The Secret Hotwife
“It’s not every CEO who can make tech-talk feel like foreplay…”
Twinkly eyes. That’s the first thing I notice about Gage Masterson as his image fills my laptop screen, his handsome face breaking into a broad and friendly smile. Those twinkly eyes.
There’s a flurry of ‘good mornings’ and ‘good to meet yous’ as we greet each other warmly in coordinating northern accents. There’s a spark in the air, something I’ve often noticed when meeting people in this lifestyle for the first time; a built-in feeling of harmony, of camaraderie, an ‘us-ness.’ I like him immediately.
There are so many things I’m looking forward to talking to him about, I explain, indicating the questions spilling off the notepad in front of me - his journey into the lifestyle, the origin of SwingHub, which has completely changed the face of engagement and communication amongst lifestylers since its 2023 launch - but first:
“Are you okay with me recording?” I ask, before we dive in, my finger hovering over the red button on my screen.
“I’m filming-friendly,” he nods with a grin, those eyes twinkling again. A promising answer.
It was genuine curiosity, about SwingHub and the team behind it, that led me to send Gage a DM just a few days earlier. Since J and I started exploring the lifestyle together 18 months ago, SwingHub has, for me, become synonymous with community, this community. I was familiar with its tagline: ‘a platform created by the community, for the community,’ and I wanted to know more about the people behind it, and behind the larger-than-life characters of VistaWife and VistaHubby.
Within minutes of chatting, I’m completely at ease in Gage’s company, something I suspect is a bit of a gift of his. My first impressions are that he is everything his social media suggests; funny, effortlessly charming, and articulate - especially when the subject turns to that of his wife, and business partner, Olivia.
“We met on a night out in Leeds when we were teenagers, both under-age drinking using borrowed ID,” he recalls with a laugh.
“I’d been about to head home for the night when I saw Liv walk around the corner, and she left me stunned. I turned to my mate and said “yeahhh, I’m staying out!”
The pair hit it off, but Gage confesses their romance hit an early skid when, after inviting her back to his house at the end of the night, he made the monumental mistake of falling asleep while he was waiting for her to arrive.
“She told me she’d get a taxi to mine. I wasn’t positive she’d show, but I waited up for a bit before falling asleep on the sofa,” he says, wryly.
“The next morning I had loads of texts from her saying ‘I’m getting a taxi now.’ ‘What’s your address?’ ‘Are you still there?’ I couldn’t believe it! I messaged her straight away, but she didn’t text me back, and I thought, ’well I guess that’s that’.”
It was a couple of months later that Gage came across her number in his contacts and decided to try sending one last message.
“Luckily she replied straight away,” he grins at the memory.
“I went home to see her that weekend, and that was it. We’ve been together ever since.”
And while theirs is clearly a true-love story, that's not to say it’s always been smooth sailing.
“We were really young when we met, 16 and 17, and then Liv fell pregnant just five months after we got together, so we were really thrown in at the deep end,” says Gage.
“We’ve grown up together, we’ve made mistakes together, we’ve learned from them, and all of that has given us the foundation we have today. Growing up alongside each other, getting to know yourselves as people, and having someone else by your side to see that and support you along the way really connects you in such a strong way.”
He indicates the doorway over his shoulder: “We’ve got a painting out there in our hallway by James McQueen that says ‘If you ever leave me, I’m coming with you.’ And that’s us. In all our years together, we’ve never used the words divorce, separate, or split-up. It’s us two forever. We’re just…” he shrugs. “...a part of each other,” he finishes simply.
So, I ask - the obvious question hanging in the air between us - when did the subject of swinging first come up?
“We’d always had a really good and active sex life; we were, what I call, dirty vanillas,” Gage smiles, with a wiggle of his eyebrows.
“But this particular night in 2016, after an amazing sex session, pillow-talk turned to porn and she told me she enjoyed watching lesbian porn, so I asked her if she was into women, and she confessed she thought she was probably bi-curious. She then threw this grenade into the bedroom, telling me she’d once had an experience with a woman on holiday, before meeting me, and that set me right off.” He shakes his head slowly, in amazement.
“It was like, at that moment, my brain chemistry changed, and I was instantly rock hard again. We had sex all night at the thought of it. A couple of days later, I asked her if it was something she’d like to explore, and she said she would.”
I bite my lip, trying to push aside the distracting mental image of Gage rock hard as he continues his story. It was a friend of his from work, he tells me, who directed him to a swingers website, where they could find and contact other local people who were exploring non-monogamy.
“I honestly couldn’t believe it, it was so eye-opening,” he says.
“I was like, ‘do people actually do this?!’ Then I saw exactly how many people do it, and in such a close radius to us. We set up an account, posted some photos, and almost immediately connected with a local couple.
“They were so nice, and much more experienced than us. We chatted for about six weeks before arranging to go round to theirs one night for drinks - nothing expected.”
My mind is racing with questions. How prepared were they for that first experience? Had they established boundaries? Did they have anything planned in terms of checking in with each other when they were there?
He shook his head. “Back then, it wasn’t the same as it is today, with people sharing their experiences and information on platforms like TikTok and Instagram,” Gage reminds me.
“There was no way of getting educated online, so we were really naive going into it. We didn’t know we should be discussing boundaries together, we didn’t even know a lot of the lingo - vanilla, unicorn, MMF - it was all brand new, unknown. We were just ‘let’s go do it.’
“The drive round to their house…” he laughs, shaking his head.
“Honestly, I don’t think we’ve ever had a quieter car journey in our whole relationship, we were both so nervous! When we got to the driveway, Liv nearly backed out, she couldn’t get out of the car. Luckily, once we got inside, they were just brilliant with us, and we relaxed really quickly. The next thing I know, Liv and the woman are heading upstairs and within a few minutes I could hear her moaning. I think that’s why I’m now so audio-stimulated - that moment. I was desperate to get upstairs, but the guy was like ‘give them a minute…’ I don’t think I listened to a word he was saying.
“When we got to the bedroom and I saw Liv on the bed, this woman going down on her… it blew my mind. It was the hottest thing I’d ever seen; something clicked in me right there and then.”
So it was a good first experience, I ask?
“The best,” he nods firmly.
“They were gentle with us, kind, and really checked in with us afterwards. If it hadn’t been such a good first experience, I’m not sure we would have continued, but that night set us off on a path.”
They were both so turned on by what they’d just done, they couldn’t even make it home before needing to fuck, pulling up on a country road less than a mile from their home, with Olivia already unzipping Gage's trousers as he was pulling the car to a stop.
“For a couple of weeks after, we were lost in this heady reconnection,” he recalls.
“It was wild, it wasn’t just lust - it was love amplified. It was like we wanted to just crawl inside each other’s bodies and just be home. That’s the part I don’t think people outside of the lifestyle get. You’d never think sleeping with other people could bring you closer, but it does, because it’s not really about sex with other people, it’s about the connection that you get with your own partner.
“It makes sense if you strip away society’s programming and ideas of what normal is. We're not wired to be monogamous. Divorce rates prove that. Doing this together takes things between you to another level.”
It's been nine years since that first night that changed everything for them, and I'm curious, with so much more experience now under their belts, does either of them ever get jealous?
“I definitely still get jealous, we both do," he confirms.
"Olivia is a stunning, gorgeous woman, and when she goes off on a Hotwife date, I’ll be really honest, I don’t like it. I get angry, l get jealous, my heart is pounding, the adrenaline is going. Being in this lifestyle..." he pauses a second, mulling over what he wants to say in his head before continuing. "...it doesn’t mean you never get jealous, it just means you learn to understand it, and to keep it in its place. I've learned that it’s not Liv going off on her own that gives me the kick, it’s when she comes home and it’s the sex we have. Honestly, when she’s back with me, and I finally cum with her after all that, it’s a million times better and then, whoosh, the jealousy goes away. It’s done, and we’re both on such a high."
He flashes me a cheeky grin: "I liken it to going to the gym; it might hurt while you’re there, but afterwards it feels sooo good.”
So, I ask, at what point did they make the decision to launch an OnlyFans account?
"That was because of Covid," he replies.
“We'd bought our house in January 2020, and then Covid hit two months later. Olivia was working as cabin crew at the time, so she was suddenly out of a job, and we had a mortgage to pay. One morning, she woke me up with a coffee in bed, and said “I’ve just started an OnlyFans,” and then she left the room." He laughs at the absurdity of the memory.
“I immediately got out of bed, half-asleep, and followed her downstairs, and was like “Slow down, what?!” And she said, “Look, we’ve got tons of nude photos and videos that we’re already sharing online for free, just because we enjoy it. I’ve been reading online about the kinds of money these girls on OnlyFans are making, and I just need £500 to pay the mortgage…”
“And I got it, it made sense," he nods emphatically. "I was a full-stack marketer, so ads, marketing video production, editing were all in my skill-set. I said, ‘Let me help.”
“The thing about Olivia is that she’s classy, she has an elegance, so I said let’s elevate this, let’s give this account a hook, let’s talk about our journey and experiences.
“Liv was pretty camera-shy back then, she didn’t yet have that Vista voice she has now, but she was keen to figure it out. We didn’t have any equipment when we filmed our first TikTok video, so we shot it on an old phone in front of this make-up mirror with the bulbs around it that Liv had. We created this little video, and it blew up! We were at 17,000 followers in the blink of an eye.
“We made our first £1,000 pretty quickly, and that was the mortgage paid, which was really exciting, and then the money kept coming, and we realised we should probably let our families know what we were doing. Luckily, they were really cool about it. My mum even confessed she’d been watching our TikTok videos! Sadly Liv lost her best friend of 20 years because of it, which really broke her, but it also lit a fire under her, and gave her that ‘fuck you’ moment of “watch what I can do!”
“Honestly, after so many years of doing this, we're now at the place where we understand that the people who would judge us - for a choice we make about our lives, that has no impact on anybody else - are not our people, and they don’t belong in our circle.”
His answer is satisfying, and I have to resist the urge to attempt a high-five through the screen. "So when was the moment..." I ask, cocking my head to one side. "...that you thought to yourselves, 'I think there's a space for a lifestyle app here,' and why were you the people to produce it?"
Gage nods and takes a breath, and I can tell it's a question he's been asked and has answered many times in the last 18 months, his answer practised and within easy grasp. “I’ve always been the guy to find problems in areas and want to fix them. There were a lot of problems at that time with the lifestyle in terms of how people were communicating, with fake accounts and dick pics around every corner.
“We had a massive platform by then, and a big following, so I spoke to Olivia and said “I think we should create an app that’s super safe for everyone, and that really connects the community.” I’d never built an app in my life, but I believed in the idea so much, I was willing to risk everything we’d earned to make it work, so we invested all our own money. We wanted everything in one place - a space to share knowledge, to meet people, to share events, like a hub of information. The name ‘SwingHub’ popped into my head, and I found the domain was for sale, so I bought it for £1,700… I felt sick afterwards!”
The app - built by Gage’s now-best friend, Warren, a developer who is himself in the lifestyle - launched on September 23rd 2023.
“It was simple and it was buggy, but it was a version 1; the promise of what was to come. We had 5,000 people sign up on the first day," Gage recalls.
“The launch party was amazing, incredibly classy, because that was the brand, and that’s how we wanted to introduce it. We’d been filming Open House series one whilst the app was being built, so we had all the cast at the launch party, and all these incredible lifestylers with huge social media followings, all mingling together with the community, so it was a really exciting way to introduce the brand to everyone. We were like, ‘this is what we consider the lifestyle to be, this is the future,’ and people just fell in love with it.
"At that time we didn’t even really have a proper solid team, it was just people in the lifestyle who had believed in the brand and wanted to help me, Liv, and Warren out. We loved every single one of them for that.”
And from the very beginning, everything about SwingHub has been different, Gage tells me, right down to the way it hosts events.
“We were seeing a lot of lifestyle brands doing ‘takeovers’ of clubs, but when you’d get to the club, it looked like it did on any other night, just with a different banner and a few different people," he pulls a face.
"We didn’t want to do that. At our events, SwingHub doesn’t sell sex, it sells entertainment. Our parties are, what I like to call, Disney-fied. Our head of events, Kitty Cat, is incredible, she understands the method in my madness. We wanted to elevate every level of the experience somebody has when they attend a SwingHub event, from buying the ticket, and entering the group chat, right up to the party itself. We have voice-notes and musical intros in the pre-chat, we entertain people in the queue while they’re waiting to get checked in, we grab them visually and audibly from the moment they’re in the door. We’re not all about the playrooms, with a couple of decorations and a bit of music downstairs. Our parties are a complete experience, a total package. We always say that if someone comes to a SwingHub party and they didn’t choose to play that night, they’re still going to go home having had an exceptional, amazing night. That’s our aim, and it’s what we do well.”
Today, 18 months on from its launch, SwingHub has an incredible 50,000 users and a dedicated team of 25 working behind the scenes. There are also big plans in the works for its future, though Gage is playing his cards close to his chest on this one. (I’m not saying he didn’t give me a little peek…but a lady never tells!)
Almost a decade on from their entry into the lifestyle, the Mastersons themselves have become passionate public advocates for the non-monogamous community, dedicated to fostering understanding of ENM and challenging societal norms. As well as the SwingHub app, they launched the SwingHub podcast in 2023, and have appeared on Channel 4’s Open House: The Great Sex Experiment.
“We’re really proud to be changing the lifestyle from within,” Gage confirms.
“Because yes, at its heart the lifestyle is about sex and getting laid, but it’s also about community; about making friends, making connections. SwingHub has more face pictures on it than any other lifestyle platform, because people trust it, and they trust the people who use it. We also seem to be on this pivot right now and I think it’s just starting to lean over to the good side, where people seem much less worried about secrecy, because brands like us are helping to normalise the lifestyle, and as a result we’re seeing more lifestylers go public. We’re seeing attitudes change a lot. The same people that were whispering about Liv and I at the school gates a few years ago are now reaching out and congratulating us about what we’ve achieved. It’s crazy.
“The fact is," he says, with a smile and a shrug. "...this is my life, it’s nobody else’s, and I always say that, on my deathbed, I’m not going to be thinking about those times I was being judged by ‘Janice’ down the road. I’m going to be thinking about all the epic and amazing times I had with my friends and my family. I’ll be able to die happily with a big smile on my face knowing I lived my life exactly the way I wanted to.”
And that, I decide, is the perfect note to sign off on. The time has flown, and it’s time to let this CEO get back to business.
So what did I learn from my little rendezvous with Gage Masterson? For starters, it’s clear that he’s a man that gets it - the passion, the play, the people. Along with his team, he’s built SwingHub into a powerhouse of modern connection. It’s a revolution, built on unapologetic pleasure. Whether you’re deep into the lifestyle, or just dipping a toe into these delicious waters, I truly believe there’s no better place than SwingHub to let your kinks flourish. I’ve seen for myself that it's CEO has his finger firmly on the pulse...and possibly a few other places, if we’re all lucky.
Let’s just say this was one interview I definitely wouldn’t mind conducting a follow-up for sometime, perhaps somewhere a little more private. Of course I’d leave the recording off next time...
...unless, Gage, you’re into that..?
See you next week
- The Secret Hotwife
