Gary and like this

[Ed]

Update: Might not be at the same location as Experiment #2. I’m reluctant to go with a new location as it’s a real help with my planning if I know the location well prior to the experiment, but couple #4 are looking more likely to take part, provided I come up with a location much nearer to London. Of course, the confirmed three couples had already agreed to the experiment #2 location and two of them aren’t keen on travelling a long way along the M4.

I’ve suggested I pick up the 1st three couples up from near the planned location (luckily I have a people carrier) then drive to somewhere near Reading to meet the 4th couple. This has advantages and disadvantages and I’ve yet to get everyone to agree to it.

Life is never simple, is it?

[Ed]

I might just about hold this together and get four(!!) couples together for an experiment. Responses (so far) are reasonably positive.

Steve likes this

[Ed]

We’ve got four couples!!

Which is truly amazing. And it looks like I’ve got a date pinned down too. I’ve planned out a suite of experiments ready but there’s a lot of fine-tuning to do.

I’ve got a week or so to get the write-up for Experiment #3 finished and out on Amazon. It’s definitely going to be the longest write-up yet. I’m about 80% of the way through and it’s already longer than Experiment #2. So far (for me anyway!) it’s been the outright best experiment session yet so I’m really hoping Experiment #4 compares!

On a side note – I’m wondering if couples experiments are the way to go for the future. It seems it’s easier to get women to take part if they are with their partner.

Martin, and Steve like this

[Ed]

Would it be offensive if I began calling myself a gymnophobia therapist?

[Ed]

Less than a week until experiment #4. Currently, I’m not sure I can believe it’s actually going ahead…

Steve and like this

[Ed]

No-one’s dropped out yet…is this really going to happen?

Let’s hope this is a good omen for the rest of this year.

[Martin]

So, with the benefit of hindsight, are couples easier than singles? Certainly easier to have a mix of gender and it may be that females are easier to sign up if they are with their partner, but hopefully that won’t become a standard policy (ok, being selfish here as I know my partner wouldn’t go for it with or without me! Although she did so the naked run in London Zoo the year after I first did it…)

 

I think returning participants would have an upper hand against newbies and perhaps you use that to encourage them to return? Not 100% sure how you’d use that – depends if you wanted them to have any advance insight into the planned experiments or not.

But it’s your insight into what works and what doesn’t that is valuable here. And Experiments must continue to push boundaries to breaking point otherwise they can’t be truly valuable – sometimes failure is as telling as success.

Ed likes this

[Ed]

Couples are definitely a much easier way to get women involved. Three reasons for that. I think they feel much safer, it’s easier to do something new with your partner than go on your own and you don’t have to hide anything from your partner if they are along too.

It’s certainly not going to become standard but it will (I hope!) allow more experiments to take place than would otherwise happen.

Getting people to come back for another experiment hasn’t been as easy as I thought. My hope was that at least half of participants would return but it seems there’s a much stronger element of “but I’ve done that now”, that I expected.

One participant in Experiment #4 is a return from Experiment #1. Turns out she’s got a new partner and he wanted to give it a go.

Steve and Martin like this

[Ed]

I’m going to try for another couples experiment for Naked Experiment #5.

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[Author]

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