by Audra Morgan
Chapter Seven
Swinging with a Side of Drama
If drinking is common among swingers, then drama is a full-on epidemic. Every profile on a swingers site or post on a hookup site is quick to declare “No Drama!” Well, at least half of the time, that is an outright lie. I have never in my life witnessed as much drama as I’ve witnessed among people in the swing lifestyle. We’ve learned, for the most part, how to avoid it, but it was a long and treacherous journey to get to that point. There are couples who are bogged down with jealousy and body image issues, there are couples trying to fix broken relationships, and there are couples who just can’t seem to get their acts together long enough to hang out one night without fighting. It’s painful enough just spending time with such people, but try getting naked with them and watch the drama amplify to a dangerous volume. Or, better yet, learn from the experiences in this chapter, and stay away from the drama queens!
We’ve been embroiled in some major craziness throughout our swinging experiences, but there was one amusing bit of drama which we simply bore witness to recently, and which made us thankful we’ve remained relatively drama-free for a good while now. We were hanging out with five or six couples at a swing club, and some of the group were watching two couples having sex in a windowed room off the main hallway. One of the couples sitting near the window was watching the action rather intently.
The wife in that couple had been telling us of their swinging experiences, and it was quite obvious that they were swinging simply so she could be with other women, and that her husband really wasn’t getting much out of it. This is another dynamic we’ve learned to steer clear of when meeting people, because it always seems fraught with issues. We were both wondering why they didn’t just have an agreement that she could play on her own, because he seemed, frankly, rather bored with the whole thing.
The wife began to ogle the two women in the bed behind the window, and at that point one of the men from the room came out to the hallway. She mentioned how hot his wife was, and he replied, “Well, you’re welcome to join us.” She practically leapt out of her seat, looking like a kid on Christmas morning, and her husband grabbed her arm. “What are you doing?” he asked her rather sharply. She stumbled over her words, seeming suddenly very nervous. “I didn’t say you could go in there,” he said to her, still holding onto her arm. “We can just take our asses right home, how about that?” And with that, he yanked her down the hallway and they were gone.
The next day, the wife emailed us as though nothing odd had happened. She seemed to think perhaps we’d want to get together with them sometime in the future. No, thank you! Some other couples weren’t so lucky, and they found themselves caught up a bit more intimately in other people’s drama.
We had a foursome with a couple several years ago, and while they were nice people, we were new to swinging and really wanted to see what else was out there. We didn’t want to limit our options. When we didn’t agree to hook up with them the next time they asked, they stopped emailing us for a while. We thought nothing of it, as we were busy with life and with meeting new people. We ended up crossing paths again randomly at a party, and we all ended up having sex. They invited us to their house the next weekend, and we met up with them again. Then we got busy with life and family obligations, and we didn’t contact them for a month or so. They sent us a hateful email and called us out for being mean and insensitive to them, and they said clearly we weren’t “their kind of people”, and then they blocked us from emailing them. We had actually intended to get in touch with them again, but were too busy to even think about going out. Apparently they took it WAY too personally and had a complete hissy fit. We have no time for that kind of thing in our lives. When they see us out now, they just ignore us and look the other way. So weird.
~Stacey, NY
We were having sex with a couple we’d met once before and had a lot of fun hanging out with. Everything seemed cool and we thought it would be a good night. In the middle of things, the wife began to look flat out angry. I don’t know if she thought her husband was too into my wife, or what. She then grabbed his arm and pulled him over and said “Remember what we talked about! Don’t you do it!” My wife and I had no idea what was happening. Then right there, with all of us naked in a bed together, they began to have a debate about why it was okay for him to put his dick in someone’s mouth, but not their pussy. Talk about a mood killer. As they continued to argue, we got dressed and waved goodbye and went out to look for some other people with less issues. Fortunately we ran into some other friends and had some fun with no one fighting about it.
~John, Sacramento, CA
The first night we went to this new club (we’d just moved to town) a nice looking couple immediately started hitting on us pretty hard. We’d been drinking at dinner and were feeling no pain, and we went with it and had some fun with them. Well, they seem to think now that every time we all happen to be at that club together, we “belong” to them. They practically demand we sit next to them at the bar, and if we go talk to other people, or god forbid flirt, they give us major attitude. The other day we were talking to a single man at the other end of the bar, and the couple started sending drinks over to us and waving at us. We knew they were there, we just wanted to say hello to a friend of ours! I hate to say this, but we keep hoping they will move away or break up or something, because they ruin our night when we go out. And they are always there. I think they must have a room they rent out in the building. Ha!
~Gina, AZ
We went to a meet and greet at a bar a few months back. Everyone seemed to already know each other, so we just sat and looked around. A couple came up and introduced themselves. They were cute and we thought they seemed fun. Then they told us how they were both going through ugly divorces from their spouses, and how they had started dating a few weeks ago. Within ten minutes we heard about their custody battles and how her husband had cheated and about how she was going to take the house from him. Then the couple asked if we wanted to go to their hotel room. None of that stuff was our business, but after hearing all of it we just thought it best to not get involved with them. Seemed like a lot of mess to get in the middle of.
~Anthony, IL
I began chatting online with a single guy who was moving to our city in about a month. We chatted once or twice a week for that month, and finally he was in town. He had said he hoped he could get together with me and my husband as soon as he was settled in and finished unpacking. We were excited to meet him, as this was going to be our first MFM threesome. After he’d gotten all moved in, he emailed us about meeting. In the email he said that he had just met a girl before moving, and that they were dating (although it was a long-distance relationship) so we could hang out, but sex was off the table. He was new to the area and had no friends, and still wanted to meet up with us because of that. To be honest, we have enough friends – we were looking for someone we could hook up with.
I told him we weren’t able to get together that night. A few days later, since that opportunity was gone, I put up a post online, on another site, for single guys to contact us. The first email I got was from HIM. Saying he was new to town and really wanted to meet a couple to have some threesome fun with. We didn’t have a photo posted, so of course he had no idea it was us he was emailing. I was floored. I replied to his email pretty much saying well, what happened to your girlfriend? He said he thought about it and decided it made no sense to be monogamous with someone he just met and didn’t even live in the same state as. Of course he hadn’t bothered to email me before and tell me he had a change of heart. I don’t know what his deal was, but he seemed to have some major issues and we never talked to him again after that.
~Ashley, Albany, NY
There’s a couple who shows up at a lot of parties we go to, and it seems every time they are out together they end up arguing in the corner, then leaving. We sometimes place bets on how long it will take for them to find a corner to argue in. I don’t know
what they fight about, and if they argue all the time at home too. But I think they need to work out their issues before they go to any more parties.
~Sarah, Memphis, TN
My husband and I met a couple online, and we were all interested in meeting. They lived an hour away, so it was going to take a few weeks to arrange a date for the four of us. In the meantime we chatted and texted to get to know them a little bit before meeting in person. Well, the husband started texting me with some sexy messages, complimenting my figure and talking about one of the outfits I had on in some of my photos online. I had no problem with this, I thought it was nice. Then he started texting more explicit things, talking about sex and what he liked and what he hoped to do with me when we met. I went along with it, it was kind of hot and I figured my husband was texting the same sort of things to his wife. We have no problem with this type of flirting and texting with other people.
Apparently his wife had a big problem, though. I got a very angry text which was about 6 texts in a row from her one morning when she must have decided to go through her husband’s phone. She was furious about the sexy texts we’d sent to each other and she basically accused him of cheating on her with me. We were all planning to have sex, so I figured the texting was not a problem. But it was a big problem for her and she told me to never text or email either of them again. Of course we never ended up meeting. That’s probably for the best.
~Janet, WA
Drama can rear its ugly head in any social situation, but when you bring sex into the mix, the potential for things to get weird rises exponentially. Fortunately, there are people out there who do have their acts together. Of course they may go through periods of trouble, like all relationships, but they strive to keep it between the two of them and not drag others into it. When perusing the swing sites, a common thing to see on a profile is “taking a break.” It’s good for couples to take a step away from “the lifestyle” now and again, whether they are having issues they need to deal with, or even just to reconnect and spend quality time together, without the distractions of other people.
Chapter Eight
A Swing and a Miss
There are nights we go out, either to meet new people or to see existing friends, and things end up going so bizarrely awry that all we can do is shake our heads in disbelief. These are the times we look back on and just have to laugh, because we simply don’t know what else to do. In fact, we had such a perplexing encounter last year that it actually served as the inspiration for me to begin collecting other swingers’ experiences for this book. I’d known for a long while that truth is stranger than fiction, but this experience left me and my husband shaking our heads and laughing for months.
Couples new to swinging seem drawn to us. It’s a blessing and a curse. A year or so ago, another new couple sent us an email and wanted to meet. They had not had any experiences or met anyone else yet, but they seemed quite certain we were “the” couple they wanted to have their first experience with. We made plans to meet at their favorite bar, and both Tyler and I were really looking forward to it. They seemed like an attractive, genuine couple with whom we thought we could make a nice connection.
We had a quick dinner and made our way to the bar. We’d had a very stressful afternoon, and we were ready to have some drinks and enjoy getting to know our new friends. We found the bar and looked in, seeing only one table near the back occupied by four people. We looked again, and we realized two of the people at the table were the couple we were there to meet. Tyler and I looked at each other, a bit confused by the fact that there was another couple there with them. We thought perhaps they were out with friends, so we made our way to the back of the bar to say hello. The wife jumped up and hugged us hello, then introduced us to her husband, her daughter, and her son in law. We thought we had seen it all in the wacky world of swinging, but we were downright floored. Stunned and speechless as well, we stood there not knowing quite what to say or do.
The wife began to chat with us and tell us about how they’d talked for quite some time and decided to try swinging. Meanwhile, the son in law literally leered at me. He was twenty years younger than me, and it felt like having one of my kids’ friends there looking me up and down as I tried to meet a new couple. I don’t mind feeling dirty, but I have my limits! I don’t think I have ever felt so confused and shocked in my life. I downed a drink in record time as I sat there, nodding along as she talked, and wondering just how in the hell this couple had decided it was appropriate to bring their daughter along on a swing date, and that it was also appropriate to not give us a heads up about it.
After what seemed like hours of horrendously awkward chatting, they mentioned walking up the street to a dance club. I thought that perhaps they’d realized the error of their ways and were going to ditch the kids so we could actually talk and get to know each other. While I wasn’t exactly into it, I was glad they’d come to their senses, albeit a little too late. Then I heard the rest of the invitation; the daughter and son in law were accompanying them too. Tyler and I looked at each other, imagining the six of us at a dance club, and to this day I don’t know how we both didn’t just crack up right in front of the four of them.
I told them it had been a long day, and that we were going to head home. They texted us before we made it to the car, and they expressed an interest in getting together with us again. Tyler texted what was probably the rudest text he’s ever sent anyone: “Thanks, but we’ll pass.” We literally had no other words at that moment. I think our jaws were on the floorboard of the car the entire drive home. We noticed their profile disappeared a few weeks later. Definitely for the best, both for them and for everyone else on the site.
We actually had another completely bizarre experience just this past weekend. I do believe we must be a magnet for weirdoes at this point, because it seems we can’t go out without something completely off the wall befalling us. Thankfully, we’re much more prone to laugh about it now than we were years ago.
We were out at the swing club, and we’d just gone through week two in a row of meeting a couple we’d had plans with, only to have her get drunk and pass out by midnight, ruining any chance of having a fun night together. We shrugged it off and decided to talk to some new people who were at the club for the first time. After an hour or so of jovial chatting, not to mention sharing most of our vodka, we decided to check out the play areas with them. Once there, they decided it was time to part ways, and I sat down next to an attractive single woman who seemed interested in us. We talked for a bit, and she seemed more and more interested in exploring some fun with the two of us.
Just then, the couple we’d been chatting with reappeared, and she took an immediate interest in the woman I was talking to. So much so that she decided she’d sit down between us to get the woman’s attention. What she didn’t seem to ascertain was that there was just empty space between me and the single woman. Expecting a barstool to be there, she attempted to sit between us and landed on her ass on the floor. When the woman reached out to help her off the floor, her ring broke in two and went flying across the hallway. She looked rather perturbed, but then she said it hadn’t been expensive, and not to worry about it. Tyler and I sat there, stunned by the turn of events. We thought surely she’d made enough of an ass of herself that the single woman would return to conversing with us.
The woman did just that, and began to ask us some questions about our sexual predilections. She asked if I go down on women, and I said yes, I do. At that point, the other woman jumped back towards us and practically screamed, “I go down on women! I’ll go down on you! I’ll do it right now!” Looking a bit taken aback, the single woman shrugged and replied, “Well, how can I refuse that?” The two disappeared into a play room, and that was the last we saw of them.
Tyler and I sat there, once again in stunned silence over the strange courses our nights tend to take. We wandered around the club a bit more, then we decided it was most certainly time to head home before any other strangen
ess took place. While it often seems we look around a club and see everyone but us happily hooking up, apparently we’re not the only ones who swing and miss, sometimes repeatedly.
We seem to strike out every time we go to the swing club and try to meet couples. We find a cute couple and introduce ourselves, and we will talk for an hour or so, and everything seems to be going fine, then another couple with more “game” swoops in, charms them, and lures them away. It’s like school dances on crack and steroids at these places! I think we’re destined to be the wallflowers.
~Gina, Denver, CO
A while back, I drove over three hours from Tampa to Jacksonville to meet a girl who said she was dying to meet me...when I got there, she said "no thanks" in a round-about way...and I headed home. Still don’t know what happened.
~Ben, Tampa, FL
I like the proposed title for your book, because my wife and I feel like that’s what happens to us all the time – we swing and we miss! We go on dates with other couples two or three times a month, and it leads to sex maybe one time out of nine or ten. This isn’t the image of swinging you get from documentaries and talk shows! I don’t know if it’s just us, but I don’t think it is. I’ve heard similar things from other people in the lifestyle. I think our friends who know we swing imagine we’re hooking up with random strangers every time we leave the house, and swinging naked from chandeliers at wild parties. In reality, for us, at least, it’s not so different from dating.
