RnCinNorCal

In response to "padoc:" Judging from your tone--- One of the worst things about swinging is that it is populated in part by haughty, cold-hearted, "I-got-mine-sucker" swaggerers like you two. I've told my tale, bared my errors, admitted my "attitude problem," and did the Mea Culpa Shuffle here in search of a way to prevent it from happening again and improving the experience, and yet here you are---the proverbial "attractive, in-shape" couple who clearly feels they've got the whole scene covered. I'm certain you two lovelies (1) have never a single mistake in your swinging life, (2) are convinced you intimidate the rest of us, and (3) we all hate you because you're beautiful. Why else would you bark out a diatribe like that? Did you read the rest of my postings, or did you merely stop when you had enough ammo to start shooting? Go ahead, take another shot, padoc. I can do this all day if I have to.

Well, I'm going to agree with everyone's general consensus here, and here's why: While it takes two to tango---i.e., both she and I contributed to the failures of our swinging---I'm here to tell you that I, the male half, am the one who really fucked things up. C (the female half of us) once told me that I must be giving off this "negative vibe" whenever we attended a dance or a house party, and I am inclined to agree. Oh, don't get me wrong folks, I denied it for quite a while. However, long after our last such attendance, now she won't even consider attending a dance just to go dancing, because she doesn't "equate it with having any fun." That's because of me. I have a near-paralyzing fear of rejection. I did some swinging as a single man before I met C in 2004, and since I wasn't sufficiently young/tall/thin/hairless/hung, my connections were very, very few compared to other single men in that particular area. I was a well-liked figure in the chat room, but in person I was relegated to the sidelines. When C and I started swinging, it was more of the same, and I couldn't just shake it off and move on. I will admit I became inwardly upset when I felt I wasn't getting nearly the attention that C was getting, and that other men were having no trouble getting a dance partner, much less a sex partner for later on. My feeling is that while I am not morbidly obese, most women in the swinging community where we are find me too big, or having too much body hair, or something that turns them away. We would attend pre-dance pool parties and no one would talk to us for more than a few minutes, if at all. Others would advise us to be ourselves and just strike up conversations with other couples at the events, but that only worked when C did so solo; when I tried it or we tried we would get the look that told us we were definitely interrupting something. What very few connections we made were either unsatisfying or downright unpleasant. More dates were broken than made, and one couple even dumped us 30 minutes after we met them. C is a gregarious BBW with a welcoming disposition and a disarming smile---it wasn't her fault. That leaves me, and I seem to have soured it for us both. Something I did or didn't do/say repelled others, and the snowball effect kicked in when my frustration and hurt feelings got the better of me. I am not certain how to fix this, because no one we encountered pointed out the root problem. Even if C wanted to go back to the playground, I'm afraid I'd re-fuck it up.

Racism in the Lifestyle?? Ohhhh you betcha. Either that, or some swingers will expose others to embarrassment and humiliation in order to ensure that their preferences are tended to. Back in 2005, at our first---very first---swinging experience, we were invited to a small (maybe 12 people at the maximum) sex party in a hotel room. The hostess was a black woman with whom I'd corresponded for some months and had some rather desultory sex only once. However, once I e-mailed her a photo of my mixed-race lady (I'm a white kid, BTW), she wanted us at her next shindig. She also mentioned a Latina friend of hers who'd seen our photos and was interested in me. Fair enough, so we went. Apparently the only reason we were invited was because of my lady (now my wife); the other women, including the Latina who claimed interest in me, were there solely for a helping of BBC. I was turned down by every woman in the room, and I had endure knowing that my lady was being serviced by a rather mousy white fellow who feigned nervousness in order to elicit multiple-female attention. I was relegated to the sidelines until, after an hour had passed, I told my girl that we were leaving. I was convinced that our hostess and the other women present had absolutely no intention of allowing me to participate. We chalked it up to beginner's bad luck, thinking that it couldn't get worse. It did. In early 2006 we attended a M&G of a party group wherein we were apparently "good enough" to pass muster with them. I hadn't given it much consideration at the time, but I indeed noticed that (1) all of the women save the hostess/moderator were women of color, and (2) all of the men were either men of color, or the bald, bearded, thuggish white men who looked like they had a rap sheet 100 yards long or aspired to do so. Despite my deja-vu regarding the above-mentioned experience, we attended the party anyway. Just as before, I was routinely ignored, rejected, and otherwise rudely treated as I was the ONLY white male with hair on his head and a clean-shaven face. One of the thug types had glommed onto my lady and literally followed us around all night, no matter to whom we spoke or where we sat. So, she and I were going to play together, by ourselves, on one of the beds in the living room; once we started she shut down and seemed uninterested, and all the while, the little thug was parked practically in our collective lap. I whispered to my girl "You want to play with him, don't you?" After she enthusiastically nodded her head with a grin of which the Cheshire Cat would be proud, I walked out of the room and let her be escorted into the "Dark Room" wherein (I later was told) she had a sort of mini-threesome with the gadfly and another fellow who was already in the room. The hostess apparently toojk pity on me and "allowed" me to eat her out, and when we kissed I pulled gently on her lip, and she ran out of the room, later claiming that I deliberately bit her lip to draw blood. While I awaited her return, her guests are all looking at me, with my pants down, just staring silently. Later on, I still received rejection after rejection---and ended up alone in the patio, waiting for my lady to finish up her business. After over 45 minutes of cooling my heels, I admit I got up, collected her shoes, threw them into the "Dark Room" and said "OK, we are outta here." It took her another 30 minutes before we were finally out the door. We came very close to breaking up that night. The next day I wrote the hostess an e-mail to tell her how humiliated I felt at the hands of her and her guests. Her reply was essentially a counter accusation of "starting drama" ( the catch-all excuse used when a host or hostess mistreats you and you call him or her on it) and biting her lip on purpose (just not true). Then came the kicker: we were invited only because everyone wanted my lady to attend; I was excess baggage, to be merely tolerated and deliberately culled. I do not begrudge anyone their preferences and desires, so long as it's all safe and sane. However, I would think that one would populate a party exclusively with those who share such preferences, and not do so at another, undesired person's expense.