Swingers Newbie Guide; How To Get Into The Swinging Lifestyle.

We compiled an in depth swingers newbie guide for couples and individuals interested in the swinging lifestyle, but unsure where or how to start.

This swingers newbie guide goes over all the swinger lingo, how to find other swingers, how to introduce your partner to swinging, how to handle jealousy, and some of our best pieces of advice for newbies! Think of this as your introduction to the swinging lifestyle! We go in detail about our most frequently asked questions about swinging.

1. What is a Swinger, Unicorn, Bull, etc, and what are the common swinger terms?

We made an entire Swinger Dictionary you can read right here that has ALL the terms used in the Swinging Lifestyle!

2. Where can I find other swingers?

Swingers dating websites and apps, swingers clubs, swingers events, and adult/lifestyle resorts/vacations are the most common places to make connections.

This post may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission if you make a purchase using these links, at no extra cost to you!

4OURPLAY Swinging Community Community Discord Server: talk and discuss topics from swinging and swinging advice to vanilla things like movies, games, books, and memes with other like minded people in our safe and welcoming Discord community!

Discord server: 4OURPLAY Swinging Community

Sites we personally use to find other swingers:

Additional sites/apps:

Click here for a full list of swinger dating sites and their popularity by state and country.

Swingers Clubs:

Click here for a full list of swingers clubs, venues, and resorts in the USA by state.
- (Colette Dallas is the club we love and frequent most often!)

Adults Only Vacation/Resorts:

Click here for a full list of some of the most popular swinger/lifestyle friendly resort and vacation locations!

3. How do I bring up swinging to my partner?

First, you need to communicate and have an open conversation with your partner about your sexual desires.

A good way to bring this up in a less daunting way is to try a Sexual Fantasies Compatibility Quiz. We recommend this one by MojoUpgrade.
The quiz is designed to help you as a couple communicate better about your intimate fantasies (it goes over many different sexual fantasies, not only swinging).
After you both answer the quiz separately, it will only show you the answers to the questions where you both have indicated a willingness, not ones where one or both of you answered “no.”

Remember to respect what your partner decides, no matter what the answer is. If it is a hard no, then the swinging lifestyle may not be suited for your relationship.

If they are open to the idea, then you can further discuss more in-depth about how you want to get started in the lifestyle. You can introduce group-sex porn, erotica, dirty talk in bed, talk about hypothetical situations or fantasies you want to experience, etc, to further open the conversation about it.

4. How do I know if swinging is right for my partner and me?

There is no straight answer to this question. The only way to know is to have a deep conversation about it with your partner and decide if it’s right for you to try or not.

Most veteran swingers practice swinging as icing on top of an already strong and happy relationship and do not swing as a necessity, but as a fun activity they enjoy doing together.

While some couples may try swinging to fix something in their relationship, save their relationship, or spice up their sex life due to a dry spell, it is often not recommended by most veteran swingers and going about swinging in that way should be taken with strong caution. This can work for some relationships as the openness can rekindle it and be exactly what was missing from their relationship, but on the other hand can also further harm some relationships.

However, there is always a chance swinging can harm an already healthy relationship as well, just as it can greatly improve a relationship.

Every couple is different and swinging is different for each couple. What works for one couple may not work for you and vise versa. The reason why one couple decides to start swinging may be completely different than your reason and there is no “right” way to do so.

Just do what works for your relationship! The number one rule is to always make sure both partners are on the same page and have communicated extensively before proceeding.

5. How do my partner and I get started in the Lifestyle?

Start by creating a list of your own rules and boundaries for your relationship involving the lifestyle. Make sure to ALWAYS communicate.

You will hear this infinite times in the lifestyle. Swingers communicate, communicate, communicate. You can’t communicate enough!

You not only have to be on the same page with your partner, but with potential swinging partners too.

Swinging is different for every couple. Some couples enjoy the atmosphere but only have sex together, some couples only swap orally, some couples full swap in the same room only, some couples may play separately.

There isn’t one way to swing and you need to cater it to what works for your own relationship. With time, you may evolve and want to and/or be ready to try new things, just make sure to communicate this with your partner.

After extensive discussions with your partner and knowing that you are ready to try out the lifestyle and creating a list of your rules and boundaries, we then recommend to create a profile on a swingers dating site to start chatting with other couples online and when you’re ready, you can meet a couple for a double date and/or try going to a swingers club, event, or resort/vacation with your partner. This can be in your local area or you can make it a big trip and travel to see if you like being in the swinging environment!

Our number one advice (after communication) is to not have any expectations other than to enjoy your partner’s company and to have a great time together. Don’t try to “make something happen” or put pressure on yourself!

6. How do you handle jealousy?

Now that we’ve been in The Lifestyle for a while, it’s been a long time since we’ve experienced jealousy with each other, but at the beginning of our swinging journey and before getting in The Lifestyle, our jealousy almost always stemmed from a place of insecurity within ourselves or a fear that our partner would like x person more than me, like how x person did that more, etc.

Once we were able to find confidence in ourselves, love ourselves, and receive reassurance from each other and truly trust what each other says when we are reassuring, rather than devaluing it and/or ourselves, we were able to slowly eradicate that type of jealousy.

Because we both have 100% confidence, honesty, and trust in our relationship and understand that we reserve love for each other and only each other, we are also able to differentiate and separate love and how we make love together vs casual sex with friends. We truly enjoy seeing each other enjoy having fun and having sex with others, but the “reclaim sex” is the best part for us. It’s like going on vacation, but then coming home. Nothing is better than home. And for us, home is together.

To help eradicate jealousy, we recommend putting your relationship first, always communicate, and do not keep any secrets from each other.

If jealousy does comes up, to work through it, always start at the very beginning of what caused the problem, whether that be jealousy or any other issue, and talk through it from there. Get to the base of the problem and see if there are insecurities there that may have caused that jealousy, and dissect it together and be able to reassure each other and remember why you’re in this.

99% of the time, we’ve found problems arise from miscommunication or misunderstanding. What has helped us the most is making sure we are actively listening. Let each person say completely what they need to say, don’t cut each other off, and then have the other person repeat back what they thought the person meant. We started doing this, and found most of the time even after explaining it back, we still weren’t understanding what the other person actually meant, so we would need to continue to talk about it further.

Another thing is to stay honest with each other and completely trust your partner and what they’re saying. For example, if your partner says that is not what they meant and wasn’t their intention, you have to believe them, and vise-versa. With this though, also understand that even though it wasn’t their intention, how what they did/said still hurt, and continue to talk to further get to an understanding with both sides.

When there is an issue, talk about it then and continue talking about it until you find a resolution or at least both have an understanding of where each of you are coming from. We recommend our game, 4OURPLAY Conversations, to help deepen your relationship by answering a variety of conversation prompts made to make you dig deep and truly learn about yourself and each other.

7. What are some of your best tips and advice for a newbie in The Lifestyle?

Don’t go into any experience, event, date, etc with any expectations.

Don’t expect “something to happen” or put pressure on yourself, your partner, or the other party to “make something happen.” You should have fun with your partner and new/potential new friends just as that, enjoy each other’s company and time together first without expecting any play. If your time together happens to move to sexy play, then that’s awesome, but if it’s going to happen, it will; don’t expect it to.

You can never communicate too much.

With yourself, your partner, your potential play partners, etc. Have open conversations with your partner before and after. Be willing to listen and learn. Disagreements and misunderstandings will happen, you have to be able to communicate through them. Make sure everyone is on the same page with everything. Always verbally ask for consent.

Trust your gut.

If something feels off, trust your intuition and remove yourself from the situation/experience.

Don’t expect to find partners right away.

It takes time to find the right people to swing with, sometimes, a long time. You’re trusting another person with your partner and the person you love and it’s the same for the other party too. It shouldn’t be rushed. It’s completely okay to take your time to find the right people. You will also run into a lot of flaky people. Just keep trying. The more you put yourself out there, the more chances you’ll get to meet the right people.

Don’t take things personally.

You are going to get rejected and you will have to reject others. It’s not an easy thing to experience or do, but you have to understand it’s not personal. You don’t like everyone, so you can’t expect everyone to like you.
This isn’t only when it comes to physical attraction either. Sometimes, the physical attraction is there, but the personalities don’t mesh. Sometimes it’s the opposite, but don’t take it personally. The book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz really helped us understand this concept of not taking anything personally.

Work on your own self-love, self-worth, and self-confidence.

Without a strong foundation, the swinging lifestyle may do more harm than good to a relationship or your own self. We recommend making sure you work on self-love, know your worth, and truly understand that you are enough in all aspects. This helped us tremendously when it comes to improving our own self-confidence.

Break the ice

Speaking from experience, you can’t expect to meet people if you sit in the corner away from everyone, attached to your partner. You will look unapproachable. Swinging is a social and group activity in all aspects; you have to put yourself out there and go seek and go talk to people.
Introduce yourselves and just say hi, that’s all it takes! You can not expect people to just always come up to you and introduce themselves to you. You have to also try and put out the effort as well.
To help with this, talk to the very first person you see when you walk in. This will help break the ice for yourself and you’ll feel like you “got the hard part over with” and will be able to more easily talk to more people more comfortably!

Don’t be a hunter

This doesn’t only relate to Unicorn (single woman) Hunting, but ALL aspects of “hunting” – couples, bulls (single guys), how a specific person looks, etc.
Unicorn Hunting in particular is when a couple seeks a third (single woman) to join them sexually to ultimately fulfill their own fantasies and don’t take into consideration the other person’s wants and desires. This often dehumanizes the other person/party and makes them feel like an object or something to “check off the bucket list.” Often times, the third is left feeling like they were part of the couple’s experience, but doesn’t have an experience of their own.
“Hunting” in all aspects of The Lifestyle is very looked down upon. Treat everyone with respect and as a human and not merely something to complete a fantasy.

8. How long have you been together and how long have you been in the lifestyle?

We started dating in 2007 (15 years old), started swinging in 2014 (22 years old), and got married in 2015 (23 years old).

As of December 2021, we have been together over 14 years, married over 6 years, and swinging over 7 years. We have never broken up any time since we’ve been together. Swinging has only brought us closer and strengthened our relationship.

9. What should I wear to a swingers club/event/party/theme?

We created a blog post here with some outfit ideas or you can check out our Amazon Favorites where we created lists and categories of our swinger recommendations!