So You Want to be Swingers…
Some Tips on Making the Fantasy into a Reality
Are You Ready?
Before you get started in the swinger lifestyle, it’s important to take a realistic inventory of where you are as a couple in terms of sex life, first. You may want to start by reading our article about “fixing vs enhancing.” If you ask any successful swinging couple, they will likely tell you that the cornerstone of their relationship is communication. That starts before a couple even begins to swing.
It’s important that both partners are very comfortable with themselves as sexual beings and that both partners feel open and able to share thoughts and feelings about sex with one another—even before adding others to their sex life. If either of you has a hard time talking with the other about sex stuff, it is probably not time to open up your sex life to others yet. You may want to work on communication between the two of you first.
Can you talk with one another about fantasies? Can you express sexual needs? Can you each listen without judgment or fear to one another when it comes to sex conversations?
Another assessment to make: How sexually adventurous are you within your own relationship right now? Do you watch porn together? Do you sext or share sexy photos of yourselves with each other? Do you use sex toys together? Do you explore each other’s kinks and fantasies together within your twosome? Do you talk dirty with and to each other? Do you sometimes dress in ways that are meant to arouse one another?
If a brutally honest assessment of where you are in terms of sex life right now reveals that you’re maybe not that sexually adventurous together and/or you have some things to work on when it comes to communicating with one another openly and comfortably about sex—that probably indicates that you want to work on those things before moving beyond your marital bed.
On the other hand, if your honest appraisal of your marital sex life points to great, open communication and a robustly adventurous sex life between the two of you, it’s quite likely that starting to swing could be a fun, exciting, arousing, and fulfilling way to go for you as a couple.
But there’s still more to discuss together….
Figure Out Your WHY
Regardless of which partner broaches the subject, we’ve found it works out best when couples delve together into their reasons for wanting to swing before embarking on the journey. This may be one big conversation or it may take place in smaller conversations over time.
Some questions to both ask and answer:
- What do each of you hope to get out of swinging?
- What are your fears or hesitations about swinging?
- When you envision a swinging lifestyle, what does it look/feel like?
The idea here is to determine whether you’re both on the same page when it comes to your motivation(s) for entering the lifestyle and coming to agreement about what you hope to achieve by inviting others into your sex life.
Then Figure Out Your WHAT
As either part of the same conversation or a new one, or several conversations over time, spend time talking about your answers to the following questions too. Just remember that after you enter the lifestyle, your answers to these questions may well change and evolve. For now, you’re just figuring out your starting place.
- Do either or both of us want to explore sex with people of the same gender?
- Are we voyeurs? Exhibitionists? Both?
- Are we interested in threesomes (with a unicorn? with a single guy?) or only foursomes…or maybe moresomes (group sex, orgies)?
- What experiences do we hope to have? What are each of our sexual preferences? Sexual fantasies?
- What are our “must haves”? What are our “must avoids”?
OK. You’re In! Exciting. So…How?
If, after all of that talking between the two of you as a couple, you feel excited and eager to dip a toe (and probably some other appendages) into the swinger lifestyle, you have many options for how to do that. Most couples we know start out by creating a dating profile on a website such as Double Date Nation. That’s also a great way to further explore your ‘why’ and your ‘what,’ because most couples dating sites ask you to list what you are interested in and what your play preferences are. We recommend that the two of you do this together and really take your time going through the prompts on the site. So many couples have told us that doing this was, for them, an excellent exercise in exploring their sexuality together!
Make sure to decide how much you both feel comfortable sharing on a dating site. What will your couple name be on the site? Will you show face pictures? Which of you will read and respond to messages on the site once your profile is posted? How will you vet interested couples and singles?
Consider Joining a Swinger Community
Some newbie swingers really benefit from having something of a support community. These are groups of like-minded couples and singles who talk both online and in real life about topics related to swinging. It can really help newcomers to talk with veterans. And it can also help newcomers to talk with other newcomers, sharing thoughts, ideas, and concerns. The We Gotta Thing swinger community is one option for this kind of support.
Consider Attending Swinger Events or Venues
Another way to dip a toe into the swinger lifestyle is to visit a swinger-friendly resort on vacation or find and attend a newcomers night at a sex club. You don’t need to do anything with anyone other than each other, in either case—but these are great opportunities to meet others and to take a look around at how various swinging couples approach the lifestyle. Joining a community and being on a dating site are both good ways to find out about swinger events such as meet & greets. These are typically low-pressure, no-play events where folks just go to find out who else swings and make some connections.
Move Forward or, You Know, Don’t
Even if you have a great sex relationship with one another, you may decide that it’s really okay with you for sex with others to remain part of your naughty fantasy world rather than a for-real thing, and that’s okay.
On the other hand, if you’re both equally turned on by the idea of swinging…at some point you’ll have to DO something in order to move from fantasy to reality. Start a dating profile. Join a community. Attend an event.
Oh, and make sure to keep reading articles about swinging and tune in to any of the many great podcasts about it! Educating yourselves about the swinger lifestyle is imperative to your enjoyment of the experience.
(You can hear us talk more about “turning the fantasy into a realty,” with examples, on Episode 18.)
We are Mr. & Mrs. Jones, swinger lifestyle podcasters. If you like what you read here and want to learn more about the swinger lifestyle and/or We Gotta Thing, you can find our podcast episodes and much more at WeGottaThing.com.
We love reading (and writing) about sex, sexuality, and the swinger lifestyle on Medium. It’s entirely worth the $5/month subscription. Care to join us?
