Addicted to swinger sex?

A reader asked, “Can a person be addicted to swinger sex?” The simple answer is “yes.” Swinger sex poses unique challenges that complicate affair dynamics.

You have the bonding that occurs with sexual activity, plus the swinger rituals, plus intoxicants, plus brain stimulation. Each of these factors adds a new dimension to this complicated dynamic.

All these factors, combined with the neurochemicals and hormones released, make the experience powerfully intense. Any experience that brings rapid changes in mood and emotion has a potential for addiction.

In terms of bonding, whenever people share sexual relations, a bonding takes place between them. This bonding is very real. It occurs on several levels at once: chemically, emotionally, and spiritually. These bonds connect the swinger to their lovers, setting the stage for a possible addiction.

There are also rituals associated with swinging. These often include ‘dressing up’ for the events. There’s an excitement that many swingers experience in getting ready for the event. It’s as if it’s prom night every weekend you swing. The dressing up involves getting ready both internally (via fantasies about what might happen) and externally through putting on seductive or attractive clothing.

Many times the ‘dressing up’ gets swingers looking forward to the activity. They often get worked up just getting ready. The excitement, anxiety, and adrenaline can be as thrilling as the sex itself. Just showing up at the events sets you up for sex. You may tell yourself that you are there to ‘socialize,’ yet you know, and everyone else knows, what the real purpose is. What you don’t know is who you will be with or how many you will be with.

Then there are the intoxicants. Swinger parties include the liberal use of intoxicants, be it drugs or alcohol. These are used to dull the senses, silence any guilt, and reduce inhibitions. It’s much easier to seduce someone who is intoxicated. Swingers know this. When the senses are dulled, they are more inclined to ‘act out’ with those they would typically not engage in such activities with.

It is also possible that swingers enjoy the buzz and the desensitizing to the point of being an addiction itself.

Then you have the icing of brain stimulation. At times the sexual acts are extreme so as to ‘activate’ more parts of the brain. The riskier or more forbidden the sex, the greater the adrenaline rush from it. Your brain likes being stimulated. The sexual acts are often used as a way to make the brain turn on through stimulation and chemicals. With swinging, you are activating multiple channels into your brain. All that stimulation causes a large number of neurons to fire at higher levels of brain functioning. It amounts to a chemical frontal assault from many sides at once.

Swingers report feeling very relaxed or very wide awake in describing this phenomenon of when their brains are ‘turned on.’ In either case, you are dealing with a brain that is being activated.

The intense experience they report is often dependent on the part of the brain that was activated. The problem comes when your brain wants to either stay turned on or to do it again, again, and again, even when other parts of you don’t want to. When your brain pushes you to stay turned on to the point where other parts of your life are suffering, you’ve crossed the line into addiction. Given the intense stimulation involved with swinger lifestyles, the risk of an addiction forming is high.

I am not saying all swingers are addicts. I am saying that the intensity of the swinger experience makes you at risk for addiction. If you have an addictive personality or addictive potential, the swinger lifestyle is filled with dangers for you.

The massive stimulation creates what amounts to a multi-stranded rope of addictive behavior connecting the swinger with swinging activity. Each of these challenges needs to be dealt with. This includes the drugs/alcohol, sexual behavior addiction, need for attention (love addiction), along with an insatiable desire for MORE, MORE, MORE.

Each bond also has an influence that keeps the other ones activated. This often means that you have to attack the issue of swinger addiction on several levels at once, which is not an easy feat to accomplish.

In sharing this, I am not trying to discourage you. I am trying to make you aware of the many different processes going on. It is not ‘just about the sex.’ Making that assumption, you will be fixing the wrong problem and underestimating what you are up against.

Best Regards,

Jeff

PS - If you are struggling with trauma symptoms (anxiety, depressed mood, difficulty thinking, difficulty solving problems, mood swings), you may be experiencing relationship trauma. You’ll want to obtain a copy of the “Overcoming Relationship Trauma for Swingers” now available. The video guides you through the signs of trauma and what it takes to help those traumas.