Changing attitudes about sexuality

[knb2004]

Oh, man, here he goes again!

We see many interesting threads here.

"How do I convince my wife to swing."

"We used to have so many rules but over time they went away."

"When my SO first brought up swinging, I was mortified, but eventually I tried it and now I love it!"

All of these involve people becoming, or trying to become, dare I say it, more enlightened about their sexuality.

Being the masochist that I am, as I have mentioned in prior threads, I spend time reading the relationships section at Yahoo Answers, and I have also been reading some bona-fide anti-porn sites. "I caught my husband looking at porn, and man am I pissed!" "Dump him, he's an addict." "What an asshole." You get the drift. These folks desire, I believe, to remain in their "box" of thinking. Porn is bad, it's evil, and if catch my SO watching it there will be hell to pay. Not even a hint of any open mindedness or willingness to compromise.

Therefore, I submit to you, my once again humble reader, the following questions:

What does it take to break out of mainstream thinking, to open your mind to possibilities your parents never told you about?

Have you, personally, gone from "No way I'd let my SO watch porn" to a true-blue doing-it-and-loving-it swinger? How did you make that journey?

Did you have to have your arm twisted to try it and then discovered it was good? If so, how did you cross the bridge to your first time?

If we woke up tomorrow and found that everything all of us (humans, not just swingers) had our memories erased of everything we've learned about sexuality, how many people would ultimately decide to be swingers? Prudes?

I welcome any other thoughts or comments.

Mr. knb (The Analyst)

[ownerspet]

What would it take to break out of mainstream thinking? is your question that stands out to me the most. .

I think as people develop from childhood they end up somewhat effectively mentally trained by the norms or generally accepted beliefs of society around them. This mental training typically begins at such a young age that in order to change what acceptable to a person, one of two things has to happen:

1. Society has to suddenly as a whole express itself to suddenly accept swinging or any other behavior not generally accepted by society in general

OR

2. A person has to suddenly decide that it doesn't matter what society on average thinks about the way they should live their life. This does not mean they have to be open about it and not be discreet. It just means that they have to get beyond any mental hang ups about swinging or any other behavior which they choose to engage in that is not accepted by society in general.

To Answer your question concerning, would I swing if all human memories were erased tonight and I woke up tommorow?

Based on the fact that our beliefs are trained by the norms or acceptable behavior of society described above. Yes, I would swing because I have broken this state of caring what everyone else thinks, and I beleive human nature is to have sexual urges. However, now that all memory of all humans has been erased and we are starting over, there are no norms that define acceptable or unacceptable behavior and thus I would not have any reason to believe that I would be judged. As a result, I may be more open with my life in general and have no reason to be discreet.

Too bad this situation will never occur.

[socolais]

If all sexuality files were magically erased, I think I would need some time for self-discovery. I would probably believe I invented masturbating,,,, all over again.

[sweet_tna]

Originally Posted by knb2004

What does it take to break out of mainstream thinking, to open your mind to possibilities your parents never told you about?

Good question. For me, at least, it took learning that swinging was really "out there". It was so far out of my realm, I never really formed an opinion on it per se. Once we became aware of swinging through friends (people we considered "normal"), it not only was in our sphere of existance, but became intriguing.

Have you, personally, gone from "No way I'd let my SO watch porn" to a true-blue doing-it-and-loving-it swinger? How did you make that journey?

I was never really anti-porn to begin with. Mr. Sweet and I watched it together from the time we were dating.

Did you have to have your arm twisted to try it and then discovered it was good? If so, how did you cross the bridge to your first time?

NO, and I feel really bad for anyone who has gotten their start that way. No one should be coerced into swinging, IMO.

If we woke up tomorrow and found that everything all of us (humans, not just swingers) had our memories erased of everything we've learned about sexuality, how many people would ultimately decide to be swingers? Prudes?

First of all, we'd have to learn to have sex again, which would be a lot of fun in itself . . . But I'm guessing that you mean as far a societal conditioning goes. In that case, I think there would probably be a few more swingers out there, simply because they wouldn't feel there was anything "wrong" with it. But I don't think the numbers would change that significantly, as I don't think everyone would necessarily be inclined to swing. Unfortunately, we'll never have the chance to find out.

=)

[tncinmd]

We find these kind of threads interesting, because our story should have been on the "Boy, we've really changed" side of things. Instead we find ourselves on the "it was never a real issue" side of things.

We were both raised in the 50's/60's and both attended Catholic schools for 16 years. She was a virgin until age 23, shortly before we got married .

So, we both should have been fairly repressed and naive as far as sexuality was concerned. Fortunately, nothing could have been further from the truth. There we no tabus in our mutual explorations.

We were approached by several couples who wanted to swap partners with us early on in our marriage (early/mid 70's). We turned them down, not out of moral concerns, but the practical one of working on our relationship and establishing trust between ourselves. We really didn't have room to take in anyone else's issues (the first two couples who approached us were divorced within a few years).

The only problem we had when we did start experimenting with others (mfm) was issues with her appearance, we be large folk (OK, were fat ). Once she saw other guys were attracted to her, it was full steam ahead. She was the one who suggested couples play because she "didn't think I was having enough fun". I wanted to marry her all over again after she said that .

The thing that seems odd is that considering the social, religious and cultural imperatives of our formative years, we never became encumbered by the strictures of any of them. Maybe we're just bad to the bone .

[The Fuse]

Originally Posted by knb2004

What does it take to break out of mainstream thinking, to open your mind to possibilities your parents never told you about?

This is a great question: "What does it take?" We're all inculcated with mainstream thinking from the time we're young. We're in the mainstream paradigm so deeply we don't know that's where we are. Even if we think we're freethinkers, there's still a net on us we don't know is there.

I'm sure there are as many ways to break out of mainstream thinking as there are people who've done it. My perspective is that to break out, your mind has to be prepared first, and then bam! something happens, and you have a flash of realization. Maybe you have a series of them.

One way my mind was prepared was exposure to stories that provide a strong experience, like in literature or movies, in which the protagonist has their own break-out experience. In that way, I gained role models I identified with and wanted to emulate. They had enough faith in their own judgment to be able to follow it away from the mainstream.

Originally Posted by knb2004

Have you, personally, gone from "No way I'd let my SO watch porn" to a true-blue doing-it-and-loving-it swinger? How did you make that journey?

I've gone personally from "sex with others is cheating, and always wrong, and never to be tolerated" to where we are now. As I got older, I realized that we all do things we're not proud of. It doesn't mean you throw away something precious. Releasing that belief in an absolute "this is the way it is, dammit" belief opened my mind up more.

Originally Posted by knb2004

If we woke up tomorrow and found that everything all of us (humans, not just swingers) had our memories erased of everything we've learned about sexuality, how many people would ultimately decide to be swingers? Prudes?

I think things would develop much the way the have up till now, because human nature is essentially the same. The influences that restrict our sexuality would re-create themselves, just the same as the tendency to fight against restrictions would still be there. Sorry if that's not what anyone wants to read!

[JustAskJulie]

I say my mom screwed up and missed her mark, but then I also think that a lot of it is just the way I am. Maybe there's some genetics there too from my dad's side (I wasn't around him at all when I was a child but once I got to know him I KNOW there are many ways that I am like him that must be genetic and have nothing to do with looks).

I want to say I was raised in a very religious household and to a large extent that was true but there were also a lot of things that were never clear (rules often changed, things that were one day ok, were the next day wrong and vice versa) basically she just followed whatever the church said and that filtered down and I saw the hypocrasy of that rather early.

In addition to that, she raised us telling us that "it's not about what others think of you but that YOU KNOW you are doing what's right". Evidently, I didn't take that the way she meant it (or so she told me after she found out I was showing my naked self off online). I think she was referring to the whole christianity thing and how people can mock you for that.... I took it to heart about well everything and that's how I live my life. I live it for me, not to say that I'm selfish because I'm not. I also got her heart to help other people (just not to the same extent - she would help others till it harmed her and beyond).

All that said, to say that No I didn't have to change the way I thought, I just already thought differently despite my upbringing. How do we change others views on sexuality? We can teach them (much of it is learned) but will it ever be to the point that everyone is open-minded in that way? No, because some of us are just wired that way.