by Audra Morgan
A Swing and a Miss
The Funny, Tragic, and Downright Scary True Stories of Real Swinging Encounters
By
Audra Morgan
A Swing and a Miss: The Funny, Tragic, and Downright Scary True Stories of Real Swinging Encounters
Copyright © 2013 by Audra Morgan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or
reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
permission from the author, except for brief quotations
included in critical reviews.
Audra can be contacted by email at
[email protected]
Table of Contents
Introduction
Sex, Lies, and Picture Collectors
When the Internet and Reality Collide – Badly
The Swinger Stand Up
How Rude!
Parties Gone Wild…ly WRONG
Alcohol and the Dumbass Swinger
Swinging with a Side of Drama
A Swing and a Miss
Epilogue
An Excerpt from Swinging by a Thread: The Misadventures of an Accidental Swinger
Introduction
Last year, I put together a little memoir of my own experiences during the past five years in the swinging community. I’ve had more than a few people ask me, “Was that all really true?” I am sad to say, yes, it’s all true. Not only is it all true, but there were some stories so tragic that I didn’t include them, because my intent was to amuse and entertain, not to downright depress my readers. As I pointed out, I’ve also had some wonderful experiences, but the focus of the book was on the misadventures, the misfires, the absolutely confounding experiences in which one can find themselves in the wacky world of swinging.
Over the past year, I’ve also had the good fortune of having readers, as well as others I’ve been able to personally interview, share their own interesting and sometimes tragically funny anecdotes with me. It was a relief to know that these borderline insane encounters were not simply a tragedy meant to befall only me; they’re apparently endemic to the community. It’s a wonderful world of sexual exploration, but it’s also a world which attracts all manners of weirdness, drama, and mental instability.
Please understand, these stories are not meant to discourage anyone from delving into open relationships of any kind. I’m still going strong, despite the many hiccups (to put it mildly) I’ve encountered. I find sexual openness to be a wonderful gift, and my husband and I will never go back to being monogamous. These stories simply give you a peek into the side of swinging that television documentaries don’t show you, that erotica won’t detail for you, and that most people don’t casually tell their friends while discussing their weekends. So be entertained by them, and by the fact that real life is indeed often much, much stranger than fiction. And should you decide to give swinging a try, perhaps these tales will assist you in detecting warning signs that things are not quite what you thought they were. So read it for humor, or use it as a self-help guide. Either way, I hope you enjoy. And to those of you whose stories grace the following pages, my sincerest thanks for being so open about some experiences that most people would dare not share with their best friend, much less with a stranger.
Chapter One
Sex, Lies, and Picture Collectors
One of the most common complaints from swingers is that people online, to put it quite bluntly, lie. They lie a lot. The usual suspects for such duplicity fill the thousands of pages of ads on Craigslist for “casual encounters.” Many of them are picture collectors, hoping to lure people into sharing their own private x-rated photos in the hopes of meeting a compatible couple or single person. Sadly, the person at the other end simply wants to add a few naughty photos to his collection; he has no actual interest in meeting, and he is most likely not who he represents himself to be. Single men often masquerade as hot young single women looking for threesomes, or as couples looking to make a connection with other couples. Many naïve, and unfortunately, seasoned, swingers fall prey to this tactic, and who knows where all those photos end up.
Just last week, I was duped by a picture collector, and the funniest part of it all is that I was working on this chapter when it happened. Proof positive that sometimes you’re not nearly as clever as you think you are. I was browsing the swingers website to which we belong, and I noticed a single woman’s profile which I had not seen before. She was a paid member of the site and had two certifications from couples which verified that she was legit. So far, so good. She had a few photos up, all of which seemed perfectly normal. I sent her a brief email, and she replied right away, indicating that she enjoyed our profile and that she had opened her private photos. Surprised to have been contacted back so quickly by the elusive single female, I foolishly unlocked for her our own private photos, a few of which contain nudes. And, of course, that was the last we heard from her.
My initial deduction from this chain of events was that she’d seen our photos and been unimpressed. Single women, of course, have their pick of pretty much any couple they choose. But then, Tyler gave me “the look”, and I realized I’d screwed up. Big time. He had just chatted with a single male friend of ours on the site, they’d compared notes, and after a little bit of digging around, they determined the profile was a complete fake. The certifications turned out to be bogus, from other fake accounts, and the “woman” had changed her city and state on her profile half a dozen times since the day before. This individual was casting a very wide net in an attempt to scoop up as many explicit photos as possible from unsuspecting couples. And my dumb self ended up in the net too. I’m now under strict orders to never send our private photos to anyone who hasn’t proven they are real. Still, I had to laugh at the irony of shelling out advice about how to avoid picture collectors, as I fell into one’s trap that same week.
The moral of the story is that sadly, even “trusted” swinging sites are burdened with their fair share of fake profiles set up for the sole purpose of picture collecting. It’s an almost unavoidable reality, and they’re clearly getting more and more clever. Here are some experiences couples have shared regarding being tricked by duplicitous photo collectors.
I like to chat on a few swinger websites during the day, it makes my day at the office less boring. One day, a single woman who had just signed up on the site started chatting with me. My wife and I have been looking for a “unicorn” (single female) to hook up with, because that’s something we’ve never had the chance to do. This woman was saying all the right things. Complementing my wife’s photos, telling me I was hot, telling me all the things she would like to do with us. I should have known something was up, but I admit, I was getting a little hot and bothered by the conversation. She was talking about meeting us out that night, she said she lived near us, had just broken up with her boyfriend, and wanted to have some dirty fun with a couple. I was all in! She sent me a face photo through chat, then she sent me several nude photos which did not have her face in them. I was surprised that a woman was so eager to send me nude pics! Then she asked for some x rated photos of my wife. Not me, just my wife. I thought that was strange. I remembered some friends telling me about all the fake people on swinger sites, so I started to worry. My wife and I had just watched the show Catfish the night before. The host of the show used an online image search to look up a photo and see if a person was real. I immediately put one of the photos she sent me into an image search and it brought up a Facebook page. Of an 18 year old high school student who lived 2,0
00 miles away and was a member of some big church group. I freaked out and immediately closed the chat. A chat window popped up a few more times, each time asking when I was sending those photos to “her.” I haven’t chatted online since.
~ Barry, NJ
My husband and I had a "female" of a couple from here out herself as a liar on yahoo chat. While talking to her she just couldn't get her webcam working for SOME reason (yeah right). She sent a few pics. Skip forward a few weeks and we chat with her "husband.” He sends a pic of them as a couple. Totally different girl in that pic! Hmmmm… Asking for voice verification may be a good idea that we will try since so many web cams are “broken” when these people chat…
Sara, Fairhope, AL
On more than a few occasions, we have been burned by the infamous “picture collector.” They seem to be getting more and more skilled at pretending to be couples interested in meeting. They spend the time to chat with you and make themselves seem real, but as soon as you so much as email a photo of your wife without clothes, the chats and emails stop. There is so much free porn on the internet, I just don’t understand why these freaks can’t just get it there instead of wasting our time and energy and making us think they are a couple who want to meet us.
~Chad, OK
I feel so stupid. My husband and I discuss all the time about how many fakes are out there when you are looking online to meet people. I look at the Craigslist ads from time to time, mostly for a laugh, but we have actually met a few people from them and it’s gone okay. A few weeks ago I noticed a post of a young couple who was coming to town the next night and looking to meet another couple. Everything about the post seemed sincere. They were fairly new to swinging, they asked that people be honest about their age and other stats, since they were being up front about theirs, and they seemed open to all kinds of play despite being new. I emailed them and just sent a face photo. I told my husband I was sure they wouldn’t reply. Well, I got a reply five minutes later. She thanked me for the email and told me more about what they were looking for. She said she would send some photos of the two of them. She then sent three emails, each with 8 or 10 pictures. I REALLY should have seen the red flags then and there. But my hope that they were real took over, and I sent them 4 or 5 nude pics of us. We never ever send pics like that unless we have verified people are real. Of course that was the last we heard of them. My husband looked up the photos they’d sent, and all of them were on an amateur porn site. We’re just hoping OUR photos aren’t the next to end up on that site. Lesson learned.
~Suzy, MT
One night we ran into a couple we’d talked to several times before. As we chit chatted about work, family, and swinger related stuff, the subject of all the fakes online came up. My husband began telling him a story about how he’d busted this pic collector while chatting online. She couldn’t keep her story straight, and he caught onto her right away. He immediately called her out on being a fake and she closed the chat window. Well, it turns out this other couple had been talking to the same woman online for months. He’d even sent her many photos and video of his wife, most of which were x rated. He was certain that this was a real single woman and that if he kept sending her stuff they would eventually meet. When my husband broke the news to him, he just shrugged and said, “Well, you never know. She may be real after all.” He was too excited with the idea of meeting this fake woman to realize that he was sending nude photos and video of his wife to someone who was probably a dude on the other side of the country.
~Annie, Seattle, WA
As you can see, this phenomenon is not rare, and it seems to happen to pretty much everyone at some point. If you are looking to meet people online for dating or sex, you will eventually come across a picture collector. So be careful, and look out for the warning signs. Possible hints that someone is a picture collector:
They claim to be a couple but use the word “I” instead of we whenever talking about “themselves.”
They claim to be a single woman, but they immediately begin chatting in a sexually explicit manner and/or asking for explicit photo or video
They have a profile on a swingers site, and the profile location keeps jumping to various locations around the country, where each day they are listed as living in a different city.
They seem more focused on chatting and sharing photos than on making plans to meet. When you ask about meeting, they always have an excuse for not being able to.
They have a free swingers website profile of a single woman, with a brief written section and a few photos of a thin, attractive, young woman. They usually have no certifications, but lately some smart collectors will make multiple profiles and certify themselves.
If you want to protect yourselves before sending photos and/or agreeing to meet a new couple or single, you might want to take some simple steps to verify that they are who they say they are. You can ask to webchat, as most people these days can do that via pc, smartphone, or iPad. If you’d rather not do a video chat, you can ask them to send you a candid photo from their phone in which they are doing something unique such as touching their finger to their nose, making a hand gesture, or something of that nature. If it’s a couple, make sure both members of the couple are in the photo or video. If the photos match what you’ve already seen on their profile, chances are, they are legitimate. If they make excuses why they can’t even send a candid photo, you have reason to believe something isn’t right with their story. Either they are picture collectors, or they are otherwise not who they claim to be. Be smart, and that will ensure you have mostly positive experiences with interacting and sharing photos with people online.
Chapter Two
When the Internet and Reality Collide – Badly
Picture collectors are a sad reality when it comes to making connections online. Another more insidious common complaint, however, is that many profiles on swinging sites are less than honest when it comes to details of age, weight, and appearance. We’ve personally interacted with many couples online, only to run into them while out and discover their photos were at least ten years old, and they were in fact at least 30 pounds heavier than their pictures indicated. While I understand the desire to present your best self in an online profile and when sending photos to prospective new friends, who wants to subject themselves to the disappointed stare of a couple who thought they were meeting a 28 year old size 2, only to encounter a 40 year old size 14? We make a point to always keep updated photos on our own profile; I don’t want anyone meeting me and saying, “Damn, you looked better online.” How horrifying!
While we’ve definitely had shocking instances where photos didn’t remotely match up with reality when meeting new people, our most perplexing involved a situation where the entire profile simply didn’t match a couple we ended up meeting. We noticed a profile of a younger couple who had moved to town recently, and from their photos and profile, they seemed attractive, adventurous, and fun. We emailed and made plans to meet, thinking if things didn’t work out in terms of chemistry, we could at least have some fun new friends to go dancing with and otherwise hang out with.
Well, we met this couple about a week after initially emailing them. She did not resemble her photos in more than a cursory way; she was a lot shorter and quite a bit chunkier than her photos let on. We weren’t put off by this, though, and we hoped for the best. Within 5 minutes of sitting down with them, we discovered that it’s not only photos that can lie; it’s also apparently personalities! Gone was the fun, adventurous vibe we’d detected in their profile. This couple was about ten years younger than us, but they acted like they should be on the waiting list for a nursing home.
As we enjoyed beers, they sipped soda, and their conversation involved how much they didn’t like living in our city, and how much better their previous home was. We love our city, so this was not the best way to start a potential new friendship. The conversation then turned to religion – they are devout, and we are the furthest from. They seemed o
penly disturbed by this fact, as we sat there wondering what in the hell we’d gotten ourselves into. They were, to put it generously, dreadfully dull.
We ended the date after about an hour of painful conversation, and we briefly discussed getting together another time. Tyler and I agreed on the way home that we had no interest in meeting with them again, and we talked about how that was not the couple we’d expected to meet based on their profile. To be polite, I texted them with a quick thank you for getting together with us. They did not reply. Tyler, not knowing I’d texted them, sent them a similar text the next day. She replied, saying, “We did not feel there was any chemistry and have no interest in further contact.” Ouch! We were relieved, though, as we would not have seen them again regardless. Hard to have chemistry when one couple barely has a pulse. While this story is mild in terms of the outright deception in online profiles, here are some other couples’ and singles’ experiences with more flagrant dishonesty.
A couple who lived in a neighboring town emailed us on a swing site and wanted to meet. They had about a dozen photos of the female, none of the male. And the faces were blocked out on all of the photos. We felt a little uncomfortable meeting people when we had never seen their faces, so we asked them to email us a face photo. They said they could not, because they were very prominent in the community. As we examined the photos a bit more, we realized the backgrounds looked like several different living rooms. This seemed strange. Then we noticed they looked sort of like scans of pictures from magazines. The closer we looked, the more it seemed like it wasn’t even the same woman in each picture. We knew something was up, so we did not make plans to meet them. A few months later we ran into them at a swing party. The husband recognized us and introduced him and his wife. We were floored. Those photos were not her. She was at least twenty years older and didn’t even have the same body type. She was also one of the least attractive women we’ve ever seen. We had no idea what to do. We were thankful that tons of people showed up, and we were able to get away from them. We felt so relieved we never made plans to meet them for drinks. It would have been a very awkward experience.
