The end of an era: Our favourite magazine has stopped publication

[SW_PA_Couple 4,023]

We received a letter this week. It started, "Dear Friends, After 30 years of publishing the finest line of personal contact magazines for people in the lifestyle community, the combination of social, cultural, and technological changes that have occurred over the years have inevitably taken a toll on the magazine publishing business. We regret to inform you that Connection Magazines will soon be ceasing publication of our five magazines." And it was signed by Patti Thomas.

 

For those of you who remember, Ohio Connection, Pennsylvania Connection, National Connection, Midwest Connection and Cocoa 'n Crème were "the" way of hooking up with swingers before swingers' Web sites came along. For those of you who have never seen one of these magazines, imagine answering a personal advertisement by writing a letter, sealing it in an envelope, writing the number of the advertisement on the envelope, putting it in a bigger envelope, sending it to a post-office box address in Cleveland, then waiting, waiting, waiting. Seems improbable that anyone ever met anybody. It took lots of patience and perseverance. But sometimes it actually did happen. Maybe, for all the work it took, people were all that much more appreciative when it did.

[flkeyscouple 21]

WOW... we used to get the magazine regularly. It was sold in the adult book stores, and believe it or not we drove about 100 miles to a store in another town to buy the Connections mag. We could go into our local store to buy a Playboy or a Penthouse - but NOT the Connections mag!!

 

We actually picked one up last summer when we were 'back home' just for giggles. It brought back a lot of memories, but it also made us wonder how they survived with the internet as their competition.

 

The end of an era, for sure!

[Greg & Sheryl 368]

It's a shame to see those publications go, but it was probably inevitable. The Odyssey Group magazines, which were responsible for the two of us meeting nearly 15 years ago, ceased publication in late 2002. It's a credit to Patti that she was able to keep then Connection magazines running for so much longer.

 

As convenient as it is to contact other swingers through the internet, part of us misses the good ol' days of the swinger magazines. It was so much fun to come home from work and find our mailbox filled with letters and photos from swingers all over the country.

 

Furthermore, because of the time and labor involved in communicating that way, the people you met through the magazines were generally very serious about the lifestyle. Nowadays, thanks to the internet, the lifestyle tends to draw a lot of game-players and tire-kickers.

[SW_PA_Couple 4,023]

It brought back a lot of memories, but it also made us wonder how they survived with the internet as their competition.

 

Yes, Sarah, it bought back fond memories for us too.

 

A follow-up on this. The letter we got from Patti Thomas referred to ConnectionOnline. Do any of you esteemed members of this bulletin board have any experience with this Web site?

[SuAndBud 21]

Just type connectiononline in google and the first site that's listed appears to be it (would have put the URL link here, but not sure if that's allowed).

 

Only seems to cover North America though. Shame as the internet now makes the whole world your backyard.