Swingers, Part One

Names have been changed to protect the identity of those interviewed.

The door creaks open, and I brace myself for a pasty-faced man clad in leather or a bleached-hair woman with flesh oozing from her tube top. Instead, I am confronted with John, a decidedly uncontroversial looking guy. He's rocking the classic Berkeley GSI gear: wire-rimmed glasses, comfortable shoes, hair sticking up a little in the back (as though he's spent all night in the library). I breathe a sigh of relief as he welcomes me into the house even though my heart is still pattering a mile a minute and nervous beads of sweat are pooling at the nape of my neck.

John had contacted me to recommend a column topic: swinging. I knew very little about the practice, aside from sneakily watching "Eyes Wide Shut" in junior high when my parents went out of town. But when John and his girlfriend Kiki offered to make me spaghetti dinner and take me to a sex club where couples swap partners, I made my decision instantly. Italians never say no to homemade tomato sauce.

Despite my enthusiasm for tomato sauce and other-worldly pleasures, I still feel very freaked out about the plans for the evening. How does one prepare oneself to watch an orgy? With nothing to go on but Tom Cruise in a sinister mask, I'm starting regret my hastily-made decision. As I follow John into the house, my nerves spill over in the form of meaningless words. I'm an excellent babbler when I get anxious (a skill that successfully scared away every guy I ever liked in high school). I tell John in quick succession, "Such a wonderful house! Thank you for dinner! Oh the dogs are cute! Oh this is Kiki! Hello Kiki! I like your shoes! Can I have water? I eat a lot! So how did you meet?!"

Despite my awkwardness, John and Kiki effortlessly ease their way into conversation. They spend the next two hours bantering with me and sharing stories that help to ease the knotty tension in the pit of my stomach. I'm amazed by their normalcy and their utter awesomeness. A far cry from my white trash imagination, John and Kiki are, quite simply put, a "cool couple." As an ex-Cal GSI, John carries himself in a self-assured manner that immediately relaxes me ("I always had that one hot student from section distracting me"). Kiki is a soft-spoken Asian girl who radiates sexiness in her lithe movements. ("I've never smoked weed-I can't bring myself to break the law." John snorts in agreement, "She's a total square!") I can hardly believe this is the kind of couple who'd do something as crazy as swing.

So over the baking of the bread, John and Kiki share with me the details of their secret double life. The more they talk, the more my previous expectations fall by the wayside. For them, having sex with other couples is not about kink, per se (although it is kinky). It's also not about solving boredom with themselves (although it does add spice to the relationship). John and Kiki stuck with swinging because they've found it brings them closer together (WTF?).

The two go back and forth with me sharing the story of their first time,

frequently teasing each other or interrupting to add in details the other has forgotten. John tells me how "it was all Kiki's idea," which Kiki adamantly protests (although her blushing suggests John may be right). They showed up at the club not sure what to expect, with the plan to just watch the action. But they soon found themselves the object of attraction for a 5-foot-tall Vietnamese woman who started kissing Kiki on the dance floor. John laughed, "That was the moment I started liking the whole swingers thing. I had never seen Kiki kiss a girl, and it was so hot to watch." The kissing was followed by dancing, flirting, and more kissing, before the other couple asked the ominous question-Do you want to go upstairs? (Translation: "down to fuck?")

The rest of their evening was surreal. They "played" for hours with the other couple, swapping partners and watching each other. On the ride home afterwards, they said they were "completely silent. We hadn't talked about the implications of swinging before we went, but then we got sucked in so easily. The rest was a blur."

It was hard for me to imagine how a couple could survive something as counterintuitive as partner swapping. I mean, seriously. Watching your loved one touch, kiss, stroke and suck a body that isn't yours? By all evolutionary or cultural accounts, that seems to clash with our impulses. I can understand the appeal of swinging for an old married couple whose sex life has shriveled along with their skin. But John and Kiki are young with no wrinkles in sight!

Nevertheless, they love to swing. When I confessed my opinions on the matter, Kiki shot a knowing glance at John before trying to explain the appeal, "When we woke up the next day, something was different between us. We had been through an otherworldly experience, and that bonded us more intimately than anything before." John chimed in, "When a couple swings, they are connected every step of the way. They pick the other couple together, watch each other having sex, and after it's over they go home to one bed. Such a night requires total trust, which changes the nature of their relationship."

I wasn't quite on board with John and Kiki's theory, but I was soon to discover for myself the magnetic, dream-like space of the sex club. Tune in next week for Confessions of a Cal Student Turned Swinger.

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