Author: Ms Deed

I’m continually impressed with the live-and-let live attitude in the lifestyle, where it’s possible to create your own sexual manifesto as long as you don’t impose it on anyone else.

Today I’m a swinging unicorn, but if you dig through all the other labels I’ve worn over the years, the one that’s always been firmly attached to my psyche is “southern girl.”

Since joining the Lifestyle, I’ve had many experiences that seemed dream-like, almost hallucinatory, because they came at me from outside of the vanilla frame of reference I lived within for most of my life – that having anything other than a two-person, monogamous relationship is unthinkable.

When I entered the Lifestyle I assumed that most of my encounters would be with single men. I thought I might find guys who would be fun friends with benefits without taking on the obligations of a more conventional relationship.

I will be the first to admit that I wasn’t planning a theoretical exploration of the brave new world of open relationships when I leaped into the Lifestyle. I was looking for friends with benefits. That doesn’t mean that I wanted my initial, ahem, exposure to potential partners to begin with their genitalia.

Three days after learning that the Lifestyle didn’t go out of style with electric blue hot pants, I was just as curious as my coupled friends had been about the erotic possibilities of swinging. But unlike them, I didn’t have a primary partner. I didn’t know about the websites. I didn’t have any late-night encounters with girls during my college years.

In the three months since I found myself standing at the door of a swinger’s club, I’ve had a series of unusual firsts, some frustrating episodes and more surreal moments than I ever expected. As a single woman in the Lifestyle – a unicorn – I’ve also never been happier sexually.