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 The first time I suspected that my family was a little "unusual" was when I walked in on my parents "doing it" with another couple. I was 12 years old; old enough to realize what they were doing and that it might not be completely "normal" for my mom to be with a strange man while my dad was with a strange woman and all four of them in the same room. When I really realized that my family was definitely different was the time I came home with my new girlfriend to find a swinger party going strong in my living room. My parents thought that I was going away for the weekend. I hadn't even thought to tell them that I had changed my mind at the last minute. The fact that they might have something planned was not even a minute consideration on my part.  I opened the door to find seven naked couples lounging around in my living room, some engaged in sexual acts, others sampling the catered buffet, and I felt as if my role and my parents' roles had reversed. Suddenly, I was the one who was shocked and disappointed at their behavior.My girlfriend at the time was mortified. Our relationship didn't last much longer because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't convince her that I wouldn't cheat on her. "Sure," she said, "your parents do it but you don't. Right." I tried desperately to make her see that this was in fact true, but when she started calling mum and dad "freaks" I decided she wasn't worth it. I had really liked her and it hurt. But I thank her now. If I didn't have to really examine what I thought of my parents swinging I might have just let my anger about it simmer under the surface, where it would have sat, damaging me, until one day it simply exploded. But that didn't happen. It's been a full decade since the day I walked in on my parents and I've had plenty of time to process everything. My parents are swingers. They are, have been, and probably always will be. It is a part of them and something I have come to accept. However, I don't agree with it. I'm not exactly morally opposed, because as consenting adults they have the right to do whatever they want to. But I have to be honest, the thought of my parents having sex with people other than each other gives me chills. The thought of them watching each other have sex with people other than each other makes me sick.  For a long time I wasn't sure if this was just because they were my parents that I felt this way, but after careful reflection I realized that I would feel this way about any married couple, and that I actually did believe in the sanctity of marriage.I enjoy being monogamous. I enjoy the intimacy of being with only one person. When I am in love I find that I am physically incapable of being with someone else. The thought repulses me. I don't know if this is a subconscious retaliation against my parents or what. All I do know is that swinging is not for me. Growing up, most of my guy friends thought that it was cool that my parents were swingers. They treated my mum different from the other guys' mothers. It was as if men were supposed to want to do this and women were not. If you could find a woman who would, and better yet, wanted to, well, that was simply amazing. The way my friends looked at my mum horrified me. It was like they thought that if she swung she would sleep with anyone, even them. I don't like to think of my mom as a slut. This was something I didn't understand, and it bothered me a lot. How did it work? Did one of them get to pick a couple and then the next one did? Did they both have to be attracted to the couple? Or would they simply sleep with anyone who would sleep with them? These questions were eating me up inside. I had to know.  Finally, I asked my mother, who, even though she was the one I really didn't want to know about, she was still the one I could talk to the easiest.She explained to me that her and my father only participated in "swapping," which was a specific type of swinging. She told me that they both had to be present, because a major part of it was watching the other one be turned on and receive pleasure. That each one of my parents felt that the other was so extremely wonderful that they shouldn't be the only one's to experience this. Letting another woman experience my father was, in my mother's eyes, one of the most wonderful things she could do. These explanations helped me some. Then my mother started telling me how much of my life was shaped by the fact that they were swingers. It was the reason we lived in a big city like London. I immediately recalled a poster my father had had in the private bathroom in his office. It said "Swinging London" and had one couple (the woman was a dead ringer for Twiggy) on a trolley car passing by another couple walking on the sidewalk staring up at them. I shuddered as I remembered how many times I had drifted off into space, staring at that poster while I took a piss. I had never even connected it all until that moment. My parents sending me to sleepaway camp every summer. I loved going to camp and knew that it was expensive. If my parents hadn't needed me out of the house in order to have their swing parties then I never would have gotten to go. There were more instances. All of them things I was most definitely grateful for. But none of that made it easier for me to accept my parents swinging. The thing that finally did was when my mother told me this, "Your father and I love each other very much," she said. "How many of your friends parents are divorced? Swapping doesn't mean that we care less for each other. It simply allows us to keep the newness and excitement in our marriage. We both believe it is one of the major reasons that we are still together. And, more importantly, still very happy." That was all I needed to hear. As long my parents were both happy that was all that mattered. I didn't have to agree or condone it; in fact, it had nothing to do with me. I just had to decide for myself what was going to make me happy and use them—honestly one of the only examples of a happy couple that I knew—as a reference to do just that.
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