The Pitfalls of Swinging – It’s not all fun and games

Why doesn’t anyone talk about the pitfalls of swinging bad sex, waking up with regrets, the continual slog of hunting, repeated letdowns? As with all things in life, every good side has a bad. Don’t worry, we promise to give you reasons to stay a Swinger.

Welcome to Swinger University, I’m Ed. And I’m Phoebe. Join us as we explore the exciting world of ethical non-monogamy, sexual health, and sex education with an intellectual and sexy twist. Alright, this episode is interesting to me because no one ever talks about the pitfalls of swinging. Some people do a little bit, they’ll try to. There’s some that like only talk about the pitfalls, like some of their episodes are like really hard to listen to too. Oh, which ones are those? Oh, you know which ones I’m talking about. Yes, and if I was a fly on the wall, and I do know which one you’re talking about. And even that one makes me nervous and uncomfortable, and I usually like that stuff. So you are all about the reality TV. I am a big brother in the uncomfortable social psychology, all that. Yeah. Hmm. Yes. Today, we are not gonna go that deep into the pitfalls, but we’re gonna be real. And we’ve, I feel like we’ve, we’ve skirted around. We’ve, we’ve painted a very positive picture of the Swinger community, which it is. And generally it is. Right. It’s not in a bubble like everything, right? We’re all not in a bubble. And in order to have happiness, there’s sadness and anger and the day and the night and the yin and the yang and the black and the white. I mean, it all balances out. There is a process. And it’s not all roses and sunshine. Yeah, there is a dark side to swinging, so to speak. Ooh, that sounds, sounds bad. Malevolent. Not dark as in evil, but dark as in it can be a little overwhelming. And sometimes it can be a little depressing, um, at times going through some of this stuff. So let’s dig into it. Let’s talk about some of these, these issues that we want to bring up. This next one has actually gotten us in trouble before, but we’re going to talk about it again. Why? Cause we haven’t talked about it in a while. It’s something that comes up periodically. You go to a party and this particular topic, I don’t know, being vague rears its head. And, and when that experience happens to you, you go, God, it would have been so much better if some people say that some people say that, but I think everyone’s had at least one experience with this particular topic that has made them say,

I’ll just say it, drugs, alcohol, and mixing those two with sex. You could either have an experience saying that unicorn got super drunk because she was nervous and she spent the whole time throwing up in the bathroom. Okay. That’s, it’s not a great experience for anybody. It’s bad for the hosts bad for the unicorn and everybody had to wait for the bathroom. But then there’s other experiences where you know, you’re having a great time. You’re partying hard. Yeah. Have sex with somebody and you realize after the fact that there kind of was consent kind of not like everybody was all on board, but you’re thinking about it the next day and going, you know, I did some stuff that if I had been sober, I don’t think I would have done exactly. I have had that experience. I wasn’t going to call you out, but I’m calling myself. I was there for that experience. Yes. As when we, when we got more comfortable in the lifestyle, probably about after three years, right? We started because we played and we’ve mentioned this before many times we, we played sober up to like year three, right around year four. We thought, you know, we’re feeling comfortable with the community. We’re feeling comfortable with the parties and the venues. We know what to expect, right? Nothing wrong with having a little drink. And then one little drink turned into two little drinks, right? Little drinks in for the kids were all really helpful. And oh, your, your cups empty. Let me get you another drink. Right. And the next thing you know, you’ve had three, four, five. Wow. It’s exaggerating, but yes, it didn’t take much for us, but I know that there are people who’ve had like four or five drinks. Yeah. parties before. And you’re having a good time and it’s a good, it’s fun. Everybody’s laughing. I know. So I get it. People get even more uninhibited, right? And like, yes, this is where the, the consent aspect of it becomes kind of borderline. Like, yes. Because, because your inhibitions are knocked down when you’re right. You’re not in full possession of your ability to say no or yes. And so those, that next day, that ick

isn’t just the hangover. It’s, it’s the, I feel like I was used a bit or I feel like I gave my body over and it really wasn’t a good time. Even though you own that and you go, I know I said yes. And I know I wanted to in the moment, but later I feel really crappy about it. Or it just wasn’t a good experience for me. Right. And you play it off because you’re in a room with a bunch of people. If it’s an orgy, I don’t want to be the naysayer in the group or whatever. Right. There’s some social pressure. We’ve all got personal stories about that. Maybe if you’re not playing, you just hang around in a, in a situation, maybe you’re observing, but you really want to get the fuck out of there and go take a shower or whatever. I mean, I’m making it sound horrible, but yeah, I’m just throwing out a bunch of examples. One of the other subtle ways that I think that this has affected everybody. And, and I think anyone who’s listening to this can relate to this is you meet a couple for the second time at a party and one or both of them do not remember having ever met you.

And it gets worse. You’ve actually had sex with them. Yeah. That’s kind of funny. I think it’s funny. I don’t take it personally offense. You think it’s funny. I think it’s a little funny.

But I could see how feeling devalued and non memorable. Yes. Uh, could, could be hurtful. It, it doesn’t, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t take it personally, but I could understand, I understand your perspective. Yeah. Absolutely understand your perspective, especially because I know that you’re a lot of fun and I remember all of the occasions that I’ve had sex with you. So it’s like, I, I know that that’s not possible for them to have forgotten that, but I understand why they forgot because drugs are bad. Okay. No, drugs are not

drugs. That’s what got us in trouble last time. Yes. Do not say that. We don’t believe that. No, absolutely don’t. It’s, it’s the overindulgence that gets people in trouble. Yeah. Or, and, and this is another one. This is, yeah. We’ll shout out to our friends, sex on the fringe, that taking a substance from somebody that you’ve never taken before for the first time at a party is a pretty risky move, not a recommended behavior because you don’t know how you’re going to react to it. You’ve, you’ve never done that before and you’re going to be in a social situation, probably in combination with other stuff, which can lead to a lot of really bad side effects. So just, you know, everything in moderation is okay. Whatever you want to do is your thing. I will, I’m not going to yuck your yum. If that’s what you need for reducing social anxiety. Yes. If you, that’s what you need to kind of come out of your shell a little bit. Yeah. If that’s what you, you like doing it because it’s fun. Like you like to get your giggle on. Absolutely. And some women like to smoke pot because it makes them more aroused and enhances the experience. Absolutely. Whatever works for you. I’m all for that. Just realize that it’s a slippery slope and those

ways of partying can, can get away from you sometimes and that there are unintended consequences for that. So you, just be careful and just be aware. Some people

may, may gauge your level of consent differently than others. So don’t be offended if someone thinks that a puff or two, I’m being exaggerated. A puff or two of pot is going to lessen your consent too much for them. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t, but everyone has their preferences, just like the, the no kissing and all their other preferences. This one’s no different. Yeah. It’s just, you know, what they prefer. Right. And, and I do remember a party where one puff was more than enough for you. Well, cause it was laced with the, it was an infused joint. Holy crap. That was a, that was a bad night for you. And Phoebe does not do pot, but maybe five times a year. Yeah. I’m not very good at it because we’re, we’re, we’re terrible stoners. That’s what it comes down to. We just need to practice more because we’re just shitty stoners. Honestly, what I, why I’m not good at it is because it’s not, I don’t, it’s not consistent based on how you’re feeling that day, what you ate, what time you took it. Right. And so whether it’s a gummy or a blunt, it, it’s, it’s different. You bought something at this store and you bought another one at another store. Like all the more reason I just, I, it’s hard for me. I get frustrated because I’m expecting a desired result. That’s consistent. Yes. And I’m not getting it. And as I’ll just say, a control freak that freaks me the fuck out. So I know I can put an ounce and a half of gin with my, your tonic and your lime, tonic and my lime and my ounce of light. Right. And I get the desired result. And I know that if I do it a half an hour before my meal or with my meal, I know what to expect. Right. Right. That’s it. I only have a few criteria. So clearly we need to smoke more pot so that we’re used to when it affects us and how it affects us. You just need to do it more. I know that’s what I’ve heard. Clearly we just need to smoke more pot. Let’s talk about the environment a little bit. Environment, depending on the individual can be great or not so great. So it, and let’s speak to the person. For me, I don’t like loud environments. It’s too loud. It hurts my ears. Right. It’s too loud. I can’t have a good conversation with somebody. Right. And now I’m yelling and now my throat is sore the next day. My throat is a little deeper today because we went out to a venue and we had to speak over the music. So there you go. Yes. And you buried my joke, which was my throat is not sore because I gave head. My throat is sore because I was trying to talk. I’m so sorry. I cock blocked your joke. You did. You did. There’s that, but I do like a loud environment because somewhat because it gets the party going, it gets you going. There’s energy. Yeah. You’re dancing. You’re having a good time. Yes. Right. There’s pros and cons and getting that just right is challenging. And then of course the style of music and getting the crowd motivated. There’s a science to all of this. If you’re that type of person that really wants to get to know somebody well first and you rely on good conversation and the environment’s too loud, it’s not going to happen that night. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s why it’s important to have a variety of spaces at a house party or a hotel takeover or whatever so that there are places for people to have conversations and get to know each other before you just drag them into a bedroom because not everybody is DTF. Right. Some people will need a little warm up, need a little foreplay, little oral communication before the oral stimulation. A little sapio sexual stuff going on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The other downside is a lot of houses only have one private room. Right. There are, I would say about half the swingers don’t like being exposed. They like the private

area. They don’t want to be in an orgy. They don’t want people looking and walking in on them and stuff like that. It’s too distracting or whatever else. Where they have body image issues. There are a lot of couples who just feel uncomfortable being watched while they’re having sex. Right. Yeah. It’s just not their thing. The other elephant in the room when it comes to swinging is, and a lot of people may be surprised at this, it’s dating. Don’t sugarcoat it any other way. It’s swipe right, swipe left. It’s not Tinder, although it might be. Yeah. You’re looking through profiles. You’re trying to find a party. You look at the guest list. I don’t like any of the photos of the people there. Sure, they may be sexy, but right now their photos don’t look so good. Please see our episode about making better profiles. And it’s a slog, like you said in the intro. Yeah. It takes so long to curate and find and narrow it down to a couple unless, and bless your hearts, you’re down to just anybody. Do anybody, anywhere, anytime. That’s good for you. That’s amazing. But we like to have a little bit more of a, not so much a relationship with people, but to get to know them a little bit. And it’s kind of establishing that level of trust with them and trying to find them sexy. Right. Yeah. We’re a little bit more intellectual when it comes to the sexiness. It’s not just about the physicality of people. We do. We like to have conversations with people. We like to engage them with some thought provoking questions and sexy talk to figure it out. What’s interesting is, but not surprising, we didn’t know this when we first started swinging 11, 12 years ago. We thought that being DTF was the way to go because friendships were too threatening. It’s too close. I don’t want to know you that well. I don’t want you infringing or needling your way into my relationship. And that was too threatening for me. Right. Now I understand and I have confidence and I trust that nothing’s going to rock our world, that that’s never going to happen. So because the sex wasn’t great with DTF, not that some DTF wasn’t fun, but really it was a lot of other elements that made it fun. Right. The environment, the environment, all kinds of stuff. Right. So the passion of what was going on. Exactly. But now it’s really getting to know those individuals and that’s what we like. Yeah. And the other aspect of this is, okay, let’s say you’ve curated the ultimate party. The poster for this, the little ad for it is amazing. The guest list is super sexy. Like, oh my God, like I can’t not attend. Right. I have to go. I have to make this an eight hour party because I have to have sex with everybody in the head in the time. Right. I’m stocking up on extra condoms and double dose of Viagra for tonight. Exactly. Because I’m going all in. If you don’t hear from me in three days, you know where I’m at. Hospital. Then you spend the money to attend the party and you get there.

And those people that you thought were sexy, you talk to them, not so sexy, or something about them just turns you off. Or we’ve had couples at parties that we’ve seen from across the room. We’re like, oh, they’re cute. And the way that he talked to her just turned our stomachs a little bit. He was not abusive, like hit your wife kind of abusive, but just kind of demeaning and childish, which was not sexy at all. No. You’ve set this whole thing up and you’re all ready to go. And then nothing happens. Right. Nothing. Yeah. And you get about an hour into it, two hours into it, three hours into it. Yeah. And you’re like, God, should I really like, is my 80 bucks really worth this? Yeah. Or should maybe we can go home and cuddle up on the couch and watch reruns or something. Usually in those situations, we just go up to one of the beds, the orgy room, and have sex with our each other ourselves. That too. There are two ways to solve that problem. Yes. Sometimes it does get the party started and things do happen, but sometimes it’s just us with watchers, which is fine. Right. It was great in the beginning when kids were at home with us because we could be as loud as we wanted. And it was cheaper than a hotel to get out and have loud sex. And not have to worry about wall banging sex. Yeah. Yes. Get wild and crazy without going, gosh, the kids are going to hear. Right. That trapeze circus sex. Exactly.

The other kind of dirty side of this that some people talk about in chat forums and stuff, and we’ve been in a number of those and it’s kind of the ghosting aspect. And we’ve experienced this lately. Again, a new round of this where you’ve established a relationship with somebody and just

nothing. You can’t get ahold of them. You can’t make that connection again. It either happened the first time or it didn’t. Nothing happened. It just never gets there. You can’t make that connection with them. You can’t get that date or there’s just no follow through. Yeah. And you’ve been ghosted. Yeah. You’ve been ghosted. Yeah. I would say right now for us, the biggest let down in the Swinger community is those friendships. The friendships we thought we had that just don’t exist. They’re very empty promises or I don’t even know what to say. Yeah. Yeah. They’re just kind of fake or fluff and they’re not real. And it’s challenging though because so much changes for people over time. Yeah. And that may be a little bit of a product of where we are in the lifestyle. And we’ve had tons of conversations about this. I think we even have an outline for an episode about this. And that’s that we’ve gotten to a point where we really do want to have a friends with benefits kind of a situation. We want people who we can hang out with on a regular basis, occasionally have sex with and like really get to know them because we feel that- Making applications now. Yes. We have a hotline. I’m just saying. It seems to us that the sex is better. Yeah. When we know the people better. I agree. So. I agree. As Phoebe said, reach out.

So to summarize, it’s not all doom and gloom, even though there are these pitfalls. Why do people do it? Is it the community or what? Yeah. I think it’s a lot of different things. We found as we got deeper and deeper into the lifestyle that we had more lifestyle friends than vanilla friends because people can open up and they’re free and they can talk about anything. And you know what? It’s pretty liberating to be able to just stand around in a room with a cocktail and have sexy conversation and not worry about somebody judging you. At common interest. Yes. Being on the same page.

Absolutely. It’s also a place where you can be open to express yourself sexually, whether it’s

what you’re wearing or your opinions or the fact that you’re bisexual or whatever. Sure. Or your kinks. Or your kinks. You can be that individual with others and then you can express that with your partner there in that community where you can’t maybe do so on the street. Or at the softball game at your local community center. Right. Right. Yeah. Dress how you want, vocalize what you want, share stories, sexy stories with other people. And I think too there’s generally there’s less body shaming in the community. Yeah. In lifestyle. So if you don’t feel comfortable with yourself, the lifestyle community will help you to become comfortable or help you at least feel open to being comfortable with your own body image and your own sexuality, because we’ve heard it said a whole bunch of different ways, but there’s somebody for everybody or we’re all freaky people in some way or another. And so be you. Yeah. Somebody else will find that same sexy thing about you or in having common with you. Yeah. And somehow the community, that level of acceptance makes it comfortable. It kind of cracks you open or you want, you feel safe. Right. You feel safe to explore yourself sexually in different ways and then maybe sexually in different ways with other people.

Especially when you start hearing other people talk about it and they’re like, “Oh, they’re kinky like I am too.” No, she likes going down on women. I don’t have to feel weird or freakish about this. Exactly. Yeah. So if you’re interested in getting into swinging and you want to consider the pros and the cons, think about the things that we talked about here, but realize that there’s a lot of good in there too. But it’s not all good and there are some things that you do have to work through. Absolutely.