What things have kept you from swinging the way you'd like?

[JustAskJulie 2,595]

I know life often gets in the way for all of us, whether newbies or not. This question is especially for those who haven't had their first time yet. What do you feel has kept you from doing so?

 

For those who are active already, what things do you feel have kept you from swinging as often as you'd like? (Or if you swing as often as you like, let us know how often that is).

[brbull13 15]

Kids and trying to have a third is the biggest obstacle.

[aklovers 19]

Obviously the biggest thing for us is where we live. Smaller population equals less swingers, no clubs and a lot of people who know eachother.

[cocpl2007 170]

We are looking for something that is very much out of the mainstream.

[Guest Pinmonkey]

The wife mostly. She's the one that wanted to get into it, and I followed (like an obediant begal on the leash. lol) Then we tried to get pregnant, and did. Now we have a 1 year old, and the family is not very dependable as baby sitters (they are never available). And some health problems. So after the one or two experiances we've had, that might be it for us.

[Bama0468 93]

kids! we are looking at their departure to college with mixed feeling on one hand they will be gone, on the other hand ... they will be gone!

[sexcupid 809]

We are looking for something that is very much out of the mainstream.

 

Ok...this has me curious...what precisely are you looking for that is so far out of the mainstream? I did read your profile. Beyond the slightly veiled distain for those you consider less intelligent than yourselves because of their hobbies or interests, you don't seem to be looking for anything more unusual than many other ads I've read. Perhaps I'm missing something?

 

As for my response to the OP...the things that limit us are very similar to the limits that others have mentioned. Primarily what affects us most is Jeff's work schedule. He can pick and choose his days off, but usually takes days off during the week and works the weekends because that's most beneficial to the type of work he does. Most parties are on the weekends, and we like to make the effort to go, we just can't be out as late as we would like all the time.

[good times 991]

For us lately, it is the lack of couples we find attractive that are into the same version of swinging that we are. Even though we have only been actively swinging for about 6 years, it seems like the amount of couples we run into that want to swap with no girl/girl play are becoming much more of a minority than when we started.

[Pensacolapair 394]

Issues, Issues, and, oh yeah..Issues!

Four years ago, we would have answered this question "absolutly nothing!

 

In our opinion, 'issues' are quite different from preferences, which tend to define sexual attraction. What we term as 'issues' are those things that shouldn't have any bearing whatsoever on potential playmates - but do.

 

In Cali when we wanted to play, there was an abundance of fairly issue-free potential playmates... so we played. However, since moving here, the only complaint we have about our new home is that this area is a whole different ball of wax Lifestyle-wise! While we have met some great people here, on the whole the local Lifestyle community has waaay more issues than we care to deal with, and for us that makes for a much less enjoyable scene.

[JustAskJulie 2,595]

cocpl2007 said:

We are looking for something that is very much out of the mainstream.

 

I gotta know what you are looking for.

 

Pensacolapair said:

Issues, Issues, and, oh yeah..Issues!

Four years ago, we would have answered this question "absolutely nothing!

 

In our opinion, 'issues' are quite different from preferences, which tend to define sexual attraction. What we term as 'issues' are those things that shouldn't have any bearing whatsoever on potential playmates - but do.

 

Can you give an example of what you are describing as an "issue"?

[imsherona2 15]

:DFor us, it just seems to be priorities more than anything! We don't have "children" issues, jobs that interfere with the week-end play, etc., it just seems that the interest or desire has waned somewhat and it just isn't as important to us as it used to be. I know that some swingers are so into the lifestyle they are swinging every week-end and throwing in a week night as well, and that's great, but for us, once a month, if that, does it for us. Do we miss the people we have met at the parties? Sure...but we try and keep in touch with them outside of the swing lifestyle as well.

 

We had been away from the lifestyle for almost 7 months after Mike's motorcycle accident, and when we finally went to a private house party, we hardly knew anyone there and felt out of place. Mind you, this was a place where we had been host and hostess, giving tours, etc., but the faces had changed and we really didn't feel attracted to any of those new faces...so we left early!

 

We hope to get back in the "swing" of things once we get moved to Oregon, which hopefully will be sooner rather than later.

[Pensacolapair 394]

Can you give an example of what you are describing as an "issue"?

 

Sure...Where you live, how much you do (or don't) make, how much (or how little) education you have, what kind of car you drive and on and on. We are constantly amazed at how self-concious about many things folks we have met in this part of the country seem to be! Many do a 180 in attitude once they find out you aren't originally from this area. It's a kind of reverse snobbery that strikes us as incredibly silly. We really don't care about most 'issues' of this type because we aren't trying to impress anyone and really hope they don't feel having such things will impress us.

 

We are by no means wealthy, nor are either of us Rhodes Scholars..but we have managed to achieve a comfortable standard of living and squeezed in some additional education along the way. We have some nice stuff because we like it, planned for it, and worked for it. We sometimes seriously get the impression that others would feel better if we apologized for that...which ain't gonna happen!

 

An example: For New Year's Eve, we thought it would be out-of-the-ordinary and fun to have a pool party for several couples and a couple of single women we know. We turned on the pool heater 3 days before the party - only the second time we'd ever turned it on and (as anyone who has a fair sized pool knows) shed a silent tear for what we knew was going to appear in our next electric bill! The night of the party, it was a blast - the weather even cooperated with relatively mild evening temps (or maybe it was the various types of 'anti-freeze' at the bar ). Things didn't break up until after breakfast the next morning! One of our single female friends who stuck around and helped us clean up related a conversation she'd had with 2 of the couples, neither of which we had previously known or played with (some of the couples we did know, and considered cool, asked if they could bring a couple with them, to which we said, "Sure, why not..?") The gist of the conversation was that the purpose of the party was "to show off" and that the reason that we didn't play with them was because we "felt we were better than them"! One of them went on to infer that it was because we don't play with white couples! The fact that there was only one other black person there(the wife of an interracial couple) besides ourselves completly eluded them. Two months later, we met and got to know a couple who told us that we were nothing like so-and-so had said we were..guess who Couple so-and-so was? Yup... one of the speculators at the party!

 

Issues, Issues!

[JustAskJulie 2,595]

Pensacolapair said:

An example: For New Year's Eve, we thought it would be out-of-the-ordinary and fun to have a pool party for several couples and a couple of single women we know. We turned on the pool heater 3 days before the party - only the second time we'd ever turned it on and (as anyone who has a fair sized pool knows) shed a silent tear for what we knew was going to appear in our next electric bill! The night of the party, it was a blast - the weather even cooperated with relatively mild evening temps (or maybe it was the various types of 'anti-freeze' at the bar ). Things didn't break up until after breakfast the next morning! One of our single female friends who stuck around and helped us clean up related a conversation she'd had with 2 of the couples, neither of which we had previously known or played with (some of the couples we did know, and considered cool, asked if they could bring a couple with them, to which we said, "Sure, why not..?") The gist of the conversation was that the purpose of the party was "to show off" and that the reason that we didn't play with them was because we "felt we were better than them"! One of them went on to infer that it was because we don't play with white couples! The fact that there was only one other black person there(the wife of an interracial couple) besides ourselves completely eluded them. Two months later, we met and got to know a couple who told us that we were nothing like so-and-so had said we were..guess who Couple so-and-so was? Yup... one of the speculators at the party!

 

Issues, Issues!

 

Wow. That's sad. It reminds me of Hosts cancelled party because guests were intimidated by wealth

[cocpl2007 170]

“Beyond the slightly veiled distain for those you consider less intelligent than yourselves because of their hobbies or interests, you don't seem to be looking for anything more unusual than many other ads I've read. Perhaps I'm missing something?”

 

Sorry to hear that our profile contains an inference that we consider anyone “less intelligent” than ourselves. Not at all our feeling on the issue. We enjoy all sorts of activities and entertainment. Just because we are not attracted to Boarders, Harleys, NASCAR, TV, bars or clubs does not mean that we believe those that are, are any less intellectually capable that we are. We just would not share the same interests. What is does mean is that a significant number of the mainstream swinger community are looking for something quite different...no better, no worse, just different.

[intuition897 2,179]

Wow. How much time do you have??

 

Mr. intuition and I have been inactive "swingers" for about 5 years now. It's the reason I'm so scarce around the board nowadays. I just can't feel right about giving advice about swinging when we have been out of the loop for so long. If/when we ever get back to playing it will be like starting from scratch again.

 

I've said before that our life is crazy, and we've noticed that it hasn't gotten any better on its own.. lol First it was Mr.'s job when he went back on shifts. He started smoking again, we lost a lot of sleep, hardly saw one another...then I went to full-time work, too. We've got a hefty mortgage, farm equipment payments, two spoiled kids (11 and 13), horses to keep fed, trimmed, vaccinated and fenced, and a BIG chunk of property that needs to be transformed from an overgrown scrub-brush forest to lush hayfields. My God, my to-do list literally never ends. We live 45 minutes from work, so we're all up early, home late, homework, dinner, laundry, housecleaning, plant some fenceposts, hay the horses, riding lessons, make lunches, buy the groceries... I feel like I'm carrying two full-time jobs! The pace our life has been going has just become overwhelming after being dragged along behind it for this long. So the result is that we're just in NO position to swing right now, even if we did have the time. We need to re-organize and re-prioritize our out-of-control life, and until that happens there's just no point in going back. Besides, 5 years of bad eating, no exercise, lots of stress and lack of sleep have caught up with both of us. We've got some SERIOUS work to do before we feel good enough to get out there again.

[Chicup 41]

For us lately, it is the lack of couples we find attractive that are into the same version of swinging that we are. Even though we have only been actively swinging for about 6 years, it seems like the amount of couples we run into that want to swap with no girl/girl play are becoming much more of a minority than when we started.

 

I'm going to have to echo this.

 

I expected to see more couples into, well swapping, to show up as swinging got easier with the internet and the whole lifestlye thing could take hold with my generation.

 

Saddly no such luck. 'Normal' full swap couples seem even harder to find than when we started, about the same time as good times.

[sexcupid 809]

Sorry to hear that our profile contains an inference that we consider anyone “less intelligent” than ourselves. Not at all our feeling on the issue. We enjoy all sorts of activities and entertainment. Just because we are not attracted to Boarders, Harleys, NASCAR, TV, bars or clubs does not mean that we believe those that are, are any less intellectually capable that we are. We just would not share the same interests. What is does mean is that a significant number of the mainstream swinger community are looking for something quite different...no better, no worse, just different.

 

The profile is fairly well written...but for a few things that just struck a wrong chord with me. You could have just listed all the things that you are interested in (which you did in fairly good detail) and left the things you are not interested in off of there.

 

I still don't quite get where what you are looking for diverges so much from what most swingers want/are looking for: a couple with common interests, good conversation, chemistry, and possible friendship.

 

To intuition...wow...I'm not sure with all that you described, how exactly it is that you have time to breathe?

[mosmis84 75]

As a single female, I think safety is my number one issue. I would love to act with more abandon, but I guess I am just a tad too paranoid.

[oddcouple 17]

Concern of our lifestyle becoming public knowledge in our community or among our vanilla friends.

 

Here something really interesting though. We have a sneaking hunch that my husband's best friend and wife are swingers. I wonder if they think that about us? Actually kind of funny. We decided to sit back and watch to see if we could figure it out. After a while, we thought maybe they are doing the same think to!

[LFM2 1,482]

I know life often gets in the way for all of us, whether newbies or not. This question is especially for those who haven't had their first time yet. What do you feel has kept you from doing so?

 

For those who are active already, what things do you feel have kept you from swinging as often as you'd like? (Or if you swing as often as you like, let us know how often that is).

 

Time. Dave sometimes works seven days a week and at times is gone for weeks. With me, (for the past several years) it's been school. I wish we had more time to date and find new people.

 

Money is also an issue, sometimes. I wish we had more! (I'm thinking of buying that money tree on the SB Tourney game!!)

[Couple-N-NM 48]

Jobs, kids and location keep us from playing as much as we'd like to! We live WAY out in the country and have to travel 2 hours to a house party or club party because locals won't meet each other for fear of being outed.

 

Maybe one of these days life will slow up a bit and we can devote more time and energy to this most enjoyable hobby!

[JustAskJulie 2,595]

“Beyond the slightly veiled distain for those you consider less intelligent than yourselves because of their hobbies or interests, you don't seem to be looking for anything more unusual than many other ads I've read. Perhaps I'm missing something?”

 

Sorry to hear that our profile contains an inference that we consider anyone “less intelligent” than ourselves. Not at all our feeling on the issue. We enjoy all sorts of activities and entertainment. Just because we are not attracted to Boarders, Harleys, NASCAR, TV, bars or clubs does not mean that we believe those that are, are any less intellectually capable that we are. We just would not share the same interests. What is does mean is that a significant number of the mainstream swinger community are looking for something quite different...no better, no worse, just different.

 

I didn't really take your profile that way, I thought you did a good job of stating what you are and are not into. The one thing I might suggest (and this comes as much from what you've posted here as what's in your profile) is that just because people do have some interests you don't have doesn't mean you won't have anything to talk about. We share many of your interests, but we also enjoy tv and some of the other things that you mentioned not caring for (but none of those are our primary interests). So don't be so quick to judge just because someone has interests you don't share.

[Guest MrsVan]

The things holding us back from being as active as we would like to be is our children and my health issues. Our children are very active in sports and with one graduating, another starting to work and then sports it is hard for us to be so active in the LS because we are always running them everywhere.

 

On top of that I have been struggling with my thyroid issues and after a year of being diagnosed with a thyroid problem and trying to get my thyroid zoned in right, I just cannot seem to get back to the way I use to be (but that would be another thread).

 

Before my health issues we were going out every other weekend whether it was at a club or with friends. And now it just seems like things have slowed down for us but hopefully it will pick up soon.

[cocpl2007 170]

Thank you for the input Julie, we'll adjust our profile to eliminate the negatives.

[intuition897 2,179]

To intuition...wow...I'm not sure with all that you described, how exactly it is that you have time to breathe?

 

LOL.. we try to remember every now and then...which reminds me, I should go dig out my workout gear and see if I can't talk myself into going to a yoga class tomorrow at lunch.

[celtic239 297]

Weekend job schedules and the kids coming home from college for the summer.

[des1re06 200]

This is a two part answer (his and hers):

 

His:

 

Must be attracted to her mind (1) and physical (2) being

Shyness - very hard to determine if someone is interested, and too shy to be the aggressor

Must be in the mood to swing, instead of having sex with just Mrs. D

 

Hers:

 

Having to go out of town due to fear of job repercussions

Finding funny, attractive men who aren't drunk

[arvcpl 16]

Wow, I just put up a thread thread that addresses this for us, I guess I should have looked through the other threads a little more. Anyway, our biggest issue is we are a she's hot he's not couple. She is straight and very good looking and I am a nice and fit guy but not a strikingly handsome guy at all. As we do not play separate and don't have much interest in singles we have a very hard time finding couples that we click with.

 

There are a lot of women that I am interested in and they seem to like me but my wife takes one look at their men and says no way. Then once she finds a guy that she likes he usually has a total traffic stopper for a wife who looks at me and says no way. We need to start looking for he's hot she's not couples I guess.

[JandCMI 15]

For us it is absolutely nothing to do with lack of desire or some other real life roadblock. We aren't very outgoing in club situations so we rely on the ad sites which, as most of you probably know, is about as unreliable as it gets. We don't play nearly a fraction as often as we'd like.

[The Fuse 1,012]

Mostly we are very happy with the ways we've been able to swing. But regarding the way we'd like to swing, it is just very difficult to find because we are trying to get all the stars to align. We prefer to have ongoing playmate situations with couples that we can see once every few weeks. We would love to have two or three of those at once. It's just difficult to do. Even one ongoing thing is hard.

 

First, we have to find a couple with whom we have a four-way attraction and sexual compatibility, which is tough enough. Then, they have to have enough time in their schedules and enough flexibility that finding a time to have a date isn't like scheduling a summit. Not to mention, this other couple has to actually want to get together on a continuing basis like we do. Then, the playmate and friendly aspects of our relationship have to be sustainable. Usually, we discover roadblocks within several dates, or one of the four people loses interest.

 

Yep... what we like is pretty rare, though we have achieved it a few times. That's why we're happy to find people we like and are attracted to, take the good chances when they come, and have a great time in that framework.

[JandY 61]

The usual.

 

Kids, working hours etc.

 

Plus distance between us and our partners (we only swing with one other couple who live a good 3 hours or so away).

 

We would like to try and experiment with more people but we live in a VERY small community where everyone knows everyone.

 

The male member of our partners would also like to broaden our partnership numbers - even if only experimentally, we used to suggest clubbing, party attendance or a lifestyle holiday for the four of us so that we didn't feel pressured to join in with others, but so that the option would at least be there, but his lady won't hear of it. She has found what she wants, from her perspective - which is him full-time and us on ocassion (in point of fact, she has suggested we consider all moving in together, more than once, as a pair of poly couples). She can get quite posessive and even gets annoyed when any of us even mentions an old ex-boy/girlfriend, in passing!

 

She is attractive and sexually adventurous and knows how to both have and give a fantastic time as well as being a lot of fun on a social level, but she can also bring the whole party down if we discuss anything in relationship to the lifestyle that is not exclusively centred on we four's place within it.

 

There is every chance that she would blow a fuse if our half of the foursome ever played with others and she found out.

 

We all love her to bits, but get frustrated that she's sort of placed herself "in charge" of not just her husband, but also seems to feel that her feelings and wishes must be part and parcel of any decisions that my lady and I might wish to make regarding our own lifestyle choices.

 

A bit like she has two boyfriends and one girlfriend.

 

People are strange, sometimes.

[NCfuncouple98 367]

Kids. Work schedules and community commitments (Mrs NC volunteers a bit too much, and when all of the above overlaps, there is no time for anything)

 

Money can play a factor at times, it's not a cheap "hobby" (using this term lightly), and we are working very hard to pay off debt to live a little more freely. So right now we skip paying club fees to continue getting credit cards and other stupid debts paid off. Now a year from now when they are all gone? Won't be an issue at all, that is one of our personal goals.

 

We're also still a bit shy when we do venture out to the club, so I'm sure that holds us back. But, the more we go, the more we meet, the easier it's becoming to move past shyness and fears of rejection.

 

So I wouldn't say any of this is necessarily keeping us from swinging the way we want, it's just a work in progress.

[CXXC 435]

For us it is a simple matter of HORRIBLE Scheduling conflicts. This however will be resolved in 3 years, 2 months and 10 days.

 

The other issue that keeps us from getting together with other couples is that when our potential playmates are free to join us, our FRIEND AND FAMILY decide to visit us in this tourist trap called Savannah! ACK! When we lived in Raleigh NC, they would make a yearly visit at best. Why did we move to Savannah! SIGH!

 

We do enjoy solo play more frequently than we are capable of our desired couple/couple engagments.

 

We also have to mirror Ms. Fuse's statments that we are also in a difficult position of finding couples with like interests and desires with whom we would TRULY enjoy weekly or monthly gatherings and activities.

 

We found two couples in our area that fit the bill, mirrored our desires and were just as happy with us as we were with them. Unfortunately they have both moved from the area. Like they say, friends come and go, enimies accumulate! SIGH!