I’m watching a Silicon Valley CEO being led around the room on a leash. His wife is in the next room, where a jewellery designer is getting comfortable with three men who definitely aren’t her husband. I’m part of the LA swinging community and at these parties, anything goes. For a few hours everyone can forget the stresses of juggling normal life and live judgement free. There are couples who’ve come together and some who’ve come alone (though always with their partner’s approval). That was the appeal for me - the ability to explore your sexuality whilst also maintaining an open, trusting relationship.
How did I get here? When I was 25 I was cheated on. I’d always been a very jealous person, particularly in relationships. I’d go snooping through my partner’s cupboards and scroll through their phone looking for things that I didn’t want to find, but found anyway. I hated being this type of person and when my relationship broke down, I swore to myself that I’d never let sex be the thing that ended a relationship. It seemed that the universe agreed, and around time I decided to keep sex and emotions separate, I was introduced to the deliciously freeing world of swinging.
I was living in LA when a married couple, Anna* and Pete, took me under their wing. Most Sunday’s Anna and Pete hosted lunch at their house, these were fairly boozy affairs but I always left at a reasonable hour. I knew that most of the other guests stayed the night but I’d never really thought much of it until one Sunday Anna let me in on the secret. We were gossiping in the loo and before I knew it, Anna was kissing me. I’d hooked up with women before but Anna was married - to my friend! It turned out that the cosy Sunday lunches were just the starter for an even cosier evening of partner swapping. All of these married couples with respectable jobs – lawyers, doctors and tech gurus – were having weekly orgies and then heading off in the morning to drop their kids at school. Jobs with long hours or a lot of travelling made it easy to explain nightly absences and for the Average Joes, getting home to pay the babysitter was part of the thrill. I’d stumbled into a community where sexual freedom and emotional monogamy (everyone here was happily married and also happily sleeping with other people) co-existed and it looked pretty great to me.
I started to regularly hook up with Anna and her friends and had my eyes truly opened to the world of swinging. The parties were every bit as hedonistic as you’d imagine; alcohol fuelled, encouraging anything from bondage to group sex. I enjoyed the community single and carefree for years, until I met Joey. He was a party boy who had never been in a serious relationship before, so I decided to test the waters of being in an open relationship. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, so we laid down ground rules to ensure that trust and open communication were at the foundation of our relationship. Casual hook ups were fine but you couldn’t swap numbers or speak to that person again. If we went out together, we went home together. And you definitely couldn’t sleep with somebody that we both knew. That was 12 years ago, we’ve been married for seven and our ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy is going strong to this day.
From the outside we live a pretty wholesome existence, now in Ibiza. When we’re not working (I’m a therapist specialising in post trauma care and Joey is a web developer) we spend our days hiking, swimming, practising yoga and foraging for fresh food. Oh, and we have two great kids.
While there have certainly been testing times, like when I thought I caught feelings for the local bar tender and when I heard a rumour that he’d tried to suck a friend of mine’s toes at a party, for the most part this arrangement has worked amazingly for us. We have a loving, honest relationship and sleeping with other people allows us both to get our kicks that the other isn’t really into. For me, knowing that I have this option to escape my normal life is, or certainly was, a really important outlet for me. Until recently, the kids have never held us back.
We got involved with the local swinging scene soon after we arrived on the island - when you know you know – and as it’s a much more tight-knit community than in LA, there’s more social interaction between the couples. I’ve been at a BBQ on the beach and my husband and another dad have kissed when the kids weren’t looking. It’s not unusual to find your foot being massaged under the table at a family-friendly dinner. But these are specific friends for specific purposes. I have a whole other circle who have absolutely no idea what we get up to.
As the kids grow up, I’ve become less and less interested in going to the sex parties while Joey’s interest has rocketed. I’m starting to worry that the more he goes out, the more likely it is that people we know from school, our jobs and our social lives may start to put the dots together and suspect that we don’t have what most people would consider a ‘regular’ marriage. I don’t want to be the subject of island gossip or for people not to recommend me for work because of my extra marital preferences. But I made a promise to myself that I’d always be in an open relationship, so even though it makes me nervous that he’s playing around so close to home it’s something I have to live with.
If the mums at the school gate knew the truth about our relationship I’m not sure they’d be so keen on play dates. I hope in the future that ‘openness’ will be less taboo and I won’t have to feel guilty about my life choice, but for now, I’m keeping my swinging hobby firmly under wraps. Unless, of course, you’re interested?
*The names in this article have been changed
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