Sharing is not always caring.

Sex is good. I know this isn't likely to be a wildly revelatory statement, but I feel the need to get it out of the way, because it's kind of the whole basis of why people swing.

Not pictured: what I'm talking about.

You see, for most people, a normal, sedentary sex life is enough. They find a partner, have as much sex as they can both have without either of them succumbing to cardiac arrest, and continue about their lives. Oh, sure, they might dabble in some more interesting methods of pleasure, such as bondage or role play, but it's always with the same person, and it's always comfortably familiar.

But, just like with cake, there are some people who simply cannot abide limits. They need more, in every way: larger quantities, richer quality, more diversity. And so, said sexually free people are faced with three choices: have more sex with their current partner (and stress them into a cardiac arrest), introduce kinkier kinks such as Violet Wands (and possibly scare them into a cardiac arrest) or, as many do, turn to swinging.

Still not pictured: what I'm talking about. 

Some say swinging (i.e non-monogamous behaviour among committed partners) began in the wild, free-love era of the '60s, some say earlier, in the American military camps of the '50s, but the origin is of little importance: I don't personally believe it's become any more or less acceptable or unacceptable since its inception, so I'll just talk about how I see it now. Talking about swinging now and then would be like comparing murder now and then; it's reasonably sure that there won't be a sizeable difference in reaction.

Famous? Yes. Accepted? Not particularly.

Much like many of the things we write about, whether swinging is good or bad is largely up to the context. Swinging absolutely needs to be mutual, with both partners participating, or else someone's likely to end up hurt. If one person's swinging, and one person isn't, it's not really swinging - at best, it's an open relationship; at worst, cheating, which is all the salient information I really have on this topic. I'm sure the others will inform you about the etiquette, safety precautions, and how to avoid having to sleep with the atrociously ugly woman at the swingers party, but I'm just here to furnish you with info from personal experience: make sure what you're doing is actually swinging.

As per usual, feel free to send comments, critiques and bank details to homojournal@gmail.com.

Yours faithfully,

James.

You can tell that I was only one sad-song away from a full-blown Cretzal meltdown a la "Repent, Heterosexuals!" while writing this. We don't need another one of those.