Dear Kasidie,
We are a new to the swinging lifestyle and are just really starting to look into it deeply. We love the look of the website and many of the articles have been really helpful in making us not only knowledgeable about the lifestyle but comfortable with it. However, in everything that we have read no one has touched upon the subject of STD’s. Our question to you is, are there any statistics regarding STD’s and the lifestyle? We love the thought of the lifestyle but until we know more about this we are not really sure if it is worth the risk. Any info will help. Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Dear Sexual Health Nuts,
Until “swinger” is added as a checkbox on the US Census questionnaire, we will never have any kind of accurate statistics about ourselves as a community. What I can tell you is that the most recent STD studies from the Center for Disease Control state that most of the STD’s in the United States are found in high school and college age kids, low income African-American neighborhoods and the Gay community (summarized from various diseases). Swingers were nowhere on their list… In fact, I did a search for the word “swingers” on the CDC website and it came up with zero results. Not what you would expect if the swinger community were swimming with STDs.
In my research, I was only able to find one reported case of HIV being contracted through a swinging encounter. In 1986 two women in Minneapolis contracted HIV through repeated unprotected anal sex with two bi-sexual men who were IV drug users. This situation is hardly typical of normal swinger behavior. In fact, some people might argue as to whether this even counts as a “swinger related incident”, as the only thing that ties it to the swinging lifestyle is that the people involved apparently met at a swinger club, even though the actual sex took place elsewhere. Still, I’d say that one documented incident in the past 20+ years in an extremely sexually active community is pretty fucking amazing! In addition, none of the countries in the world that have large numbers of legal swingers clubs have ever reported any increase in STD infections in the vicinity of swinging premises or in relation to swinging generally.
Statistically speaking, according to the latest findings, most swingers are religious about practicing safe sex. You are actually at greater risk of catching a STD if you play outside of the lifestyle then if you meet someone at a swinger club or on a swinger website who understands the risks and comes prepared to have sex with strangers.
If you look at the amount of unplanned pregnancies and the transmission of STD’s in the vanilla singles world, you can assume that most occur because they didn’t use protection… Why!? Why in this day and age would anyone not use protection when having sex? Perhaps they were in the heat of the moment and didn’t have time to put on protection… Perhaps they didn’t have any protection, but they were afraid that if they didn’t have sex now, they would never get the chance again. It’s like a how a starving person is unlikely to pass up any meal, no matter how unhealthy the food put in front of them might be. Swingers know that their “sexual refrigerator” is always well stocked, and therefore they have no problem skipping a “meal” here and there if they don’t have a… um… “napkin?” My metaphor fell apart at the end there, but I think you understand what I’m saying.
There are no excuses for unprotected sex in the swinging lifestyle! Since sexual play with another couple is not usually something that happens “In the spur of the moment”, there is always time to put on protection. Swingers almost always carry sexual protection with them when they go to an event… and in the rare case that nobody has any protection, swingers will happily take a rain check, or just play with their spouses, knowing that they will always have another opportunity to have sex with their friends in the near future. The sense of “sexual urgency” that so many single vanillas experience does not exist in the swinger world. Swingers realize that they are not only protecting themselves, they’re protecting their spouses and the spouses of the people they play with. They take this responsibility very seriously. Not using proper protection before attempting sexual intercourse is viewed as one of the most rude and inexcusable acts in the lifestyle. Plus, if you attempt to play without protection, you will end up having more than just one person angry at you. Word travels fast in the swinging community, and nobody wants to play with “Johnny No-Rubber”. In other words, I’d feel safer having sex with most swingers than I would having sex with a single vanilla person who I met in a club or online.
That being said… Is swinging more risky than monogamous sex with only one partner for the rest of your life (assuming nobody is cheating or using dirty needles)?… Yes, of course it’s more of a risk! But you also have a higher risk of dying in a car accident if you ride in a car, rather than choosing to stay locked in your house for the rest of your life! Most of us are willing to accept the risks that come inherent with driving a car. But most of us also do smart things in order to reduce those risks: wear a seatbelt, obey the traffic laws, look both ways, don’t drink and drive, etc… The same goes for swinging: always wear protection, choose your partners wisely, get tested regularly, don’t use the same condom with different partners, use common sense, etc…
I hope that some of what I have said here has put you at ease… actually… no, I take that back! I don’t want you to ever be at ease! It’s a good thing that you are paranoid about STDs in the lifestyle. That paranoia is healthy, and is shared by the rest of the swinging community. And it’s those fears that keep us all vigilant when it comes to maintaining our sexual safety. If we swingers ever stopped being scared about STDs, that’s when we’d really have something to worry about!
