I’ve tried to remember what I was looking for, when I started to look for extra-curricular fun - or rather, what I thought I was looking for – which is not necessarily the same thing. The real answer, I think, is female desire. I’ve already written about trying to find my partner’s missing libido (http://manincrisis.blogspot.com/2006/12/desire-for-desire.html) - and it was only when I failed to do so that I started to look further afield.
Nowadays, it’s easy to feel I must have been desperate for all the qualities we traditionally associate with femininity - tenderness, sociability, sensuality, affection, glamour – qualities which definitely had gone missing from my home life. But this is hindsight: I actually think all that came later, once I'd hooked up with my present lover, and realised what I’d been missing. At the time, I didn’t seek out a girlfriend to ‘understand me’ better than my wife and embody these virtues where she did not. I never entertained the idea of paying for sex as an option, either - even though many men who feel frustrated in a relationship do so (and, one suspects, are often seeking the solace of traditional femininity, indulgence and attentiveness, as much as the sex itself).
I’m not sure this was principle or squeamishness – it just wouldn’t have given me what I needed - because, presumably, female sexual desire would not have been part of the equation. What I turned to instead, were contact magazines and contact sites. These did hold out the promise of authentic female sexuality. And how! Instead of a woman who couldn’t even remember ever having a mojo, here were women who were extremely uncompromising about what they wanted and how much they wanted it. Here were women who, instead of skulking around the house in a fleece, hunched and self-absorbed, were laughing and smiling at the world through the camera lens, or had had themselves photographed looking desiring and desirable, confident and provocative (sometimes, it must be said, in astonishing anatomical close-up). Unlike many of them, who specifically wanted “over the knee treatment”, or several men at once, or were bi-curious, or had decided they should be treated as a "no holes barred cum-slut”, for example, I don’t think I personally had any particular agenda, such as anal sex or a threesome. I had no objection to these activities - and indeed, most other options on the smorgasbord of human sexuality. I’d have been – in the event, I was – very happy and very excited to do any and all of the things their ads suggested would please them, providing the woman in question was fit and fairly eager about wanting these things; which, of course, they were.
* * * * *
It proved to be a real eye opener, in some ways. Sex with someone I shared my life with had turned out a dud; yet I discovered you could have very very hot sex with someone who had nothing in common with you. What’s more, your sexual needs didn’t even have to match that well to make it work - you simply had to each have sufficient hunger for sensation - and, perhaps, both share enough interest in the whole business of sex to know what you could do for someone else and how you could do it. If you wanted to go at it like beasts, perhaps not having anything in common was an advantage…….
We’d arranged a social meet before J let me come to her flat - and I suppose we more or less continued this conversation there (one about our different experiences of France) over a glass or two of wine. It was pleasant, but not very exciting and I was unsure how to move things along. I always find it hard, that bit: there’s a grave danger, if someone’s nice, of desire getting overwhelmed by friendliness. What a cool woman, I think, and completely forget about wanting to roger her stupid. Luckily, J wasn’t going to let that happen and started rubbing my crotch with her foot…..
So far, so good; but I still can’t even remember how or why it became so very very hot; so…..well, frenzied, really. How exactly did we get from fooling around to fucking like animals? I felt she was self-conscious about not having very long legs and perhaps about having very strong features, which just denied her prettiness; but there was no need: I found her very attractive and incredibly sexy. She wan't built in the lean willowy way I admire; yet it was a fantastic body, you wanted to caress and hold and fuck. And instead of yielding to my appreciative touch, she started to use her body actively to fire me up and direct my attentions; and to make them more forceful. So she turned in my arms and while I caressed and squeezed her fabulous, jutting, pointy breasts, she was grinding her arse into my groin. Her arse which wasn't small, or cute, but it was astonsihingly firm; an arse which you wanted to rub your cock up against, an arse you wanted to part with your cock. Plus, everything sexual she did was performed with vigour and gusto – I liked that about her, too – there was no timidity or hesitation. When I started licking her, she threw her arms up and spread her legs, as if to make room for two or three tongues. When she turned her attention to my cock she got quite carried away; kneeling to deep-throat me with an enthusiasm I’d rarely encountered. And when she wanted me to fuck her, she ‘presented’ herself, like a cat in heat – on all fours, with her back concave, her face to the sheet and her arse in the air.
“Look at my pussy!” she kept saying.
She herself was studying a side view of the two of us in a mirror opposite the end of the bed, watching my erection nudge her upturned butt and cunt. My eyes naturally followed her gaze to the debauched tableau we were making.
“No, look at it," she demanded. "Look what a lovely pussy I’ve got,” she repeated, over her shoulder. “No - fuck me, put it in - don’t stop! Just tell me how good it feels. Isn’t it a lovely pussy, isn’t it good?”
And with this she reached under her gorgeous stomach, parting her lips for my cock and stroking herself with a two-fingered motion, as if presenting it to me was such a buzz, she couldn’t resist.
Well……. It’s all right, I was thinking – with an odd sort of calm, given that I was severely turned on by her increasngly excited state. Well, she’s not wrong – it ain’t bad, I thought. Lovely seemed too strong a word, though - I’ve definitely had some close encounters with prettier, sweeter, smaller and cuter ones. The thought had even occurred to me – while I was happily licking it, earlier on - that she’d been a bit savage with the razor. Having quite thick, dark hair, a Brazilian might have been more successful and less brutal on her pale skin than the full Monty, I considered. But even as a part of me was metaphorically standing back and making these observations, another part of me – the more active part – was utterly indifferent to whether she had a shaving rash or not: it simply wanted to fulfil her obvious need for me to supplement her fingers with some cock.
In the end, what made it so urgent, so frenzied, was her demand; her open pursuit of pleasure and my determination to match her and give her what she wanted. I liked the bossy way she took control, the imperiousness of her needs. Not knowing me and therefore not trusting me, she was worried I wouldn’t stay with her all the way, I think. and kept exhorting me to go the distance:
“Don’t come!” she was shouting. “Wait! Don’t come yet, wait for me!” - all the while impaling herself rhythmically, pushing her arse back into my groin to meet every thrust.
It was a long, hard ride; but no problem, I was up to the task. And it was certainly a very demanding pussy. We’d both been giving it everything we’d got – my tongue, my fingers, my cock, her fingers, some more cock – but it did seem to be working. She was increasingly sweaty, her encouragements inarticulate now, and her lank hair swinging. Her skin was becoming deeply flushed – not only her front, above her breasts, which I’d noticed when I'd given her a licking, but now her upper back and shoulders, too. As she frigged and fingered and I gripped her hips to thrust, we were gradually turning her pink! We came together in a grunting, sweating, cursing rut. The urgent animal need and energy of her was just so exciting, I absolutely had to come again, for the third time that evening, before taking my leave…….
* * * * *
Overall, though, on the basis of my (very limited) experience, I haven’t really got a good word to say about swinging and contact sites; even though I had the odd entertaining rendezvous (and, with J, a top fuck). As someone who was miserable within a relationship he didn’t want to give up, it was the obvious way to go. Firstly, it was honest: I wasn’t trying to pretend I was up for anything as a free agent, or a singleton looking for a LTR; I was married, looking for discreet fun with others in a similar position. (You think people are fulfilled in their warm, fuzzy long-term relationships? Yeah, right – take a look at some contact sites and you’ll see a whole gamut of excluded, unfulfilled desires, spilling out onto the internet, desperately seeking someone, anyone, to meet those needs.) Secondly, there was the reassurance that I wasn’t alone – a quick trawl soon showed me there were lots of women out there, also looking – hot women, game women, eager women. All I had to do was hook up with a few of them.
In practice, this is easier said than done. For a whole host of reasons, I suspect single men rarely do well out of contact/swinging arrangements. (On occasions when I’ve run couple ads with a lover, we’ve immediately drawn many many more replies than I ever did on my own, and in a fraction of the time). Thing is, women can’t move for offers and have to wade through a mountain of approaches from so many hopeless, desperate, unlikely and downright unattractive single males, that it’s going to be pretty hard to get their attention. Their physical vulnerability means they’ve got to be a lot more careful whom they’re meeting with anyway - and makes a couple a better proposition for them. And of course a huge number of them are bi-curious – so the whole point of advertising is to meet with women or with couples which include another bi-curious woman.
In a recent Observer magazine article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/jun/17/socialnetworking.internet about “no strings casual sex”, much is made of the online opportunities for linking up with others; especially among young singletons. But as with any journalism, there's a lot of hyperbole, half-baked conjecture, and two and two making five. Online dating may work, now and then, but I don’t believe sex contacts work very well for anyone, online or otherwise; there are just two many sad timewasters out there: and they’re definitely a dud for single men. Couples, on the other hand, can do quite well, though the article didn't really get into the swinging side of things. But then, if you are a couple looking to swing – and you’re actually fit and worth shagging – I think you’d be much better off going to some chic party, like the ones Fever run,
or holidaying at Cap d’Agde.
If you can't manage this, or it isn’t right for you, try:
Suzanne Portnoy’s The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker (Virgin, 2006) is not a good book. The writing’s poor and it’s not even successful on its own terms – as a so-called “erotic memoir” – since it’s about as erotic as a wet weekend in Skegness. Far from being “shocking and heartwarming” as it’s blurb suggests, it actually made me bored and depressed. It wouldn’t get onto anyone’s one-handed reading list in a million years. Her gushy little sentences. Are irritating. As fuck. (There is a skill to that kind of writing, which she lacks and her editor can’t bestow). And her subject – a 40 yo cosmopolitan divorcee’s search for a half-way decent shag, with at least the prospect of a meaningful relationship – turns out to be a very dull quest indeed.
And yet, what it inadvertently can’t help but reveal about the world of contacts pretty much chimes with my own experience - that, if you aren't already in a couple keen to swing, then a really ludicrous amount of effort has to be constantly expended for the very limited benefit of a relatively small number of successful meetings, and an even smaller number of sexual experiences worth having. What’s more, most of the people trying to contact you are hopelessly inadequate in one way or another - and a large proportion just waste your time. This was my assessment and this also seems to have been her experience – despite the fact that she’s in London, which is ten times easier than elsewhere because of the high concentration of cosmopolitan singles - and the fact that she’s a woman, which makes it ten times easier than if you’re a single male.
Portnoy’s book isn’t interesting enough to read cover to cover, but as far as I can tell she fails to mention the timewasters, the people with strange and incomprehensible agendas of their own, the droves of reasonably attractive but silly women trying to make money by getting even sillier older men to buy photos, or dirty laundry, or just send them cash. She doesn’t mention the droves of sad, lonely men and scary-looking women. When you advertise, it’s simply astonishing how many replies you receive which bear no relation to the criteria you specified. An astonishing number don’t even send you/attach photos at all and any woman or couple will tell you that most men who do either send only a head and shoulder shot, or only send a picture of their miserable-looking cock, as if that would convince anyone to meet with them!
In a couple of years of advertising and replying, I don’t suppose I had more than a handful of worthwhile contacts. In part, this may have been due to my particular circumstances; distant from big urban centres and only able to pursue contacts when away from home. Partly also, I acknowledge that just when I was making some progress and had managed one or two very promising connections, I met and fell head over heels for B. Nevertheless, I suspect that as far as the world of contacts goes, it’s only meeting others as a couple which really works – not singles’ contact sites.
Even when couples advertise, it’s the woman’s attractiveness which is the unit of exchange, the currency of swinging. (Most parties insist on only couples or single women.) It will be her pictures which determine the number and quality of their responses or invitations to parties. (And they know this: however good-looking, fit, or well-endowed the man might be, a typical listing on, say, Adultfriendfinder, (http://adultfriendfinder.com/) may have half a dozen photographs of the woman and just one or two of the man.) Although it may not be the woman who’s initiated swinging or the advert, it’s very often her needs which are pre-eminent in it: adding another woman to satisfy her bi-curiosity, adding extra cock action for her (which her partner may only watch), or finding others who’ll make her the centre of attention.
* * * * *
And yet…… In the end, I suppose it was ‘empowering’ (as earlier feminists used to say), because of my particular circumstances. And it did prove to be a transition for me – between miserable monogamy and my present loved-up state… First of all, I discovered that there was no need to tolerate pussy-hunger (let alone pussy starvation, or pussy frenzy - a dangerous affliction which can set in when denied it long enough). Half the population were in possession of the qualities I needed – and quite a lot of them weren’t disqualified by age, physical unattractiveness or geographical remoteness. Not only were a goodly number in possession of a desirable femininity; there were also a lot of women out there for whom sex wasn’t just a negotiating ploy, part of something else, or something to put off until some nebulous future time when conditions might be more propitious. Hell, no! – they were up for it, now - already in the mood. And they clearly saw it as a separate activity for its own sake - for fun!
I’d got used to sex being a ‘problem’ in the context of my relationship; or at least, let’s say, problematic. So it was empowering because sex was still there, could still be there in my life: fun sex, thrilling sex, dirty sex, hot urgent sex, animal sex. And it was a joy and relief to discover that I wasn’t over the hill or undesirable. Contact ads can be completely absurd and unrealistic in their demands; as if lovers were like home-delivery pizzas, and all you had to do was choose your toppings. Yet it was also liberating to find that others, especially other women, could be that confident and upfront about what they wanted. As I’ve discovered since, fulfilling a particular desire someone expresses - however unusual or exacting that might be - is so much more fun and so much easier to do, than always struggling to meet some vague, unspecified demand, which is never quite made clear and so can never be satisfied…….
