Straight swingers are using colored shower loofas to appropriate gay “hanky code”

The hanky code–the covert way for queer men to signal their sexual interests through colored handkerchiefs–seems to have finally made its way to the straight community.

Swingers in a central Florida retirement community known as the Villages are reportedly hanging colored shower loofas on their vehicles to signal their interests in partner swapping, voyeurism, exhibitionism, and more, according to The New York Post.

Now, this rumor comes from TikTok and Reddit, so you might wanna take it with a grain of salt. But here’s the story…

For a while now, cruise ships passengers (which tend to skew older) have reportedly been posting upside down pineapple stickers and magnets on their room doors to signal an interest in sharing partners.

This trend allegedly evolved as residents of the Villages began hanging different colored boofahs on their cars and golf carts to signal their sexual interests.

A recent TikTok video, reportedly taken from the retirement community, shows various vehicles with the pom-pom shaped bathing accessories hanging from vehicles’ rooftops.

A Reddit post purports to explain what each differently colored loofa signifies: White means you’re new to partner swapping, purple is for voyeurs, pink is for exhibitionists, blue is for those who are totally down to swap partners, black is for anything goes, and teal is for bisexuals. Allegedly, of course!

Now, it could be that all of this is just a silly rumor and that the loofahs are being used for a boring non-sexual reason, one Reddit commenter said.

“The reason for the loofas is simple, it’s so they can find their car,” wrote gatordent, a Redditor who said they worked at the Villages for three years.

“All the retirees drive similar cars and old gran can’t go around the whole parking lot looking for her car. So the loofa is an easy way for them to spot it from a distance,” gatordent added. “Trust me, all the people I have met are definitely not swingers as most can barely stand without assistance.”

It’s also worth noting that people have joked for decades about the Villages being a site of rampant sex and sexually transmitted illnesses. But there’s no proof to back up these rumors and they could just be a form of social media clickbait that reflects people’s anxieties about elderly people having sex, especially as erectile dysfunction medications have kept older men more sexually active into their golden years.

But it looks like the straights aren’t the only ones who have updated the hanky code.

In a 2014 stand-up routine, gay comedian Justin Sayre played the Chairman of the International Order of Sodomites and announced that the “new hanky code” has been updated to “talk about your damage.”

“Long have these issues laid in the shadows of a second date,” Sayre said, “but no more. We’d like to put it out there.”

According to Sayre, white hankies now signify racists, gray equals boring, yellow is for commitment-phobes, baby blue means you have mother issues, pink stands for ingrained homophobia (i.e. “masc-seekers”), mustard means you drink too much, magenta is poor personal hygiene and so on, with hankies for conspiracy theorists, those who don’t like The Golden Girls and other groups.

That’s a hanky code that everyone could surely benefit from.