Swinger Lifestyle Exposed: 10 Things That Suck about the Lifestyle

[00:00] [Ed] The Swinger lifestyle isn’t all rainbows and unicorns, sometimes it just sucks.
Here’s 10 reasons why the lifestyle sucks. Find out how things go wrong and how you can fix them.

[00:18] [Phoebe] Welcome to Swinger University. I’m Phoebe and I’m Ed.
Join us as we explore the exciting world of ethical non-monogamy, sexual health and sex education

[00:28] [Ed] with an intellectual and sexy twist. What we’re going to go through are some ways that things
just get in the way or kind of beat you down when you’re in the lifestyle. Yeah. And these are
things that every single Swinger goes through to one level or another. And we’re just going to

[00:49] [Phoebe] help you smooth those things out. Or make you feel like you’re not the only one. Right. Right.
But in a life, let’s face it, it just gets in the way. Family, kids, pregnancy, child care,

[01:03] [Unknown] kids sports, groceries, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Making time for your fun is really

[01:12] [Phoebe] important if you want to meet another Swinger couple or do a date, set one weekend aside a month

[01:20] [Unknown] for that couple’s date or maybe a Swinger party. So just like with other vanilla items,

[01:28] [Ed] hobbies can get in the way. So you’ve got a standing bowling match or a vanilla dinner that you do

[01:36] [Unknown] with who knows, business associates. Right. Think about trying to fit those things in with

[01:43] [Ed] your schedule, but still making time for you and your significant other to do other fun hobbies.
Right. Also, career can get in the way, which is another one of those vanilla things we all have
to have a job. We have to pay our bills, long hours, inconvenient work days, maybe work weekends,
find a different shift, maybe switch shift for a specific event, figure out ways to kind of work

[02:08] [Unknown] around that thing that we all have to do. And this particularly applies to honestly quite a

[02:16] [Phoebe] few Swingers because most of them are in the profession of nurses, police, public service,

[02:28] [Ed] firemen, teachers. Those are all careers that can kind of get in the way of weekend activities.

[02:36] [Phoebe] Exactly. The other thing that really sucks is your hormones and your period.
One of the things that we found that worked for us was tracking your period on the phone so you
can schedule around it. Most women do that and most women know how to do scheduling around it.
But when you’re impairing monopause, as you know, stuff doesn’t go on schedule. And so you think

[03:08] [Unknown] you’re fine. And then whoops, hello, you’re on your period because that’s the nature of

[03:15] [Phoebe] heading into menopause, which you could do. And I have done for swear vacations, like a bliss
cruise where you spend thousands of dollars to be, you know, a cruise where you hopefully want to
fuck other people for a week. When I was in period menopause, I worked with my general practitioner
to go on birth control pills so that it would delay or stave off any chance of me being on a period

[03:40] [Unknown] that week, because I wanted to play. And, you know, it interrupts that vacation. So that is an

[03:47] [Phoebe] option, but be sure to work with your general practitioner on how you could best make that work

[03:52] [Ed] for you. I think I’ve even heard that there is a new medication that you can take specifically
for delaying your menstruation. So once again, talk to your general practitioner and see what options
you had available. The other option is to just play different. Yep. You could stick with oral,
you could just be warriors, you could maybe just masturbate with each other.

[04:20] [Phoebe] Which is also a lot of fun. Yes. The other thing that gets in the way is motions,
jealousy, envy. And, you know, emotions happen. Emotions like jealousy is an example are symptoms

[04:38] [Ed] of something underneath, something underlying in the relationship. So talk about your feelings
with your partner. Discuss what that underlying issue might be. For example, you don’t feel like
you’re getting enough attention during playtime. And that’s what’s inspiring those feelings. So it’s
not really that you’re jealous. It’s that you feel a little bit out of touch with what’s going

[05:01] [Phoebe] on in the playtime. What if it’s not an quote issue? What if it’s just something you grew up with?
It’s part of your upbringing and you have a concept about that is, quote, wrong, right? Because
you never really had to address that before. Like, who grows up? No. Being okay with sharing their
their husband or their wife, right? A lot of people. More so in the, you know, in Europe,

[05:32] [Unknown] less over here and actually it’s become more prevalent here, but generally now. And so you’ve

[05:40] [Phoebe] got this social programming that you may need to unprogram for yourself. Right. One of the ways

[05:47] [Unknown] you can do that is work for the sex therapist or read some books about expanding your personal
growth and figure out ways that you can cope with those things or work through those issues.

[06:01] [Phoebe] Right. Another thing that can happen in the lifestyle is changing of your desires or your boundaries.
Right. Because as you know, we change over time where people were not static. This could be solved

[06:15] [Unknown] with regular check ins with one another. How are you doing? Do you still like this? Are you still

[06:21] [Phoebe] into this? Right. Even, even now we are just still checking with you all the time, even though we
have an agreement on something, sometimes I get nervous about a particular situation or engagement
that we’re going to enter into. And I always just, sometimes I need that additional reassurance
and I’ll check in with Ed. Work with each other to be comfortable discussing your feelings.
And work with your partner to understand what direction your lifestyle needs to move toward.
Maybe you started off with three sums and you want to go to four sums. Maybe it’s vice versa.
Maybe you’re interested in BDSM or we’re starting to kind of cross over into that
realm a little bit more. So now we are engaged in different types of conversations and more
conversations along that path. Maybe you decided you want to be a hot wife or you want your
wife to be a hot wife, right? That’s a completely different type of dynamic. And how you communicate
that. That also means adjusting your profile and how you sell that to other people, right? Because
what if they know you as the couple that they always fuck every time you’re at the party and

[07:39] [Ed] recently you decided, you know, not so much into that. We’re not doing that anymore. Well,

[07:44] [Phoebe] you have to have language on how to update people when you see them next, right? And
maybe you want to go poly. So all of these things are changes of desires and boundaries,

[07:58] [Unknown] which takes communication and checking in with your partner. Endless hunting and chatting gets

[08:05] [Ed] exhausting. Oh my God. Spending too much time online browsing profiles and dealing with certain
websites, SLS, Cassidy, SDC. It gets so old after a while. Get out in the real world,
talk to real people, find real couples, make those connections with them, and then make a date and
go out. So don’t spend all your time online. Don’t spend so much time in the virtual chatting and
sending pictures to people. Actually go and maybe give them a hug and a kiss on the cheek,
right? Okay. Could be a club. It could be a party. But get out. Like go outside. You’ll feel better
and you get a change of scenery instead of staring at your screen the whole time. Right. Now those

[08:58] [Phoebe] websites, those sites, those adult sites, SLS, Cassidy, SDC, very valuable for finding those
individuals, making dates, but they’re also really great for finding those events and parties.
So please use those sites to have to your best advantage. Right. Reach out and touch a friend.
Flanky people. Oh my gosh. Such a buzzkill. We honestly, we haven’t run into too many of those.
And so I think we’re fortunate. They’re they’re hard to get a date set up. You get frustrated

[09:37] [Unknown] because you have to start all over. They ghost you. They don’t. So I say they don’t show up. They don’t

[09:42] [Phoebe] show up. Decide if they’re, you know, worth rescheduling or not. Right. Maybe not. Use events
to go to as kind of a built-in failsafe. Right. So if you want to meet them say, hey, let’s meet up
at this Halloween event. We’ll have a good time. We’ll give you our room number when we get there.

[10:05] [Ed] That way, if they never show up, you’ve got a whole audience of other people who you can connect with

[10:09] [Phoebe] and be social with. Same with meet and greets, any kinds of events like that. You can also have

[10:16] [Ed] backup dates and times just in case something falls through. Everybody has conflicts. It’s not
just people being flaky. Sometimes real things happen. See item one, vanilla life getting in the
way. So having a second, third, fourth weekend that you can propose, you can kind of get that kick

[10:37] [Unknown] started again and everybody can show up and be. And your backup date doesn’t necessarily need to be

[10:43] [Phoebe] another swinger. It could be your significant other. Now let’s turn into vanilla date, which is
equally a special for you both. And you go see a movie or you go do something else instead because

[10:55] [Ed] that date didn’t show. Right. The other form of backup date. Yeah. And most importantly, network
with other swingers. You can find your group of people, which will tend to weed out flaky people.
Groups that get along well will tend to respect each other a little bit more and probably know
each other’s schedule. Plus you have a built in social network. So if one person’s not available,
one couple’s not available, then there’s other couples in your immediate group. And you can just

[11:27] [Phoebe] have a different date. Right. The other second thing about the lifestyle is the expense
holy cow. It is very expensive. It can be. Yeah. Costumes, house party fees, alcohol. And then if you
want to go to a resort, the resort cost itself, three or four thousand dollars on the cheap side.
And then you add your airfare, depending on where you’re flying from, that could be another couple

[11:54] [Ed] of thousand. Not to mention, a lot of people play outside of their community. And so they have to
drive, which means that there’s typically a hotel involved and the expenses go up. Yes. Yes.

[12:07] [Phoebe] You could do cheaper dates. You could invite somebody over if you feel comfortable having them over

[12:11] [Ed] to your house for snacks and drinks. You can also set aside a budgeted amount for your events and
social engagement. So maybe you only get to do one party every other month. That’s okay.
You’re living within your means. You don’t feel like the lifestyle is going to drag you down. If
you go all in and you’re at parties every weekend, you, A, might burn out and B, you will burn
through your cash. Right. So pick those events that you really want to go to so you don’t overspend.
This is a fun one, not disrespectful behavior from others. You run into people before at an event
or a party and they are just, they’re just rude. There’s something about them that just sets you
off and you don’t like it. You don’t like that behavior. One of the other downsides in the lifestyle
is disrespectful behavior from other people, especially in the playroom.
One of the ways to prevent this is to have some kind of a preventative agreement,
a consent agreement about stopping play and that that’s okay with both parties.
If you hit a situation where you don’t like what’s going on, you can say time out, we got to go
and just leave. And even if you don’t have an agreement, it’s still okay to say we’re out.

[13:36] [Unknown] Remember that you always have the right to say no. Yes. Always say something when boundaries

[13:42] [Ed] are crossed. If you’ve agreed upon something and they cross that boundary, stop the play,

[13:48] [Unknown] correct the behavior, do it politely. And if they can’t handle that, if they can’t be respectful,

[13:57] [Phoebe] move on. Yeah. We had someone, I’m not sure exactly where this was, but we had a couple
that we were playing with and his wife got uncomfortable and he called it. He said, you know,
she’s not feeling it right now. We need to take a break. We need to step out. Right. He was
gracious. He wasn’t rude at all. He was direct and we were like, oh sure, yeah, no problem.
And they picked up their things, got trust and they left. I didn’t feel offended at all. I
just assumed maybe something came up during play, which it can. Right. And they graciously left
and went to go take care of their business somewhere else. I applaud them for doing that because
they needed to do what they needed to do to preserve their connection, right? Their relationship.

[14:49] [Ed] To be clear, we were not being disrespectful. This was just a situation where they
started feeling uneasy about how the play was going or something triggered her in terms of

[15:01] [Phoebe] her emotional feelings. Yes, that was what I picked up on. The other example I have is when we
first started playing, we had met somebody over at their apartment and we told them,
upfront, I get overwhelmed very easily. There’s a lot of stimulation for me to take in during
this interaction. This interaction, first of all, is new and we’re very excited to do full swap.
We agreed to do that with them. But during this engagement, I may need to stop and take a break.

[15:38] [Unknown] And I’m going to let you know that by saying, I need to take a beat. I need to be with Ed

[15:44] [Phoebe] for a little bit. They were very respectful and said, oh, yeah, yeah, no problem. Right.
And so when I did that, they were like, oh, sure. We stopped. We took a break. One time,
I needed to just be with you in your arms, in your embrace with your kisses all over me.
And then I was good. It was like this reassurance that I needed. Right. And then we were all back at
it, all four of us. But no one was offended if we were to call the night because it could have
gone that way too. We could have just said, oh, you know, we’re good. We’re out. Right. Right.
And they were okay with that too. And you have to be open with that possibility that that could

[16:25] [Ed] happen, especially in the beginning. Single males often get a bad rap. There are lots of respectful
single males, but there are some that are having some issues.
First, find some clubs or parties that vet their singles. And this goes for the ladies too. Let’s not
just pick on the men. There are single ladies unicorns who, as we’ve seen, can’t handle their
alcohol and get a little in over their heads or get into some strange possessive behavior.
So talk to your event coordinator, find out how they vet their singles and look at the list.
You may know them. And if you’re familiar with who they are and you’re comfortable with them,
that will help a little bit with that. If you see inappropriate behavior, talk to the host,

[17:19] [Unknown] whether it’s a club, an event, a house party, even just a couple of friends over that happen to

[17:25] [Ed] have a single there. Talk to the host and let them know because they want to know because they

[17:31] [Unknown] want to protect the rest of the guests that are there. Correct. By the way, this is number 10,

[17:38] [Ed] but we have a bonus. There’s another downside, which is partners who are overly aggressive. So
you’ve had your boundaries set aside. You’ve talked about them, but your partner decides that

[17:51] [Phoebe] he’s just going to bang away. Not you, my partner, but my other partner. The other partner.

[17:58] [Ed] First off, just like with the overly aggressive or the rude behavior, set your boundaries
up front and be clear with them. And until you play with a couple, play near your partner.
Have that backup and have the ability to tap out and have your partner be aware. If you’re
in separate parts of the house, there’s no way they can see. So if this is the first time playing

[18:20] [Unknown] with somebody, be near each other. And if your play partner does something that you don’t like,

[18:25] [Ed] this is your new play partner, tell them that you don’t like it. And if they can’t follow directions,

[18:32] [Phoebe] once again, move on. We’re done. The bonus is it’s just not fun anymore. Occasionally,
you know, this can happen with a couple. They dive into hot. They go all in and they kind of burn
out. They don’t have time to process their emotions. So you may want to occasionally reassess this
with your partner. Check in. Why are you doing it? You’re getting out of it. You know, take a break
for a little while. It’s a lot to process. For some people, it’s different. For some people,
they need a lot of time to work through things that might come up during this adventure together.
Maybe it’s a matter of just finding which events you like the most, maybe focus on those.
Maybe you really like doing a vacation away every year to Jamaica or to Mexico,
just the two of you. And that’s your thing. Local events are not your thing. And house parties
are not your thing. And maybe these vacations are one of the other things. If you consider this

[19:45] [Ed] whole list of things, it’s quite possible that you have a lot of these things going on
all at the same time, which could be absolutely overwhelming. It may just not be the right time

[19:58] [Phoebe] to be into the lifestyle. Correct. Maybe you do need to take that break to let the vanilla stuff,

[20:05] [Ed] all of this stuff that we’ve been talking about, simmer down a little bit, maybe get some stuff
off your plate and then come back into it. It’s hard juggling two different lifestyles.

[20:16] [Phoebe] Yeah. I mean, and they are. They really are two different lifestyles.
Absolutely. You’re not always going to have an amazing experience, but the key is learning
how to recover from them and how to improve on your next experience together.
Be sure to join our Patreon community for the behind-the-scenes stories and

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