I recently had a listener reach out with a very interesting topic: The ways swingers are portrayed in porn....As someone who watches very little porn myself and couldn't honestly say I had ever searched for "swingers porn" before, I felt compelled to do a little research, and I thought I would share some of it with you today.
Now let's be real: We all know porn is typically highly unrealistic anyway. It's one of the reasons I can't typically get lost in porn. I know the woman is likely faking it, and maybe the people can't stand each other, yet they act like they're having the time of their lives. We also know that porn has created a high bar for the way people, especially women, are expected to look. And not surprisingly at all, as I'm watching this "swingers porn," every woman is a size 2 with giant fake tits, and every guy has a perfect 10-inch cock. So the obvious out of the way, what are some of the other ways in which swingers in real life differ from the glossy, highly staged swingers of the porn world?
There Are No Awkward Transitions in Porn...
Any long-time swinger couple will tell you, the most awkward moment in 9 out of 10 play scenarios is transitioning from clothes-on to clothes-off. Someone has to make the move, often concerned they will be rejected in the process, and it can take some real work to get all the juices flowing (figuratively and literally). Those moments, in my opinion, are also very endearing. They show me a lot about who a person is. Those shy moments, those awkward pauses, give me an insight into the quirks that make someone unique and special.
Porn has no awkward pauses. Four or more people launch from a few flirty glances into straight up making out, usually with the men ripping clothes off of the women from behind while the ladies fondle each other. Rarely is there a conversation even, and if there is one, it's of course laced with eroticism. Can this happen in real swinging? Sure! But it's far from the norm.
Porn Makes Condoms Look Unnecessary
Anyone familiar with the porn industry knows that porn performers are required to provide a litany of test results before getting on screen and having sex with others. It's one of the reasons that the porn community has so few STI's when compared to the average sexually-active population (contrary to what a lot of anti-porn folks will tell you). It also creates a highly unrealistic view of what it really means to be safe for those interested in getting into the swinging lifestyle. Porn swingers strip off those clothes and go to town without needing to stop, awkwardly open a condom wrapper, slide the condom on, likely pump a little lube on to ensure comfort, etc.
In real life, condoms are necessary. One can argue this point til their blue in the face, I won't change my stance on this. Even if your partners are being tested regularly, the chances that they are receiving clean tests only days before having sex with you AND not having unprotected sex with anyone else until they are with you is slim. Again, it can happen. We know couples that only play with each other and still get tested every three months. They are careful, and they feel comfortable not using condoms as a result. But that random couple you meet a club? Not a chance! You simply can't trust strangers to have your health in mind and to be completely honest about their testing history. So as un-sexy as it may be, real swingers need to wrap it up.
There Are No Performance Issues in Porn....
Porn performers make sex look easy, every single time. They never seemed to be overwhelmed by their surroundings, they've never had one drink too many to get it up, and they certainly never have to stop mid-session to work on getting hard again. They fuck for 90 minutes straight without so much as a water break, never fearing their own erection.
Real-life swingers all have a story (or ten) about their play partner or they themself not being able to maintain an erection. It's so normal, in fact, that I bet you would be hard-pressed to find a seasoned swinger that hasn't dealt with it. A lot can happen during a play session that can cause performance issues: Over-stimulation, general nervousness, feelings of jealousy, being in unfamiliar surroundings, the list goes on. And unlike in porn, where a soft cock would result in stopping production, most swingers know to just roll with it. We switch back to our own partner for a bit, allowing the comfort of the familiar to reignite the spark. We switch to oral or petting for the purposes of relaxing all parties involved. Or we just take a break to chat, grab some water and come down from the heightened senses. It's only a big deal if you have porn-like expectations of a play session, expecting that absolutely nothing will "go wrong" and freaking out when they do.
Women Are Always Super Bi in Swinger Porn
This one, I feel creates undue pressure on women new to the lifestyle. Porn swinging makes it appear as though every woman in the lifestyle is bisexual and ready to go down on another lady at any given moment. Of the several films I watched in preparation for this article, not a single one had the ladies removed from one another, focusing on the heterosexual elements of swapping. In fact, most swinger porn begins with the women touching and kissing (or more) before the men ever get involved.
In the real world, I would be lying to say that most women in the lifestyle don't identify as bisexual, or at least bicurious. However, once you start playing with some, it's obvious they are more comfortable playing with the man and avoiding more than kissing with the woman. This is totally fine! Women should not feel an expectation to play with other women simply because it's "the norm" in the lifestyle and what is exhibited time and time again in swinger porn. They should, however, be honest about their interest. I personally love reading in a bio things like, "I love to dance and touch on ladies, but once clothes come off, I'm much more interested in the man." Perfect, now the boundary has been set, and I know what's permissible. Nobody needs to feel awkward or rejected mid play session.
The opposite also needs to be said for bisexual men in the lifestyle. Not a single one of the porn films I watched involved male-on-male contact. And this stigma absolutely bleeds over into real-life swinging. Men often hide their bisexual or bicurious interests on their profiles for fear of scaring potential play partners off. Since Brian (my partner) has come out as pansexual, the number of men that have reached out stating that they are terrified to come out in their local swinging communities as something other than heterosexual is staggering. I do wish that both porn and real swinging would expand the definitions of non-monogamous play to include men that enjoy the company of other men. Alright, that tangent is over....
Obviously this article only scratches the vast number of differences between how swinging is depicted in porn and what it actually means to be a swinger. While we all expect porn to be unrealistic, I do believe it's damaging for curious individuals to search "swingers" on Google and receive hundreds of thousands of hits on fake swingers in controlled environments creating porn as their frame of reference. It's one of the reasons Brian and I create the content we do: We want others to see what a REAL non-monogamous relationship is like. It's far from perfect, but it works for us.