What do you folks think of married people who are swingers?

Well... see i agree... I think that instead of the rationalization.. "hey, we've got a great sexual thing going.. we really need to share this with others!" (which incidentally, I find twisted anyway, obviously) more it reflects that the two people are BORED with each other sexually....

You wrote:

I DEFINITELY agree it suggestgs sexual unfulfillment in a relationship and should not be pursued=and I'm Agnostiic!!!

If you're strong and confident enough, let your friend know about the sacrifices he makes in loyalty to his SO, and find some different morally-based acquaintances in your church to spend time with, PLEASE!

Well.. like I say... I really don't associate with him anymore even though he lives in the same community... no doubt sometime soon I'm likely to run into him.... At this point I don't know what to think of him anymore... (although, despite how much I thought of him first-off), I'll always think what he disclosed to me about he & his wife swinging to be extremely sleazy.

Probably what he could of needed in his past was some God based education... or something! He sure doesn't seem to know right from wrong on so many levels! All I can do is pray for him. The bad part is.. I'm so disgusted by his revelations that I can't hardly bring myself to do that lately.

And don't worry about it, shesoSmart.. i have no trouble sticking up for my own convictions... I was just wondering what the general consensus is nowadays for this type of behavior.

Phishgirl, how did you feel about seeing a naked woman putitng her bare breats onto your BF's face, or rubbing her c** on his c***?

I think it is almost as bad as swinging!

For someone who didn't let him watch naked women dance you really went all the way!

I would die if I saw a naked woman on my BF's lap.

Well as far as swinging goes- I've always thought that what or who people do in their bedrooms is their business but I certainly don't agree with it, nor do I want to KNOW about it.

My husband works with a man who is a swinger. At all of the company parties him and his wife are always extremely inappropriate with other couples and really give me the creeps. On time my husband and I were dancing and they were trying to cut in and such. (Of course- I'm silly, so I'm whispering in my husband's ear while we're dancing "EWWWWWWW get THE SWINGERS away from me!" and we end up making a joke out of it) Maybe I'm biased but I see this particular couple almost as predators- they way they act in public says it all.

The last time I saw them was at a cookout- and the wife proceeded to tell a group of women I was in that she sold sex toys for a living and, I will quote "I have pair of vibrating underwear on and my husband has the remote control- he's been pressing the button all day"

Needless to say that was TMI for me.... So I said to her "Did you REALLY need to tell us that?" And I walked away FAST. I heard later from the other normal wives, that she called me a "frigid witch" (only replace the "w" with a "b"). I guess I'm "frigid" in her eyes because I don't walk around with gadgets in my panties and I don't do everyone else's husband. LOL

So my experience with swingers hasn't been good- I found this particular couple perverse, inappropriately flirty/sexual in public, and also judgemental of those that didn't want to be around their sickness. I do wish they would keep it to themselves and have some class.

BellaDonna

BellaDonna, I agree I think along your lines also too,

Yup.. What that woman told those people at a COMPANY Picnic is HIGHLY inappropriate.. I bet if you said such a thing at the office itself it could be construed as sexual harassment.

That is exactly what i'm talking about..THE SWINGERS JUST don't seem to respect other people's boundaries.... at all... Like the whole thing where I was talking to him on the phone and he's talking about casual sex and his little 4 year daughter is overhearing all this!~!~!~ I mean i was embarrassed enuf to be walking around a public park listening to his conversation...

LIke i said before... it really doesn't matter to me what you do to each other in your own bedroom but essentially swinging is adultery.. And i've NEVER been a fan of that.. i think it's immoral & after seeing so many spouses hurt by their cheating husbands/wives.. I just can't condone it...

It's funny though.. as much as swingers want you to be tolerant of their lifestyle.. they have no tolerance for the fact you don't also partake in their deviant behavior or stick up for their disturbing remarks about their lifestyle!~ sounds a bit hypocritical to me...

I really should pray for this guy... he's really going down a sad road..he said they swung cuz THEY WERE SO DEVOTED TO EACH OTHER!~!~!~ Oh, please, devotion to one's spouse is more along the lines you are trying to nurse them thru a difficult or terminal illness, not you're swapping partners!

He even told me that he was considering having sex with other guys... that as far as he was concerned.. anything goes... And then to top it off as far as being disturbing, he starting telling me how who could know better than your own sex just what you wanted sexually??~ eeewwww!~ major creep out...

Who knows? Maybe he just told me all this stuff for the shock factor, and wasn't really into any of this.. I sure hope so.. but he knew I was a Christian and used to look down his nose about me believing in God & stuff. I sure hope he made all this up..

I tried to explain to him that is what makes sex so wonderful.. that you are two different beings (man & woman) giving each other pleasure.

ALL i can say.. that he & his wife must have had (despite their wild life style) some MAJOR ISSUES in bed!~

And I think a guy wanting you to go into A strip joint with him smacks of some real disrespect there.. AND he bought YOU a lap dance.. what the heck?? are you having some chick rubbing her crotch over you also???

What is this guy going to want next? a threesome?

good god... to each his own i guess....

I do wish they would keep it to themselves and have some class.

This is along the same lines of what I feel, personally. To be honest, I don't care what a couple does sexually in their spare time. I have no personal judgements, nor would I ever 'look down' on a couple for engaging in unconventional forms of sexual expression. However, other people are definitely made to feel uncomfortable when this lifestyle is pushed right in their faces. If I was ever to swing, it would definitely be with people out of my circle of friends, and never - ever - with a co-worker.

That aside, I have been prepositioned to join several 'threesomes'. I won't go into much detail, except that I've never felt preyed upon or disrespected in any way. When I haven't been interested, the people in question have been gracious and respectful of my choice, and have never once flaunted their sexual anecdotes in my face. It is, like Bella says, about class and knowing where to draw the line. Common sense, really.

I think if someone is really as tacky as to confess to a group of colleagues that her husband is holding the remote to her 'vibrating panties', it should give you some insight into how warped that person's sense of decency really is. If someone keeps coming at you with offensive sexual advances, the best defense is to simply cut the person out of your life and avoid all possible situations where it might happen again (as with anything undesirable). Let them have their fun, but without you as their audience. That's probably what they get off on anyway.

Here is a site that my help with this topic... it offers research and links to research done independently, the most influential study having been done by a private Catholic university.

I am also posting the summery of the collective findings of different studies. If you do a search on "research swinging lifestyle" you will come up with many more studies, polls, research papers, etc... on this topic.

My husband and I are swingers... we have been together for 12 years and very much in love with one another and the inappropriate situations that some of you have encountered with or around swingers is in my limited experience not representative of how most couples behave.

Swinging is certainly not for everyone and it is very different than having a threesome or an orgy and unfortunately there are so many misconceptions about the swing lifestyle and/ or swingers I couldn't address them all... but I do encourage you to research the swing lifestyle for yourself before deciding what it is or isn't based on your assumptions.

link removed

RESEARCH

Scientific research on swingers in the USA has consistently found that swingers have better pair-bonds than monogamous couples.

The most recent and most thorough research found swingers are happier in their relationships than the norm. 60% of swingers said that swinging improved their relationship and only 1.7% said it made their relationship less happy.

Half of those who rated their relationship very happy before becoming swingers maintained it had become even happier. 90% of those with less happy relationships said swinging improved them.

Almost 70% of swingers claimed no problem with jealousy, around a quarter admitted to some jealousy but only 6% said it was very much a problem.

Swingers rate themselves happier (59% against 32% very happy) and their lives much more exciting (76% against 54% exciting) than does the rest of the population, by surprisingly large margins.

There was no difference between the responses of men and women.

Hard to believe? This study - Bergstrand & Williams - was carried out in 2000 by a private Catholic university in the USA with an upper middle-class conservative reputation. Read it here.

Earlier research going back over 30 years broadly confirms the same conclusions. So far no published research has validated popular misunderstandings about swinging or the prejudices of the bigots.

Authoritative estimates place the rate of serious relationship problems caused by swinging at between 2% and 6% of participants. Comparing this with the 70% failure rate of first-time marriages and the high break-up rates of other monogamous relationships, it is tempting to conclude that relationship breakdown is essentially a phenomenon of monogamy.

Here are some other interesting studies related to swinging:

Traditional Marriages and Emerging Alternatives Butler, Harpe & Rowe 1979 (excerpts)

US Defence Security Service personnel vetting guidelines on swinging

A Sex Difference in the Specificity of Sexual Arousal, Bailey,Chivers, Rieger and Latty (news release on the Northwestern University website), a seminal study of female bisexuality

It may very well be that swingers are happy. Again, whatever a couple wants is really no one's business. However, in regards to the research, always be sure to read the actual professional research article and not summaries or excerpts of the article.....before making a conclusion about the findings.

Keep in mind variables that could confound the effects of the research: For instance, of course you are going to find more "unhappy" monogamous married couples simply because there MORE mongamous married couples in the world in general, than there are swinging couples.

Also, the way the sample of swingers was collected has some major limitations. In the full research article Berstrand and Williams (2000): link removed , note the discussion section where the researchers themselves point out:

While the General Social Survey selects subjects using a scientifically based, randomized, and thereforeeee representative sample of Americans, the swingers surveyed in this research are not necessarily representative of all swingers in the U.S. They constitute a self-selected sample of members of swing clubs who chose to fill out an anonymous online survey about the swinging lifestyle. The sample is likely to be biased in favor of swingers who have experienced success with the lifestyle and to under-represent those who have dropped out of swinging or who have had negative experiences with it. Because the survey was web-based and conducted online, it may also over-represent swingers who are more educated, technologically savvy, affluent, and male (Dillman, 1999). The strength of the sample is that it is larger and more geographically diverse than that examined in previously published research, but until we know more about the characteristics of swingers generally in our society there is no way to know how representative this sample is

and

Much more research needs to be done on swingers before any conclusions can be made about the efficacy of this lifestyle for strengthening relationships.

I always look at "scientific research" with a careful eye. After reading this particular study and it's methodolgy I can comfortably conclude that SOME swingers (particularly the small group of mostly white upper-class males sampled online in this specific study) stated that they live very happy lives and have strong relationships.

There are other studies cited that I didn't have the time to look at. However in the studies that compare swingers to monogamous married people- I'd be very interested in seeing the methods and procedures used to make the comparision- and who the samples were and how they were selected.

Good, sound research is best judged by how well the small sample that was studied can be generalized to the entire population.

Willow_Moon, my response is not intended to judge you. I think if it feels right for you and your husband then that is your business, regardless of what any research says. I just wanted to point out that when looking at ANY research, always do so with a careful eye. That holds true whether it's research on caffeine, swinging, medication, etc. etc. And always read the original article because any paper or website can twist results and leave out important excepts of the actual real study.

That's why we always hear conflicting information:

Headline:

Chocolate is good for you!

The next week's Headline:

Chocolate is bad for you!

BellaDonna

It may very well be that swingers are happy. Again, whatever a couple wants is really no one's business. However, in regards to the research, always be sure to read the actual professional research article and not summaries or excerpts of the article.....before making a conclusion about the findings.

Willow_Moon, my response is not intended to judge you. I think if it feels right for you and your husband then that is your business, regardless of what any research says. I just wanted to point out that when looking at ANY research, always do so with a careful eye. That holds true whether it's research on caffeine, swinging, medication, etc. etc. And always read the original article because any paper or website can twist results and leave out important excepts of the actual real study.

 

That's why we always hear conflicting information:

 

Headline:

 

Chocolate is good for you!

 

The next week's Headline:

 

Chocolate is bad for you!

I am not quite sure how to respond - I admit being offended by what I feel is a condescending tone towards me. I do not appreciate being patronized. I reread what I posted and it seems to me that you simply didn't bother to notice any part of my post EXCEPT the part I didn't write.

I think I made myself clear that I was posting a summery, and that the actual articles the summery is based on should be followed up on. I also said to not only look at the original studies, but to go beyond these studies and find more information.

In fact I did read the study and notice the limitations of the study... I also read many other studies, polls, opinions, personal stories, etc. I will say once again....

Swinging is certainly not for everyone and it is very different than having a threesome or an orgy and unfortunately there are so many misconceptions about the swing lifestyle and/ or swingers I couldn't address them all... but I do encourage you to research the swing lifestyle for yourself before deciding what it is or isn't based on your assumptions.

I admit being offended by what I feel is a condescending tone towards me. I do not appreciate being patronized

I certainly didn't mean to come accross that way.

Sorry if I sounded like a brat- I'm just very skeptical of most research.

BellaDonna

Apology accepted and I sincerely appreciate it.