How about that anonymity?!

[EternallySingle]

Given the fact that I posted my actual picture and often use my name on here, and the fact that there are less than 5000 people in the town I live in, I'm obviously not worried about annonymity. However, I don't HAVE any swing friends, since I haven't been active in this lifestyle since 1999 and the one couple that I did consider friends have moved and I don't know their new address. Since they haven't tried to contact me...oh, well.

If I did know people in the lifestyle in real life, I would tell them about this site. I've told my regular friends about the vanilla dating sites I had joined, why would I keep this a secret from any swing friends I have?

[BradAndJanet]

I try to keep the two things separated, for the most part. It's not to say that we would never play with people here on the board or that we'd never tell people we played with about the board, but yes, I value the relative anonymity we have here. It's much easier to talk about situations and get advice without hurting anyone.

Let me put it this way: anyone that we would 'cross the streams' with would have to be someone we trusted very much.

-B

[akamgaxoxo]

I have shared this site with friends before, I think it's a great tool and a way to learn more, however, in saying this I don't want to post anything too outlandish and have anyone upset with me. And if anyone I knew read something and was paranoid about it being them, then I would tell them to get over themselves! But that is just me....

[stoutgatte]

I often tell people I know who has issues in swinging of the board. It is such a good resource that it'd be a crime to hide it. The nick here is the same one we use everywhere, but I have yet to have anyone tell me they actually visited here.

If I didn't feel comfortable telling someone something about myself, I probably wouldn't do that here either. Not much of our lifestyle falls into this category though...

[Denver2some]

Originally Posted by ALilOEverything

I mention that I post on a forum about swinging but I've never given the link and they've never asked. I do wonder if anyone will find me here and I'm just usually careful about what I post. I did post once about my worst experience and if they read that they would know who I was I'm sure and that's okay, maybe he'd learn something from it

These comments sum our thoughts up very nicely too. So thanks, ALilOEverything.

[hotblonde47]

I have told a couple of people that we've been involved with about this board and how interesting it is .... I have posted opinions regarding one of our "situations" in particular and I know that the person involved may have read them .... and I hope they do 'cos it's all positive (even though I don't know their "handle" on here so I can't tell!) I think if there was a negative experience I may still ask all your opinions anyway without being too graphic or nasty.

[Greg & Sheryl]

We have mentioned this board to a couple we know very well from Colorado Springs, but they didn’t seem very interested. As anyone can tell from the openness of our profile and home page, we aren’t too concerned about maintaining our anonymity, but we haven’t mentioned this site to most of our swinging friends because none of them are the type to spend much time posting messages on the internet.

However, we must confess that we do not promote our LiveJournal to anyone but the people on this board. Even though we go to great lengths to protect the identity of those people we write about, we might be a bit red-faced if someone we knew came to us and said, “We saw we got mentioned in your journal!” We did show our journal to that same couple from Colorado Springs, and we even got their permission to post a photo of the four of us together, but we doubt they have checked it out since then.

We find it interesting that so many couples have been stalked by others. This has never happened to us. Are we not worthy of being stalked? :rollseyes

[DBL D]

Quote from Greg and Sheryl:

"We have mentioned this board to a couple we know very well from Colorado Springs, but they didn’t seem very interested. As anyone can tell from the openness of our profile and home page, we aren’t too concerned about maintaining our anonymity, but we haven’t mentioned this site to most of our swinging friends because none of them are the type to spend much time posting messages on the internet."

Well that was the problem for us. It's one thing to be open with your swinging friends (or vanilla friends) about your lifestyle choices; but to suggest that they read the board when you may have the same name as on your other sites, well I just started feeling that I wouldn't be able to comment unashamedly or without that little editor in my head telling me not to write something for fear that someone who's met us would recognize it as us.

We're trying to separate the swinging from the discussions if you know what I mean.

I wouldn't trust when someone says, "we're not interested in the board." That may be the oldest trick in the book. <EG>

See: People who are gay but publicly deplore the act of homosexuality.

Male D

[magnum]

Originally Posted by JustAskJulie

I'm curious to know how many here share this board with their swinging friends? From talking to a few people and some posts I have seen, it seems that most don't simply because they feel it will take away from their anonymity they have here to ask any question they might have or relay any particular situation they may encounter.

Do you worry about others you swing with finding you here? Do you worry that someone might put two and two together and realize that the person you described in a post was them?

I have told the friends I swing with about this site but they have not signed up. I think it is the wife that is hesitant.

Magnum

[JustAskJulie]

I'm guilty. If anyone should be sharing this place it's me.... but I totally understand the idea of wanting to be able to speak freely and we've found ourselves recently holding back about "our" site.

On one hand I feel like I should tell everyone, it's my job to promote it right?! But on the other side I'm torn, because I want to be able to post my issues here too.

[The Fuse]

We tell just about everyone (swingers that is). A few people have become regular contributors to the Board. At times, it's kept me from posting things I otherwise would have. But those folks get a lot out of the Board, much more than I gave up by telling them.

[havefuninsun]

Originally Posted by The Fuse

A few people have become regular contributors to the Board.

Guilty ... Mrs. Fuse recruited me. I had found the board through the links on SLS, but hadn't posted any until Mrs. Fuse encouraged me to do so.

And -- I have held back telling folks about the board because of a situation that I wanted to air. And I'm a wuss.

But overall, we should be spreading the love.

[MRnMSbhaven]

We're believers in not saying something in public that we wouldn't say to your face.
We have no problem sharing the site with our play friends. They all know that if they think we're posting about them, all they have to do is ask and we'll be upfront about it.
Of course if we were posting anything regarding others, we'd probably have already spoken about it so they wouldn't need to ask.

Ms B

[sweet_tna]

I've shared the site with play friends, and yes, I've had a couple realize that one of my posts referred to them. Thankfully, it was a good post!

I'm not shy about sharing my opinions here or in person. I've found a broader spectrum of experience and opinions here than among my play friends, but don't feel the need to hide anything from them.

=)

[sexcupid]

I've mentioned to folks that we/I post on the SwingersBoard, don't know if it has encouraged them to come and have a read or join.

I have to say it really hasn't affected my posting one way or another. Sometimes I can be a bit more outspoken, other times not so much so. But that is the way I am IRL as well.

I do use the same screen name for the SB, SLS, MSN, MySpace, CoupleSpace, Livejournal, etc. The only one that is different is my Yahoo and that's only b/c I forgot the answer to my id question on Yahoo and got tired of trying to remember so just set up a new one.