It is a swing state, after all

[Scooter]

Virginia House Candidate Comes Out As A Swinger Ahead Of November Election

Yvonne Rorrer figured someone would out her on the campaign trail, so she got ahead of the story and did it herself.

Rorrer, a Democratic candidate for Virginia’s House of Delegates in the 47th district, revealed Saturday on social media that she is married and ethically nonmonogamous, meaning she and her husband consensually date other couples together.

“In politics, people love to dig up the unexpected and spin it into a spectacle,” the 47-year-old wrote on social media. “I don’t do shame, and I sure won’t give anyone else the opportunity to tell my story.”

Rorrer told HuffPost on Tuesday that while no one was threatening to out her, she believes word of her lifestyle would have gotten out of her inner circle in Stuart, Virginia, her hometown with a population of just over 1,000.

“What we do is together, and is often categorized under the term of ‘swingers,’ which has been around since the dawn of the sexual revolution. It’s a large community of people,” Rorrer told HuffPost.

“This is not something that we have hidden from our adult children, our closest friends, the majority of our family members,” she added. “This has been our way of life for several years, and so it it would have come out. And if it was going to come out, I would rather it be for me and in my own words.”

Rorrer and her husband of 22 years have been practicing ethical nonmonogamy for about two and a half years. They haven’t been intimate with another couple in six months, however, she said.

After Rorrer revealed the information on social media, the internet had plenty to say — “TMI,” “degenerate lifestyle,” “I guess Virginia is for lovers” — and Rorrer personally replied to many of the messages she received on the first day. Now, she said, her notifications are silenced, so she doesn’t see the responses.

Rorrer said the reactions have been mixed. Her dad told her it “doesn’t pull a hair off my ass.” Other family members, however, didn’t know about it until she posted about it on social media.

Rorrer’s husband’s parents are upset, she said — almost as upset as when they found out Rorrer is running for the delegate seat as a Democrat.

Rorrer is a newbie to politics. She worked in property management for 20 years before the COVID-19 pandemic, then spent her time volunteering by representing child abuse victims in the court system. After her opponent, Wren Williams, voted against HB1727, which states that a person convicted of rape can’t have parental rights of the child born of the rape, Rorrer decided to join the race.

“That’s what did it for me,” Rorrer told HuffPost. “I have no political background, but I have a mouth and I have an opinion, and that did it. That pretty much did it for me.”

Politicians’ sex lives have been subject to scrutiny since the beginning. Stan Pulliam — former mayor of Sandy, Oregon, and a 2022 Republican candidate for Oregon governor — came clean in 2022 about being a part of a swingers’ group in 2016. Christian Ziegler, the former chairman of the Florida Republican party, perused bars looking for women to bring home to his wife, Bridget Ziegler, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, a far-right group aimed at getting conservatives elected to school boards, according to a police report related to a rape accusation made against Christian Ziegler. Madison Cawthorn, a former Republican member of Congress, said politicians have invited him to orgies.

Rorrer might be the first to be open about her nontraditional lifestyle from the beginning.

“It doesn’t have to be for you,” she said. “There’s a lot of things that aren’t for me, but I don’t judge people for it, unless they’re hurting somebody. What consensual adults do behind closed doors and in their relationships belong to them. It’s 2025. It’s time for people to start respecting the fact that people can make choices for their own lives that work for them. Me and my husband are happy. We are happy, and I’ll be honest with you, our relationship and our communication and the depth of which we were able to love grew stronger after we got into this lifestyle than it had ever been, and it was because we had to communicate.”

Does she think the announcement will help her campaign?

“No,” she said with a laugh. But she said she didn’t think it would hurt her chances, either.

“I think the people who were going to vote for me anyway will still vote for me,” she said. “Democrats ... tend to be open to the differences in lifestyles and allowing people to be who they are. It’s the more religious people who are judging us the hardest right now. You know, we’re going to hell.”

Virginia’s 47th House of Delegates district typically votes red. The district was redistricted from the 9th House of Delegates district, which voted for a Republican representative for House of Delegates all the way back to at least 2008.

“I will have to now probably rely on all the swingers in the country to fund my campaign,” Rorrer said with a laugh.