Member of the Week -- LagniappeDC

[LFM2]

Due to the holidays, we took a break from the interviews. Well, it's time to jump back in this week with LagniappeDC. We are glad to have them in the spotlight this week.

Swingers Board interviews are a way for us to get to know each other better. It is a way to acknowledge just how wonderfully varied a community we are. Every Sunday, a new interview will start and the old interview will be locked. Be sure to stop in and get to know them better by asking them every nosy, intimate, personal question you can think of. Of course, nobody is required to answer a question that they do not want to. This is a also a great way for the new members of our board to get to know some of our seasoned members who are interviewed. You never know where a conversation might lead. So, new members, please join in.

Try to keep this thread about the person being interviewed. If you want to comment about things you discover you have in common or just elaborate on a response, pm them and make a new friend or start a new thread about it. This is intended to be a friendly thread, so please don’t ask anything in a purposeful attempt to get into a heated debate.

The following are general questions asked at the start of each new interview.

Question limit:
Gender (if not a couple):
If a couple, which one primarily posts:
Age(s):
Birthday(s):
Location:
Relationship status:
Swinging for how long?:
Prefer to swing with:
Favorite food(s):
Biggest Pet Peeve:
Brief Intro:
Picture:
Website (your own or one of your favorites):

[LagniappeDC]

First off, let us just thank the crew at Swingers Board. We’ve visited many times over the past few years and have found it overwhelmingly a non-judgmental community (rare in the forum world) and a great place of information. We’ve been happy to both learn and contribute. We’re flattered to have been chosen to be the member of the week!

Gender (if not a couple):
We are a couple!

If a couple, which one primarily posts:
Mr. LagniappeDC does most of the posts and online activities. Mrs. L always reviews any profiles before actually contacting a couple. Mrs. L will join in the fun of answering questions for the week!

Age(s):
We are both in our early 40’s

Birthday(s):
We’ll just say that Mrs. L’s birthday was born on a pretty distinctive date and our sexy friends know which one.. Mr. L was born just two weeks (and a couple of years later…so yes, she is a cradle robber!)

Location:
Washington DC area

Relationship status:
We have known each other for over 20 years, and this year we are celebrating lucky 13 of marriage.

Swinging for how long?:
We’ll give a bit of a long, winding answer to this one…

We first chatted about this little hobby of ours many years ago after seeing HBO’s Real Sex profile swingers. We actually dipped our toe in the water about 10 years ago by going to an off-premise club in DC called Entre Nous. For a few months, we met some fun couples and had same room sex but no touching. Personal and family issues took us off the market for many years. We occasionally stopped back in to EN and a couple of on-premise parties, but only to be in the sexy atmosphere and enjoy the excitement of watching and being watched while having sex in a group setting.

As we edged into that 40-year milestone, we thought we would take a sexy trip to Vegas but realized that we are over planners and would fill the day with activities. Mrs. L and I looked for an alternative and found Desire Cancun. That was when we had our first soft swap experience. You could say that was when we traded in our amateur status and officially went pro, lol.

We gave full swap a try about a year ago now and have enjoyed that as well with the right couples, though we don’t get into any new meeting with a couple having a play preference.

So you could say that we are definitely one of those couples who started at the shallow end of the pool and took our time getting to the deep end – but it’s been quite a swim!

Prefer to swing with:
Couples are our preference, and we have tried FMF and MFM threesomes. We also really enjoy group activities (3 or more couples) if we know everyone - but that is much harder to put together. For us, it’s less about the actual scenario and more about the people. If we are comfortable we’ll try pretty much anything…and I think you’ll find that is a common theme about our approach to swinging.

Favorite food(s):
We are total foodies. Top Chef is definitely one of our favorite shows. We’ve had amazing meals at places like the French Laundry in Napa Valley as well as little “dive” restaurants like a favorite Thai restaurant we found hidden in a strip mall on a side street in Maryland (thank you again Yelp!)

I think you would be hard pressed to narrow us down to any one or two particular foods. But you could say he is salty (don’t leave a bag a chips open around him) and she is sweet – give her some well made dark chocolate and just watch her face. And to hear her describe the perfect “mouth feel” for a piece of chocolate is something!

Biggest Pet Peeve:
We’ll keep this LS related. We make clear on our profile that we have kids and careers and getting out takes planning and making babysitter arrangements. It leaves us scratching our heads when we get emails asking “Can you meet us out tonight/tomorrow?” Clearly they haven’t read our profile.

Brief Intro:
We think our profile intro say a lot about us, so will steal a bit from there…

We are a happily married and passionate couple that has been together for over 20 years and going strong. We are very easy going and don't take ourselves too seriously. We're that professional couple on the outside with wicked little grins on the inside.

We both love to dance, hit a dive bar or just enjoy a quite, erotic night at home. We enjoy a good bottle of wine, trying new restaurants, and most importantly a night with lots of laughs. Outside of the LS, one of our favorite activities is camping, and we are trying to hike sections of the Appalachian Trail in every state (3 down, 11 to go). Being in the lifestyle gives us extra incentive to hit gym regularly. We consider ourselves, but wouldn’t describe ourselves as hard bodies and have been told that we don't look (or act) our age.

Some of our favorite play sessions are when we can easily switch between play partners and spouses and back again – a true foursome (or moresome) vs. two twosomes. We enjoy couples who like to be fun, open and sexual without the whole night being about sex…though if we click, we can get “down and dirty by 9:30” with the best of them!

There are definitely a lot more pieces to the puzzle so happy to answer questions everyone has.

Picture:
Our profiles have all our best pictures and happy to have interested couples check them out there.

Website (your own or one of your favorites):
So many to choose from giving our other interests and hobbies, so we’ll limit this to LS fun.

We enjoy the Swingercast.Com website because of John and Allie’s podcast’s (and there is a certain sexy photo on their rotating banner that just happens to feature Mrs. L. Extra points if you know which one!)

Our first stop for sex toys is playpassions.com. Really great products, prices and personalized customer service. We happen to know that a LS couple runs the site and we love supporting a “small business” like that.

Rounding out this list is Liberator for their great furniture and super sexy pictures, and Babeland for being so sex-positive and female centric. Their brick and mortar stores are amazing (we’re convinced Apple stole their look from them!). If more stores like that existed, we think there would be much more acceptance to shopping for sex toys.

[two4youinswva]

Congrats on being selected for a Member Interview!

So, what's on your iPod?

[SW_PA_Couple]

Wow! That is a really great member- of- the- week introduction.

Do you feel that your swing activities are pretty much evolving all the time or do you, rather, sense that you have settled into your happy place with it?

[LagniappeDC]

What is on our iPods?

Definitely a full collection of Swingercast Podcasts! They were a big influence on us going to Desire based on their reviews, and we’ve learned a lot listening to them and their interviews. We’re happy to call them our friends too ;-)

As for music, we definitely agree on one band called Thievery Corporation which got their start here in DC and now tour pretty extensively. It’s hard to define the genre (which is why we love them), but they mix DJ beats with live music from various parts of the world. We have all their albums and have seen them live a few times. It’s quite a bonus that their music makes for the perfect backdrop during play dates!

Overall, our tastes are pretty eclectic. You’ll find a number of Black Eyed Peas songs, Pitbull, Jay Z, and Kanye. Mr. L has been listening to Eminem as part of his workouts. On the other end of the spectrum we have a variety of classic blues, southern rock, Cajun and Zydeco. As a nod to the sign of our times, we can’t help but to have some 80’s classics like Madonna, Prince, Bon Jovi, Mellencamp, Pearl Jam and the like.

Mrs. L has playlist for her pole dance workouts, but what leaves Mr. L with a question mark is her playlist “Songs to Cry” LOL ;-)


Mrs. L’s response:

Mr. L gave me my iPod fully loaded as a Mother’s day gift (what a fabulous gift). When I have purchased music it tends to be tunes to fuel my workouts. Usually dance tunes that Mr. L doesn’t favor as much. My last purchase, a few select INXS tunes.

[LagniappeDC]

Originally Posted by SW_PA_Couple

Wow! That is a really great member- of- the- week introduction.

Do you feel that your swing activities are pretty much evolving all the time or do you, rather, sense that you have settled into your happy place with it?

We definitely are in agreement that our play activities are constantly evolving...probably more so over the past year than ever. We had a number of "rules" when we first started, but have managed to break most of them - playing on the first date, experimenting with separate rooms, etc. The key is that we find time to talk before jumping into anything.

As we've gotten more comfortable with the LS, made more friends, we've begun to approach this with a sense of adventure and a "what the hell attitude." As long as we are doing it together, we're happy. With couples who we have a real bond of trust with we've found ourselves willing to explore even more.

One example is the fact that we've actually talked about the rare "hall pass" with a select few couples based on the situation (definitely still talking as we enjoy watching each other have fun and experiencing play dates together).

Another example is a couple we met at Desire who are experienced in the BDSM space. It's not something we ever felt we were interested in, but we've learned a lot from them. We are still definitely on the "edge of the pool" as far as this goes, but find them fascinating and see their bond which intrigues us.

If you would have asked us even a year ago, we would have been surprised to think we would explore these areas. But we continue to talk (and talk, and talk)...and that helps ensure we are in sync and have a great level of trust and respect and love for each other which makes "evolving" that much easier.

[exploringRM]

What is your best and worst experience while swinging?

[LagniappeDC]

Originally Posted by exploringRM

What is your best and worst experience while swinging?

Mr. L’s response

There is no doubt that over the past five years, the LS has presented us with a number of twists and turns that we hadn’t anticipated when we got into this. While we’ve definitely experienced a full range of emotions, I think we are pretty fortunate in that our “bad” experiences are pretty limited and really not all that bad.

One that comes to mind is when we were enjoying an afternoon in the hot tub at Desire with our group of friends. Lots of laughs, kissing, touching, and other fun ;-). Mrs L was taking it all in from the outskirts (we love to watch) when someone not with our group came up and stuck his fingers inside of her. Completely inappropriate and it really threw her…basically taking her out of the mood for the afternoon. Luckily someone in our group caught wind of this and told the guy to get lost.

On a lighter note, we had planned a rendezvous with another couple at Desire. We realized that as we were going up to their room we were both exhausted from a long week of sun and partying. We decided to carry on. Turns out they were in the exact same state of mind and didn’t want to disappoint us. It was a lousy play session. In fact, the wife of the other couple and I just ended up calling it. The next morning we found each other and admitted how bad it was and had a good laugh about the whole incident. It also made us realize when we have to just politely end the evening!

As a couple, swinging has also taken us to a couple of low points. There was a period when, little by little, we were not connecting and communicating as a couple. We had a couple of encounters where incidents magnified the bigger issues. We finally figured this all out, and after a pretty rough discussion, we actually put LS activities on hold for a while until we figured things out. A reminder of just how important good communication really is.

Now for the fun stuff! We are pretty fortunate to have so many fun experiences to choose from. Here are my two…

As part of our group get together in Desire, the host runs a Super Bowl Pool where the winner gets a group massage. I won last year. I really had no idea what to except and the host really went above and beyond. Through some trickery, I was lured back to the playroom where upwards of 11 women were waiting for me on the bed. Now I’m definitely not a center of attention kind of guy, so at first I was completely overwhelmed (talk about performance issues and being in the spotlight!). But it was an incredible, um, massage, and I can’t thank my wife and the ladies (as well as their husbands for waiting patiently in the disco) enought for an experience I’ll never forget.

I’d also have to put a particular foursome on this list. It is a couple that we are both attracted to, but don’t get to see that often. They visited for the weekend and we had one of those seemingly never ending play sessions where bodies were entangled, lots of swapping back and forth, toys and lube, watching and being watched, etc. There was a particular moment where both women had simultaneous orgasms (and for Mrs. L they don’t come easy). It still is one of those experiences where we can only say “Wow” when remembering it.

Mrs L’s response:

I also agree with Mr. L on that foursome being one of our best experiences. The only thing I would add is that the male half and I tried some positions that were new for me. Very exciting. Always fun to learn new things!

We also have a couple in our lives that we’ve know for nearly three years. We have a really special relationship. What we have with them is what we were looking for in terms of blending friendship with play fun as part of getting into the LS. We are realizing just how rare that can actually be!

On the bad front there are a couple that stand out.

Early on we were going on a first date back at home after we had had our first soft swap experience at Desire. What we love about Desire is that you spend so much time hanging out and getting to know people and we thought we could recreate that at home.

We had dinner with the couple but realized we had no sexual chemistry with them. Still they were fun and invited us back to their house. We accepted. Ooops! Clearly they had other intentions and we were really naïve thinking we could treat this like Desire. It got pretty uncomfortable and we ended up excusing ourselves.

We also took a chance on a couple who we hit it off great with outside of the bedroom. The sex with him was good, but Mr. L had no sexual chemistry with her and definitely took one for the team. Sorry hon!

[two4youinswva]

What three books do we HAVE to read in the next year?

[LagniappeDC]

Originally Posted by two4youinswva

What three books do we HAVE to read in the next year?

Ahhhh, having the time to read, we remember what that was like ;-)

Mrs L's enthusiastic response was Game of Thrones, and I have to agree. Good book and HBO is doing a nice job with the mini-series.

For this crowd, Mrs L also likes The Ethical Slut. Another winner for me.

For the last, we'll cheat a bit and give a shout out to The New Rules of Lifting (and the companion version for women). This book really changed the way we think about working out and for the first time we saw some lasting results for our hard work.

[two4youinswva]

Originally Posted by LagniappeDC

Ahhhh, having the time to read, we remember what that was like ;-)

Audible.com + 45 minute commute each way = plenty of "reading" time.

What kind of films do you like? Do you go to the theater, or prefer to watch films at home?

[LagniappeDC]

Originally Posted by two4youinswva

Audible.com + 45 minute commute each way = plenty of "reading" time.

What kind of films do you like? Do you go to the theater, or prefer to watch films at home?

Like our music, we are all over the place when it comes to movies. We saw the last Mission Impossible on the IMAX was loved it! That happened to win over The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo and The Help simply because that was the kind of mood we were in. Moneyball was also a good film when you think about the messages beyond baseball. Game of Thrones became must watch viewing for us and excited for Season II. At the same time, we have the John Adams HBO mini-series on DVD and always a sucker when Rocky, Star Wars and the Shawshank Redemption come on. Mrs. L has a reserve of chick flicks that she can cry to when I'm traveling for work.

We don't get out to movies as much anymore. If we do it is as likely to be with the kids. If we have a not alone, it's usually reserved for a date or just a sexy night for the two of us to hit the club alone.

We do love live theater and live music. Here in DC, most of the theater is small venue, "off broadway" which can be hit or miss. We are lucky to have the Kennedy Center here and enjoy getting there for their variety of shows. Cirque du Soliel is also a favorite of ours (and I'm sure it has nothing to do with the hot performers in spandex!! )

Overall, we are pretty adaptable and enjoy a wide variety of entertainment.

[angelkin]

Welcome to MOTW! That was a fantastic opening post about you

Would you each share the details of your FIRST sexual encounter? I often wonder what experience brings us to the lifestyle. Have you both always been open sexually?

[LagniappeDC]

Originally Posted by angelkin

Welcome to MOTW! That was a fantastic opening post about you

Would you each share the details of your FIRST sexual encounter? I often wonder what experience brings us to the lifestyle. Have you both always been open sexually?

Wow, our FIRST?? Now that goes back a ways, lol. I don't think either of us would say our first experiences were all that great and not worth recounting.

It is safe to say that we've always been open sexually. We both had threesome's before we met...but our journey really didn't begin until we met each other. Mrs. L wasn't actually that active before we met (she recently realized that she's had more sexual partners after we got married than before!), and my experiences were fairly mundane. I think we both knew we were open sexually, but didn't have the right partner to bring that out.

Once we realized we were of the same mindset, we tried different things with each other, we talked a lot about what felt good and what didn't, described fantasies, we tried taking pictures (back when you had to have them developed!) and videotaped ourselves, had outdoor sex, etc...sex became really fun!

The key was we were able to communicate really openly about sex and that was big for us. Mrs. L had a catholic upbringing and Mr. L had the classic Jewish mother syndrome so this was all new territory for us. That communication was also kept us together when we were living on opposite coasts for extended periods of time. Too bad there wasn't facetime back then!

I don't think we had any idea that this would lead to swinging, but watching HBO's Real Sex about the LS and other "alternative" activities started a lot of new conversations. It still took us years to actually try it, but that trust in each other and willingness to try new things early on helped build a good foundation.

Even so, Swinging has led to some pretty hard moments for us which we've had to work hard to get through. I'm happy to say that we are stronger this year than we've probably ever been.

[angelkin]

Originally Posted by LagniappeDC

Wow, our FIRST?? Now that goes back a ways, lol. I don't think either of us would say our first experiences were all that great and not worth recounting.

Fair enough LOL - I probably wouldn't wow anyone with mine either.

Thanks for sharing how you made your way to the lifestyle, I was glad to hear you were stronger for it.