Friends In Swinging

[luv2play1021]

I'm looking to see how you all feel about having friends not only as play partners, but outside the "swinging". My wife and I are having different views on this. I believe that you can be friends outside the lifestyle. Go out, but not play. She believes that is getting too close with other people that you've played with. That if you go out with them, it should be for the reason of playing. What do you think???

[Pinmonkey]

I believe you can be horizontal and vertical friends with people. It's up to you on how well you get along.

[txduo2000]

Ahhhh, seems I might be able to help out a little here, seeing as I was once in your wife's position, while my husband was in yours ......

It has EVERYTHING to do with insecurity and shame, in my opinion. BUT let me qualify my opinion by saying that I have it because that was MY problem.

When my husband and I first entered the realm of swinging, I will admit that I did it kind of "under duress" ... because it was what he wanted. It was never anything that I had considered prior to discussing it with my husband. We had gone to a few off-premise clubs, and I admit, I was aroused by the atmosphere, but was not really ready to jump into swapping. Since I am not bi, f/f action was not something I was interested in either.

We took it slow for awhile, but I knew my husband was eager. I probably jumped in a little sooner than I would have liked and our communication was not what it should have been at that time.

When we got hot and heavy into parties and swaps, my preference was total anonymity. I didn't want to know those people's names, I didn't want to see them again, I didn't want to carry on an ongoing "relationship" of any kind with them. I wanted wham, bam, thank you ma'am, one night stands, and that's it.

We did meet one couple through an internet ad. The wife of that couple and my husband chatted frequently on the computer. The phone calls were almost exclusively between the two of them. My husband tried to get me involved, so he wasn't hiding anything at all, but I was jealous and intimidated. We became friends with these people, and as such, in my frame of mind at that time, never played with them. I simply could not. The first time we got together, at our house, for a casual hanging out and getting to know each other evening, SHE was very flirty with my husband and I became very angry! He could tell and he was avoiding all her attempts and finally she caught the hint and stopped. But it was a very awkward situation for all.

After some time, I told my husband I wanted to stop altogether. I didn't like it, I felt like it was consuming our lives and I was at odds with my religious beliefs. We stopped, for a little over 2 years. We are just now back into it, and I am much more comfortable because I am in it because I want to be, not because my husband wants me to be. And because I am more comfortable, more secure and less guilty feeling, I have absolutely no problem making friendships with people. I now prefer to know the people we swing with, even if only on a casual basis. But I like the idea more now of getting to know people we can hang out with as well as play with on occasion.

I would suggest you and your wife both and each examine your reasons for swinging ... and approach it with brutal honesty. If there are any chinks in your marital armor, or any reason that either of you are uncomfortable with anything at all in this lifestyle, and if your communication is not where it needs to be, which is at 100% honesty and openness, then your swinging life will continually be adversely affected, and then you relationship might become affected in turn.

Though I am not proud ... the problems in our marriage led to some really bad incidents in our marriage. Not caused by swinging per se, but my feelings about swinging and the reasons I wanted to stop contributed to my low self esteem and THAT reached into our marriage. We subsequently suffered issues involving domestic violence, infidelity and later, separation.

I am sorry that I have ventured off onto tangents completely irrelevant to your situation, but I felt it was necessary to get across what our experience was when I felt that way.

[Chicup]

It depends on the people of course but we had swinger friends at family functions before and are going to again without a problem. We enjoy being friends with our playmates, but a lot of people don't care for being friends with who they play with (paging Vegas Lee) so its really up to what works for you.

[couplefromma]

We have always made friends with the couples we play with. We see them in vanilla and not so vanilla settings. We think it adds to the tease in some ways.

We have been friends with one couple for five years (althought the playing stopped after 2) and cherish the friendship as much now as when we were playing together. One couple we even invited them and their kids to Thanksgiving dinner.

Its all what you feel comfortable with. If you can handle being in public knowing that the person you are going to a movie, dinner, play, ballgame with has had sex with you then you are good. Remember alot of this is being able to separate the sex from love with our spouse and our playmates why not separate the vanilla and play time with friends...

[good times]

We have noticed that the better we have become friends with our play partners the less we have sex with them.

[texcpl]

All we can relate is our own experience. Our closest friends are a couple we met and became swing partners with. We are very careful about boundaries and have spent a great deal of time defining emotional limits. This was necessary because it has become a long standing friendship between the four of us. The guys have become good friends (both absolutely straight) and the wives are wonderful friends and play together as well as swapping husbands. We spend more time doing "vanilla" friend type things as couples......dancing, eating out as couples, even going to family get togethers together. (both sets of grown kids ....19-20 yr olds) are very accepting of our friendship and of course know nothing about anything else. We have found that the friendship has actually grown stronger and the playtimes more profound and exciting as time has passed. (probably over 30 times at this point) but we also are very much into respect for each as a couple-- each of us have been married 24 years, and feel strongly that each would never do anything that in any way would jepardize those marital bonds. It is hard to explain.......but yes....with maturity and alot of communication........it can and does work!

[Mrs Spoomonkey]

We look for friends in the lifestyle. That is our preference simply because when we get together in a vanilla situation with them we can still really be ourselves. When your with co-workers or family you have to suppress the real you in a way. Our first couple that we got involved with in the lifestyle use to have us at their house all the time with vanilla friends, family, etc. We'd get together with our kids, just like you would with anyone else but then we'd get together and play games that turned "naughty" and went away for the weekend for a play time.

I think it depends on your preference but we do try to develop friendships with our playmates outside of play. It seems to be more difficult to get a sexual match and an activity match. You'll find a great couple that the play is really hot but then you'll have nothing in common as far as things you like to do. So if you find someone like that I'd say take advantage and develop the friendship.

Mrs Spoomonkey

[xxoticangel]

In our expierence couple friendships and swinging don't go well together. We have "swung" with friends and found that the more we were together time we spent swinging and the less time we did other things. The last year of the relationship was almost entirely about swinging and caused some hurt feelings when one couple or the other was not looking to hook up that day.

Playmates that became close friends didn't work out much better. We found the opposite was true with them. The more time we spent together the less swinging we did. We got so close to one couple that we ended up trading babysitting duties so the other couple could meet someone else.

Surprisingly (sp?) single males have not posed the same problems. We have never had any problems with friends of mine after swinging. An old military buddy of mine comes to town about twice a year on business and always stays with us. He usually stays 5-7 days and we may only have sex once and there has never any pressure for more. We have had a couple of one nighter (or weekenders) with other friends that have never been mentioned again. The guys and I still do our guy things and none have ever mentioned doing a repeat performance.

We prefer to play with someone we are attracted to first and see what develops later. There have been too many times we have had great sex with a couple that we had nothing but a physical attraction to that we would have missed if we had tried to develop a friendship first.

[luv2play1021]

Wow! Good replies from both points of view. Thanks guys.

[luv2play1021]

txduo2000....You and my wife do have alot of the same issues or should I say "did" in your case.

[JimWActg]

We always thought people had to be friends first in order for them to qualify as playmates, but friends did not have to play in order to stay friends.

Different friends offer us differant things, just as we do to them.

[Greg & Sheryl]

There's no right or wrong regarding this issue. We thoroughly enjoy being friends with the people we play with (in fact, we don't have any true vanilla friends), but plenty of other swingers prefer to keep their playmates at arm's length.

[EvilMJ]

I would have to say I agree with Greg and Sheryl on this one.
The swinging community around her is pretty tight and we we have a group of friends that get together every friday night at a local bar for Kareoke, sometimes we go downtown dancing. It is a good time, yet when we go to dances or parties, or set up 'playdate' we still play together and have a good time. It seems to work for all of us.

I think the other thing that works well for us is that no one talks about who plays with who, a lot of the time it is apparent, but it's like an unwritten rule, we don't discuss it, it's not our business.

Some of our friends we only see that once a week, and the occassional chat on the computer, some we do quite a bit with. I have had a bad experience with one couple getting to close, but I take it all on a case by case basis

[WesternSwing]

We have made friends with several couples that we play with. We do vanilla stuff together now and then, also. For us we can't swing with anyone that we wouldn't have as friends because personality is just as important as physcial attractiveness to us. Therefore it is hard not to become friends outside of the bedroom.

But, it all boils down to your comfort level. Your wife may not be comfortable with getting to close to those you swing with. Just respect that for what it is. She may change her mind someday.

Mr. WS