Willingness Baby

Couple weeks back, maybe a month at this point, Kate had dinner with a woman named Haley.

We met Haley and her husband, Kurt, on SLS. They’re fairly new to that site and swinging in general. They’ve had FFM (Female Female Male) threesomes in the past and are looking to have more. Haley, like Kate, isn’t curious at all, she’s bisexual; she likes and looks for one on one time with other women. Our SLS profile mentions that Kate is bi and enjoys being a Unicorn; seeing this, Kurt reached out.

We were clear with them while Kate was open to the possibility of a threesome down the road, her initial priority was one on one time with Haley.

By way of an introduction if you’re reading us for the first time……Kate and I are a married couple in our 50’s whose relationship is Ethically Non-Monogamous (ENM). We’re swingers, our marriage is open; we have sex with other people. We’re in a committed relationship, and somewhere on the polyamorous spectrum; Kate has a boyfriend (or two) and is a Hotwife. It’s neither of our first marriages. We met in a 12 step meeting; we’re each more than a decade sober now. If you’re curious about how this all works, we talk about our relationship in varying degrees of depth in other posts. We have an email address listed in our “about” page if you would like to contact us.

A Unicorn, as we’re using the term in this post, refers to a solo woman who joins a couple for play / sex.

In our experience, guys (or couples) who are actively Unicorn hunting (I get that’s a problematic phrase with some, I’ll expand in a bit) are thinking with their dicks and looking for a relationship that’s performative on the women’s part. Connection typically isn’t very high on the male’s list of their priorities.

We’ve learned it’s best at the introduction stage for the women to meet each other for coffee or dinner and see how it goes. The guys can stay home and watch Family Guy or whatever. From what we’ve seen, male energy isn’t useful or helpful in the early going. It’s all about the ladies and their connection.

As it happened, Haley and Kate got along famously. Their “dinner” went for 2 1/2 hours, featuring a free-flowing conversation covering a LOT of ground. There was talk of the two of them getting together again, this time behind closed doors and with decidedly fewer clothes. At this point Kurt piped up and said no, it had to be the three of them. That didn’t work for Kate, nor was Haley a fan of it. Apparently, Haley tried talking to him, but he doubled down.

Given the connection and sexual energy that Kate and Haley felt at dinner, Kurt was probably looking at a seriously hot FFM in his not too distant future. Instead, his inability to separate fear and ego from his best interests ended up shooting him in the foot (well, dick…not to put too fine a point on it).

This is not the first time Kate and I have experienced this kind of sexual / swinging gatekeeping. To be fair, some couples are fairly set on only playing in the same room; that’s common in swinger spaces. It’s also common for some of these same couples (typically the male) to be more than comfortable with the female half of another couple joining them.

Perhaps Kate’s biggest struggle in our lifestyle journey has been the concept of fairness. She has felt that her being a Hotwife and Unicorn, having solo sex with others, is somehow not fair to me. On the surface, if you’re bean counting, yeah, she has a point. Not much below the surface this falls apart.

I don’t have the need for connection with others that Kate does. I also have a pronounced streak that is turned on by her being with others; I’m on the cuckold spectrum. Beyond and encompassing the raw sexual component, is the compersion I have for her. The trust and vulnerability we share fills my bucket in the same way her fucking other people fills hers. Kate needs more connection with others than swinging provides; I don’t. Stop the presses: we’re different people with different and complementary needs and desires.

Fair for us is each of us getting what we need from each other and how we approach non monogamy. The “body counts” don’t tell the fairness story.

Along similar lines, I’ve yet to see someone in swinger spaces become horrified when their significant other is having rip roaring sex with another person. Quite the opposite, smiles and joy are the most common reactions from partners. Compersion is VERY common, much more common than perhaps thought.

I think we look at “Unicorn Hunting” thru a different lense than some people, there’s a couple reasons for this.

First of all, Kate enjoys being a Unicorn, and I support that 100%. Our relationship is all over the place, we don’t fit into a labeled box or two; I’m starting to think of us as practicing “hierarchical anarchy”. There, there’s a turn of a phrase. We go with where our energy and pleasure goes, in accordance with ethics of course; while keeping our connection at the core. Our longest lifestyle relationship is Kate being the Unicorn for a couple. There’s no ick there, I know them, we spend time socially.

Second, we’ve seen it from both sides of the swinger / poly divide.

With swinging, what we’ve seen is everyone involved knows that the relationship is chiefly about the sex; the shift into poly opens more nuance and subtlety. Regardless of which side of that imaginary line the relationship is on, there’s the potential for the Unicorn to experience ick. Couples privilege, being shady, concerns of power imbalances that can negatively impact the Unicorn. Some of this we’ve experienced (see the Kurt situation above), some we’ve not, but have read and heard about. If you feel I’m missing the boat here, please course correct me, I’d love to hear your thoughts or experiences. (Thanks to The Gaelic Traveler for his input in the comments)

Here’s where the math shows up. A typical swinging situation looks something like this: Two couples who are open to having sex with others, make a connection (can be over months or minutes, depending on the situation) and the couples swap partners.

In case someone missed Sesame Street or has forgotten their “Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch” lore, 3 in fact, comes before 4. Any “typical” swinger foursome has 4 built in threesomes; 2 FFM’s and 2 MMF’s. The catch being that someone has to sit out to make any of them work.

This is decidedly not Swinging 101.

There are multiple potential upsides to this arrangement.

First, and the big sell, is that everyone in the group gets the opportunity to be in multiple threesomes. Everyone gets the chance to be the pivot between two opposite sex partners.

Next is this arrangement ups the sexual energy between everyone. The group energy, as well as both of the couples.

In the long run, what I think is the biggest upside is both couples will invariably have to do some work. The kind of work that is vulnerable and open, the kind of work that grows and expands relationships. Sure, it can (and likely will) have some uncomfortable moments, but that’s not a plot twist or something new.

If you’re a swinger couple, you’ve had these types of conversations around entering the lifestyle. How did those awkward and uncomfortable conversations work out for ya? I’ve never seen a couple in the lifestyle who’s regretted it and stuck around.

The basic point of swinging is we humans as a species like to fuck. We like to fuck other people. Swinging is doing it in the “open” and in a not running around way. Humans like threesomes too. Back to the math thing again.

We’ve had this conversation with a couple we’ve been more than friendly with for the last year. They had some interesting thoughts on how to turn the heat up a bit with it. We’ll see what happens, but I suspect the next few months will be on the extra spicy side for the four of us.

As always, thank you for reading!!! Be kind to yourself and others….

Sam & Kate

PS….If you’ve made it this far, please take a moment and clap (one or up to 50 times) for this post. It’s feedback for Kate and I, (comments and highlites are always welcome too!) and helps push the story up algorithmically. Thanks!!!