Want to send us a message? 00:00 - Start01:01 - Tip 1: Pace It Out03:31 - Tip 2: Fears and Expectations06:17 - Tip 3: Get Uncomfortable09:05 - Tip 4: Grow and Change12:40 - Tip 5: Trust21:34 - Lets talk about cheating...22:47 - Wrap Up! Support the showWant More?👀 Watch on YouTube: YouTube ShowFull video versions and interactive live episodes!Bonus episodes, exclusive content, and 🌶️Extras: https://www.patreon.com/SwingerUniversity 🛳️🎉Looking for lifestyle events in your area? T4P is the go-to directory for clubs, parties, and resort events. Browse now at Ticket4Play.com Custom SU T-shirts and gear: Our Amazon StoreSwingerLinks.com - live schedule, special offers*, and our 🌶️links!Our Website - Leave us a message, articles, and sexy products3 Ways to get your question on our show:RECORD it on our website at: https://swingeruniversity.com/contact/EMAIL a recorded voice note to: [email protected]: (916) 538-0482 and leave a voicemail.* We get a commission if you decide to purchase through our links, at no cost to you.
Transcript
We have to talk about something we've been genuinely excited about for months, and our patrons actually got a preview of this already. Jamaica! Yes, we are going back, and actually, we have a great offer for you guys. Yeah, it's Swingcation. It's October 11th through the 18th at Hedonism 2. And if you don't know what Swingcation is, it's pretty easy. Swinger plus kink plus vacation. It's a hosted group with real structure, workshops, lectures, real conversations with experts who are passionate about bringing and bridging that gap between the swinger world and the kink world.
And we're not just going as attendees. We're going as featured presenters, which is exciting. We'll be leading sessions. So if you come, we actually get to hang out with you. Which brings up something we should mention. When you use our code, yes, we got a code, you're not just getting a discount. You're getting the signature swing experience, which means $100 off per person, up to $200 per room, but it also means that we make time for you. An exclusive breakfast, lunch, cocktail hour, or one-hour and one time with us directly, plus more surprise benefits.
Here's something that's really unique. You could actually contribute by hosting a discussion or running a Skillshare. I know it's scary, but if you have something that you want to contribute, that's a big part of why this event is so special. Everyone there has something to bring to the table. All right, details. If you book before April 25th, you save $400. Plus, they gave us that special code that gets you an additional $200, and the special code is SWINGERU-VIP. So book through TicketForPlay.com forward slash Swinky. That's T-I-C-K-E-T, the number four, play.com forward slash S-W-I-N-K-Y.
And use our code at checkout. And you guys, if you have any questions about the event, the resort, or what to expect, just reach out. I mean, we're here for you. We're happy to help. So once again, TicketForPlay.com forward slash Swinky, the code SwingerU-VIP. We really want to see you there. We never thought swinging would be easy, and we were right. At first, it felt like everyone else had it all figured out while we're just stuck in our doubts and fears and endless what-if scenarios. But we found five key things that made all the difference.
Five tips that helped us navigate the challenges and truly made it work. If you've ever wondered how couples actually succeed in the lifestyle, you need to hear this. Welcome to Swinger University. I'm Ed. And I'm Phoebe. Today, we're going to be talking about five tips that will help you succeed in the lifestyle or at least five things that we've done that really got us through this whole journey and got us to where we are today tip number one we did it at our own pace. We didn't let anyone else influence us.
Although I will say we had a serious amount of FOMO that everyone else by appearances had it all figured out that it was just one big breeze and we were struggling all the time. So, even though we were on the same page, we were fraught with challenges. What were some of these challenges? Well, a lot of times we were trying to figure out what was going to happen before it happened. Yeah. So we were in this constant situation of, well, who's going to be there? What's going to happen? What are we going to do? What's going to, yeah, what are the expectations? How do I get prepared?
It's so unknown that the fear was overtaking us even though we had read about it listened to a bazillion podcasts about it we it it didn't apply to us in our area right so the big key that we figured out and this is this really is that, and that is that we decided to just do what we were comfortable with and continue to make progress at that pace. Not try to overshoot, not try to constantly reevaluate our boundaries, but when our boundaries felt like we were ready to shift, we would shift, but not before. So it was really just, let's just do what we like to do.
Let's be comfortable in our own skin. And for a lot of couples, that just means you're soft swap and that's all you do, or you're just there to watch. And all of those things are okay. Don't feel like you have to do what everybody else is doing. Like you said, everybody's going to be doing their own thing. And there are people who are doing things that are uncomfortable for them. You don't have to be like them. There are people who are way overshooting their boundaries. And we don't recommend that.
we recommend staying kind of in your comfort zone absolutely until you're ready until you're ready number two we talked about our fears lots and lots of conversations about fears expectations what-if scenarios and it helped a lot. We did a lot of analysis. And I think in hindsight, it was a little bit of analysis paralysis, but that's just how we were consuming our information.
Like I said, 10, 12 years ago, wasn't a whole lot of information out there other than just podcasts there was a few books but we didn't even really find out about the books until way later right right and i don't even know if adult dating sites other than monogamous dating sites existed did SDCC, Cassidy, and SLS even exist? Oh, yeah. Yeah, they were there. How come we didn't sign up for them? Was it a money thing? No, I think we didn't know about them because we didn't Google search for them.
And at the time, they just didn't pop up on our radar and it wasn't it wasn't until i think months later that we figured out oh there's there's it's not just craigslist there's a there there is an sls and we can log in there and we can find out about parties and events but we know about dating sites like vanilla dating sites because that's how we'd met was through a dating site right we didn't know that there were swinger dating sites at the time it's it's ironic that craigslist popped up for adult dating site but offshoot of adult dating site, like more than just like yeah one night stand hookups or yeah swinger hookups before sdc cassidy or else even showed up it was craigslist yeah well because craigslist at the time had set up a whole section for meeting other people It was kind of a hookup site and it was you know an r4r if you will people looking for a another person to do a particular thing there was it was fun it was a great section of craigslist and then of course the the 18 and over validation law kicked in and craigslist shut all that stuff down because human trafficking, which I'm sure happened on Craigslist, but that was not the majority of users.
It was people like us who were looking for parties, fun stuff to do. All right. Number three. We tried uncomfortable things. So the whole thing about kind of staying in your lane and going at your own pace, we knew that, well, our feelings popped up and we started to get comfortable to go, I'm a little excited to try something different. Are you okay with that? So as an example, we've got a great episode about our first full swap experience. If you haven't watched that, absolutely check it out. And there's a link to it up above.
We got to a point where we started to get excited about new things to try. We were like, ooh, that looks like a lot of fun. We should try that. But we wanted to make sure that we weren't getting hurt in the process. Right. Or that if something was uncomfortable, that we would talk about it. So go back to the previous tip where we were having conversations to make sure that we were both comfortable. And we were willing to kind of try anything once just to see if we liked it, if we were okay with trying it out. So when something presented itself, we would have a little conversation about it.
What do you think? Should we try it? Yeah. If we don't like it, we'll go back to the way we were i i think we also were because we had talked so much about what if scenarios that when a scenario presented itself we were comfortable enough to go yeah sure let's pull the trigger and do it because i remember remember there were a lot of in-the-moment decisions when we decided to push some boundaries. Yes. And I think that was because we laid some of that foundation ahead of time, the what-if scenarios, and we got comfortable with our environment as well.
And it was an we felt safe in yeah and i think we had had like you said enough conversations but we'd also gotten to a point where when we'd kind of stretched our boundaries a little bit and it didn't blow up in our faces yeah we go oh okay i feel i feel okay with testing the waters a little bit to see how it's going to go because we've done so well at recovering. So a lot of this is trying new things, seeing how you feel and not just how you feel about that thing, but how well do you recover from trying those new things? Yeah, exactly. Number four, we allowed growth and change.
Okay, can we talk about October for a second? Oh my God, yeah. I've been waiting for this. We were invited to be guest speakers for two engagements on a six star crystal cruise ship with 310 lifestyle couples. And it sails from Montreal to Boston during the peak foliage season. I'm super excited. And honestly, I'm really nervous.
Yeah, it's kind of a version of like a swinger TED talk that we're gonna have to do oh my god i know and more importantly if you know the brand it's llv luxury lifestyle vacations you may have seen them and they're sexy playmakers with their fun red hats this ship the crystal sym, is classy. Butler service for every single room, Michelin rated restaurants, full spa, clothing optional, sensual playrooms, like everything. Theme nights and international DJ. So it's luxury and nudity? Oh man, this is gonna be great. The bottom line is we want you there with us. It's 310 couples.
And like all their vacations, they book up fast. They really do. Their vacations are extremely popular. So please come with us. And in order to find it, all you have to do is go to our swingerlinks.com and look for the llv sensual voyage we hope you'll join us yeah as we were experimenting and we tried different things we had different preferences And so we got to points where we were okay with soft swap after a little while. We tried that for a little bit. We grew, we changed. Our experiences were good enough where we said, wow, this is great. Let's just sit in this for a little while.
We'll stay here. We'll enjoy these experiences until they didn't feel quite as fresh or new or exciting as what they were. And we wanted to try different things. So we grew. I do remember in the very beginning that it was weird to me to have you watch it felt strange i know it doesn't I know it's not going to make sense but in my mind it felt like I was cheating if I was doing it in front of you right even though I had your consent it I felt like I needed to have that experience in a separate room with a single guy. And that's how my brain was working.
It was like I had compartmentalized relationship mode with dating mode. And I didn't feel like I could completely be free with my body and my experience unless I was in, quote, relationship mode, which meant you had to be completely out of the picture. And so it was this weird opposition. And so that was my proposal to you in the beginning. And you were like, Ooh, I don't know about that.
I'd be willing to give you that experience probably three maybe four times but after that's my limit yeah yeah and i was like hmm okay because i couldn't really see anything past that to me it was just a hard line and i'm well, let's see where we go after three times. And then it never happened. It never happened. In fact, it never happened as a separate room ever with a single guy. It only happened with a single guy with you in the room like a decade later. Yeah. Yeah. We were way deep into this experience before we got to that place. Thank you.
guy with you in the room like a decade later yeah yeah we were way deep into uh this experience before we got to that place it's kind of crazy we did have a couple experiences in hotel parties where there were three or four or five couples and we ended up in separate play situations but it wasn't it wasn't intended it's just there's no room on the bed yeah there's no room on the bed uh which which happens where you go to get a snack or a drink and you start to have a conversation with somebody and all of a sudden you fall onto a couch right and what we did learn from all of these experiences as we went through them was there were things that we were more comfortable with and we kind of just fell into our own groove again.
So once again, we went at our own pace as we learned things, we backed off, we moved forward. it just we were honest with each other and which is really great because that kind of leads us into tip number and which is really great because that kind of leads us into tip number five, which is trust. We, we prided ourselves and we were very conscientious from the very beginning that we had to be honest with each other about our feelings and honesty. And honesty, and this is going to be a little bit of a bare admission.
So those of you who've watched this far, good for you because you're going to get some deep inside secrets. Very early on, we had struggled with what level of honesty we had with each other, especially when it came to sex. Oh, yeah. And there was a period of time where you felt compelled to fake orgasms. Yeah. Because you wanted to make sure I was having a good time. Yeah, it's my, was my perception was it's, you know, it's my job to make sure somebody's having a good time. Right. Whether it's I'm hosting a party and I've got guests, everybody, I'm trying to make sure everyone has a good time.
If I'm with a male partner, I want to make sure he has a good time. Right. So, I would do that at my own detriment. Yes. And, yeah, I was taught to fake it if it wasn't real. And that was, you know, part of societal programming from when I was brought up and part of maybe that people pleaser uh in me so uh yeah i got into the bad habit of doing that and when that came out that was really hard for me to disclose yeah yeah because i had to be honest with myself first and then i had to tell you and you were really upset you were shocked and upset because you were you felt i think Thank you.
And then I had to tell you, and you were really upset. You were shocked and upset because you were, you felt, I think, well, you tell how you felt. Yeah. I'm glad that you brought up the introspective part because for me, it, not having that information, not having the knowledge that I wasn't pushing the right buttons, or at least not in the right order or the right timing, robbed me of the opportunity to learn how your body worked. Right.
And it sets us up for some really bad experiences in the lifestyle because no one's ever going to figure out the buttons if you don't tell them that they're not figuring out the buttons. Right. And for those of you who are out there who are not getting what you expect out of an experience, you have to tell people. It's that honesty. You have to trust that the partner that you're with is telling you what you need to know to adjust, to get better at what you're doing. So it's okay, guys. You're not going to get it right most of the time with a new partner. So you got to learn.
You got to look for the cues. You got to have that conversation ahead of time and just be honest and go go i don't know any of your buttons you're gonna have to tell me what your buttons are so if i'm doing something right let me know grab my hair pull me in deeper whatever you need to do to communicate that i'm i'm on the right track that's what i want i want feedback i want to know right what's working the other thing that we also always kept saying to each other We'll be right back.
want feedback i want to know right what's working the other thing that we also always kept saying to each other was we are in it together this is a team sport if you will and either one of us can pull the plug at any time if it's not enjoyable if it's causing too much stress distress in fact We basically did pull the plug for about eight, nine months. Yeah. If it's causing too much stress, distress. In fact, we basically did pull the plug for about eight, nine months because of the overwhelm. It was too much stimulus. It was too much information.
It was a lot of mental and emotional processing. So, I just needed a break. I was exhausted. Yeah. There was also a period of time where we weren't having great experiences at the parties. Right. And we were still trying to figure out how do we navigate all of that stuff? What do we need to do? And I think what we finally came to was lowering our expectations when we go to parties. And you'll hear people say this a lot, but that's really hard to do. That's not an easy thing to do. Right.
And a lot of it is just comes down to being present, being mindful of how you're feeling and do what you're, what you're feeling that night. So if you're not feeling sexy, you can go to the party and be social, but don't like And I'll see you next time.
mindful of how you're feeling and do what you're what you're feeling that night so if you're not feeling sexy you can go to the party and be social but don't like pressure yourself to do something that you're not comfortable with and and definitely don't set yourself up for being disappointed because you and your partner are not on the same page and that's the whole we're in this together not only can we pull back when we're feeling uncomfortable or when something bothers us, but also if we both show up at a party and we're going in different directions, like I'm in it and you're not, we've got to be together on that.
We can't have two different agendas at a party. and so we had a game plan before each party and we did a mid-party check-in to see how we were doing how are you feeling now and the other thing that helped too was really setting the tone for that evening initially and not to say that it didn't change at in the midpoint recap recap when we did our huddle, but you're right. Sometimes I wanted to go and just be social and I wasn't feeling particularly sexy that day or that evening. And I thought, well, maybe the vibe, the music, the people will get me in the mood.
But if not, then at least least i'm gonna have some really great open conversations with everybody and we'll get to meet some new people and hopefully make some connections because the face-to-face interaction for me was worth the 60 80 dollars that we spent on the house party because getting to know someone on a chat was practically impossible. Yeah, yeah. So, and sometimes the evening changed or shifted and all of a sudden somebody piqued my interest and I'm like, okay, let's have some fun tonight. Yeah, and so many of our experiences have been going in with an open mind.
Maybe that's a better way of saying it than no expectations. It's be open to whatever's gonna happen there Thank you. been going in with an open mind maybe that's a better way of saying it than low no expectations it's be open to whatever's going to happen there whether it's just social or where whether it's sexy and oftentimes we would end up at a party and things you got into the mood and things changed for us.
What I think really shifted was because you've hired the babysitter, you snuck out of the house to get a, you know, because your kids are there and they want to know what you're wearing. So you're changing in the car.
Maybe you got a hotel room, you paid for the party, you spent an hour or two getting ready, shaving every of your body getting your hair i mean there are hours and financial commitments that went into this and you're thinking i don't want it to just be a meet and greet i right right so we decided since we had children in the house still that if nobody at the party was exciting or that wasn't really going the way we preferred we took it as an opportunity to just play ourselves right and since we liked being exhibitionists we sometimes got the party started and we still played with ourselves and And if we spend we spent eighty dollars or sixty dollars on a house party it was still cheaper than getting a hotel in the city right where we lived to go have time where we could be loud and do things that we wanted to do that we couldn't really do in a house because ears yeah so that's where we were a team and on the same page also where we're like let's just this isn't us activity if no one tickles our fancy let's do us right and we did let's do each other and i i think this trust tip wouldn't be complete if we didn't talk about the thing that everybody thinks swinging is all about, and that is that it's cheating.
That you are having sex with someone other than your lifelong partner, therefore it's cheating. And this is where we have a disagreement with it, where it's not cheating because it's a mutual decision. Just like you both decide to go on vacation together to Disneyland, you've both decided to go do this together. It's an activity that you have chosen to do together, which means that if you are in fact doing it without the consent of your partner, that is cheating.
If you're doing things that they don't know about and aren't aware of, unless they've consented to that, it's non-consensual and therefore it is not the E&M. It is not ethical non-monogamy. That's just cheating. And there's no faster way of breaking your partner's trust than cheating on them or doing things without their knowledge, period. So let's recap. What are the five things? Go at your own pace. Talk about your fears. Try uncomfortable things. Allow growth and change. And trust one another. 0482. Or reach out to us at swingeruniversity.com. You can leave us a message there.
You can leave us an email. We even have a little widget on our contact page where you can leave us a 90-second voice message. And if you want to be on the show, let us know. We'll put that in. Also, if you want to go on vacation with us, check out our vacation page because we have all kinds of fun and exciting vacations planned we are actually next year going on two cruises on virgin so if you want to hang out with us check out that page. And as we say, keep learning, keep growing, and keep it sexy. oh one last thing before you go.
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