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You are here: Home / Swinging Basics / Thinking About Swapping Spouses with Friends?

Thinking About Swapping Spouses with Friends?

Let us guess – you and your friends were drinking when one of you came up with the great idea of wife swapping with your friends or something like that? You are not the first and certainly not the last person to wonder about maybe swinging with your friends. You’ve known them for a long time and they seem really cool, so why not? It could be fun to swing with your friends, but since you are probably brand new to swinging, let us help educate you to make a wiser decision for you, your partner, and your group of friends.

The swinging lifestyle has a saying “Make friends out of swingers, not swingers out of friends“. This is a very well tested wisdom. Why? If there is any problem with the swinging, you are probably going to lose that friendship. Whenever you see each other you are going to be reminded of that bad decision. Not everyone is mature enough to get past mistakes made involving sex & their special loved one. Not to mention it just takes one person to say the wrong thing to the wrong person and your secret swinging fun will become gossip among your entire group of friends, neighbors & family.

Another issue why you should rethink swapping with your friends who have no swinger experience is the common prevalence of swinger ED issues. Failure to launch is very common among newer swingers due to the mental pressure to perform. It’s not about the men being healthy or strong. It’s about a huge mental hurdle the men have never faced before. When ladies are nervous, they can have a drink to relax. Alcohol just further sabotages men. ED pills are very common in the lifestyle to overcome this issue. Since your friends are probably all inexperienced swingers, the odds are very good that some if not all men involved will have issues. It’s actually better if all the men have an ED issue to avoid one person’s ego being hurt. Never underestimate how sensitive a male ego can be when it comes to ED issues. Those hurt feelings can linger for a long time and poison your friendly relationship.

Fine, you grabbed some ED pills, so that won’t be an issue. You still have other problems to address. The more inexperienced rookie swingers involved, the more likely someone will get cold feet, have trouble handling emotions, and/or just be immature about it. The best-case scenario is that person will stop the swinging encounter before any clothes fall off. The worst-case scenario is you need to deal with regrets after the fact. You can’t undo, unsee, or unsay something after it happens. These fights can be really bad. You want to proceed only as fast as the comfort level of the slowest person to minimize the chance of this painful and damaging drama.

Not a problem, because you are all mature? Ok, then what are your personal swinger boundaries & rules? Do all couples have the same limits? What about condoms, kissing, oral, anal, cuddling, etc? Breaking personal boundaries & rules leads to fighting & drama. To resolve swinging fights you want to talk about this when you are all sober and thinking clearly. This is not something to think about when you are drunk or horny unless you like having regrets.

Since you are probably new to swinging, you probably don’t realize that many swingers strongly prefer same room play vs separate room play like in key parties that you see in Hollywood movies. Doing separate-room play like in a key party can be fun, but it can also be trouble. Since couples aren’t together, they can’t help or reassure each other. It also opens up the potential for doubt & worry. Is your partner doing or saying something that you don’t want them? Separate rooms tend to be more of an advanced swinger situation.

Let’s talk a bit more about those key parties. They aren’t really common in real life swinging, they are more of a Hollywood thing. Swingers want to pick their own partners whom they know have a sexy connection & attraction. Key parties look sexy in movies, but for a big group of rookies, it is a bad idea. You can have a man & woman get matched who aren’t into each other. If one pair isn’t happy, the rest of the group won’t be happy. The unhappy pair will interrupt the other couples and/or can be upset the next day and hold a grudge for not being with the partner they wanted. Most real-life swinger couples seek out other swinger couples and ensure there is a four-way connection. That means all four people like & respect each other. Swingers commonly agree to “never take one for the team,” aka play with someone you aren’t into just so your partner can have a good time. This is a big reason why key parties aren’t very common among real swingers.

We should also talk about how swinging does not fix broken relationships. If anything, it exposes the flaws in a relationship. Hopefully, you have a great & loving relationship with super-strong communication and trust so you can handle swinging. Do you think all of your friends have that same amazing relationship? When you argue with your spouse, you probably try to hide it and wait till you are home to keep your drama private. The same goes for your friends. It can be very hard to figure out if a couple has a solid relationship or not. If there are any trust or communication issues, swinging can quickly turn into a trainwreck and might even speed up their divorce. Do you want your night of swinging to be entered into a legal divorce filing?

Speaking of divorces, we like the concept of “planning the divorce before the wedding”. That sounds really negative, but give us a moment to explain. Swinging can be very exciting. Many rookies can be swept up in the awesome new relationship energy (mental high experienced at the start of sexual relationships) and don’t think about the potential consequences. How will you handle it if one person doesn’t want to continue swinging or one person wants to keep swinging? What if a condom breaks? What if someone wants to tell other people about your swinging relationship, or even if it’s accidentally exposed? If things do go wrong, you might end up losing your local support network of friends that you normally rely upon for help and advice.  Think about whom you can talk to for help if something unexpected pops up.  It is very wise to think and plan for the many different possible outcomes before you become too excited.

Don’t get us wrong. We love swinging and know how amazing it can be! We don’t know you or your friends, so we can’t say if swinging with your friends is a good idea or not.  Plenty of swingers have successfully swapped partners with their friends, and others have had it blow up horribly for them.   We want you to become informed so you can make the right decision for you, your special someone, and your family and friends. Do your research & do it on your own timeline.

How can you learn more? Go download the free 300 page Swingers’ Little Helper book and listen to some swinger podcasts. Go slow, and make sure you and your special someone fully agree before proceeding. Remember, you only want to go as fast as the comfort level of the slowest person. After you educate yourself, you can find plenty of friendly swingers by joining the swinger dating site popular in your area. Happy Swinging!

Last Updated: March 28, 2025
Written By:Dr. Georgia

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Welcome to Swingers Help! We’re Dr. Georgia & Will Fuchs, a married couple who have been enjoying our swinging time through the consensual non-monogamy community. Our experience hasn’t been perfect or drama-free but we don’t regret at all making the decision to start swinging. To share our swinging enjoyment, we authored the top ranked Swingers’ Little Helper book and provide free videos, articles, games, & relationship exercises on this site.  Join us as we share our insights on the swinging lifestyle.

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