I’ve mentioned that most of my friends and acquaintances have no idea about the private life my husband and I lead. For the few friends that I have eventually gotten around to sharing our swinging with, the comment is inevitably the same “I could NEVER put up with that in MY relationship.” And then I get a bunch of questions- depending on the friend, I sometimes get them rapid-fire, and sometimes worked in to conversations over a period of weeks (even months), sometimes both, but the gist of the questions is always the same. First, how did he get you talked in to that? Then, why would you tolerate that? And finally, how do you put up with that?

So, first things first… I’m not really sure how we came around to swinging. He had been in the lifestyle before, had even hosted parties. When I met him, he was “dating” a woman he had met through swinging, but I didn’t know about that until later. One of the first actual dates we went on, if not THE first, was to a strip club. Our relationship was so new that his friends didn’t know he was dating someone, and called him up to go to a club. Since I was sitting on his couch at the time, he told his friend he’d go if I wanted to. I had a friend that was a dancer at another club, so I was comfortable saying yes. Slowly but surely, we worked out that I might be ok playing with another female, even though I had never done that before. Eventually, we were members of some local organizations, and the rest, as they say, is history. Maybe he might have more insight on exactly how it happened. To me, it really seemed as if it just… happened.