The Villages is a massive retirement community in Florida that is constantly battling wild rumors and myths. One of the biggest questions people seem to be fascinated with is: are there swingers in the Villages? The rumors that have taken the internet by storm allege that The Villages is swarming with swingers and wild “senior citizen” sex parties. But is that really the case? Sorry to disappoint you. But, likely not.
The latest rumor says that seniors are tying loofa sponges to their cars as a signal to meet other swingers in The Villages. And while it turns out loofas are in fact being used by some of the oldest seniors living in The Villages – it’s not for sex. It’s so the area’s oldest residents can figure out where their car is parked in the parking lot when they come out of the grocery store.
When I spent a week visiting The Villages in 2022, I had no idea what to expect. I had heard all of these rumors and was incredibly curious as to which were true and which rumors were total crap. I’m in my early 40s so I stuck out like a sore thumb during my time in this sprawling retirement destination about an hour northwest of Orlando. About 150,000 people call The Villages home and it continues to grow by leaps and bounds.
I looked for a place to stay on Airbnb and found a room available during the week of Christmas. I stayed in the home of a lovely woman named Anne who lived alone with her tiny dog named “Nick”. Anne was a model in her younger days and had photos around the house to prove it. She wasn’t the stereotypical “senior citizen” I was expecting to find in The Villages. In fact, she had just recently quit riding motorcycles cross-country.
Anne invited me to a Christmas Eve service at her church on my second day in town. I decided to go with her, figuring it would be a good way to interact with locals. Not five minutes after sitting down in the church sanctuary, a gentleman leans over to ask me where I was from. He followed up with “I bet you think we’re all swingers here, don’t you?”
The gentleman at the church, much like the other residents I met, laughed at the idea that there are a bunch of swingers in The Villages. “Don’t believe everything you read” he said while rolling his eyes and passing along the offering plate.
Residents here are probably too busy to worry or even care about what online trolls have to say about The Villages. In all of my travels, I’ve never seen a place quite like it. Most of the residents here are not “old”. They play sports, mingle with friends at lunch and dinner, drive their golf carts all over the place, dance the night away at nightly concerts, and constantly learn new skills and hobbies.
There are multiple recreation facilities throughout The Villages that probably put your local community center to shame. Each week, a newspaper is distributed that lists all of the thousands of activities and groups that meet for everything from tennis to archery. Of course, I had to check and see if the newspaper mentioned swingers in The Villages — it did not.
One of the biggest rumors about The Villages is that it’s notorious for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Unfortunately, the average person isn’t smart enough to do a bit of research before spreading this falsehood around, but just like the swingers rumor – it appears to be false, too.
As I wrote in a separate article, the rumor began in 2006:
"A gynecologist who had moved to the area stated that she had treated more cases of herpes in The Villages than she had while working in a practice in Miami. Her claims made news (though she later modified her statement). Unfortunately the damage was already done. The New York Post picked up the “fake news” story as did other media outlets across the country. In reality, Sumpter County (where The Villages is located) has one of the lowest STD rates in both Florida and the nation."
After a week of searching for swingers in The Villages (wait, that sounds bad…) I came up with only one conclusion. It seems that there are a lot of jealous people that like to beat this place up.
Though I probably annoyed plenty of people while researching swingers in The Villages, I found residents to be friendly, polite, and full of life and energy. Obviously it annoys some people that there are seniors who aren’t just sitting on their front porch waiting for the mail all day with nothing to do. For the record, no one told me to get off their lawn either.
And no, not a single person invited me to join their swingers party. Maybe I was just too young.