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This is from my own personal journal. I have been trying for a long time to try and get my thoughts about poly and swinging together but it's really still a jumbled mess. But I was really inspired to write about it from something I read today. I apologize ahead of time if any of this offends anyone. That wasn't my intent. It's just my own opinion and view about how these two intertwine in the LS community and our inner human nature. So, without further ado.... This has been on my mind for about a year and a half but I didn't quite know how to put it into words nor did I feel that I knew enough about the subject to write about. I still don't have that experience but I read something that got me thinking about it again so I figured I'd try to write about it...or at least get my ideas out. Swinging and Poly. It's like a big Venn diagram. Two circles that intersect in the middle. On one side is swinging and on the other side is poly. Some people who swing aren't poly. Some people who are poly don't swing (also, I guess that can be debatable about whether poly is a small subset of swinging). And some people are poly and swing. From what I've read on the forum, most swingers are NSA swingers. Some might venture to making swinger friends and play within a certain group. But if you mention poly, love, feelings...there seems to be an all out fear, rejection, distaste of even considering that kind of thing in the LS. And on the side of poly, I haven't really talked to, read the poly forums, but it sounds like something similar can also be said about them as well, in regards to swinging. They are more than willing to love and have feelings for multiple people but if you bring up the idea of NSA sex, they can also have the reaction of disgust and revilement. From my point of view...I don't get the fear and disgust. NSA sex is fun and different from time to time. I haven't really met one person yet who has "wowed" me on the first NSA swapping that we've done. So, if we happen to have the free time to go out a lot and get the lucky draw of the straw and swap a lot in the span of a few weeks, it's fun but it does get a little tiresome because it's not emotionally fulfilling. It's just different. However, I have had the pleasure of having sex with someone else other than Mr. Sun that I had feelings for and it was more than just fun. I wouldn't say it was fulfilling but it was a lot more enjoyable emotionally. But in terms of love and feelings, that's what I'm not sure I understand the "fear" I get from the forum. For me, swinging meant overcoming my jealous-insecurity-possessiveness of Mr. Sun. I was afraid of losing him. I was afraid that if I "shared" him, that he would be whisked away. I was afraid that he wouldn't find me attractive anymore. I felt that he was mine. But this is counter-intuitive to our society of individualism. We don't own anyone. We choose to be with someone. It wasn't until I read someone say on the forum, "If they leave you, then why would you want to keep them? Why would you want to keep someone around that no longer wants you?" From that time on, I have tried to remember that. I want Mr. Sun to want to be with me because he wants to...not because he feels that he should. If he finds something better or is more happier, then why wouldn't I want him to go for that if I still loved him? If I keep him from that happiness, then he would feel resentment and anger and that doesn't help anyone or the relationship. If he found a new love but still loved me and wanted to maintain both, why would I want to keep him from bestowing more love onto another human being and receiving more love as well? There's this argument about how people "fall in love" with someone else because something else is missing in their first relationship and they need to fix that first. While I can understand the concern (perhaps the first relationship does need more help in communication/whatever) what if it truly is a case of "something missing" that the spouse can't provide? Maybe one spouse has a certain interest that the other doesn't care for. Maybe both have very different sexual capabilities and desires. If the husband likes football games but the wife couldn't care less about them, maybe he would be missing that part of having someone else be truly interested in football games. Maybe the husband likes anal play but the wife doesn't engage in it, after trying it for years she's still not interested, maybe that part is something that is missing. People like to use the food analogy with non-monogamy. You have your favorite dish (maybe it's lasagna). You love it so much you have it every night. Well...eventually, you do get a bit tired of it. It's still good and yummy but your taste palate wants to try something different every so often. So, maybe one night you'll have meat loaf or another night it's salmon on a cedar plank. But you go back to lasagna. That's like swinging, right? Well, you also can't get all of your nutrients from lasagna alone. Maybe lasagna paired with salad will be more of a balanced meal. So then now your body's needs is more complete with lasagna and salad every night. That's like poly. One person can't fulfill all of your physical, emotional, and sexual needs. With all of that said, I do believe that it's easy to fall in love. Staying in love is the hard part and takes work. And I understand that poly takes a lot of work between everyone involved, even if the two other spouses don't have feelings for each other (I believe this poly situation is a hinge). I guess I just don't understand the general fear of having feelings, love, and poly on the forum. In my mind, swingers are open enough with each other so share this "intimate" act with others. Yet, some aren't able or willing to open up more and share their hearts as well.

We both have hall passes and we both use them regularly. When we started, a whole year ago we frankly didn't know enough about what would be a good rule or not so we basically just dove in head first and then started to make up rules as we figured out what we liked and what we didn't like. (I cant say I recommend this method for starting out.) Mrs D had a hall pass very early on during a week I was a away on business.... the result was my being very insecure about the whole thing. So we made up a rule about no hall passes. I wrote a post or two about my feelings on hall passes; sometimes I go back and read those posts and get a smile on my face about my current feelings vs what I was feeling six months ago. I think, looking back, that I was in the same boat as the OP... although I wasn't really very honest with what I was feeling, which basically amounted to my being jealous. I'm not dismissing what I felt, the whole situation made me very uncomfortable. Jealousy is very real and it isn't necessarily juvenile. Facing it requires that one finds out what the cause is which isn't very easy as our egos tend to misidentify what it is we are really feeling jealous about. It was difficult to put my finger on what it was that I didn't like, but in the end what I was jealous of was the amount of attention she was getting vs I. It wasn't so much that she had more opportunity it was more that those who expressed a desire for her seemed to be more interested in her than were the women who expressed an interest in me. Maybe a better way of putting it is that her opportunities seemed more sincere in their interest than mine were. It got to the point where I wasn't all that interested in swinging at all and my anti-hall pass radar was lit up like a Christmas tree. What changed my outlook was three really good swing experiences where the women were completely into me... overnight it seemed my whole attitude changed. It wasn't that I had an opportunity to use a hall pass with any of these three women, it was that suddenly I was feeling like I was playing a part in the lifestyle. It also became very clear to me that I had been misreading the other men's interest in Mrs D! It was as if I couldn't understand the nature of the chemistry between my wife and the other men until I had experienced similar chemistry. As Mrs D and I talked about it we decided it was time to try giving her a hall pass again to use with a single guy we had met at a party. The result was incredible! It didn't bother me at all and it turned out that her being chased was kind of a turn on for me! Another time she was able to play with a man whose wife I absolutely have no interest in. (she is very good looking, but just no sparks between us ) Problem of 4-way chemistry solved! Over the last couple of months I have had the opportunity to use a hall pass with a close FWB. The whole experience has been very positive. I don't want to sound like I am saying to everybody to go use a hall pass. I can certainly understand and identify with those who choose not to use them. Neither my wife or I like to talk much about what happened during the hall pass. It isn't that we are jealous its that seeing someone separately is very personal. We both have found that its a kind of alone time that is nice to keep for ourselves. Compare that to when we swing as a couple and we like to go over the whole evening in detail saying what we each liked and disliked and what we learned from our partners. There is a very different feeling to swinging together versus separately. Also we both have veto rights over who we each can see. That is, we both like to know the other party. Having a Hall Pass isn't the equivalent of it being a free for all. Obviously there are some safety concerns as well that I have to be comfortable with.

Paul has a pretty exact timeframe down for when he begins to have pre-cum. How can be he so precise in that? I don't believe it's possible to know for certain that way.

This is ridiculous. Your trying to have a child with your husband and are not willing to give up the other men to ensure the baby is your husbands. Do the world a favour and don't have a child. You seem too selfish. Your focus should be about the child not your orgasms with others in this case. Children take lots of focus and selflessness to raise.