Looks-how important are they to you (then and now)

[exploringideas]

I am full of questions the last few days!!

I am just curious. How important are looks to you when it comes to hooking up with a couple? For those of you who have been in the lifestyle for a while, did your "pickiness" (if you had any to begin with) decrease as time goes on?

Obviously, I am very new to this and hubby has agreed (with a big smile) to join in on the action. We consider ourselves to be a very nice looking couple, but I worry that the couples we find attractive won't find us attractive. I placed an ad in the last couple of days and have received a TON of responses, but there has only been one couple that has struck my fancy (haven't "shown" them to hubby yet-- just told him about them.) I felt bad clicking on the "not interested" button for the others that were not people I felt, either by their picture or profile, that we would not be attracted to.

So I'm curious, as one's experience expands, does it become less and less about a person's looks and more about the action?

[LikeMinds321]

Originally Posted by exploringideas

So I'm curious, as one's experience expands, does it become less and less about a person's looks and more about the action?

This is a great question and one I am eager to see the answer to from those experienced in the lifestyle.

Mr LM and I are new to swinging - we've only played with one couple - and agreeing on them took reviewing many couples through three sites. A peron's looks are important to me, however my guidelines for what is physically appealing is much broader than my husband's. I came across a dozen couples I would have contacted if not for my husband's veto.

How a profile is written still determines whether we will be interested in pursuing them, no matter how good they look, if they have a bad profile we are not interested.

But how do you know a person's "action" is going to be good until you play...and isn't some amount of physical attraction necessary first, before you decide to play?

LM

[JandL]

Male half here:

Not that I have made any choices, not quite involved yet. However, I would think that looks would be important to us. Not only that, but I think I would be much more picky on what the male looks like than what the female looks like.

Do others do this? I would almost describe it as a protective feeling. Wanting the best for the spouse where I would settle for a lower standard.

[exploringideas]

LikeMinds,

I'm of the same thought. No matter how nice looking the couple is, if their profile gives me a bad feeling, I'm not going there!

As far as if attraction is necessary important to want to play, that's what I was wondering. I've seen people post that looks are not important, not a factor or a "non-issue," however, for my own choices I would not be able to do it unless I was both physically attracted to them and found them to be an interesting couple who could get me going on a level other than physical.

I'll be shallow.

Looks are important to us. When we get a new message from a couple we have to be initialy attracted to how they look.

They do not have to be hardbodies or even close but we have to like what we see.

To get even more shallow.....

If we get mail from a couple, or anyone for that matter, we will not go more than one or two messages without seeing a pic of them. We come right out and tell them "We like to see who we are talking to". When we first started we had a couple we chatted with without seeing who they were. We were just going off the description of themselves in their profile. After getting to a point where we were considering meeting them they sent us a pic. They were NOT who they described themselves to be.
After that incident we insist on seeing who they are before we get into too much of a "conversation" with them. If they do not appeal to us at all physicaly then we don't go any further.


Now to redeem myself a bit,

They also have to have a down to earth not stuck on themselves personality with a good sense of humor. We will not swing, no matter how attractive, with those we do not click with.

But the initial attraction for us is how they look.

Be gentle......

[Newbies46514]

Mr.&Mrs. Naughty...

I didn't think your post was shallow at all, it was just honest! In fact it made me feel better about myself than the others did... Since the Mr. and I aren't exactly, 'oh my gosh look how fat they are!' or 'wow! look how ripped they are!', I appreciate the fact that you look for what appeals to you two and personality!

Thanks!
Laura-Kay

[hytril]

I can't exactly talk for the wife. But if I cant stand to look someone in the face, I am not going to be able to swing with them. But on the other hand if they have a a body of a 10 and i cant stand there personality it is not happening either. I do have certian things I look for but they are not the 10 commandments set in stone but more of general guide lines. Back in high school I still remember girls that all the guys where lusting after and I thought were dogs. And there were some that were the other way around. I dont know if you want to call it shallow or not but I dont wear beer goggles.

[EvilMJ]

Dito to most of these replies.

For me attraction is all about personality, however I still have to have a certain amount of physcial attraction. I don't need a Barbie/Ken type, you don't have to be hard bodies, I appreciate men and women of all shapes and sizes! An engaging smile, intense eye contact, good sense of humor, sometimes just this combination can be a turn on for me. Let's face it, my hubby is 40, has a little bit of the beer belly and love handles, but I'm still attracted to him.

Mr&Mrs-naughty, I don't think you are shallow, I think you were honest and you can't flame someone for that!

[xxoticangel]

How important are looks to you when it comes to hooking up with a couple?

Though it may sound shallow we view swinging as being all about sex and if someone is not physically attractive no amount of personality is going to make me want to have sex with them. On the other hand a physically attractive person with an unattractive personality is still and unattractive person. Like Mr&Mrs-naughty said, we ask for a pic soon after making contact. We don't have the time to spend chatting with someone there is absolutely no chance we are going to play with. When looking for single men we skip all profiles that do not have a pic and everyone that doen't meet the threshold.

For those of you who have been in the lifestyle for a while, did your "pickiness" (if you had any to begin with) decrease as time goes on?

We are different from most people here but our "pickiness" has actually increased the longer we have been in the lifestyle. I don't even remember the number of couples and single men we played with the first year (around 20). Both of us had been in sexually repressive marriages before and the thrill of being able to engage in multiple partner sex with spousal approval made us into "swing sluts". We would play with anyone that was not repulsive. After the newness of swinging wore off we began to get more selective in our playmates and would spend hours searching ads and profiles looking for someone. Now we have decided to restrict our playmates to people we meet in clubs.

When "shopping" online we tend to look for more attractive people. When we are at the club our standards lower as our "hornyness" increases. Its a bad way to say if but in the heat of the moment we (read I) will play with someone that I would not consider playing with if I thought about it for a couple of days.

[VegasLee]

Laura and I don't tend to play with couples and this could be one of the major reasons. We find it very hard to find two other people with the right personality to fit both of us.

Personality is the main thing with us more then looks. There has been many times at the club that Laura will end up playing with guys that I would never have thought she was attracted to but after meeting them I found it was their personality that she was attracted to.

I am very much the same way. Looks are somewhere on the list of things we look at but it tends to not lean towards the "pretty people." I am not saying that all "pretty people" have no personality and please, no one take offense but many times they are more into the showing off and looking good then getting down and playing.

Besides, they all look good in the dark!

[good times]

I would agree with most of what has been said so far, but I would add that we have actually become more picky as time went on. At first we thought the same as you that it would be real hard or rare to find a couple that we found attractive that would also both find us attractive. So with that in mind we tended to not be as picky as we would have been if we thought everyone thought we were attractive and wanted to play with us. Now, I'm not trying to say everyone we meet thinks we are a hot item, but a lot more people seem to think that than I would have thought in the beginning. The result of this realization has been that now our standards have risen somewhat and their are a lot of couples that make us offers that we decline, than their were when we first started and treated every offer like it was the last one we would ever get.

[robnbarb]

I have yet to do anything swing like, but I will say that I would think there must be some level of atractiveness. However I want to point out that does not mean hardbodies at all. The other day I went into a store, the girl behind the counter was quite attractive to me. My wife looked and said "Did you think she was pretty?" I said " dear lord yes" Wife "But she is kind of big" me "and your point"

I guess what I am saying is in most women I can find redeemable qualities, I only see a few once is a great while I cannot see that with.

[WesternSwing]

Originally Posted by exploringideas

So I'm curious, as one's experience expands, does it become less and less about a person's looks and more about the action?

We've actually becaome less about the action and more about the people. The action is icing on the cake. We have met some really good people in the lifestyle. Probably because they share similar ideas about life in general.

What I can tell you is that some people that are physically 10's have turned out to be 5's after getting to know them and some that are phyically 5's turn into 10's. So don't count anybody out, especially from pics on a profile. We've seen pics on profiles that made us go "ewww", but when we met them in person at parties we were more than presently surprised. It went from "no way" to "hell ya!" So be careful with the "not interested button." We always try to respond with at least an email that says "not interested" but leaves it open in case we ever meet them at a party.

Mr. WS

[curiousagain]

Looks are important, but looks ain't everything.

The idea of a person sliding down to a 5 from a 10 or rocketing from a 5 to a 10 upon meeting them in person is very very true. We have all met people who weren't that "hot" until we talked to them for a bit and suddenly the world moved a little slower then stood still, and the only thing that seemed of any importance in the world at that moment was exactly how you were going to "git nekkid" with them. LOL

On the other side, how many of us have seen someone who looked like a ten but after 5 minutes of conversation, you suddenly remembered an appointment you were late for?? Probably everybody has been there in both situations.


Play safe and play careful, it's a big world out there
Curiousagain

[BradAndJanet]

On the one hand, there has to be some kind of physical attraction. I think that sex sort of requires it. Nobody should feel bad about that.

On the other hand, although I know the difference between Plain Jane and Luscious Lola, other factors - her smile, personality, wit or the way she makes me feel about myself - might mean I play with Jane and not Lola. My tastes are pretty broad. Let's say that I find about 50% of women in a given room physically attractive.

We haven't been at this long enough to say whether our 'pickyness' will change, but I can see how that could happen when the excitement of the novelty has worn off.

-B