Breaching the boundries with our friends

[Nate82]

Now that I've finally breached the subject with my girlfriend (thanks to all the advice on these forums she said she's definitely interested, thanks by the way). Any way a couple that are mutual friends of ours we find really attractive and we would like to swing with them. The problem is we don't know how to get on the subject and then go from there. My initial thought was to get them both in a one on one. The girls go out on a night on the town and the guys go out for a beer. But we need good ice breakers, because we're afraid that bringing up the subject may lead to the end of our friendship or make things really uncomfortable later on. Help and advice would be appreciated.
2nd subject, say they are interested where do we go from there?

[ncmd_couple]

Nate,

Are you willing to lose this couple as your friends? Honestly, you two are just now starting out. I have no idea of where you are in figuring out what you want and don't want other than she said that she is interested. The majority of us will probably counsel against your trying to get vanilla friends involved.

S

[PB&J]

Go to a club. Find some people there to talk to. Then maybe do something- with people who know what they're doing, NOT with friends you don't want to lose!!

[redgirlwithfrec]

We agree. there is a good chance that if you approach it as if you are going after them that it may backfire and you can lose them as friends. We brought up the subject with our good friends when we first started not because we were after them but because we wanted to be able to talk to someone about our activities outside the lifestyle. At the time we had no interest in playing with them or bringing them into the lifestyle. Eventually they made their own way into the lifestyle after seducing us. but this type of story is not neccessarily the norm.

[LFM2]

Hi Nate.

There's a saying that goes like this: Make friends out of swingers and not swingers out of friends.

I'd probably heed that phrase and try to find someone else for our first time. You could lose a great friendship of you try to do otherwise.

[JustAskJulie]

Originally Posted by Nate82

we're afraid that bringing up the subject may lead to the end of our friendship or make things really uncomfortable later on. Help and advice would be appreciated.
2nd subject, say they are interested where do we go from there?

A valid fear and one that you should really give a lot more thought to before you actually consider bringing up the subject to them.

Unless you aren't worried about losing the friends, or know without a doubt that nothing you could do or say could negatively impact your friendship, I just wouldn't go there.

[good times]

I agree with Julie and the others here, and from personal experience where we brought it up to vanilla friends and lost their friendship over it I can say it just isn't worth it. The fact is, it is so easy to find people who are already swingers to play with, in hindsight, we were idiots to risk our friendship for the desire to have a little sex.

[Edison Carter]

Swinging, conceptually, is so far removed from how most 'vanilla' people think about human sexuality, that just the mention of it will paralyze most of them. They just cannot process it. Also, any time you have to come up with a 'plan' or a 'scheme' to explore swinging with friends, you should stop immediately. This is a grown-up activity that should be done in an honest, forthright way. Anything less is disingenuous to something that is supposed to be a fun and sincere expression of one's sexual self.

[intuition897]

How open-minded are your friends? Are they the type you can talk to about anything? About explicitly sexual topics? Do the girls banter back and forth about masturbation techniques like they were recipes? If you're not on this level with your friends, I'm not sure it will work. And even at that, you're gambling with a straight 50/50 chance that it will work...because you just can't know whether or not it's going to work for their relationship. If it doesn't, the fun gets screwed as well as their relationship AND your friendship. It's a big gamble, so weigh the risk carefully before trying to bring your friends into this new arena with you.

I'd say that if you're confident that your friends won't freak out and dump you, I'd just try to bring it up casually as a matter of interest. When the girls are out, your girlfriend can say, "So you'll never guess where we're going next Saturday...to a swingers club!" She might get the EWWW GROSS! reaction which might give you a gauge as to how far you'll get with them. But if I were you, I would NOT give any indication that either of you are interested in either of them. They may feel deceived and threatened if you suddenly start coming on to them. If the friendship is important to you, be sure to honour that first. If, after you've titillated them with your tawdry tales of the swingers club (and I'd highly recommend finding a good one to visit), they start asking questions and show that they are curious about your lifestyle, go ahead and answer them. But stress the importance of not wanting to lose their friendship, and if they are suddenly enthusiastic to jump into bed with you both, then I'd still say to proceed with caution. To always be aware of how your actions may affect them.

This is a sore point among members here on the board. I firmly believe that I am my "brother's keeper". If we notice that our actions are stressing our partners' relationship in any way - even though it's their problem and none of our business - we would feel that we would have taken advantage of someone else merely to satisfy our whims. Others do not feel that same sense of responsibility for their partners, believing (I'm guessing) that anything other than strictly minding one's own business infringes upon a certain necessary distance that couples must keep from one another in order to avoid emotional complications.

If it works out with your friends, we'd sure love to hear about it! Not very often we hear warm-fuzzy stories about successful friends-to-swingers stories!

[WesternSwing]

Part of our philosophy of swinging is that it's easier to make friends out of swingers than swingers out of friends. Leave vanilla friends vanilla friends and seek-out those you know are into it.

Mr. WS

[TheDeal]

I would also say don't do it...and we had our best friends become our first playmates. They turned from the vanilla world to swinging because of us. The difference here, is we never thought of telling them or playing with them; they found out, then it all just happened. I would hate to think if we had just told them and they freaked and we lost the friendship.

G

[pervgeeks]

Originally Posted by Nate82

Now that I've finally breached the subject with my girlfriend (thanks to all the advice on these forums she said she's definitely interested, thanks by the way). Any way a couple that are mutual friends of ours we find really attractive and we would like to swing with them. The problem is we don't know how to get on the subject and then go from there. My initial thought was to get them both in a one on one. The girls go out on a night on the town and the guys go out for a beer. But we need good ice breakers, because we're afraid that bringing up the subject may lead to the end of our friendship or make things really uncomfortable later on. Help and advice would be appreciated.
2nd subject, say they are interested where do we go from there?

I'd add another vote to tread cautiously. We had a very soft experience with close friends (and possibly more down the road, but we're taking it very slow), BUT we're all older late-30's-early 40's, they knew we were swingers, and they both have had threesomes (MFF and MMF) in prior relationships. We're all very open-minded, experienced people, and WE'RE taking it very slow because we value our friendship, so I'd say the best bet is to go to a meet & greet, laugh, dance, flirt, and have fun. Don't push it!