5 Tips That Made Swinging Work For Us

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TRANSCRIPT

Language: en
Duration: 25m 59s

Speakers: Ed, Guest, Phoebe

[00:00] [Phoebe] We never thought swinging would be easy, and we were right.
At first it felt like everyone else had it all figured out, well we’re just stuck in
our doubts and fears and enlifts, what if scenarios?
But we found five key things that made all the difference.
Five tips that helped us navigate the challenges and truly made it work.
If you’ve ever wondered how couples actually succeed in the lifestyle, you need to hear

[00:32] [Unknown] this.

[00:37] [Phoebe] Welcome to Swinger University, I’m Ed and I’m Phoebe.

[00:41] [Ed] Today we’re going to be talking about five tips that will help you succeed in the lifestyle,

[00:49] [Unknown] or at least five things that we’ve done that really got us through this whole journey

[00:58] [Ed] and got us to where we are today.

[01:01] [Phoebe] Tip number one, we did it at our own pace.
We didn’t let anyone else influence us, although I will say we had a serious amount of
FOMO that everyone else by appearances had it all figured out that it was just one big
breeze and we were struggling all the time.
So even though we were on the same page, we were fraught with challenges.
What were some of these challenges?

[01:39] [Ed] Well, a lot of times we were trying to figure out what was going to happen before it happened.
Yeah.
We were in this constant situation of, well, who’s going to be there?
What’s going to happen?
What are we going to do?

[01:56] [Phoebe] What are the expectations?
How do I get prepared?
It’s so unknown that the fear was overtaking us.
Even though we had read about it, listened to a bazillion podcasts about it, it didn’t
apply to us in our area.

[02:18] [Unknown] Right.

[02:20] [Ed] So the big key that we figured out, and this really is that tip, and that is that we decided
to just do what we were comfortable with and continue to make progress at that pace.
Not try to overshoot, not try to constantly reevaluate our boundaries, but when our boundaries
felt like we were ready to shift, we would shift, but not before.
So it was really just, let’s just do what we like to do.
Let’s be comfortable in our own skin, and for a lot of couples, that just means your
soft swap, and that’s all you do, or you’re just there to watch.
And all of those things are okay.
Don’t feel like you have to do what everybody else is doing, like you said.
He’s going to be doing their own thing, and there are people who are doing things that
are uncomfortable for them.

[03:14] [Unknown] You don’t have to be like them.

[03:17] [Ed] There are people who are way overshooting their boundaries, and we don’t recommend that.
We recommend staying kind of in your comfort zone.
Absolutely.

[03:27] [Unknown] Until you’re ready.
Until you’re ready.

[03:31] [Phoebe] Number two, we talked about our fears, lots and lots of conversations about fears,
expectations, what if scenarios, and it helped a lot.

[03:47] [Unknown] We did a lot of analysis, and I think in hindsight, it was a little bit of analysis paralysis,

[03:57] [Phoebe] but that’s just how we were consuming our information.
They’re, like I said, 10, 12 years ago, wasn’t a whole lot of information out there.

[04:07] [Unknown] Other than just podcasts, there was a few books, but we didn’t even really find out about

[04:13] [Phoebe] the books until way later.
And I don’t even know if adult dating sites, other than monogamous dating sites existed.
Did SDC Cassidy and the SLS even exist?

[04:28] [Ed] Oh, yeah.
They were there.

[04:30] [Phoebe] And we didn’t do sign up for them.
Well, was it a money thing?

[04:35] [Ed] No, I think we didn’t know about them because we didn’t Google search for them.

[04:41] [Unknown] And at the time, they just didn’t pop up on our radar.

[04:46] [Ed] And it wasn’t until, I think, months later that we figured out, oh, it’s not just Craigslist,
there is an SLS and we can log in there and we can find out about parties and events.
But we know about dating sites, like vanilla dating sites, because that’s how we’d met,
was through a dating site.
We didn’t know that there were swing or dating sites at the time.

[05:13] [Unknown] It’s ironic that Craigslist popped up for adult dating site, but offshoot of adult dating

[05:24] [Phoebe] site, like more than just adult, like one night stand hookups or swing or hookups before
SDC Castle, you’re honest, even showed up.
It was Craigslist.

[05:35] [Ed] Yeah.
Well, because Craigslist at the time had set up a whole section for meeting other people.
It was kind of a hookup site.
It was an R for R, if you will.
People looking for another person to do a particular thing.
It was fun.
It was a great section of Craigslist.
And then, of course, the 18 and over validation law kicked in and Craigslist shut all that
stuff down because human trafficking, which I’m sure happened on Craigslist, but that
was not the majority of users.
It was, yeah, it was people like us who were looking for parties, fun stuff to do.

[06:17] [Phoebe] All right.

[06:18] [Ed] Number three, we tried uncomfortable things.
So the whole thing about kind of staying in your lane and going at your own pace, we knew
that, well, our feelings popped up and we started to get comfortable to go, I’m a little
excited to try something different.
Are you okay with that?
So as an example, we’ve got a great episode about our first full swap experience.
If you haven’t watched that, absolutely check it out and there’s a link to it up above.
We got to a point where we started to get excited about new things to try.
We were like, ooh, that looks like a lot of fun.

[07:08] [Unknown] We should try that.

[07:10] [Ed] But we wanted to make sure that we weren’t getting hurt in the process, right?
Or that if something was uncomfortable, that we would talk about it, so go back to the
previous tip where we were having conversations to make sure that we were both comfortable.
We were willing to kind of try anything once just to see if we liked it.
If we were okay with trying it out.
So when something presented itself, we would have a little conversation about it.
What do you think?

[07:41] [Unknown] Should we try it?

[07:42] [Ed] Yeah, if we don’t like it, we’ll go back to the way we were.

[07:48] [Phoebe] I think we also were, because we had talked so much about what if scenarios that when
a scenario presented itself,
we were comfortable enough to go, yeah, sure, let’s pull the trigger and do it.
Because I remember there were a lot of in the moment decisions when we decided to push
some boundaries.

[08:11] [Unknown] Yes.

[08:14] [Phoebe] And I think that was because we laid some of that foundation ahead of time, the what
of scenarios, and we got comfortable with our environment as well.
And it was an environment we felt safe in.

[08:27] [Ed] Yeah, and I think we had had, like you said, enough conversations, but we’d also gotten
to a point where when we’d kind of stretched our boundaries a little bit and it didn’t blow
up in our faces, yeah, we go, okay, I feel okay with testing the water a little bit to see how
it’s going to go because we’ve done so well at recovering.
So a lot of this is trying new things, seeing how you feel and not just how you feel about
that thing, but how well do you recover from trying those new things?

[09:03] [Phoebe] Yeah, exactly.
Number four, we allowed growth and change.

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[10:18] [Ed] Yeah, as we were experimenting and we tried different things, we had different preferences.
And so we got to points where we were okay with soft swap after a little while.
We tried that for a little bit. We grew, we changed. Our experiences were good enough where we
said, wow, this is great. Let’s just sit in this for a little while. We’ll stay here. We’ll enjoy
these experiences until they didn’t feel quite as fresh or new or exciting as what they were.
And we wanted to try different things. So we grew. I do remember in the very beginning

[11:01] [Phoebe] that it was weird to me to have you watch. It felt strange. I know it doesn’t, I know it’s not
going to make sense. But in my mind, it felt like I was cheating if I was doing it in front of you.
Even though I had your consent, I felt like I needed to have that experience in a separate room
with a single guy. And that’s how my brain was working. It was like I had compartmentalized
relationship mode with dating mode. And I didn’t feel like I could completely be free with my body.
Yeah. And my experience, unless I was in, quote, relationship mode, which meant you had to be
completely on the picture. And so it was this weird opposition. And so that was my proposal to
you in the beginning. And you were like, I don’t know about that. I’d be willing to give you that
experience probably three, maybe four times. But after that, that’s my limit. Yeah. Yeah.
And I was like, hmm, okay, because I couldn’t really see anything past that to me. It was just a

[12:23] [Unknown] hard line. And I’m like, okay, well, let’s see where we go after three times. Yeah. And then

[12:29] [Phoebe] it never happened. It never happened. It in fact, it never happened in it as a separate room
ever with a single guy. It only happened with a single guy with you in the room

[12:45] [Ed] like a decade later. Yeah. Yeah. We were way deep into this experience before we got to that
place. It’s kind of crazy. We did have a couple experiences in hotel parties where there were three
or four or five couples. And we ended up in separate play situations. But it wasn’t it wasn’t

[13:07] [Phoebe] intended. It’s just there’s no room on the bed. Yeah. There’s no room on the bed. Which
happens where you go to get a snack or a drink and you start to have a conversation with somebody

[13:16] [Unknown] and all of a sudden you fall on to a couch. Right. And what we did learn from all of these

[13:25] [Ed] experiences as we went through them was there were there were things that we were more comfortable with
and we kind of just fell into our own groove again. So yeah. Once again, we went into our own pace

[13:37] [Unknown] as we learned things. We backed off. We moved forward. It just we we were honest with each other

[13:45] [Ed] and which is really great because that kind of leads us into tip number five, which is trust.
We we prided ourselves and we were very conscientious from the very beginning that we had to be honest
with each other about our feelings and honesty. And this is this is going to be a little bit of a
bare admission. So those of you who’ve watched this bar good for you because you’re going to get
some some some deep inside secrets. Why? Very early on we had struggled with what level of honesty

[14:26] [Unknown] we had with each other, especially when it came to sex. Oh yeah. And there was a period of time

[14:32] [Ed] where you felt compelled to to fake orgasms. Yeah. Because you wanted to make sure I was having

[14:40] [Unknown] a good time. Yeah. It’s my was my my my perception was it’s you know it’s my job to

[14:51] [Phoebe] make sure somebody’s having a good time. Right. Whether it’s I’m hosting a party and I’ve got guests
everybody I’m trying to make sure everyone has a good time. If I’m with a male partner, I want to
make sure he has a good time. Right. So I would do that at my own detriment. Yes. Yeah. I was
taught to fake it if if it wasn’t real. And that was you know part of societal programming from when
I was brought up and part of maybe that people pleaser in me. So yeah. I got into the bad habit
of doing that. And when that came out, that was really hard for me to disclose. Yeah. Yeah.

[15:39] [Guest] Because I had to be honest with myself first. Yes. And then I had to tell you and you were

[15:45] [Phoebe] really upset. You were shocked and upset because you were you felt I think well you tell how you

[15:54] [Ed] felt. Yeah. I’m glad that you brought up the introspection part because for me it
not having that information, not having the knowledge that I wasn’t pushing the right buttons
or at least not in the right order or the right timing robbed me of the opportunity to learn
how your body worked. Right. And it sets us up for some really bad experiences in the lifestyle
because no one’s ever going to figure out the buttons if you don’t tell them that they’re not

[16:28] [Unknown] figuring out the buttons. Right. And for those of you who are out there who are not getting what

[16:35] [Ed] you expect out of an experience, you have to tell people it’s that honesty. You have to trust that
the partner that you’re with is telling you what you need to know to adjust to get better at what
you’re doing. Right. So it’s okay. Guys, you’re not going to get it right most of the time
with a new partner. Right. So you got to learn. You got to look for the cues. You got to have that
conversation ahead of time and sit and just be honest and go, I don’t know any of your buttons.
You’re going to have to tell me what your buttons are. So if I’m doing something right, let me know,
grab my hair, pull me in deeper, whatever you need to do to communicate that I’m on the right
track. That’s what I want. I want feedback. I want to know what’s working. The other thing that we

[17:28] [Phoebe] also always kept saying to each other was, we are in it together. This is a team sport, if you will.
Right. And either one of us can pull the plug at any time if it’s not enjoyable, if it’s causing
too much stress, distress. In fact, we basically did pull the plug for about eight, nine months
because of the overwhelm. I was just, it was too much stimulus. It was too much information.
It was a lot of mental and emotional processing. So I just needed a break. I was exhausted.

[18:08] [Ed] Yeah. There was also a period of time where we weren’t having great experiences at the parties.
Right. And we were still trying to figure out how do we navigate all of that stuff? What do we
need to do? And I think what we finally came to was lowering our expectations when we go to
parties. And you’ll hear people say this a lot, but that’s really hard to do. That’s not an easy
thing to do. Right. And a lot of it is just comes down to being present, being mindful of how

[18:43] [Unknown] you’re feeling and do what you’re, what you’re feeling that night. So if you’re not feeling sexy,

[18:49] [Ed] you could go to the party and be social, but don’t like pressure yourself to do something that

[18:53] [Unknown] you’re not comfortable with and definitely don’t set yourself up for being disappointed because

[19:00] [Ed] you and your partner are not on the same page. And that’s the whole we’re in this together.
Not only can we pull back when we’re feeling uncomfortable or when something bothers us,
but also if we both show up at a party and we’re going in different directions like I’m in it
and you’re not, we’ve got to be together on that. We can’t have two different agendas at a party.
And so we had a game plan before each party and we did a mid party check-in to see how we were

[19:34] [Phoebe] doing. How are you feeling now? And the other thing that helped too was really setting the tone
for that evening initially and not to say that it didn’t change in the midpoint recap when we did
our huddle, but you’re right. Sometimes I wanted to go and just be social and I wasn’t
feeling particularly sexy that day or that evening and I thought, well, maybe the vibe,

[20:03] [Unknown] the music, the people will get me in the mood. But if not, then at least I’m going to have some

[20:09] [Phoebe] really great open conversations with everybody and we’ll get to meet some new people and hopefully

[20:13] [Unknown] make some connections because the face-to-face interaction for me was worth the $60, $80 that we

[20:22] [Phoebe] spent on the house party because getting to know someone on a chat was practically impossible.
And sometimes the evening change or shifted and all of a sudden somebody peaked my interest and

[20:33] [Unknown] I’m like, okay, let’s have some fun tonight. Yeah, and so many of our experiences have been

[20:43] [Ed] going in with an open mind. Maybe that’s a better way of saying it than low, no expectations. It’s
be open to whatever’s going to happen there, whether it’s just social or whether it’s sexy.
And oftentimes we would end up at a party and things you got into the mood and things change for us.

[21:07] [Phoebe] What I think really shifted was because you’ve hired the babysitter, you snuck out of the house
because your kids are there and they want to know what you’re wearing, so you’re changing in the
car. Maybe you got a hotel room, you paid for the party, you spent an hour or two getting ready,
shaving every part of your body, getting your hair. I mean, there are hours and financial
commitments that went into this and you’re thinking, I don’t want it to just be a meet and greet,
right? Right. So we decided since we had children in the house still that if nobody at the party
was exciting or that wasn’t really going the way we preferred, we took it as an opportunity to
just play ourselves. Right. And since we liked being exhibitionists, we sometimes got the party
started and we still played with ourselves. And if we spent $80 or $60 on a house party,
it was still cheaper than getting a hotel in the city where we lived to go have time
where we could be loud and do things that we wanted to do that we couldn’t really do in a house
because ears. Yeah. So that’s where we were a team and on the same page also where we’re like,
let’s just, this is an us activity. If no one tickles our fancy, let’s do us. Right. And we did.

[22:39] [Ed] Let’s do each other. And I think this trust tip wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t talk about
the thing that everybody thinks swinging is all about. And that is that it’s cheating that you

[22:53] [Unknown] are having sex with someone other than your lifelong partner. Therefore it’s cheating. And this is,

[23:01] [Ed] this is where we have a disagreement with it where it’s not cheating because it’s a mutual
decision. Just like you both decide to go on vacation together to Disneyland, you both decided
to go do this together. It’s an activity that you have chosen to do together, which means
that if you are in fact doing it without the consent of your partner, that is cheating.
If you’re doing things that they don’t know about and aren’t aware of unless they’ve
consented to that, it’s non-consensual and therefore it is not the ENM. It is not ethical

[23:37] [Unknown] non-monogamy. That’s just cheating. And there’s no faster way of breaking your partner’s trust
than cheating on them or doing things without their knowledge. Period. Yeah. So let’s recap.
What are the five things? Go at your own pace, talk about your fears, try uncomfortable things,
allow growth and change and trust one another. Thanks for watching. Don’t forget your homework,

[24:10] [Ed] tell a friend about our show and leave a review or a comment down below. You can also leave us a
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[24:43] [Unknown] in. Also, if you want to go on vacation with us, check out our vacation page because we have
all kinds of fun and exciting vacations planned. We are actually next year going on two cruises

[24:59] [Phoebe] on Virgin. So if you want to hang out with us, check out that page.

[25:07] [Unknown] And as we say, keep learning, keep growing and keep it sexy. Oh, one last thing before you go.

[25:30] [Ed] If this episode helped you in any way, the single best thing you can do to support the show is
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[25:49] [Unknown] forward slash review. All the instructions are there.
Thank you for being part of this community. We’ll see you again soon.