This is the age breakdown of Cook County. Ages 25-29 is the largest four year age group, followed by 30-34.

Someone on Facebook (a non-ycp group) just told me “I’ve never heard of a club having an age restriction, age is just a number!”

Spoken by someone so deep in the majority, that everything seems perfectly normal, and comfortable all the time.

Look, if you’re between 40-65 then yeah…everything seems normal at your typical lifestyle event because everyone is just like you. We went to a large, (they say they are the largest) lifestyle convention a few years back and out of the hundreds and hundreds of couples, I doubt if there were more than 20 or 30 couples aged 35 or below. Had we been 55 years old, there’d of been many potential play partners everywhere and changing up the demographics wouldn’t have seemed important at all.

If you believe that “age is just a number” then you’re not going to notice that 20-something-year-old couple who walked into the club, sat in the corner, left and never returned. Just like if you’ve been rich your entire life you might think money is just “numbers,” and not notice that most attendees are upper-middle class because they are the only ones who can afford a party that starts at $70.

It reminds me of my upbringing. In my entire school district, there was one black family. In every class those kids went to they were the only non-white face. Fuck, they were the only non-white face in the entire county. Do you think they ever thought about race? Do you think they saw color? I imagine it’s easier for a white person to say “I don’t see race” than the one black family in an all-white county.

If you think “age is just a number” then at least take a look around the next event you host or attend. What are those numbers? How do they compare to the Cook County demographics shown in the image? If they were in line with the demographics then your largest group should be ages 25-29, with over twice as many as ages 55-59. I would bet you $100, however, that it’s the exact inverse of that. I think more people should be asking, “why?”

I’ve said this 1000 times, simply making your event open to everyone DOES NOT mean everyone feels welcome.