Downsides of Swinging (from the vets)

[Chicup]

One thing I've seen over the years here is that often the downsides of swinging are only presented from the worst case scenario aspects, be it cheating disguised as swinging, lack of respect of the wishes of the other half of the couple, and the like. While these are important downsides, they reflect problems in the couples marriage more than problems with swinging.

So what I'm asking of us who are still very happily married after being swingers for some time is to give some of the downsides they have encountered due to being in the lifestyle. I'll give myself two points for using lifestyle and swinging in the same sentence (and thats another topic heh).

Our (the Chicups) perspective on this is as a rather low circulation couple. We are very picky on who we play with, and only devote a small amount of our free time twords finding new couples. These are the things we don't 'like' about the lifestyle after being in it off and on (more on than off) for some six years.

1. The lying. Not in the lifestyle but to friends/relatives. After about age 21 it seems you are not allowed to find new friends without getting grilled on where you met them, how you know them, what do they do, etc. There is also the lying about baby sitting, where you went, and the like.

2. The fear of getting caught. Now for me, its not that much of a fear, it would be more of an annoyance, I can't loose my job unless I fire myself and its been weeks since anyone was stoned to death in my community For the Mrs. it would be worse just because she has family members (luckily not her parents) who would never understand, and are a little insane to start with when it comes to sex. They actually think that we weren't having sex for the six years we were dating. If they found out we were swingers their heads would asplode. Note this isn't an over riding issue, we would survive, but not something we want to deal with either. On the plus side they would blame me and its not like I can't handle that

3. It takes a lot of time. Now this will vary based on how you like to find couples, how out going you are, and how picky you are, but for us, finding the 'right' couples takes a ton of time and effort. We never want to say to ourselves 'I wish we didn't do that (them)' so that takes effort to weed out those we are not interested in.

4. It has made our vanilla friends seem incredibly boring. Imagine a Saturday night out, you got a sitter, you go to a nice place for dinner, you go for some entertainment of some kind, you come home and say your goodbyes. Typical vanilla night out, maybe a great night out, but for us its totally anticlimactic. Plus we feel we need to watch what we say. What is totally innocent among swingers is racey among vanilla. End result is we pay less attention to old friends.

5. Its spoiled us both sexually. Once your fantasies have become a reality, they become 'normal'. Before swinging a porno, or talking about a threesome would be enough to get us going, now its so much elevator music. Our sex life is still great together, but almost like a drug our 'tolerance' is higher. What would be a major turn on prior is now nothing special. After our first swinging encounter we couldn't stop talking about it for a week and when we could do it again. Now its like, 'Oh I paid the gas bill, took out the garbage, and Jack and Jill were talking about coming over tonight.'. I suppose this is where the looking for new people comes in, just to make it 'different' again.

Despite this I can't imagine how our lives would be if we never took the initial plunge into swinging. Its made us closer, appreciate each other more, eliminated almost all jealousy, kept us in shape, and made our marriage far stronger than it was prior. So please add any of your own issues that have come up, I think its good information for new 'normal' couples. We tend to see only the extreme here of what can go wrong.

[CandPinSA]

Originally Posted by Chicup

their heads would asplode

I love it when heads 'asplode'.

On a serious note... Chicup, that's a very good post. I wish there were more posts on here that talked about things like this. We know, somewhere there's a thread about the evolution of the marriage.... but we lost where it was. We haven't had the chance to read it yet... Need to go find that thread again and read it. Anyway, thanks the words you posted here.... and the whole 'asploding' thing too.

CandP

[2jersey]

Thank you for your introspective analysis. This is the first post we have ever sent to the printer.

[AZ Dreaming]

Great post Chipup!

I would not call us vets, but I can relate to a few of the things you listed.

4. It has made our vanilla friends seem incredibly boring. Imagine a Saturday night out, you got a sitter, you go to a nice place for dinner, you go for some entertainment of some kind, you come home and say your goodbyes. Typical vanilla night out, maybe a great night out, but for us its totally anticlimactic. Plus we feel we need to watch what we say. What is totally innocent among swingers is racey among vanilla. End result is we pay less attention to old friends.

This one cracked me up because it is sooooo true!! I am going out on Sat. night with a friend who just finalized her divorce. We will be celebrating! There is also a house party that night.... THAT is really were I would like to be going. Oh Well......

One of the downsides that we are having right now is Life getting in the way of swinging. I know that sounds bad....

Let me explain. We have a couple we have been trying to get together with for a second "date" to play since Feb. We have arranged it I think 4 times. Everytime either the other couple or ourselves have had something come up and had to cancel. We also have a few couples that we are emailing and trying to set up a" get to know you" drink on our part is really hard. With work, kids, kids activities,other friends,and not to meantion hubby and I need to spend time alone every now and then ...... who has time to meet others to play!

I guess this goes along with the whole takes a lot of time, Chipup was talking about.

That is the only thing I can think of right off the top of my head. I am sure the more experinced couples from the board will be here soon to offer up their great opinions.

[JnCC]

Originally Posted by Chicup

So what I'm asking of us who are still very happily married after being swingers for some time is to give some of the downsides they have encountered due to being in the lifestyle.

It sounds like what you're asking is "What are the (basically) minor annoyances that people have encountered while swinging?" BY restricting responses to only those who are "still very happily married" you don't give a very accurate or meaningful picture to "new, normal people" to the lifestyle of what they might encounter.

When I think of "downsides" that some swingers have encountered, I think of unrealistically high arousal thresholds, arguments, affairs, broken marriages, STD's, an occasional pregnancy, and even a few murders and murder/suicides that have occured in connection with swinging. Not common occurrances, perhaps, but nonetheless...

[NandTfromCA]

Chicup- Although we don’t always agree (who “always” agrees with anyone?) with you, we really enjoy your posts!

We’re not “vets” but we can’t wear the “newbie” badge either.

1. The lying- This is absolutely the worst part for us. We are being more and more open with people we care about. At some point, we won’t need to lie anymore. Everyone will either know, or be used to the fact that N and T are just a little different (most already know that).

2. The fear of getting caught- Goes hand in hand with lying. This is a pretty minimal concern for us. If it happens, we’ll deal with it.

3. It takes a lot of time- We are either just really easy, or there are a bunch of quality swingers that live around us. We will also fuck on the first date, IF everyone connects, so that may be a difference.

3B. WHAT IT DOES TAKE, and it’s a personal issue of mine (T), is mindshare. I end up thinking about a couple that we are meeting, a conversation with someone, a party coming up, this forum, etc…during times that I should be focused on something else…kids, work, other hobbies. N doesn’t have the same obsessive tendency. This is something I am going to work on with myself and find better balance.

4. It has made our vanilla friends seem incredibly boring- We still enjoy having dinner with them, good conversation (although we are more careful with what we say now), watching movies, and doing outdoor activities just as much. What really brings it into sharp relief is when we are sitting with one particular couple we know (our “best friends” if we had to label them), having great conversation, lusting after them big time, and then we hug them goodnight. It is a little anticlimactic, so N and I just have to go make a climax of our own on those nights. This mild angst might even compensate for issue #5 a little.

5. Its spoiled us both sexually- It has definitely taken the thrill out of certain conversations. You know your arousal threshold (thanks JnCC for the term) is high when you can carry a conversation about lawn care while people are to the left and/or right of you slapping their naked bodies against each other. BUT, I’m not even sure it’s a bad thing. The thrill of certain acts is gone, but we can still fantasize about certain people (off limits or unattainable) and situations.

6. Money- We now pay for a couple different hook-up websites every month. We have the cost of going out (someone posted an itemization of this in the past). We buy slut wear all the time. We are spending more even on vanilla clothes (maybe not such a bad thing). Toys. Travel to places we might not have otherwise gone to (ie. Hedo). Even if it’s not to get naked, we go out way more than we used to, so we end up spending a lot more money on food and drinks. Now you can witness the total nerd in me- I'm thinking about adding a category in Quicken to track all lifestyle related activities, so we can figure out how much we are spending.

All in all, we love the Lifestyle for the reasons the Chicups already noted. It’s great having hobbies like this that we both enjoy equally and can do together. We also like meeting interesting people. Even people that we don’t want to get naked with or become close friends with. It’s fun to converse with someone we may not have otherwise met. Obviously, we're more than just a little extroverted

[Chicup]

Originally Posted by JnCC

When I think of "downsides" that some swingers have encountered, I think of unrealistically high arousal thresholds, arguments, affairs, broken marriages, STD's, an occasional pregnancy, and even a few murders and murder/suicides that have occured in connection with swinging. Not common occurrances, perhaps, but nonetheless...

Well its not like anyone is denying those can happen in swinging. Of your list I wouldn't call those swinging issues as much as 'life' issues. I've heard of every one of those problems either first, second or third hand and all were vanillas who were involved in affairs, so those issues are by no means unique to swinging. While I have no hard science, and I don't think we ever will, I'd be willing to wager swingers have LESS of those catostrophic issues than non-swingers.

I think we all know that if you are not 100% secure in your marriage with excellent communication then you shouldn't be swinging or you may open yourself up to disaster.

[OttawaCuple]

Originally Posted by JnCC

It sounds like what you're asking is "What are the (basically) minor annoyances that people have encountered while swinging?" BY restricting responses to only those who are "still very happily married" you don't give a very accurate or meaningful picture to "new, normal people" to the lifestyle of what they might encounter.

When I think of "downsides" that some swingers have encountered, I think of unrealistically high arousal thresholds, arguments, affairs, broken marriages, STD's, an occasional pregnancy, and even a few murders and murder/suicides that have occured in connection with swinging. Not common occurrances, perhaps, but nonetheless...

I think NOT discussing the BIG annoyances of swinging is the point of this thread. There are lots of threads about the big issues like cheating, lying to your spouse, marriage failures, etc. It's nice to hear about those little annoyances that ARE common to swinging.

Remembering when I was an active swinger, one of the minor annoyances to me was having to dance "normally" when we got invited to the office Christmas party ... it was so hard to remember not to hike my dress up to my hips and to not sidle up to the couple next to me and start a sandwich dance (you know, a group of people all sandwiched together in a long line, bumping and grinding together)

MrsOttawaCuple

[Chicup]

Originally Posted by NandTfromCA

3. It takes a lot of time- We are either just really easy, or there are a bunch of quality swingers that live around us. We will also fuck on the first date, IF everyone connects, so that may be a difference.

Hey we fuck first date too so thats not it

We have gone to the clubs and for the most part we have left 'empty handed' unless we were meeting people we knew were comming. We meet most people through adds, which by the time you get the fakes sorted out, the wierdos, the didn't tell their wives yet, and the 'oh those pictures are 20 years old sorry' out of the way, and finally set up a meet it can be a while :rollseyes

[intuition897]

I was just contemplating this today. There are mostly pros for us, not cons. Some pros include the peace of mind of not having to feel jealous or insecure anymore, feeling like you've got a secret decoder ring, gaining a new perspective of people (makes the world a lot more fun to live in when the whole thing becomes your imaginary playground), growing closer to your partner...just basically all the fun of being single without the annoying loneliness.

The cons:

1) Money. It's friggin' expensive!
2) Head games. They're virtually unavoidable. We try our best, but sometimes you have to tell little white lies to people to avoid hurting feelings. I hate that.
3) Walking on eggshells around family and other people who would be offended. It just makes me so frustrated that people can't just say, "Oh...well, that's...different. Huh. Good luck with that!" And it's equally frustrating to see so many people who could be happier with their lives/marriages (I mean, you can just SEE it!) if they'd just expand their minds a tiny bit. But nooooo...sex is baaaad! :rollseyes
4) Not being able to share how happy you are with people. They jump up and brandish furniture at you...chairs, end tables, whatever they get their hands on...to put something between them and you. Because obviously you need medical attention, and they hope you're not contagious.

[danni654]

As fellow vets, I agree wholeheartedly with you! But we wouldn't have missed this lifestyle for the world. In fact, we've been playing since 2 weeks after we met.

xoxo, Danni and B
http://danni654.blogspot.com

P.S. I will add one thing that pisses me off...we can't show how we feel about people in public. We recently attended an R-rated Comedy Club and were actually told to "shush" by the hostess; I think it was due to the content of our conversations rather than the sound level.
facelick

Originally Posted by Chicup

One thing I've seen over the years here is that often the downsides of swinging are only presented from the worst case scenario aspects, be it cheating disguised as swinging, lack of respect of the wishes of the other half of the couple, and the like. While these are important downsides, they reflect problems in the couples marriage more than problems with swinging.

So what I'm asking of us who are still very happily married after being swingers for some time is to give some of the downsides they have encountered due to being in the lifestyle. I'll give myself two points for using lifestyle and swinging in the same sentence (and thats another topic heh).

Our (the Chicups) perspective on this is as a rather low circulation couple. We are very picky on who we play with, and only devote a small amount of our free time twords finding new couples. These are the things we don't 'like' about the lifestyle after being in it off and on (more on than off) for some six years.

1. The lying. Not in the lifestyle but to friends/relatives. After about age 21 it seems you are not allowed to find new friends without getting grilled on where you met them, how you know them, what do they do, etc. There is also the lying about baby sitting, where you went, and the like.

2. The fear of getting caught. Now for me, its not that much of a fear, it would be more of an annoyance, I can't loose my job unless I fire myself and its been weeks since anyone was stoned to death in my community For the Mrs. it would be worse just because she has family members (luckily not her parents) who would never understand, and are a little insane to start with when it comes to sex. They actually think that we weren't having sex for the six years we were dating. If they found out we were swingers their heads would asplode. Note this isn't an over riding issue, we would survive, but not something we want to deal with either. On the plus side they would blame me and its not like I can't handle that

3. It takes a lot of time. Now this will vary based on how you like to find couples, how out going you are, and how picky you are, but for us, finding the 'right' couples takes a ton of time and effort. We never want to say to ourselves 'I wish we didn't do that (them)' so that takes effort to weed out those we are not interested in.

4. It has made our vanilla friends seem incredibly boring. Imagine a Saturday night out, you got a sitter, you go to a nice place for dinner, you go for some entertainment of some kind, you come home and say your goodbyes. Typical vanilla night out, maybe a great night out, but for us its totally anticlimactic. Plus we feel we need to watch what we say. What is totally innocent among swingers is racey among vanilla. End result is we pay less attention to old friends.

5. Its spoiled us both sexually. Once your fantasies have become a reality, they become 'normal'. Before swinging a porno, or talking about a threesome would be enough to get us going, now its so much elevator music. Our sex life is still great together, but almost like a drug our 'tolerance' is higher. What would be a major turn on prior is now nothing special. After our first swinging encounter we couldn't stop talking about it for a week and when we could do it again. Now its like, 'Oh I paid the gas bill, took out the garbage, and Jack and Jill were talking about coming over tonight.'. I suppose this is where the looking for new people comes in, just to make it 'different' again.

Despite this I can't imagine how our lives would be if we never took the initial plunge into swinging. Its made us closer, appreciate each other more, eliminated almost all jealousy, kept us in shape, and made our marriage far stronger than it was prior. So please add any of your own issues that have come up, I think its good information for new 'normal' couples. We tend to see only the extreme here of what can go wrong.

[EvilMJ]

I have to agree wit with what has been posted by everyone.

Our biggest challange is the head games, people who give out strange signals, play little mind games with, seem like they want to play but then seem to back out.

The other problem we encounter is the time trying to find people we both click with. SInce most of the people at the club know I am a bi female I get lots of invitations, but they seem to forget that I am a part of a couple and rarely play separately.

[The Fuse]

This is a great thread. I especially like Inuition897's point about not being able to share how happy we are with people. Our friends can see something is up with us, and I have blamed my upcoming 40th birthday for the weight loss and extra primping. But we just want to shout from the rooftops about how great swinging is. So many people could be happier, as long as they start out in the right place.

Even when I am not consciously wishing I could share our newfound bliss with specific friends, I feel something of a low-level disconnect from society in general. It's different than the kind of alienation I have felt throughout my life from the time I could remember, which I think a lot of freethinkers feel. It's about sex, which of course brings a different kind of isolation than the one that occurs due to "more intellectual" departures from groupthink. This is not necessarily bad, but it's something that makes me a little wistful at times.

The biggest downside for us is not one that affects veterans as much, and is one that is thankfully subsiding somewhat: the difficulty in focusing on work. My job performance suffered terribly for about three months, and it definitely has affected my relationship with the client I started with back in February. Thank goodness the buzz in my head has subsided to a pleasant roar now. But it still is quite the distraction.

Lying to my parents is no fun either. Lying to most friends is no problem, as I feel no guilt over it. However, I have one very close, married male friend who's been trying to get me to sleep with him for fifteen years. The answer has always been "no, dammit" because I don't cheat on my husband, and because his wife would never approve. He would be very hurt if he knew that recently I had had sex with several other men, but still won't with him. It hurts just knowing how he would feel.

The "dating anxieties" aren't something I relish re-living. But they are worth it. I don't like turning people down after we've already met and socialized with them a little, but it's better than the alternative .

[NandTfromCA]

Fuse- What an awesome post! You crystallized my thoughts with the “wishing I could share our newfound bliss” and “job performance” (3B on our list- but you said it more eloquently) paragraphs.

T (N is away at a belly dancing event today)

[The Fuse]

Originally Posted by NandTfromCA

Fuse- What an awesome post! You crystallized my thoughts with the “wishing I could share our newfound bliss” and “job performance” (3B on our list- but you said it more eloquently) paragraphs.

T (N is away at a belly dancing event today)

Thanks