Secrecy - what are your thoughts about coming out as a swinger?

I'm just wondering who is open about their swinger lifestyle and who keeps it their naughty secret? Mrs. Intuition and I were discussing this on the phone last weekend and I'm interested in other people's thoughts on the subject.

I come at it from an LGBTQ mentality. As a queer femme woman with a male partner, I could easily go about my life pretending to be hetero. I decided for the sake of my own mental health and the need to be an open book that I would live my life out and proud. My attitude is that my lesbian and trans friends don't have the luxury of living under a cloak of heterosexual privilege so I won't either. I came out to absolutely everyone in my 20's . Before that I was out to close friends and some family. I was sick of censoring myself around people. I needed to be genuine, to live honestly . For me it was freedom.

Now does every casual acquaintance need a run down of my sexual history? Of course not. But everyone knows I'm into women, I'm an LGBTQ rights activist. I'm also a nude art model and I don't hide that either. If you don't like the way I live, you can fuck right off. I've lost some friends and alienated some family, but I consider it a good way to filter shitty people from my life.

Mrs. Intuition isn't ashamed of her life choices but she is far more selective of who she tells about them. She feels telling family would be hurtful to them because they wouldn't understand anyways and she also worries about the reaction of co-workers. All very legitimate reasons to stay mum.

I just wonder if any of you closet swingers find it hard when someone asks about your weekend and you have to reply "we just hung around, did some groceries", when what you want to say is "holy shit, this amazing, hot couple came over and I came about 12 times!!! I'm still exhausted but it was fabulous!" Do you just smile inside and relish the secret or do you secretly wish you could share the dirty details and see the look on their face? Are you curious who would accept you and who would walk away in judgement? Let's talk about it? This totally fascinates me.

Well put, you're right that we live in an intolerant world. I sometimes wish we could go back to ancient Rome where orgies were considered a religious experience and sex was open and not taboo.

Some of us also have 'morality clauses' and/or work for the Government and, even if we wanted to, can't say anything about 'it'. Luckily, I joke about almost everything and I can get away with more than the average person. I have been known to answer the question 'what cha doing this weekend?' by telling them that we have some friends coming over and we are going to tear off all of our cloths and have a big orgy...when the plan was just that. Everyone generally laughs and says something like '...you wish!' and I get to smile my secret smile.

Wow, that's a whole other issue. Tolerance in the work place. I love how you deal with it GoldcoCouple. I use comedy a lot too. Good for you. Jokes on them. In Canada it's illegal to terminate someone based on sexuality. Not that I'm naïve I'm sure if an employer wanted you out they'd come up with a bullshit excuse to do so. I wish the world would become progressive faster.

For myself, I've never felt that our swinging was a secret to be hidden, or a thing to be ashamed of. Like Sunbuckus said, it's just at thing we didn't talk about because we don't talk about sex in our culture. When people asked what we did when we went out, I would say we went dancing... because we did go dancing. We just wouldn't mentioned the group sex that followed, because when one goes out on a date one generally doesn't talk about the sex afterward.

Funny story... it turns out that everyone in our immediate social circle was poly, kinky and/or swingers and we didn't know. I only knew about one other member of the group, because I had actually met him on FetLife. He knew about the others, and they knew about him, but he was respecting everyone's privacy. So none of the rest of us knew... until someone stumbled over the connection. Suddenly, we could talk about this part of over lives with other people because it was something we shared. It's been rather liberating.

Well put, you're right that we live in an intolerant world. I sometimes wish we could go back to ancient Rome where orgies were considered a religious experience and sex was open and not taboo.

Actually, from my reading of history, the Romans did consider the orgies to be taboo. They talked about them not because they were open about it but as a way to discredit their political and social enemies ("Well, did here about the disgusting orgies held by Emperor Tiberius"). However, they did generally have a more positive attitude toward sex generally.

Our BDSM lifestyle is more a secret and personal to us then our swinging lifestyle. Maybe it's because it's my personal connection to my bf and it's special to me that way. We mostly play in Europe and almost at every club we have staff and friends know us and our lifestyle choices. Since I'm new to the U.S. and he is not, I just like to keep a low profile. And he respects that. Somehow respecting personal choices and public opinion about personal freedom here has not been at par with my expectations and I rather enjoy my activities where I feel safe, free and accepted.

I may relish in the secrecy of it too much. Like this weekend, J hosted a Christmas party for her employees. I enjoyed watching her interact with these people, none of which will ever hear the sound of her orgasm from a DVP. Or even suspect that someone so 'by the book' can even see out of the box, much less kick the box to the curb. I love the double life.

I sometimes wish we could go back to ancient Rome where orgies were considered a religious experience and sex was open and not taboo.

I couldn't let this pass without comment - for me sex is not open in that I discuss it openly, but it is a religious experience. The emotions of love and the pleasures of sex, whether together or apart, are things that bring us closer to god (or God, whoever She may be) more than anything else except our intellect. And personally, my rigorous Catholic upbringing has been totally displaced by my belief in poly.

Like JandKInBoise, we actually enjoyed the secrecy. Not because we're inherently dishonest or like sneaky behaviour - I don't care for sneakiness - but we like the 'secret club' feel of it. So when someone asks what you did for the weekend, we got a kick out of having to bite our tongues and hide our smiles. It was actually fun to let them try to 'outdo' your weekend adventures. And you'd exclaim over them, saying 'wow, how risque!' Meanwhile you've got stories to tell that would melt their faces off. Clark Kent didn't mind if people thought he was boring. That was the point of having an alter ego. And I don't mind if people think I'm the boring granny-panty-wearing librarian type, because unlike them, I know what I'm wearing under my plaid wool pencil skirt and starched white blouse. And they ain't granny panties.

Clark Kent didn't mind if people thought he was boring. That was the point of having an alter ego.

Off topic, but since you brought it up - I've wondered from time-to-time, why is it mandatory that superheros keep their identity secret? What would be the consequences of everybody knowing that Clark Kent is Superman, Bruce Wayne is Batman, etc.? Maybe they just like the feeling of being in a secret club as well.

Mrs fun is from a VERY religious family. We feel it best to keep it quiet for everyone concerned. It's easier that way at least for us.

Mrs fun is from a VERY religious family. We feel it best to keep it quiet for everyone concerned. It's easier that way at least for us.

Whew, I bet Mrs. Fun has stories to tell about how she went from her strict religious background to where she is now. It's the same with me. My family - whom I love dearly, and still get along with really well - are "good, Christian folk". They're pretty accepting of people in general, but there would simply be no accepting this. They wouldn't disown me, but I could probably expect a religious intervention, including a surprise visit from the minister. Swinging would be considered extreme spiritual "illness". Bringing it up to them would just cause an irritation that simply would never be resolved to either party's satisfaction. They're not going to change, and I'm sure not going back to the beliefs I used to have, so we would be at an impasse. For the sake of avoiding a (completely unnecessary) rift in our family, we remain discrete about it.

...why is it mandatory that superheros keep their identity secret?

To avoid the paparazzi, of course.

Mrs fun is from a VERY religious family. We feel it best to keep it quiet for everyone concerned. It's easier that way at least for us.

Whew, I bet Mrs. Fun has stories to tell about how she went from her strict religious background to where she is now. It's the same with me. My family - whom I love dearly, and still get along with really well - are "good, Christian folk". They're pretty accepting of people in general, but there would simply be no accepting this. They wouldn't disown me, but I could probably expect a religious intervention, including a surprise visit from the minister. Swinging would be considered extreme spiritual "illness". Bringing it up to them would just cause an irritation that simply would never be resolved to either party's satisfaction. They're not going to change, and I'm sure not going back to the beliefs I used to have, so we would be at an impasse. For the sake of avoiding a (completely unnecessary) rift in our family, we remain discrete about it.

You are right to be cautious. Being in a poly family and us deciding to have children, I had to break it to my family. Neither Mom nor Dad liked it, but Mom accepts us and especially the children; Dad has nothing to do with us.

You are right to be cautious. Being in a poly family and us deciding to have children, I had to break it to my family. Neither Mom nor Dad liked it, but Mom accepts us and especially the children; Dad has nothing to do with us.

That's such a shame, couplers. It's just so unnecessary, but I know I'd have problems with my family, too. It may not cause them to not speak to me any more, but I know some people would be devastated. I mean really heartbroken. And it's all because they have very rigid ideas about sexuality and morality - ideas that they have no interest in changing - and I know they wouldn't know how to NOT let that become an issue between us. So...I'll just save them the trouble.