Do you secretly wish you'd get outed?

[intuition897]

I know a lot of this depends on HOW you get outed, but I can't deny that there is a part of me that is less careful and discrete than I should be. I think it stems from the idealist in me: we're not doing anything to be ashamed of, it's normal and healthy, and yet I have to scurry and hide under rocks like a damned cockroach. I'd much rather just own up to it and be done with it. It's not realistic, especially considering our kids' ages, but that doesn't keep me from wishing otherwise.

What about the rest of you? Are you obsessive-compulsively driven to hide your activities, or do you occasionally - oops, silly me - slip and leave a trail of breadcrumbs that a determinedly curious person could potentially follow? For example, I don't hide my internet activities as carefully as I probably should, and I make mentions of swinging-related stuff in my journal, etc. I DO clear out the history now and then, but for the most part...I just don't CARE! Now, the kids each have their own computer profile that they log into, and we have ours, so we're fairly secure that way. But if my sister, for example, happens to see something while she's using our computer during a visit or something...you know what I mean? I just don't really give a shit anymore.

It irks me that I can't be exactly who I am.

[VANudistcpl]

We tried to hide our activities, but we were on one site to meet when a friend of ours saw the profile. The wife was about to panic and stop everything until I asked her what were they doing on the site. Not everyone knows what we do, but we are a little more open.
So I say be yourself.

[rpu3]

What about the rest of you? Are you obsessive-compulsively driven to hide your activities, or do you occasionally - oops, silly me - slip and leave a trail of breadcrumbs that a determinedly curious person could potentially follow?

No; I live a lot of my life in a nice orderly OCD fashion, but hiding everything regarding my alternative activities is not on my list. I don't advertise, but if I were asked, I'd likely be honest. A few people know already (sister, a small number of friends). So I guess I'm still in the closet, but the door is open?

It is annoying to maintain a bit of discretion because I don't feel what I'm doing/we are doing is wrong, though. I just do my thing, without a lot of fanfare (since that isn't my style, either) and if someone wants to ask about it so be it.

[fun4Ds]

We are outed in our close family. Its not all that big of a deal really. I suppose its the family that doesn't want a sign in our yard. Our adult married children, aren't worried that we have some wild dirty sex ring, as friends. Its not like we have swinger friends over when we are watching the grand kids either. Well..... a few of Mrs.funs girlfriends might stop by or be here, but you would never know bi what you see. They wouldn't be here if they didn't have some ethics. I think we payed our dues raising our kids in a healthy way, where family always comes first.

We keep the lifestyle out of the work place. For obvious reasons.

Our social vanilla friends who know. Don't push the issue, so......

If some kind of issue should ever arise, I think we could handle it.

[LFM2]

Our oldest daughter and her significant other knows, but that's about it. We don't try to hide it much anymore, either. It really does feel like crawling under a rock to hide when we're doing nothing wrong. Still, the only persons we'd hate to find out is our mothers. Like rpu3 says, we don't hide it, but if we were confronted with it, we wouldn't lie.

[MRSfun]

I think the only thing I could add is, we respect others feelings. Sure we are not ashamed of what we do. But even with the kids or people we meet, we still behave like regular vanilla people in public.

We have met people from out of town who don't concider that we still remain discreet in public. One couple or at least the female half cornered fun4ds in a supermarket and things got a little uncomfortable. Especially since our oldest son was with him. He was like " damn dad, who the hell was that ? Does mom know her ? "

So being out of the closet and all. We still prefer to use discretion

[cupl4fun]

None of the answers really fit us. We are definitely not "out". But we would love to be. I don't think it will ever be anything we flaunt, but when I'm finished with my job we definitely won't be making any efforts to stay in. Once our kids are grown and it doesn't affect them so much I imagine we might even become vocal about it. Things began to change in the homosexual community when people stood up and said "this is who we are." I wish we were able to do a little more of this in the swing community. I don't like feeling like we're in hiding. I don't want to live in fear that someone will find out. I'd rather they already knew, then after they know we can decide where we stand. No false pretenses. Just MHO.

[WeMayTryIt]

It would make things much simpler, and more complex at the same time. My brother knows, as does a friend of Mrs. TryIt. If our parents found out, it would be complete pandelerium, and would definitely strain those relationships. Add to that young kids and the need to uphold a security clearance, and we're fine with being diligent to keep things under wraps, though we're not as neurotic about it as when we first started.

[awesomecplmn]

I have an interesting observation.

So many people worry about their parents finding out about their swinging activities (myself included), but do we really think they would be that shocked? I mean if my kids grow up to have happy marriages which include swinging, are they going to be so scared of me and hubby finding out?? Cause ummmm hello..............swinging isn't really all that shocking, right? But it just makes me wonder who is desperately trying to hide their swinging lifestyle from me??

[intuition897]

Originally Posted by awesomecplmn

I have an interesting observation.

So many people worry about their parents finding out about their swinging activities (myself included), but do we really think they would be that shocked? I mean if my kids grow up to have happy marriages which include swinging, are they going to be so scared of me and hubby finding out?? Cause ummmm hello..............swinging isn't really all that shocking, right? But it just makes me wonder who is desperately trying to hide their swinging lifestyle from me??

Lots of really interesting responses here, and I think I agree with just about everything that was said. We, too, have the closet door hanging half-ajar, but we aren't advertising or anything.

I just wanted to comment here that, YES!, my parents - or at least my Mom - would be mortified. I was told not to wear tampons as a teenager because they would "ruin" me. I had a single extremely awkward birds-and-bees talk with Mom at age 11, and we never discussed sex again. Oh, and masturbation is a sin, BTW. Yeah, baby, I've come a loooong way. This is a woman who I fear would never understand our logic, and I have no interest in trying to convert her thinking. Her happiness is her own business, and it's neither my place nor my responsibility to rock her boat with such enormous revelations. To ask her to please understand is to ask her to change everything she believes in to the depth of her soul. I just can't ask that of her. It's unfair. And so...we have to remain quiet because it would be harmful to her psychologically, emotionally, spiritually and probably even physically (she has medical conditions that are aggravated by stress). I wish she would come out of her shell as I'm sure that her life would be much more fulfilling if she didn't live it so fearfully. But it's not my place to dictate what should or should not make someone else happy. If she tells me that she's happy with the hand she's playing, she's an adult and I have to trust her to look out for her own best interests. It's just a matter of respect. It doesn't make me feel any better though.

So anyway, that's just me saying that I agree with WeMayTryIt's statement about needing to respect the feelings of others when deciding upon our actions.

[socolais]

I have a feeling our youngest daughter knows something about our activities. She has seen us leaving the house "going to a party with friends" and dressed different than we normally dress. I've seen that she has followed some of the links in the history folder. No strong evidence against us, just circumstantial stuff.

I left a post-it on the computer for her, "When adults discover anything they can't handle on their own, they have to pay for their own therapy". I think she got the message.

If my parents were to find out, I think they would be unlikely to understand and we'd have a difficult discussion. There's no real harm in keeping them in the dark about any of our sexual preferences.

[bryanlee]

I wouldn't be concerned so much about my family finding out as they are all very supportive, not to mention i have far more "interesting" family members who do far more "interesting" things, lol.

As a younger couple it is our friends/peers who we don't tell. The lady and I are very committed to each other, but when you tell someone in our age group that you are a swinger the first impression is that I (Bryan) am the luckiest guy in the world and that Sharon must be a whore to go along with it. Although they don't outright say those things it is just how it is generally received. I would rather tell my parents than have our circle of vanilla friends find out.

We keep our sexual preferences private not because we are ashamed or feel that we are doing something wrong, but because it is nearly impossible to explain something like this to "outsiders" and we don't feel the need to explain any of our actions to anyone except each other.

[Brian and Jo]

We are nudists as well as swingers and we are quite open about our nudist activities. All our family and many of our friends know we go to nudist resorts and clubs. We are more discreet about our swinging but it really would'nt bother us that much if the word got out.

[jdavisauto]

We are very open about swinging and don't hide it. We don't go running in the streets shouting we are swingers every night. We talk openly about it with our non-swingers friends when asked and invite them to a swingers club with us so they can see for them selfs. Our kids know that we are swingers as do our co-workers. We have no problems about it and no one condemn us for it. To us it is a natural part of our lifes just like going out to dinner and a movie. There is nothing taboo about life so why hide it?

[SnakeBabe]

Originally Posted by jdavisauto

We are very open about swinging and don't hide it. We don't go running in the streets shouting we are swingers every night. We talk openly about it with our non-swingers friends when asked .....

I agree.
Since I have an adult website I pretty much outed myself.
Have any of you that are out noticed it can work like a “filter” for who your real friends are?
Vanillas who like us are still friends and others with insecure relationships run. Kind of nice so far.
Hugs and Hissessss,
Maria