Not long ago we received a question from a reader seeking to be justified in a desire to be in a swinging lifestyle. We responded to them that we did not see any biblical grounds for this to be an acceptable practice for believers. Hoping to bring some reality to the situation we contacted a couple who had been redeemed from the swinging lifestyle and they graciously agreed to share their story with us in the hopes that they can help others to escape the sin of swinging. This is Part One of their story.
Christian Nymphos: Describe your marriage prior to becoming swingers?
Husband – We both felt our marriage was good. Don’t get us wrong, it wasn’t perfect but we weren’t fighting like cats and dogs as many marriages suffer from.
Wife – We had an active and enjoyable sex life together.
CN: Were you Christians at the time?
Husband – Yes, we were both active Christians just prior to swinging but had a falling out with our church and left it. Little did we realize until years later, we let our embitterment cause a falling out with the Lord.
Wife -My husband grew up in an active Christian home while I was raised in a home that rarely attended church. So we came from different upbringings but fell to the same sins together.
CN: How long had you been married when you decided to try it?
Husband – Shortly after we got married we experimented briefly with swinging. It was more to satisfy a curiosity. But that didn’t last long and after it we grew into a closer walk with the Lord. Then later in our marriage we fell away, far far away (reference question number 1). It was at that point that we fell deep into the swinging lifestyle.
Wife – This first brief time was more of a experimentation because of the curiosity.
CN:What was your motivation?
Husband – For me the husband, it was a strong desire to share my wife with others. To have them covet what a great wife I had.
Wife – It was the curiosity of being pleased by more than one person at a time. And the stronger influence was the flattery of another’s interest. An ego boost if you want to call it that other’s still think I’m sexually attractive.
CN: Were you both committed to trying it or was it more like one of you was curious about it and the other just agreed to do it?
Husband – I was very curious to try it. My persistent pressure on my wife got her to concede to trying it.
Wife – I had my curiosities, fantasy and desire to try it myself. But without my husband’s insistence to do it I probably would have never acted on it.
CN:Describe the emotions involved the first time you did it?
Husband – Nervous, butterflies, etc. And that feeling really didn’t go away even later in the lifestyle. There were always some butterflies before each meeting even if it was with partners we had already been with. Another emotion the first time was a sensation of ‘wow, we’re finally doing this’. It had been years of desires built and now finally fulfilling them. Then those inherent thoughts of ‘Is this really finally happening?’ and ‘No stopping now’.
Wife – Very nervous. But once the physical part began that went away. Satan has a way of squashing emotions with pleasures of the flesh.
CN: Did you have to shut down part of yourself?
Husband – Actually my mind was too busy with itself. Trying to take it all in and grasp getting to finally act out the physical pleasure.
Wife – Yes. With sex there is also an emotional tie and there was no way I wanted any type of emotional ties with anyone but my husband.
CN: What exactly were you both in to? Were there rules that you followed?
Husband – This will answer two questions. When we started out we had all sorts of ground rules. Threesome with men only. No friends. They had to be single. And condoms were required. But swinging was like a drug. The more we did the more we wanted. Always looking for the next bigger and better fix. We ended up breaking all our original ground rules. And on top of that we ended up doing couple swaps in which my wife partook of bisexual play with the other wives. We went to strip clubs and swinger dances. Pretty much, we ended up doing most everything other full blown stereotypical swingers were doing in the lifestyle.
Wife – My husband seemed to always want to try more and was fueled by porn. But as I fell deeper into the lifestyle my inhibitions seemed to fall away too.
CN: Did you find yourself in any dangerous situations?
Husband – Actually no. We were very selective on who we met. We’d screen them online for some time. (Or talk in depth with close friends we brought into our lifestyle.) Then we’d schedule a non-sexual face to face meeting first. If things all clicked to that point then we’d schedule a meeting for a sexual encounter.
Wife – Looking back, we did set ourselves up many a time where a dangerous situation could unfold. But it never did. Even in sin God was still watching out for us.
CN: At the time, how did it effect your own intimacy?
Husband – We use to brag to others how it made our marriage stronger. Looking back I really can’t say it did.
Wife – All it did was allow us to suppress any insecurities in our relationship based on the fact we were open with our marriage.
CN: Was it what you thought it would be like?
Husband – It kind of varied actually. Some encounters were just blah. While other encounters we’re some of the wildest sex we’d ever have. Those types of encounters would stay with me for days and weeks afterwards. I’d dwell on what happened and feel a rush from it. Overall being a swinger was what I thought it would be. But the consequences were a surprise I never thought would happen to us.
Wife – The physical pleasure was what one might expect. But the emotional roller coaster back and forth between lust and guilt wasn’t something expected.
CN: Did you deal with jealousy issues?
Husband – I never did. Because my desire was to share my wife with others. For me, sex with other women was more of a token event I did so I could watch my wife have sex with the other women and their husbands.
Wife – I enjoyed the physical pleasures with being with other people. But I never got 100 percent comfortable with my husband having sex with other women.
CN: Was it a huge secret that you kept from your friends & family? Or did everyone around you know?
Husband – It was a deep dark secret we kept from everyone we knew. Well, except for the few friends we ended up bringing into the lifestyle with us.
Wife – One thing we and a few other lifestylers couldn’t understand was how many swingers that were open about it. Posting face pictures at swinger sites, etc. For us discretion was one of the most critical elements and still is with our testimony afterwards.
Tomorrow we will share the rest of this couple’s story, including how they were eventually set free from the swinging lifestyle.
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Christian Nymphos 
My husband and I were on our way to one of the swinger’s places when we realised that it will not be good for us. Maybe it was the Holy Spirit, maybe it was because our relationship is not 100% and we want to compensate for what was missing.
We both decided to look at what the effects are of swinging and found you guys on the net.
Our desires are still for excitement and fun with other similar thinking people, but this cannot carry the blessing of God…
We need some help in this and where we can go to talk about it.
We will email you this couple’s ministry address.
we so want to try this too – just going ot the club not doing anything, but fear that my struggle with bicurious feelings would result in the slippery slide that te couple described. I dont know what to do. 😦
You don’t know what to do? Or you don’t really feel like doing what you know you ought to do? I don’t know your past so maybe you are not a believer of Jesus and one who is part of a local church, but in what way could going to a swingers club be helpful for your relationship with Jesus? And in how many ways could it cause your heart to draw away from HIm?
my husband and I have only been able to see each other online for a while. He wanted to see me with other guys and since I could no longer tell him no we started with a few guys comming to my apartment. We are both christians and we know this is not good for us. I am not happy with it at all, but he does not know how to control the demon that is within him. every time I do something he says he is sorry and he wants to stop. then a few days or sometimes even the same day he says he is sorry but he wants it again. he says he doesnt know how to say no he wants it and he hates it. I love my husband very much and I know he loves me. without us doing, what we call, “the bad” he is an amazing man and we never have any other problems. anyway please help us we are very desperate for a change. thank you
I was a Christian, and raised a Christian, and remained a Christian until I was 27. Was being the operative word. When I was a Christian, I struggled with the guilt piled on that sex was “the bad”. I was raised to think that sex was to be saved for one person, that romantic love was finite, limited to one person, and that sex could kill you and every thought in your mind that strayed outside of married-missionary-heterosexual-sex was Satan coming to get you.
In 2006 I lost my faith after years of study and struggle. Over the course of a few weeks, I slowly let go of the last vestiges of my idea of who God was. When I finally saw it fade away, I felt an immense burden lift. The guilt was gone…
It wasn’t just guilt about sex (and I had been faithful and married to my one and only for 10 years at this point), but about many things, all the tiny mistakes I’d made over my life – greed and gluttony and anger and stealing a dollar out of my mom’s change jar for lunch.
But sex was part of it. Suddenly I realized that the miscarriage I’d had when my husband and I were dating was NOT God’s punishment for premarital sex. It was just biology.
I digress…
I soon realized, as guilt lifted, that I was bisexual. I was 27 and just realizing this! My husband and I had entertained thoughts about swinging before, but we dismissed them as something fun and titillating to think about – but mere fantasy. Now we thought about it more seriously.
In 2008, we began dating another couple. Instead of calling it swinging, we called it “polyamory.”
Any relationship can be heartbreaking, can be a mistake, can involve what Christians call “sin,” and can harm other relationships, be it your marriage, your relationship with children, parents, or other friends, and this one did. After 4.5 months, the relationship ended very painfully. The other couple called it off abruptly. I was broken hearted. My children lost friends (the other couples children) and my husband and I were distant.
But… good things came of it. We moved to another state where my husband got a better job. My children were young enough that they forgot what had happened (they were 7 and 4). The distance between my husband and I, the move, the new job – it all forced us into situations where we HAD TO TALK. Eventually, we realized that what we needed was something new to do together, and humor in our lives. Slowly, we built that back up. We made common friends, we learned ballroom dancing, and mostly, we LAUGHED together.
My husband, however, still felt that it wasn’t in his nature to be monogamous. The last thing I wanted was to go through that same heartbreak. I put my foot down. I told him if he wanted a girlfriend, to go get one, but I didn’t want to date a couple again. We might swing, but no relationships.
Four months ago, we met another couple. I resisted, but they were mutual friends, and oh, so different.
This time, we’re doing it right. We have rules, we communicate endlessly, we have love, respect, and the relationship goes so much further than sex. My husband and I talk, talk, talk and I love his lover, who is also mine, and he respects my other lover, her husband.
We are swingers; we swing together. But above all, we are polyamorous. We love one another, we lean on one another. When we are sick, we nurse one another, care for one another’s children, clean one another’s houses, rescue one another when our cars break down. We offer advice, when we are jealous, we talk about it as a group and explore the reasons why. We cry together and laugh together.
Even swinging isn’t just about sex. For those of you who have been to a swing club, how many people are actually having sex, and how many people are sitting around talking, dancing, laughing, or just having the same type of good time they could have at a bar? For many, being in a swing club is about being around people with the same attitudes and beliefs about sex you have. It’s almost like church, just for people who actually LIKE sex.
I am not sure if maybe this is the only article you have read on our blog, but your last sentence is very out of place. We, the writers of the blog, and the women who read here like sex A LOT and a great majority of us are also church goers. Much of the church is moving towards embracing our God-given sexuality. We just have different boundaries than you do.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Clearly we disagree on many points, but your comment is welcome regardless.
You are absolutely right. My last sentence was out of place, biased and based on my own experience and upbringing. I apologize. Thanks for pointing that out, and for listening to my story. So many of my family, who still hold to negative attitudes about sex in general, shunned me when my first polyamorous relationship came out. We have stayed “in the closet” to all but very close friends regarding the current one. I appreciate the respectful disagreement, and will try to extend the same. 🙂
Thank you all for your honest sharing. One of you mentioned swinging was “like a drug”. This has been been mentioned in a post by a couple on an ex porn star’s site called Pink Cross Foundation. You all should check it out and support it by doing so. I’m not represented by it in any way. I just have the desire to see sites like this one as well as others befriend one another. The network of the “Lifestyle” and all it’s propaganda dwarf sites like this one and thus successfully lead the curious into temptation. When someone searches “swinging/lifestyle” on any search engine it would be great if this site and others telling the truth of the consequences of the lifestyle would be equally represented alongside those that promote it,