“How to Do It” is Slate magazine’s sex advice column. I have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich. Anonymous!
Dear How To Do It,
Recently my husband and I had our “extracurricular” sex life exposed in social circles.
We’ve been into the swinging lifestyle for a few years now. We were a bit more active before we had kids, but now that we’re out of baby prison we’ve jumped back into the lifestyle. We have a great marriage and sex life and a great partnership.
We have always been discreet about this. We have never hung out with any couples or individuals within our close friend group. I am still not entirely sure to whom or how the information leaked, but we live in a small town so it seems like all of our friends now know our little secret. My husband even had one of his semi-religious friends question his “manhood” in an angry way towards him. He was more reserved than I am. We try to laugh it off but I am still pretty upset. What should I do?
—Swing and Mrs.
Rich Juzwiak: My advice is to keep laughing. Don’t let them get you down. If you change your behavior because of these people who don’t know anything about your life, you’re letting them control your behavior. That’s a big mistake. It seems a lot more fun to swap or have sex than to pander to sex-negative people who will yell at you. Take your choice and choose the former.
Jessica Stoya: And Rich put it in about 75 words.
rich: alright, let’s go.
Jessica: As someone who has had a very public and flamboyant sex life, I’ll add that you just hit the ground running and people get used to it. Then something new and shiny comes along and people criticize it.
rich: Absolutely. People will get bored of you. I empathize with this because growing up in my teens and twenties I felt a lot of societal pressure to be straight. It all comes down to how you want to live your life.
I don’t blame people for actually giving in because it’s really, really hard to survive and be comfortable around people judging you that way. But I don’t see any other way at this point. You’re an adult and in many ways more evolved than the people who criticize you. You’d be regressed if you actually listened to them. I think there’s a certain inevitability to these interactions because this is your current life situation, but these situations show who your friends are and you seem to have no shortage of social opportunities. So maybe the people you swing with are your real friends or you can build real friendships there with people who understand.
Jessica: Yeah, it’s definitely useful to have people to turn to who don’t make you feel like an outsider to counteract feelings of alienation, and the good news is that they’re only just out of baby prison, so as far as potential backlash against the kids goes, by the time they’re old enough to notice, the townsfolk will likely have tuned out and moved on.
rich: Yes. I would deal with this without any apologies or explanations. I mean, if people know what’s going on, they know what’s going on, and you don’t have to say anything. You can get away with it as best you can by not participating.
Also consider being a resource for people who are curious or interested. There are probably people in the crowd who aren’t mocking what you’re doing. Many of them may be secretly jealous. That means people have questions and want to talk about them. I think you can gauge their position as best you can and then decide if it’s worth having a conversation and providing information, or if you should just ignore them.
But most of the time, people who make fun of you or are rude to you aren’t worth your time. I understand why you want to hit back, but your husband probably did the perfect job with that pseudo-religious friend. As I get older, I understand how much you want to avoid making your life as complicated as possible by reacting to people. Don’t really attack, that will only make your life harder. So just nod and get out of the way, and it will make your life easier.
Jessica: You also want to avoid reacting. As an adult, you might think this is over by now, but a reaction keeps the excitement going. A reaction is like blood in an ocean with sharks. Sometimes it makes you suspect that you are not as familiar with the issues they are bothering you with as you claim. The simple fact is that for many bullies, poking and getting that reaction continues to be fun for them. So try to imitate what your husband does. Look up some breathing exercises online that will help you relax. Square Breathing So that’s one thing that I find helpful is learning to control your nervous system when you feel like reacting, so that you don’t make the other person react. Basically, as cliché as it sounds, take the noble path.
rich: The cliché is there for a reason. You don’t even need to think about karma. Unless your negative feelings about sex are so overwhelming that you need to focus on something else. In that case, you can stage a fireworks show. But I don’t recommend it. I think life is a lot easier if you don’t. react.
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