Читать книгу Swinging: The Games Your Neighbours Play - Mark Brendon - Страница 19

I TURNED, THEN, FROM theoretical to practical concerns.

The health risks of swinging, it seemed, were small.

‘Oh, Lord, no. Swingers are like prostitutes,’ Johnny assured me. ‘They’re generally much safer than the sexually active public,because they expect to be having sex with strangers. So they take precautions in advance and demand that their partners do, and there’s none of that, “Oo-er, the passion was too much for us. Fuck the risk” stuff that I get from my patients all the time.

‘Technically, I suppose, there is a very small risk from unprotected oral sex with multiple partners, but it is negligible unless you have major oral lesions. And, from what I can gather, swinging men don’t often come in women’s mouths. Overall, and subject to all the usual cautions, I’d say you were safer there than in ordinary, single, sexually active civvy life.’

This left just one danger, and—as an addict—it is one of which I am acutely aware.

With most pleasures, there is a law of diminishing returns. I was scared that orgiastic sex with multiple strangers might render all other sexual experiences tame and uninteresting, and would demand ever wilder extremes.

Lisa reassured me. As far as she was concerned at least, there was room for different varieties of sex. ‘This is fantasy, like the fantasies you have when you’re masturbating—which can be pretty crazy and nasty, but actually only stimulate you when you’re back home making love with one person. I mean, unless you’re seriously ill, your fantasies of being forcibly fucked by a whole regiment don’t affect your enjoyment of sex with your nearest and dearest, do they?

‘It’s like the classical musician getting off on a night in the disco. You’re saying the same things but in different ways. Most swingers are in long-term relationships and have very busy sex lives together. I suppose it could happen, but the two things are just so different.’

I vowed to myself that I would remain alert to the possibility. I have done so.

And yes, swinging sex proves one of those appetites that grows by what it feeds on, but it is an appetite for more kisses, more caresses, more sensual pleasures, more distinctive tastes and characteristic responses, more fun—not greater degrees of excess. Swinging sex has increased my appetite for—and, I hope, my proficiency in—more discreet and exclusive sexual communication.

Astonishingly, despite the apparently general assumption that swinging was, somehow, obscurely morally wrong, I could find not a single valid ethical objection to it.

I look forward to hearing of one that I missed.