Have you ever fantasized with your partner about bringing other people into your sex life? Have you ever flirted with someone when you were out and then when you told your spouse things started to get intimate? Maybe one or both of you have even made out with someone at a party and enjoyed the excitement of talking about that experience. If any of these situations apply to you, you might be a swinger.

Swinging, also called the lifestyle, is a very diverse practice that has two primary identifying characteristics. First swinging is couple-centric as it is about stepping outside the cultural boundaries regarding sex in a committed relationship. Secondly it requires that couples are open with each other about their feelings and experiences as communication is the difference between swinging and cheating.

Couple-Centric

In Terry Gould‘s The Lifestyle: A look at the erotic rites of swingers, swinging, or wife swapping, started as a protective mechanism for the families American Air Force pilots. Strong bonds would form between couples and families and with mortality rates so high shared intimacy insured that if a pilot died his family would be taken care of.

Through the sixties and into the seventies, during the free love movement, couples who wanted to experience the same sexual freedom as their single counterparts expanded the movement mostly at parties in peoples’ homes. Some of these parties were more organized such as the infamous key parties while others would be more along the lines of modern house parties.

Swinging is all about couples coloring outside the lines that society and modern culture has drawn for us. For some couples its as innocent as light flirting to get the juices going. These couples may attend a swinger club just for the environment, likemindedness, and the excitement, which is very common. For other couples swinging can progress to full on exhibitionism, voyeurism, and even getting it on with other people. This is the beauty of the lifestyle, there is a place for everybody and no one needs to feel inadequate or shame because of what they want or what they don’t want.

But What About The Singles?

Oh boy, now we’ve stepped in it. Anyone who has been around the block, will see that we called the lifestyle couple-centric, and even talked about how it’s truly about couples, yet if you go to any club or party you are likely to run into both single men and women! Are we saying that only couples can be swingers? Absolutely not! Singles are an important part of the lifestyle and can be just as much swingers as couples are.

When we say that the lifestyle is couple-centric we are referring to the fact that modern culture doesn’t allow for the same level of hedonism for committed couples as they do for singles. Singles going out and experiencing their sexuality in any way they want with other singles is, well, just being single in modern culture.

So many couples have fantasies that revolve around bringing a third person into the mix that there are quite often many singles in attendance at clubs and parties that allow them. Much as swingers have developed an entire lexicon of terms for themselves and what they are looking for there are terms for what singles are looking for within the community as well. A unicorn is a single bi-sexual woman who will generally play with both halves of a couple. A bull is a single, generally heterosexual, male who will play with the female half of a couple while the male generally will watch. A dragon is the male version of a unicorn. The list goes on, there are as many terms as there are sexual proclivities.

Communication

If you have stuck with us up to this point you might be saying to yourself “This just sounds like cheating!” While some people might think that and believe that regardless of anything we say, we can assure you it is not.

Cheating is very specifically engaging in another relationship, which could be sexual or emotional, without the knowledge or consent of your committed partner. This is not at all what swinging is about, and every swinger we’ve known is quick to decry this type of behavior.

Swingers will always talk about the importance of communication. Swingers in many ways hold traditional values. Most swingers see themselves as a we instead of an I, and thus their core committed relationship forms the foundation for what they choose to do and not do. Communication takes many forms and lifelong practice but it starts with honesty. Honesty about what you want, what you don’t want, and what your boundaries are.

Ok I’m In How Do I Get Started?

The formula is quite simple, start by talking to your significant other. Sit down and see if they share your interest, or if they want to continue talking about it, just have the conversation. If you are a single, think about what you want out of the lifestyle, find out where you can get that and go crazy.

The most important thing to remember is that the lifestyle means different things to different people. We have to be careful not to gate keep the community by telling people they are or aren’t swingers because of our own views. Swinger is a label we get to apply to ourselves and likewise we get to decide what it means to us.

Once you and your significant other have decided how you want to start seek that experience out! Perhaps you want to flirt and dance a little then go home and enjoy each other, in which case you could start at a bar or even dip your toes into a swinger club. Possibly you want to make porn and show it off on a site like Lustrs where swingers can share how they want. Maybe you want to meet other people and see where things go, you could also start on Lustrs or go all in and just hit up your local swinger club. Just remember you get to define your experience.

So from all the Lustrs staff, lets go out swinging 😉