What are the personal skills and attributes which makes for successful swinging and why it is important for swingers to acquire and develop them?
Here we look at broad-mindedness, tolerance, sociability and some other essential qualities that the swinger lifestyle demands.
Broad-mindedness is a personal attribute that you would expect anyone who wants to enjoy the swinger lifestyle to possess in abundance; but we have met many swingers who are sadly lacking in this essential quality. It is easy to be broad-minded about your own sexual freedom but it doesn't follow that this makes you open and non-judgemental about the behaviour of others; especially when it comes to sexual practices that may not be to your taste or ones performed by people you find unattractive or even repelled by. People who successfully live the swinger lifestyle in fullness are truly broad-minded, in the sense that are perfectly happy to live and let live in all situations. The ones who pick and choose what to be broad-minded about rarely remain in the lifestyle for long.
Tolerance is a very similar personal attribute to broad-mindedness but includes matters that are
not sexually related. One of the most common forms of intolerance we have come across in the swinger
lifestyle is homophobia. It is not uncommon to hear swingers talking about the gay scene in a derogatory
way or at least insinuating their distaste for homosexual behaviour. A vivid example
of dual standards in this respect took place at a swinger party we hosted once:
Two couples were enjoying a foursome in which the women had been performing oral sex on the men.
One of the women dared her partner to put the other man's penis in his mouth. The other woman supported the dare
and both of the men, in turn took up the gauntlet.
Within five minutes of this playful incident occurring, another couple had approached
us to complain about the 'disgusting behaviour' they had witnessed. They informed us that they,
'Hadn't expected our swinger parties to have gays attending' and that they would not be attending any
more of our events.
People who successfully enjoy a swinger lifestyle tend to be very sociable people. Their key personality traits include a good sense of humour and the ability to make small talk. They generally light-hearted people who enjoy flirtatious conversation almost as much as they enjoy sex. Coupled with these qualities, successful swingers are observant and have good listening skills. This enables them to quickly detect body language, gestures, key remarks and vocal tones and to respond appropriately. It is vitally important for a swinger to pick up on these sort of things during the socialising that goes on during the pre-sex stage of a swinger party. Elsewhere in Keys to a Successful Swinger Lifestyle, you will find advice on how to develop these key personal attributes.
Swingers need to be non possessive. This does not just apply to couples. Singles can easily fall into the trap of hooking up with other swingers and draw the conclusion that the relationship is more than a one off. Sometimes, of course, such relationships do develop into much longer term ones but the single should never make the assumption that his recreational sexual partners at one event are his for others. As far as couples are concerned, possessiveness is just about the surest guarantee that the swinger lifestyle will be a complete disaster. If there is any hint of possible jealousy erupting in your relationship you need to seriously reconsider whether to embark on the lifestyle at all.
Patience and perseverance are very important personal qualities for people just setting out on the swinger lifestyle. They are especially important virtues for single males. It is probably true to say that majority of people who get little or nothing out of their attempts to find and enjoy sex parties and genuine swinger dating opportunities, fail because of their own lack of patience and perseverance. Clicking on a few profiles and sitting back to wait is rarely going to be enough to finding genuine swingers who are attracted to you. Both couples and singles are going to have their time wasted by people who don't reply, don't turn up for dates or who simply don't fancy them when they do meet up. You have just got to be patient and keep at it. Eventually, you will start hooking up with the right people and as your network grows, the invitations to those swinger parties you never see advertised will start coming you way.
Everyone who enjoys the swinger lifestyle will regularly face rejection. Swinging is not a sexual free for all and swingers need to have as much of the right chemistry to want to have sex with one other as monogamous people do. Single males will have to face even more rejection because there are a lot of couples who are not interested in swinging with single males.
If you are the sort of person who just cannot handle rejection or believes you are somehow entitled to have sex with anyone you are attracted to, the swinger lifestyle is not for you. If, on the other hand, you are just a normal sensitive person who is willing to learn how to deal with rejection by exposing yourself to it regularly, you will soon get the hang of handling it. Read more about swinger rejection here.
This page is based on one of the sections of our invaluable swinger lifestyle guide:
Keys to a Successful Swinger Lifestyle.
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