We’re backfrom vacation, so expect frequent updates in the near future. Thanks for all the e-mails, we’ll get back to work!

I’ve received this question time and again: “I’m ready to start swinging. How do I convince my wife to get with the program and jump in with me?” Right away, I can tell two things about the asker’s relationship: 1) they made the decision to start swinging independently from their partner, and 2) they suspect that their partner will resist, and thus, need convincing. From my perspective, this person needs to start over. In my experience, there is a very very small chance that, after years of marriage when the husband announces, “Let’s start fucking other couples” that the wife thinks about it for a second and then says, “Fuck yeah, let’s go.” Unless you’ve laid the groundwork, more likely that not the answer will be “Yeah, right, in your dreams”, followed by months of suspecting that you’re cheating on her with one of her friends.

But, it’s not all bad news. Let’s assume that your wife will be resistant to the idea at first. Let’s assume that it may be possible to ease her into the lifestyle. So, here’s your game plan to get this done, all in five easy steps.

STEP ONE - Is there a chance? Be sure that there is a possibility that your wife will eventually consent with her own free will, and not solely due to a desire to please you. I’m sorry to say that there are many women out there, perhaps a majority of women out there, who have an image in their mind of a “swinger” - perhaps it’s a dirty, pot-smoking nudist hippy type with Mother Africa bushes and who smell like incense. Perhaps it’s the image of hardcore drug addicts, snorting coke and then going to town on each other. Perhaps it’s an image of lewd, chain-smoking men passing their women around like property. Perhaps your wife is intensely religious, and would consider any kind of sexual activity outside of the marriage (even consensual) as a violation of her sacred vows to the almighty. Look at your wife honestly. Can you imagine her at a late-night party, enjoying herself having sex with another man (or woman)? If there’s a chance, there’s a chance, and let’s move on to step two.

STEP TWO - Get right in your relationship. I think that this point is the one most widely misunderstood by couples considering a plunge into the lifestyle - you need to have a full, satisfying, active sex life BEFORE playing with others. Swinging will not fix a tired and dysfunctional sex life. Swinging will definitely not fix or pave-over lingering trust issues. Take a look at the most successful swinging couples - they are operating from a position of relationship strength. They pursue other couples for casual sport-sex and can indulge themselves wholeheartedly precisely because they have a rock-solid relationship with their spouse. I’m not saying you need to be Ward and June Cleaver (and I think June probably got nasty in the bedroom), but swinging is not the cake, and it’s probably not the icing on the cake, it’s more like the candles on the cake, which drip hot wax onto the nipples. Or something. So, before you do ANYTHING swinging-related, you need to fix your relationship. If you do this seriously, you will reap many unintended benefits down the line. First and foremost, you’ll be getting more good sex, and with more good sex, your wife will tend to be open to suggestions about broadening her sexual horizons (step three). Also, once you start talking about swinging, your spouse’s jealousy issues will tend to be less of a challenge - she’ll believe you when you tell her that she is the only woman in the world for you.

STEP THREE - Broaden her sexual horizons. Your goal in this step is to cultivate an atmosphere in which no suggestion is laughed at, and both parties are willing to try ANYTHING. And, in fact, your goal is to get her to try anything and everything. It’s always good to ease into these things, and don’t get too greedy about your suggestions. Suggestion number one shouldn’t be the horsehair butt plug, so you can ride her around the bedroom like a little pony. Start small. A new position. Videotaping your session. Tying up her hands while you give her oral. A low-key (no more than 12) midget bukkake party. You get the idea. Never in the course of this step do you mention fucking other people unless she brings it up first. If she does, proceed to step four. This step is all about you and her, and shifting her views about what she is comfortable with sexually.

STEP FOUR - The introduction. This is a delicate phase. Your goal is to get a dialogue going about whether you, as a couple, would ever dip your toe into the swinging pool. It helps to know what turns her on so you can frame the discusssion around that. Example - she made out with a friend or two in college, so you can talk about swinging in which the girls play by themselves and then join their own men. Or, maybe she’s curious about what other couples look like while having sex, a voyeur type, so the discussion can involve just attending a swinger’s party with the intention of checking it out, or having same-room sex only.

What if she shuts it down immediately? No way, no how. My advice is to back off and try again another time and in another way. If you asked her flat out if she would ever do it and she said no, don’t get defensive and say, “why the fuck not?” You have to operate from a position that you are 100% satisfied with your sex life with her, and that anything else would be a lark, an experiment, a wild fun time but would have no bearing on the relationship. If she doesn’t understand this implicitly, you have some work to do in the previous step.

This discussion is important, and not just for you to move down the road to a swinging lifestyle, but for both of you to find out and synchronize your fantasies. What if, unbeknownst to you, she’d be willing to experiment but only a DP (double penetration) with another guy joining you. Maybe that’s cool with you, maybe not. Maybe her ultimate turn-on is to see a girl ram you in the ass with a strap-on. Again, maybe cool, maybe not.

STEP FIVE - Close the deal. I’m assuming that you’ve talked about it, and there is some preliminary agreement that it would be fun. Now, it’s up to you to move forward in the “experimental, fun” attitude that governed the discussion. Join a swinger’s site. Check out the local swinger’s clubs. Set a fitness goal if that is an issue for either one of you, and then, line up the babysitters.

You’ve thought about whether you want to swing. You’ve discussed it with your partner. You’ve thought about it again, to be sure. You’ve read the reviews, chosen a swinger date site, authored a choice profile and now, what the fuck?!?? You get thirteen messages a day from “couples” with no profile pictures asking to cuber-chat (whatever the fuck that is), or to web cam, or to send them more explicit pictures. Or, my personal favorite, single guys who didn’t read a word of your profile and send you a picture of their dick and the line “u horney baby?”

Dealing with single guys and the fakes is a way of life, and it can get frustrating for true couples. Evidence can be seen on every swinger date site - the profiles with the first line something like: “NO SINGLE MEN! IF YOU DON’T READ MY PROFILE AND SEND ME AN E-MAIL, YOU WILL BE REPORTED IMMEDIATELY AND BANNED! I WILL RABBIT PUNCH YOUR TESTICLES WITH PREJUDICE, SOLDIER!” I don’t know, when I see those profiles I picture some red-faced drill sergeant screaming at a private, splittle flying. Sir, I will not e-mail my privates to your wife again, SIR.

I think this method only serves to raise your blood pressure, though. The single men don’t read your profile, and the fakes pretend they aren’t single men, so technically they’re fine. Don’t let the single men bother you - they are just perving on your wife, which you can’t really hate them for - you MARRIED her. So, you see a single male e-mail, you nuke it. That took, what, 10 seconds? 5? Now, if you’re getting 100 a day, you need to change swinger date sites. Some allow you to completely fall off the grid to single males. And that only leaves the fakes for you to deal with.

The fake. A single guy who creates a profile using pictures of his girlfriend, or ex-girlfriend, or someone else’s girlfriend in order to get you to release your horde of explicit sex pics for his casual viewing. This is jackassery of the highest order, and we must respond in kind.

Now, the easy method takes advantage of the single guy’s inherently impatient nature. He wants pics, he wants cam, he wants you (meaning your wife) to talk dirty to him on the phone. That’s another thing - the single guy also hopes against hope that the other person on the end of the keyboard is the wife. 8 times out of 10 it isn’t. Seems like it would be easier for them to hit up a free porn site, but here we are. So, you think you’ve got an impatient single guy fake on the other side, but the pics of his wife are hot and you need to know for sure. Some guys are just terrible communicators, and you don’t want to burn any bridges. What’s kryptonite for the single guy fake? The dreaded physical meeting. If you rebuff his request for pictures with something like, hey, we’re heading out to the _______ party this saturday, would you like to meet up for a drink beforehand? He’ll back down or make an excuse pretty quickly. Another tactic is to get him writing - ask him open ended questions that involve more than a one-word answer. If they are truly a couple and truly interested, they will answer the best they can and ask you questions in turn. Single guy fakes aren’t into that shit - they want sex. Less conversation, more masturbation.

If you have some time on your hands, and want to turn the tables on the single guy fake, you take a page out of the book of the 419 scam scam-baiters and make them perform for your amusement. Pretend you are the wife and make them grandiose promises about what is in store for them in terms of a huge stash of explicit pics, videos, whatever, and then confess that you have a few unusual fetishes about which you are somewhat embarassed. You’ll need time and certain demonstrations of trust in order to release these treasures to a stranger. Once he’s bought into the scenario, let your imagination run wild. Tell him you want a picture of him in women’s underwear, or with a carrot sticking out of his ass, or in lipstick. Tell him you’ll feel much better and get turned on if you get a picture of him covered in jello, or holding a hammer, or any number of ridiculous things. Laugh when the pictures come in, and then e-mail us with your triumphs.

I’ve added a contact page - feel free to ping us whenever!

For complaints, suggestions, questions and rants, please contact me at:

mrjones@swingingandfitness.com

For compliments, suggestions about photo shoots, propositions, please contact wife at:

wife@swingingandfitness.com

Or, feel free to join us on a social networking site:

My Space

Facebook

Ok, I have to take the reins. We’re getting 1,000 people a day looking at my ass, and we haven’t even posted fucking videos yet? Jesus, people! I think I’m going to have to start fucking my fans, and soon!

-Wife

You’ve made the decision to join a swinger date site, looked at the reviews and chosen the perfect site for you and your partner. Nice. It’s time to get your fuck on, right? Not so fast - now you’re looking at a big blank white box titled “Profile - describe yourself, and be specific.” Now, most people are all jazzed up to take a look at the other couples, events and whatever else the site offers that they blow right past this stage and either hurriedly fill in something like “Hot fun attractive couple, like to have hot fun with attractive people. NO SINGLE MEN!” or the dreaded “Later”, intending to come back sometime in the future and drop some devastating prose into the white box.

Both of these are bad. Both of these will lead to lots of people clicking on your profile to peep the sweet pics you took of your wife last weekend in her latex nurse costume, but not many people taking the initiative to contact you for an actual meeting. Which is the goal, right? To meet actual people? When it comes down to it, swingers browsing profiles are not dissimilar from singles browsing profiles. After about 20 or 30, they all tend to sound the same. And, while Mr. and Mrs. Brad Pitt could post a few headshots and a “Later” box and get flooded with invitations to lick it and stick it, odds are you are not them. And if you are, please e-mail me immediately at mrjones@swingingandfitness.com for a private tutorial.

Yes, I realize you are not posting a profile to start a relationship. As previously noted, you are looking to turn your fuck from off to on. But, like it or not, most often personality does play a role in deciding whether to hook up. If the other guy is a fucking tool, and you want to punch him in the ear every time he opens his prick mouth, then you will likely exercise your veto power, regardless of how hot his wife is. And your first indication of potential dickishness is the profile. Everyone has their own little pet peeves; a sample profile that would guarantee a snort of derision from me would be something like this:

“HARDCORE SWINGING COUPLE WANTT TO FUCK YOU IN THE ASS. IF YOUR HOT AND THINK U CAN HANG, FUKIN HIT US UP. SEND ONLY XXX NUDES OR OF UR WIFE AND ILL RETURN W/PIC OF MY HUGE COCK. SINGLE FEMALES PREFERRED. PLAYBOY QUALITY ONLY OR WELCUM TO THE TRASH CAN. HAHA.”

So, you need to piece together a kickass profile. I know, it’s a pain in the ass. I know you probably don’t write descriptive, pithy pieces for a living. So, I, Mr. Jones, am going to do the heavy lifting for you by providing you with some masterpiece profiles that you can cut-and-paste or alter to your heart’s content. Voila!

The Descriptive Profile
He is 6′0″, 195, muscular, blond/blue, lanky, athletic, slightly oversized fingertips, hairless except for head and some around my scrote because I can’t seem to find a good way to remove those and hell no I am not waxing them, jumpy at times, tend to hum when nervous, can scissor kick, semi-decent caterpillar dance move (seldom used), prefer board games, like to fuck things, can type pretty fucking fast, like Belgians, fear raindrops but curiously attracted to fog.
She is 5′3″, 115, tight, brown/brown, sweaty, swarthy, social butterfly, social drinker, social studies teacher, oversize nipples due to compulsive nipple clamp use, tend towards Spanish when orgasming, love the smell of freshly cut grass and butterflies, favorite color is clear, was probably a pirate in a past life.

The Mysterious Profile
Who are we? Why are we here? We ask so many questions, no? We exist in the moment, we grasp it, try to hold it, but like mist it disappears and leaves our hands wet. Like roaming herds of buffalo, we journey for the oasis, the oasis of sex, to wade into her waters and rut like beasts on the shore. We are the couple whose glimpse you catch out of the corner of your eye, but when you turn we are not there. You’ll know us when we touch your arm, and gaze into your eyes, and you see the beast within.

The “coffee is for closers” profile
We are chameleons, able to blend in and adapt ourselves to every social situation. Are you party animals? No problem - we have a drinking problem! Are you into intimate encounters? We are great one-on-one in a cozy alcove with a glass of red wine - we love to bring the room down and slow dance! Are you in your 60’s? Awesome - I have an unfulfilled Oedipus complex, and she yearns to dress like a catholic schoolgirl! Are you into rough trade sexplay? That’s cool, bro, we’ve learned to hide bruises and rugburns! Go ahead, press that “e-mail” button and let’s do this thing! We offer a 110% sex-back guarantee - if you aren’t satisfied, we’ll do it again with 110% more effort, 110% more saliva, and 110% more people!

The Crazy Profile
WOW THIS IS SO COOL I LOVE THIS SITE THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE HERE AND NOW YOU ARE LOOKING AT OUR PROFILE AWESOME AMAZING. WHAT DO YOU THINK SO FAR? I THINK MY ASS LOOKS FAT IN THOSE BOY-SHORTS BUT MY HUSBAND IS ALL LIKE, NO WAY BABY, YOU’RE HOT. ANYWAY WE WENT TO THIS PARTY A FEW MONTHS AGO AND THESE COUPLES WERE MAKING OUT ON THE COUCH AND I WAS LIKE WHAT THE MESS, WHAT IS THIS HIGH SCHOOL? AND THEN I GRABBED ANOTHER DRINK AND CAME BACK AND I COULD SWEAR THAT THE COUPLES SWITCHED PARTNERS AND THEY WERE MAKING OUT AGAIN, REALLY GOING AT IT, AND I TOLD MY HUSBAND AND HE WAS LIKE WHATEVER BABE, THEY ARE ADULTS, YOU INTERRUPTED ME. HE WAS SO RIGHT, WE DON’T JUDGE PEOPLE, AND THEN A LIGHT BULB WENT OFF AND I WAS LIKE, HUSBAND, HEY WHY DON’T WE TRY THAT SOMETIME. AND HE STOPPED HIS CONVERSATION AND LOOKED AT ME ALL WEIRD, RIGHT IN MY EYES, I SWEAR HE HADN’T LOOKED AT ME IN THE EYES IN MONTHS, AND HE WAS LIKE, WHAT DID YOU SAY? AND I SAID LET’S TRY THAT! AND HE’S LIKE, FUCKIN-A WOMAN, SOMETIMES YOU SURPRISE THE SHIT OUT OF ME, I THINK THAT’S A GREAT IDEA. SO WE TRIED IT ONCE AND IT ENDED UP WITH HIM FUCKING A GIRL FROM HIS WORK IN HER BEDROOM WHILE HER POTBELLIED HUSBAND SQUEEZED MY BOOBS A BIT AND WATCHED A BASKETBALL GAME ON THE TV. BUT WE’RE TRYING AGAIN AND MAYBE WITH YOU?

The Crusty Veteran Profile
No single men. If I receive another unsolicited dick pic in our e-mail I will go motherfucking apeshit. Read our profile, then look at your bed. Are there two indentations? Is the bed made? Are there extra pillows on top that are never used? No? Then fuck off, Romeo, and move along.

Also, no goddamn first-timers. If you are dabbling, ooh! it’s so titillating, let’s exchange about 50 fucking e-mails and then MAYBE we’ll meet at a neutral public place, in the daytime, with our kids, then you can join the single men with their retarded games. I swear if another couple cancels at the last minute or just outright flakes on us, I will go motherfucking apeshit. And apeshit, for me, involves throat-punching, so consider yourself warned.

We are a happy and committed couple, attractive, fit, and easy-going. We’ve been in the swinging lifestyle for 15 years, and odds are if you’ve been around you’ve seen us at all the parties. If you see some tanned, buff guy doing pushups or performing other feats of strength, that’s probably me. If you see some thin, blond, tan woman with DDD enlarged boobs dry-humping every third woman on the dance floor, that’s probably my wife.

So, there you go. Some perfectly good templates to work with - cut and paste and commence the humping! Oh, I should mention that if you use these, included in my permission is a 15% royalty, so if you get 100% laid, I should rightfully receive 15% of that lay, which is probably equivalent to a 3 minute lap dance. No, no, from your wife, jackass.

You’re jazzed, you’re psyched, you’re stoked. You want to work out, you want to start a program, you want to kick your ass into swinging shape, you want to look good naked. Why hire a personal trainer? They are expensive, they are buff and unapproachable, and you know how to get your butt onto a LifeCycle and start pumping away, right?

Right, and wrong. If you are serious about getting into shape, (and you ARE serious, aren’t you?) a personal trainer brings a few things to the table that can’t be replaced by a subscription to Fitness Magazine. Chiefly, he or she brings a ready supply of motivation, the lack of which can be fatal to a new workout program. Your trainer will be there, at your appointed time, with a smile on and a “let’s do this” attitude. It’s their job, and if they aren’t motivating, you didn’t read this article and you chose the wrong person. Secondly, they bring knowledge about nutrition and exercise, which will be invaluable in preventing injuries and selecting the best program to meet your goals. Thirdly, and this is important as a beginner, they will become your conduit to become socialized with the gym and incorporate the gym into your routine. It’s easy for beginners to feel alienated by the gym environment - they are surrounded by people who are in shape, know how to use every machine and are intimately familiar with the social rules associated with behavior in the gym. Your trainer will help to integrate you into the scene, so you too can join the regulars in scorning that guy who hogs four separate machines while he does his own personal circuit training, or the woman who doesn’t cover her mouth when she coughs incessantly trying to treadmill-away what must be tuberculosis that she’s battling, or the dude who tries to curl his body weight by keeping his arms locked at a 90 degree angle and bowing wildly back and forth.

So how do you choose the right trainer? I worked for years in a gym, and saw the same mistakes being made by new members time and time again. Mistake #1: choose the hottest guy/girl from the wall of pictures. This is not AdultFriendFinder.com; while it may feel good parading around the gym with the hottest chick/buffest dude in the place, there is no reason to think that that person is the best trainer for you. Mistake #2: leave the decision up to the gym employee. They are most likely to hook you up with someone they like, which is not necessarily the best for you.

You want a trainer that will be the best personality fit for you; one who will motivate you, one who will make you feel comfortable, one who, when you pull yourself out of bed, will make you think “Cool! Workout time!”, instead of “Shit. Workout time.” This calls for some introspection - are you the type of person that will respond better to urging from a male or female? Do you prefer people who are talkative or more laid-back? Someone around your age or younger/older? There are a million different types of questions you can ask yourself to get an image in your head of what you want your trainer to be like. Got that image? Good - we’re heading into the gym to make a choice.

Here’s what I suggest. Head to the appropriate person (General Manager, Personal Training Director) and pepper them with questions relating to the type of trainer you would like. Questions like:

- Which of your trainers would you say has the most weightlifting/exercise/nutrition knowledge?
- Which of your trainers is the most talkative? Most laid-back?
- Which of your trainers has had recent success with one of their clients losing weight/cutting/bulking/etc.?
- My personality is generally ___________, which one of your trainers would you say that I would get along with the best?
- I’m looking to buy 10 training sessions (or more), can I work out with [suggested trainer] once to see if we mesh, or meet them before I sign up?

If you have time and are not a total beginner, I would also suggest working out for a week and watching the trainers and how they interact with their clients. Are they dialed in, or are they scoping the gym and yawning? The more informed you are, the less likely it will be that you pick the wrong person. And if you do, for god’s sake talk to the director and get your sessions moved to someone else. You’re paying good money, you should expect a positive relationship with your trainer.

Happy training!