From: elf@polari.com
Subject: You asked about "Swinging..."
Organization: Seattle Online Public Access Unix (206) 328-4944
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 08:35:37 GMT

     Recently, people have been asking "What exactly is a 'swinger?' or
what is 'swinging?'"  Since I've got this huge library of sexual
references and a grand total of one (one) experience at a swinger's
party, I figured I'd throw my 2 cents into the pile.

First off, from the Reference, in this case from "Human Sexuality."
     
           Swinging refers to an exchange of marital partners for sexual
      purposes, excluding any emotional involvement.  The man more often
      than the woman initiates the exchange.  A woman's negative
      reactions and revulsions stimulates her partner to convince or
      coerce her into agreement.  The man may invite a swinging couple
      over for an evening.  If he is successful, his partner resigns
      herself to try swinging.  All wives and most husbands in one study
      approaged their first experience with anxiety.  If nothing
      traumatic happened during the intial sexual encounter, the couple
      is persuaded to try again.  Women may experience a period of
      conflict, then look forwarrd to swinging with enthusiasm,
      sometimes to an even greater extent than their partners.  In some
      cases, men begin to worry about where swinging weill lead, so they
      try to discontinue the activity.
     
            How does swinging affect a marriage?  One study compared
      swinging couples with others who had monogamous relationships.
      Forty-nine percent of the swinging men and 34 percent of the
      swinging women had been divorced and remarried, compared with only
      15 percent and 14 perecnt of the monogamous men and women,
      respectively.  The chief reason for dissolution of previous
      marriages was swinging.
      
            One justification the couples give for swinging is the
      enrichment it brings to their marriage.  Facts do not support this
      rationalization, however.  Many couples with an otherwise fairly
      average marriage destroy their relationship through this kind of
      activity.  All swinging couples face problems that become
      increasingly difficult to deal with.  Their dilemma involves the
      maintenance of emotinal detachment from other couples with whom
      they have sexual realations, in order to keep their marriage and
      feelings for one another intact.  If they are successful, their
      outside sexual experiences remain shallow.  Guilt, fear, jealousy,
      and disgust may arise, minimizing whatever pleasure they hoped to
      derive from swinging.  The results of their experiences
      substantiate the conclusion: If is difficult for most couples to
      be involved in ongoing, comarital sexual activities and maintain a
      loving, trusting, fulfilling marriage sumultaneously.  They are
      forced to either give up their adulterous relationships or their
      marriage.  Most couples cannot maintain both.

     So that's the textbook version of swinging.  There ain't much there 
to disagree with, from my perspective, although I will point to words
like 'most' and 'usually.'  Unfortunately, the one view of these
paragraphs that I do get is that the couples that *are* successful at
maintaining a swinging existence do so at the expense of those marriages 
that can't handle it.

     On the flip side, I'll give you _my_ experiences at the one and
only swingers's party I went to.

     So, the question is, did I like it?  Did I have fun?  Did I have
more sex than I can handle?  Will I do it again?   

     No.   

     For two reasons.  Ignoring that Omaha and I were the youngest
couple in attendance, and therefore absolute trollbait, let me take them
in order.   

     First off, I tend to only want to get into bed with people I know.
People I respect, people I trust.  I didn't know these people.  I didn't
trust these people.  And watching them imbibe enormous quantities of
alcohol, I didn't respect these people.   

     Secondly, it wasn't safe.  For the most part, we were the only
people at the event who had visibly brought condoms.  I saw a few
discarded wrappers, but they were scarce for the fifty or so people in
attendance.  There were dispensers, but they demanded 50c and who's
carrying two quarters when the most you're wearing is a robe?  People
were skipping the latex, and that bothered me a lot. 

     Thirdly, it became painfully obvious to me that while women boffing 
women was acceptible, the instant I touched another man I would have
been *persona non gratia*.  Sorry, if people all going to be 'open
minded' about sex, they shouldn't be hypocritical about it.

     What it came down to was, to me, a nightmare.  Engaging in random
liquid couplings with faceless and potentially disease-ridden strangers
deliberately lowering their self-control to accept the acts they're
participating in is not my idea of fun.  (Whew, diagram that sentence!)  

     My penis agreed, and it's disfunction was something I celebrated
and participated in - it gave me an excuse to get out of there.   

     And Omaha and I discovered something new.  People around here know
of my penchant for SM; what they may not know is Omaha's reluctance to
join.  This may not be a problem anymore.  Omaha and I found a small
room with a sling in it, and she discovered the wonderful things that
can be done with a Elf in a sling.  I was tickled, slapped, and best of
all, scratched, to the point where she drew blood from my chest, and I
screamed and yelled and giggled to the point where someone made the
comment "We got a couple of kinky ones tonight."   

     And these people were so....forgive me, but I tend to be an erotic
elitist; I'm surrounded by books by DeSade, Rice, Townsend, Comfort,
Samois.  I jokingly said the place looked like Roissy, and nobody there
knew what Roissy was.  (Roissy was where 'O' was taken in "The Story of
'O'.") A gentleman at the firepit began discussing piercings he'd seen
on a woman recently, so I began to describe my interest in an ampallang.
We also talked about Prince Alberts, dydoe, guiches, but I felt like a
missionary.  At one point I had Omaha in the sling and her friend Dave
came in with his date for the evening and started playing along.  That
was fine, Dave's careful and I had condoms even though they were doing
strictly tit-play at that point, but I mentioned that the safeword was
"Safeword," and both Dave and his ladyfriend said, "What's a safeword?"
I wore a cockring and nobody knew what it was! Oy!  

     I guess my strongest reaction was that, these people were here to
participate in an orgy.  I don't know how you react, but I tend to think 
of orgies as a a very complicated and difficult sexual behavior.  One
which requires a little thought and energy.

     Let me be frank.  These people were idiots!  They knew nothing
about sex above and beyond getting their rocks off.  Foreplay was nearly
foreign to these people.  Foreplay involving real vibrators (i.e. other
than 'D'-cell powered penises) or real lubricant (something more
advanced than 'Motion lotion' or vaseline) was out of their ballpark.
The idea of homosexual sex was completely foreign to them, if not
repulsive.

     When conversation came around to "What do you do?"  my reply was
"What do I do to survive, or what do I really do?"  And when we finally
got around to writing, The Journal Entries came off as "Too weird."   

     So, surrounded by the misinformed, the malinformed, and the sheer
uninformed, not to mention being one of the few sober couples there, we
did not have as much fun as you might think.   

     But at least I get to go out and price slings tomorrow.   

     This has been The Orgy Report, and I'm....  

     Elf M. Sternberg

     "And so it goes... "