Been there. Done that. Had a good time.

[50sLady]

We are in our late 50s and married for many years.
Hubby suggested swinging 5 years ago,
I said, “OK, let’s give it a try.”

It has been a fun, hot, sexy, educational, and life changing experience.
We really lived the lifestyle.
We did lifestyle activities most weekends for those 5 years.

Early this year, our swinging lifestyle came to a crashing halt when I found the painful herpes sores on my labia.

Hubby has been great as I knew he would. His words to me were…….That is it. We are done swinging. Don’t worry about it. We will be fine. He made a special point to thank me for giving him the chance to live out his fantasies.

Did we do everything we could to avoid an STD? No, we did not. We made choices that gave us what we wanted from swinging. We knew there were risks, but like most people, we hoped the odds would be in our favor.

Life goes on. I have had no more outbreaks. Fingers are crossed that my immune system keeps the virus dormant.

I must be honest and say that we really miss swinging. We still think like swingers. Swingers do see the world differently, and we still like the view.
Now we go out to dinner every Saturday night, because that was our main swinging night. It is much to depressing to stay home on a Saturday night for us.

I have been reading this board for all of the 5 years we were swinging but under a different name. I thought I would not want to read here anymore, but I find I can’t stay away.

Once a swinger, always a swinger is true. I can’t think any other way even now.

I hope all of you successfully avoid STDs in the lifestyle.

[JustAskJulie]

Wow. Thanks for sharing your story. It's so rare to see someone step forward and be honest about these things. And Welcome Back (I guess) to the board.

[tribbles]

Welcome back!

Why not just not play with others but still go to parties and be together? I'm sure it's what we would do cuz we like the atomsphere and the people.

[50sLady]

Thanks, Julie, for the welcome, although I never really left. I read the board everyday. I have wanted to post my story for some time now, but I did not want to use our couple name. Our couple name is on Swing Lifestyle and Swapper, and after 5 years of active swinging, many people know us by that name. This is a public forum, and Google is a powerful search engine.

Hoping to stay anonymous,
50s Lady

[50sLady]

Thank you Tribbles for your welcome back too. We were a full swap couple for all our swinging adventure, so going to clubs and parties and not being able to play with others would not be fun at all for us. Our reason to swing was to have recreational sex with others.

Trying to avoid a "look but don't touch" situation,
50s Lady

[JustAskJulie]

Originally Posted by 50sLady

Thank you Tribbles for your welcome back too. We were a full swap couple for all our swinging adventure, so going to clubs and parties and not being able to play with others would not be fun at all for us. Our reason to swing was to have recreational sex with others.

Trying to avoid a "look but don't touch" situation,
50s Lady

I'm sure that there are others out there with Herpes, I believe there are even a few groups dedicated to just those swingers with Herpes, so you could always continue to swing and just be open about it. I think this is a case where I probably wouldn't post pics in the profile but would post a new profile that is honest about the situation and seeking others who are ok with that.

[toomuchfun]

Sounds like we share a story...

My wife and I are 24, we started swinging in September of last year. We took it very slowly to begin with, but as she started liking it more and more we got more and more involved in the life style.

Rarely in the past months has there been a weekend where we didn't go out and meet with other like minded folks. I really agree with your statement

Swingers do see the world differently, and we still like the view.

My wife and I do as well.

We still aren't sure how we are going to fully handle the situation. We've already got it, there is no taking it back... it's a life time deal. I'm 24 years old, been healthy all my life and now I get to take a giant blue horse pill every day for the rest of my life. That's a long god-damn time.

I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm upset, and I know my wife is the same way. We took the precautions we thought necessary, we didn't pick people up at the bars, we played with people who we felt comfortable with and who we thought were also safe and sane. We certainly didn't play with anyone exhibiting symptoms, and condoms were always used for intercourse.

Now we have these horrible calls to make to everyone we've been intimate with in the last month. "Hello, some shithead gave us herpes, hopefully A) your not the shithead and B) we didn't give it to you" and hope that everyone in our new found group of friends doesn't hate us and egg our house.

We briefly entertained the idea of not telling anyone, taking our daily valtrex and always requiring a condom... but we just can't do that, yes it would make life easier but god I would feel like such a jackass if anyone of my friends were to become infected from me.

We just saw the doctor this morning so I can't say for sure how all my emotions are going to play out... it's a roller-coaster that's for sure.

The Doc didn't seem to think it matters that much, said 75% of the world has it, now you are just part of that 75%. I know he was trying to make me feel better... and possibly if I wasn't a swinger that would work. But being a swinger, and being as involved in the local community as we have been this puts a serious damper on how we conduct ourselves, and how people are going to react to us even being at the gettogethers. We're extremely concerned with being shunned, and I can't say that we don't deserve it I guess.... but what we definitely don't deserve is people finding out and thinking "those stupid kids" we're not stupid, we're taking the same risks as everyone else in the community.

We are waiting 2 weeks to find out from the swab test if this is HSV1 or HSV2, but I don't even know if that makes a difference really...

Thanks for posting... it's good to know there are other swingers out there that are going through the same shit we are.

[tribbles]

We've already got it, there is no taking it back... it's a life time deal. I'm 24 years old, been healthy all my life and now I get to take a giant blue horse pill every day for the rest of my life. That's a long god-damn time.

It's not for life. (I mean the pills...)

We're extremely concerned with being shunned, and I can't say that we don't deserve it I guess

BULLSH!T. You DO NOT deserve it. Be open about it and shun the stupid people who are too dumb to still be friends....all friends don't have to be people you have sex with. Even in the lifestyle.


And yeah HSV1 vs HSV 2 is different.

Here is a GREAT place to learn about it.

http://www.yoshi2me.com/phpbb/index.php

[50sLady]

Oh, toomuchfun, do I ever know how you feel. It was really good to see your post, although I know we all wish we did not have this in common.

It is amazing to find that the medical community is really not all that concerned about herpes. It's not life threatening. It really is an annoying skin virus that unfortunately will never leave you.

There is daily suppressive medicine to help control the outbreaks, which is the painful and inconvenient part of it all. When you do not have an outbreak, you almost forget you have it. If you are married, you both are exposed and come to terms with it. Life goes on. If you have genital herpes, no one else even knows about it.

The medicine also helps to reduce the asymptomatic shedding, which is the most difficult part of managing herpes. You can have no symptoms and no pain or sores, but you can be contagious. The problem is that you never know when that is. It could be every day or once a week or one day a month or never. Asymptomatic shedding is the way herpes is spread most of the time. People can think their play partners are clean and their skin is clear but they could infect you anyway.

As you have experienced, herpes is much more than just a skin virus when you are a swinger. You have to tell the ones you played with recently. Depending upon who you played with and when, you can guess who might have given it to you, but you really will never know. You can only tell them that you may have exposed them to it. It was not easy, as you well know.

Thank YOU for posting. I am glad to know I am not the only "H" former Swinger reading this board.

50s Lady

[toomuchfun]

What I want to know is if the person that gave it to us knew... which of course is something I'll never know.

I bet there are lots of swingers out there that play and don't tell. Your very right, for most folks this is just a mild skin rash, it's a secret, you deal with it.

For swingers you might as well paint a big sign on your back that says "IM CONTAGIOUS" and then stay off in your quarantined corner cause none of the other kids are gonna play with you.

[50sLady]

It is like having chicken pox for the rest of your life. The sores heal, your skin is clear once again, but you are never let back in school because you may be contagious some day next month or next year.

Not only are the kids not going to play with you, they will not even touch you.

Maybe us H swingers should start wearing an H somewhere visible on our person. If any one asks about the H earrings or H pin or H bracelet, we can just say our name is Helen or Henry.

50s Lady

[JustAskJulie]

I was just looking at some old threads on this topic, and found a link to a Herpes Swingers Yahoo group. I took a look at it and it's still quite active...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Herpes_Swingers/

There were also links from the groups links page to several localized Herpes Swinger communities.

[toomuchfun]

Thanks there is a lot of really nice people here. Tribbles, Julie, you rock!

50slady thanks for being the brave one to start the topic.

We went out with our friends tonight, a group we have just started to get to know, and who we really like. We played pool, and flirted like normal... but all the while knowing that we will likely never get to fulfill all those innuendos and flirts and kisses.

I don't know if we can handle being swingers that don't play... they are all great friends, and fun to hang out with, but there is more, and we can't be part of that more any longer.

I'd be lying if I said it wasn't tempting to wait for the breakout to go away and just keep on like nothing ever happend, and I know that's not right... so I think it might just be easier to delete our AFF profile, change our cell #, and kind of disappear.

Oh and on top of all the social stress, jesus this shit hurts.

[50sLady]

Julie,
Thanks for the yahoo link. I am not familiar with yahoo groups, so I had to create a profile and sigh up for the group. Now I have to wait to be accepted.

A very appreciative 50s Lady

[50sLady]

I know it hurts, toomuchfun, and unfortunately you probably have a couple weeks of it to endure.

I was wondering how last night went. It sounds like you feel as we do. It is just too hard to go to swinger events when you know that no one would play with you.

Check out the link in Julie's post.

Wish you were not so darn far away.

Keep in touch, please.

50s Lady