When I first set out to write about swinging for an article about the lifestyle, the last thing I expected was to find myself nodding when a slim, curly-haired brunette asks if she may take off my panties. It’s a windy Friday night and I’m in a cozy, apartment-style swing club in Midtown Manhattan, my short, cherry-red dress folded down to my waist—all in the name of research, of course. The bartender, a curvy blonde, leans over to kiss me.

If you’re thinking of taking a swing at it, being prepared is key if you don’t want your first time at a sex club to be your last.

Establish Ground Rules. Before stepping foot in a club—especially if you’re going with a significant other—know your limits. A few weeks before my first swing club outing, Tom, the polyamorous married blogger behind Polyamorously Perverse stressed to me the importance of knowing what you can and can’t handle. “It’s one thing to imagine it, and it’s another to actually confront it,” he warned. “If you and your boyfriend are at a swingers club with another couple, and she puts his cock in her mouth, are you going to freak out?” Point taken.

You’ve got your favorite lip gloss, mints, and enough money to cover your share of dinner, but are there first-date essentials you’re forgetting to bring—or forgetting to leave at home? Learn from my mistakes and make sure these things are on your first-date checklist.

When a commitment-phobe I had been dating for two months excitedly told me he had a present for me—“you’ll love it,” he assured me—I prepared myself for a thoughtful, romantic gesture of his relationship readiness. But when I walked into his bedroom, he instead pointed at a Starbucks iced coffee on his desk that I had left there after our third date. He thought he was being cute, but our relationship curdled shortly after. Whether intentional or not, your man’s gifts send a message. So what did his holiday gift say this year? Find out after the jump…



I noticed Bob before he noticed me. He looked like the kind of guy you have sex with in barroom bathrooms and the backseats of cars. When he said “Hey” as I brushed past him in the Cold & Sinus aisle of Walgreen’s, I hesitated. I knew that “Hey.” It was the cocky “Hey” of a man who’s good in bed and bad at everything else. He’ll stand you up for dinner, but he can guarantee you multiple orgasms before breakfast. I knew better. I agreed to meet him for coffee later that night. 

It was our first date and we talked for 10 hours straight before Jeff kissed me, shaking as he leaned in. He didn’t have to lean far—I had given him nowhere else to go when I pinned him against a chain-link fence outside the coffee shop where we had stopped to refuel. Despite my disregard for ladylike restraint, he called me the next day. And the day after that. Two months later, we were still talking and kissing, but that was it. In the time span I normally dated, slept with, and broke up with at least one guy, Jeff was still getting flustered when he accidentally grazed my cleavage.