6. Black Mirror
2026-06-16
After 18 months of swinging, Ruth has a moment of recognition while watching Black Mirror. With support from friends and domestic abuse services, she secretly prepares to leave her marriage. Now, in her garden, Ruth reflects on freedom, fear and why she chose to tell her story.
If you are suffering distress or despair, details of help and support in the UK are available at bbc.co.uk/actionline.
Presenter: Catrin NyeWriters: Catrin Nye and Jamie BartlettExec Producer: Kavita PuriSeries Producer: Ruth MayerCommissioner: Bridget CurnowSound Design: Ivor ManleyTitle Track: David WrenchResearchers: Emily Parsons and Liv FaceyProduction Management Assistant: Daisy CarolProduction Manager: Mandy Osborne
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Swingers
BBC Radio Wales- No. of episodes
- 7
- Latest episode
- 2026-06-16
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Swingers tells the story of Ruth - a woman who joined a Swinging website and ended up having degrading sex with strangers more than 100 times. Ruth thinks she is not alone, that there are women all over the UK like her and so she decided to tell her story, using her full identity, to investigative journalist Catrin Nye.
Ruth says that she never wanted to join the swingers website - but did it to please her husband who had been slowly persuading her for more than a decade to try swinging. She ended up having sex with strangers in lay-bys and filming it for her husband. She ended up pregnant by a stranger and giving oral sex to another man while bleeding from an abortion. In this podcast Catrin pieces together Ruth’s story and asks what it tells us about sexual consent, pressure in relationships, and the swinger community. She digs deep into the online world of Fab Swingers - the website Ruth and her husband used. Catrin discovers countless crimes across the UK linked to the swinging website and speaks to a man who admits to having sex with women who he thinks were pushed into it. She considers the police response to Ruth, the law and whether swinging can be a cover for abuse. This is a story told in full honesty. It’s the trickiest investigation of Catrin’s career, but one she also feels must be told.