Greetings From the Deep End!

This lifestyle, swinging, affords moments unlike any other.

Watching a gorgeous, sexy girl wielding a nine inch silicone cock and putting it to your wife is one of those moments that is almost indescribable. Unique in every sense of the word. One of those moments where you lean back, and after thinking “it’s good to be me,” and “this is amazing” you begin to think “this is the deep end! how the hell did this happen? how did I get here? one minute I’m swimming around in the three foot shallows and the next there’s strapons and fisting.”

I’d always been jealous of the glamorous people, those people we see on television and in movies, the rockstars, the celebrities…but then I realized that they seem to have very poor monogamous relationships by and large.  Even nice guy/role model Tiger Woods; great at golf, bad at marriage. Bad at communicating. Bad at “figuring it out.” They have regular monogamous relationships at least until they fuck them up by cheating, lying. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of swingers cheat and lie as well, but by and large these people, the beautiful people, the elite, the key players in our nation, they don’t have what I have.

Openness, honesty, sexual freedom. And damn wouldn’t they be jealous of me for having it…

It’s a fascinating idea put that way. Because we are the elite in this case. The (approximately) one in seventy people who identify as swingers. We are the ones who can make them jealous, because we’ve figured it out. We’ve learned how to play this game, to do this unique and coveted dance out on the raggedy edge of sexuality, one where we can be ourselves, where we can be honest about what and who we want (except for bi guys, but that’s another story) and where we can, by and large, find like minded friendly people who want nothing more than to pleasure us and themselves in all manner of filthy ways that’ll bring us to the office the next day with a smile we cannot explain because we still can’t believe it happened to us and not in some letter to Penthouse. <DEEP BREATH!>

“Dear Penthouse, I never thought this would happen to me…”

I’ve known I leaned toward openness for about the last ten years. And for nine of those I sat idly by and said nothing, did nothing. For the very reason that I’d wager more people don’t experiment. Simple words, simple phrase, heard all around the world: “My husband/wife would never go for that,” often accompanied by a deep sigh. These words are heard all the time by us and swingers like us when we regale friends with stories of exploits the likes of which they didn’t know even existed outside of Cinemax After Dark.

And that’s what interests me most about that statement, that “they” would never go for it. (The they being the prim and proper, the good girls and good boys, the friendly, the Christian, the upstanding citizen, the husband, the wife, the THEY.) But all of us are they to another. I know for a fact that my wife didn’t think I’d be okay with her experimenting, in whatever way that was. I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the answer to “what about swinging?” would be “what about you get the fuck out…” There’s no way that my once Catholic wife who’d only kissed one boy before we met, dated, fucked, got married, got bored…there’s no way that she’d be interested in threesomes, or group sex, certainly not double penetration with a tall blonde in the back and her husband in the front. No siree, not a chance.

Because it’s about communication, isn’t it? When you ask a long time swinger what keeps it going (besides the sex with others, that’s a given) it’s that they talk to their spouse, and understand where each other actually is. It’s not about this perceived reality of their partner, a perceived reality where, like the Madonna/Whore complex, I could never smack her ass, or call her a bitch and pull her hair till it hurts the way she likes it (because she wouldn’t tell me she likes it), and I could never tell her I want to eat her cunt, nice girls don’t have cunts, they barely even have pussies, they have vaginas that must be treated well, right?  RIGHT?!

And if my wife is the Madonna, and my potential mistress is the whore…well, that’s a pretty major communication break down, now isn’t it. Mistress here can be anything you like, from an actual in the flesh affair, to phone sex, to cybersex and sexting, to even looking at porn on your computer while you pull your own cock. Those fantasies in your head can get pretty dark and scary sometimes if you’re not willing to open yourself up to your REAL sexuality, to look it right in the face and admit to yourself that I’m looking for THIS.

But admitting it to yourself isn’t the final step unfortunately, it’s that rough patch, the admitting it to your partner, the one who would never go for it, whatever it is. The sweet and innocent, or the angry and jealous.

Because it was only when the admission happened, and I specifically told her that I was having trouble because I’ve been wanting to see what it’d be like to fuck other people, and I flinched, because I saw something flash in her enormous green eyes that made me, all at once, regret what I said, want to take it back so desperately, but I misread, as I’d misread her desires for so many years, because after a deep breath came the answer I never expected:

“I’ve been thinking the same thing…”

And I’ve learned more about my beautiful and wonderful wife in that year and a half since that moment than I had in the nine years leading up to it. Certainly more about her sexuality and desires. She’s learned more about me as well. So what is it? What separates us from the the glamorous people jumping from bed to bed and collapsing seemingly every relationship that they start? (It’s possible I’m glancing in your direction Brad Pitt) I can’t state enough how much more important REAL communication is, not just talking, honesty, being up front with what you really think/feel/want. It may feel pretty shitty to tell your spouse you’ve been thinking about other people, but it’s far shittier to just go fuck them.

Look at me, proselytizing, spreading the good word of communication all over this land of ours. I’m of course not saying that anyone who talks about swinging with their spouses can becomes swingers. In fact, you’d better be prepared for that conversation to blow up in your face. I’m more speaking about knocking down those perceived walls between you. The “I don’t want to upset” wall, the “they’re not that dirty” wall, all these things which may not actually exist except for in your mind.

‘Cuz it was communication that brought us here. The deep breath, the let go, the say what you want. That’s what led to nine inch dildos and DP. That’s what led to many of the greatest friendships we’ve ever had. That’s what led to, for the first time in our lives, the feelings that we were where we were supposed to be, body, mind, spirit. Finally figured it out.

And all we had to do was GET OVER OURSELVES, take a deep breath, and jump into the deep end.

After all, you can’t get wetter than wet.

About Cooper Beckett: Cooper Beckett's life isn't like other people's. When he's not writing or podcasting at Life on the Swingset, he's living it up with his wife Marilyn as evangelical swingers, spreading the good word that "sharing is caring." He truly believes that a good many people would be open to exploring the fringe of human sexuality, knocking down the borders between orientations, and experiencing the most basic of human rights: great sex, if only they were told it's okay to do so. He has resolved to change the world, even if it's only one couple at a time. Be his friend on Facebook – Follow him on Twitter