The Ins And Outs of the Swinging Lifestyle: An In-Depth How-To Guide

By Kat X

This is an essential guide for anyone, singles or couples, who are interested in becoming involved in the swinging lifestyle.

From making the initial decision about whether or not it's for you, to what to do to start and what to look out for, as well as how to host a party of your own, it's all here.

The author's been involved in the lifestyle for over seven years and has interviewed many couples and singles who've been active for much longer.

Unlike some of the books now available about this subject "The Ins And Outs of the Swinging Lifestyle" addresses the real problems and disappointments that those entering the lifestyle with too many fantasies and too little knowledge can experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Creative Cortex
• Release date: Mar 31, 2011
• ISBN: 9781497719286

Kat X

Kat was born in Long Beach, California… awhile ago. She was always interested in sex even as a child. She masturbated at an early age but didn’t know what it was back then. She just knew it felt good. As she grew older she realized that she was different from her girl friends and their puritan attitudes about anything sexual. At age seventeen she met her first lover and continued to have sex with him for the next four years with a small interlude with another man in that time. In that era she was considered to be “sluttish” because she was having sex before marriage. She married at the age of twenty-one and stayed in a long unhappy marriage for the next thirty some odd years because she’d been raised to “tough it out” During her marriage she tried everything to get her husband interested in sex. When her husband brought porn into the house his reaction to her wanting to view it was shock. His attitude was a woman’s place was in the kitchen and bedroom but not to have a mind and desires of her own. He called her oversexed. She, on the other hand, considered him under sexed. She attempted to inflame his interest with a candle lit bedroom, pretty lingerie, and by broaching different “kinky” sex, and sex outdoors. Nothing worked. Ultimately it wasn’t the lack of sex that caused their breakup. She finally got fed up with his controlling manner. She then had a short affair with a man she knew and learned then that she was sought after by men who appreciated the kind of woman she is, open and honest and horny as hell. After the short affair dissolved she advertised online on a non-sexual site for a partner of some sort and that is where she met her present partner a little over seven years ago. He was open to swinging and a different lifestyle than she had ever experienced and it was with his help that she got to live out some of her fantasy’s and still is to this day.

Book preview

Introduction: How a Nice Girl Like Me Came to Write a Book Like This

I was raised in a family of four with two parents who both worked and an older sister. We belonged to a church; I was baptized into that faith. My parents were in what was called upper middle class in those days.  They didn’t tell us much about sex. My sister remembers some things she was told; I remember nothing.

I do remember masturbating at an early age but since sex wasn’t openly talked about in those days I thought what I was doing was bad and needed to be kept secret. I remember spending a lot of time hidden away touching myself.

At age seventeen I started having sex with an older man and continued with that same man for three years.  In those three years I also had sex with two other men. What I was doing was considered bad. When my mother found out she took me into the bathroom and gave me a douche.  Told me I was bad and that I shouldn’t ever do that again but by then I knew I liked it well enough to go against her warnings. I later found out she had done exactly the same thing.

I started in the swinging lifestyle a few years ago when I met my present partner. He’d been in and out of the lifestyle for many years, mostly out because his partners weren’t interested. He contacted me through the Internet on a non-lifestyle site and things progressed from there. So, yes, Internet love can happen. We’re still together and very happy.

While I was married I thought about having sex with other people all the time. I looked at other men and wondered what they would be like in bed. I was definitely missing something in my marriage. Sex! I was married to a man who didn’t care for sex. In the beginning of our marriage sex happened once a week but as the years went by that became once a month or less. I was expecting a marriage where we’d grow old together, where there would be mutual love and understanding with cuddling, hand holding, and passion. What I got wasn’t anywhere near that and I grew to crave it more and more as time went on

Yes, I complained. And he said I was oversexed. Now I know I’m normal but back then I thought it might be true. I tried everything; candle lit dinners, sex toys, and porn. I brought up things I wanted to try and tried to entice him. It got me nowhere.

Why didn’t I leave him?  I wasn’t mature, or wise, enough. I thought that if I continued to be the wife he wanted things would change. . I was also raised to remain married no matter what. The old voices in my head said that if I quit I’d be a failure. But finally I just couldn’t deal with him and his needs (non sexual) anymore.

I’m very open-minded. I’ve always been inquisitive, wanting to learn more about sex and most things dealing with sex. My friends didn’t want anything to do with the kind of sex I was talking about. One of my girl friends still to this day considers anything other than normal (missionary) sex to be kinky and shouldn’t be done. She no longer talks to me because I went beyond her comfort zone. I got some tattoos and she couldn’t even handle those.

I always wanted to try sex with another woman and I wanted to experience being whipped and tied and blindfolded, I also wanted to check out other forms of sex. I never had the nerve to give it a try until my present partner entered my life.

When we met he was more than ready to get back into the lifestyle and as time went on, and we got to know each other, we decided to start looking for couples in the area to be friends with and maybe enjoy some sex with, so we put profiles up on some adult sites.

We didn’t meet any couples right off but we did join a swingers group that met at a private home. We played with that group until the woman hosting the parties decided to move out of the area.

One of the couples we had met at those parties told us about another group so we contacted them, wrote back and forth, did a phone greet and meet, and then were invited to the parties.

It was through these parties that I gained most of the experience I’m putting into this book.

What is swinging?

I define swinging as sex as an accepted social activity. Some people get together to discuss stamp collecting or gardening. Other people get naked together under the banner of nudism or naturism. I take that a step further and get together with other people to engage in sensual touching and sexual play.

It’s easy to think, given many of the prevalent views about sex in our society, that swinging is something new. It’s not. Sex has played a part in the social life of humankind since the beginning. From ancient fertility rites to church sanctioned festive blowouts to Christmas parties gone astray sex has always played a part in weaving the social fabric.

The biggest difference between the current swinging scene and the socially accepted sexuality of the past is the Internet. It’s now quite easy to find, interact with, and physically meet people with similar desires.

Using my definition it’s easy to see that swinging can cover a lot of territory.

What is now commonly referred to as the swinging lifestyle began sometime in the late 40’s and early 50’s; in the male-oriented media accounts of the time they were known as key or wife swapping parties. Key referring to car keys; the idea was that the men would throw their keys in a hat and then the women would select a key and go home with the owner.

In the 1960s the birth control pill was introduced and for the first time in human history women could engage in recreational sexual activity without being haunted by the fear of pregnancy. The pill was an obvious boon for the swinging lifestyle.

An underground network developed which used newsletters to keep those on the mailing list informed about upcoming events and the special interests of others. Slowly some of these newsletters evolved into full fledged magazines that were sold through adult bookstores and newsstands that sold men’s magazines.

Generally the ads in these magazines were coded. Those wishing to contact an advertiser would write a letter, put it in an envelope, write the code number on the front of the envelope, and then send it, along with any other letters they’d written, along with the requested fee, to the magazine. The staff of the magazine would then forward the letters to the advertiser who would determine which of the responses they liked. This was done by regular mail (although respondents often put their phone number in their letter) so it could take weeks or even months for contact to be made.

Some of the magazines started to publish direct contact information. Often people would obtain post office boxes, sometimes in another town, in order to maintain their privacy.

Another phenomenon that began around this time was that of socials or parties that gave prospective, and active, swingers a chance to meet face to face. There was no overt sexual activity at the parties apart from some mild exhibitionism and voyeurism. The understanding was that all those interested in swinging would make plans to meet elsewhere.

House parties involving on-premise sexual activity also began to appear along with on-premise clubs such as the infamous Plato’s Retreat in New York.

As HIV/AIDS filtered into public consciousness there was a cooling effect on all group sex activities. Condoms, for those who continued, became an absolute necessity.

Beginning in the 90’s the Internet radically changed the ways that swingers contacted and communicated with each other. Instead of waiting days or weeks for ads to be published, responses to arrive, and meetings to be arranged it was now possible to place a profile online in the morning, receive responses before noon, enjoy a session of mutual masturbation via webcam in the afternoon, and then meet with someone before dinner.

The methods of communication may have changed but the intent, as always, was to make sex a part of social interactions.

***Is Swinging For You?***

This is an important question that only you can answer. But it’s often difficult to find enough concrete facts about the lifestyle to make a rational determination. The media, because their primary purpose is to exploit a titillating idea, or uphold what they see as the conventional morality, focuses on what makes swingers different from their neighbors. On the other hand many books and articles by swinging enthusiasts accentuate the positive without revealing the very real problems and pitfalls of the swinging lifestyle.

We are going to try to provide a balanced view.

Swinging isn’t for everyone. Some will not find the concept in the least bit