‘My best and worst experiences of being a swinger’

From a “picture perfect” marriage to swinging with a new partner, this is what Ben learnt about life on the spicy side.

Ten years ago, I was in a monogamous marriage with my high school sweetheart. On paper everything was “picture perfect” – we owned our dream house, we were planning a family and mostly, we were happy.

Mostly.

Five years ago, I was divorced.

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While it was due to a whole range of factors, one significant reason was that we had both become different people with different desires. For me, one of these differences was how I viewed intimacy and what I needed from it.

I realised that monogamy wasn’t for me anymore. I had sexual and emotional needs that couldn’t be met this way. I wanted relationships that weren’t bound by labels and restrictions, so I became more open to experimenting with a range of other relationship types – as I tried to find out if there was one that fit me.

Along the way, with a new partner who I was in an open relationship with, we experimented with a ‘unicorn’ (a person who joins a couple for a threesome) and then decided to try swinging for the first time together.

Swinging has many stereotypes associated with it, keys in a bowl at a suburban party, or seedy dalliances at motel rooms. None of these are how I’ve experienced it.

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Seeing my partner with another man and woman, while I was with them too just awoke a new realm of passion and desire in me and if anything, it made me love my partner even more.

I have been swinging regularly with various other partners ever since.

I’ve attended multiple parties where my partner and I have swapped with more than one couple in a night. Knowing we are all there for the same reason and that we can choose from whoever is consenting, generates a certain type of desire that can’t really be created in any other way. There is just a sexual energy that is palpable and alive.

Through my experience swinging I have also learnt a lot about myself and others sexual needs. I have seen bodies of all shapes, sizes, all beautiful and unique, with pleasures varying from sensual touching to rough play.

I see sex as a journey, not a destination. I explore, I take my time and find pleasure in the detail, of really feeling each moment. I’d never done this before and doing this with more than one person at a time, with another couple is so intimate.

But there have also been experiences that haven’t turned out as positively.

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One, in particular, was a long-term married couple that had only ever been with each other. While the husband was very keen to swing, it was obvious his wife wasn’t, and was only doing it because her husband wanted her to.

She began to cry when I went to kiss her, so we ended up talking in another room while her husband had sex with my partner. We have never seen or heard from them again, but I often reflect on the night and it taught me a lot.

Firstly, I realised why swinging isn’t for everyone.

I know many people think of it as a fantasy, but I think it isn’t always one that should be acted upon because it isn’t always going to work out well, or at least how they imagined for them or their partner.

Most importantly though, it showed how important it is to communicate. Even more than a need for sexual pleasure or intimacy, communicating clearly is so important, without it swinging just doesn’t work, no matter how much you may want it to.