Daily Black Immigrant News
Meet married swingers who encourage each other to sleep with other people and have visited more than 20 countries for their ‘exploitation’, including Jamaica.
Cate Wander, 37, and her husband Darren, 47, a salesman, met 15 years ago in Sydney, Australia, and initially started dating as a monogamous couple.
Five years into their relationship, the pair decided to open up about their various desires – from career aspirations to sexual fantasies.
They soon decided to identify as ‘ethically non-monogamous’ – meaning they communicate before having sex with others outside of their marriage.
The adventurous couple decided to become swingers and haven’t looked back since.
Cate and Darren enjoyed the “openness” of the lifestyle so much, they “opened up their marriage” and have since traveled the world dating other men and women – visiting Thailand, Japan, France, the US and the UK, among other countries.
They hope to “break the stigma” surrounding non-monogamy and swinging.
Cate, a podcaster from Queensland, Australia, said: “The first time I moved I was terrified.
“There’s a really negative stigma around the lifestyle. I thought some fur-chested dude wearing a gold chain with a beer belly was going to come out and pin me down.
“It was nothing like that. There are people from all walks of life, it’s like any other bar except the arcades.
“You drink, talk to different people and dance.”
Cate left her senior corporate career as global director of operations in 2019 and came out as a swinger after hiding it from the world due to ‘a morals clause in her employment contract’.
Darrell works in sales, but says his company has embraced his alternative lifestyle.
The couple first experienced the move at a club in Sydney, Australia, and were initially apprehensive.
They had no sexual encounters, but acted as voyeurs—watching others without getting involved—dipping their toes into the possibilities of nonmonogamy.
Since then, they have moved to the Netherlands and had sex with other people all over the world, and regularly visit nudist resorts for their outings.
Darrell added: “When we first moved I was scared and excited, but the feeling of excitement wore off.
“We went in with the wrong idea and had rigid rules that we couldn’t break.”
“We quickly realized that this was not the way to go as we cannot predict how we might feel at any given moment and instead choose to communicate what we want in each moment.
“We have instructions, for example, we will not take one for the team.
“If one of us isn’t interested, we’re both not interested.
“We come first and we each have veto power to leave a situation or a couple if one of us doesn’t want to continue.”
Cate and Darrell loved the swing so much that they quickly established themselves in Sydney’s cruising scene.
They regularly went to their favorite club in Sydney – Our Secret Place – and enjoyed their new sexual liberation.
According to Cate, at first she had to overcome feelings of shame and confusion as she felt bad about having sex with others in front of her husband, but she soon realized that he loved her.
The couple have lived and traveled all over the world in countries such as Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, France, the US and the UK to have sex with others.
They are now based out of Amsterdam, Netherlands, and have lived there since March 2022, and say they love the “openness and fluidity of Dutch culture”.
“In the Netherlands people don’t close their eyes, everyone is very open here,” said Cate.
“Sexuality and nudity are not a big deal.”
Cate says that non-monogamy and swinging are “viewed differently depending on where you are in the world” – in the south of France there is a nudist town called Cap D’agde where 40,000 nudists live.
In Malaysia and Thailand swinging is illegal, so Cate says the scene is “hidden underground” and she claims in Japanese swing clubs “you can’t get in if you don’t speak Japanese fluently”.
The couple – who regularly organize swing events in US hotels – say swingers clubs are common in all major cities but are still highly stigmatised. In the UK, there are 40 swing clubs.
Sex-positive advocate Cate describes the double standards in society and says she believes ‘unethical’ monogamy – cheating – is not as abhorrent as consensual non-monogamy.
“More often than not, people on normal dating apps who cheat on their partners non-consensually will have more sex than those who are part of the live-in lifestyle but aren’t stigmatized in the same way,” he added. Cate.
She claims that employees who are found to be swingers are often fired because of morals clauses in their contracts.
According to Cate, many school teachers in the US have lost their jobs, and in custody battles an individual’s status can be used as a “weapon against them.”
The couple’s favorite sexual activities are ‘puppy piles’ – a large gathering of people of mixed sex, hugging and or fondling each other heavily, usually with clothes on, but sometimes without – and they also like dates with other couples.
The pair also describe themselves as a ‘hot wife’ couple, sometimes Darrell likes to watch Cate get pleasure from other men and sets up dates for her to go on with other guys.
Swingers have dating sites like the ‘monogamous’ world; the biggest in the UK is fabswingers.com.
Cate and Darrell often go on vacations to Mexico and Jamaica, where up to 500 people stay in luxury all-inclusive hotels to get to know each other.
“My favorite thing about swinging is meeting new people from all walks of life,” Cate said.
“We tend to be more open and less on the surface, everyone is naked and disarmed without any judgement.
“I’ve found that with other women I can be honest and deep instead of competitive and weird, since we’re not defining each other to see where we each sit in the hierarchy.
“It’s really a beautiful thing.”
Cate revealed she was bisexual after years of swinging as the lifestyle freed her to explore her sexuality.
Cate added that she feels safer at swingers’ events than at standard ‘vanilla’ clubs – regular nightclubs – as she has never had an incident where a man has done something unpleasant or non-consensual.
“It’s not all rainbows and lollipops, there are really hard conversations to have and the lifestyle isn’t for everyone,” she said.
“There is no single puzzle, for some non-monogamy is great for others monogamy is the answer.”
Cate often receives hateful comments on her social media aimed at her appearance, but she ignores them as much as possible.
“If I took every personal attack to heart, I wouldn’t get out of bed every day, but of course I do sometimes,” she said.
“I know I’m with a lot of people and my husband’s tea.”
Three years ago, Cate went public by posting a photo on social media after keeping her and her husband’s identities anonymous on their Wanderlust Swingers podcast.
Cate said: “I freed myself and quit my job, now I run sex events around the world and consult for businesses working in the sex-positive space,” she said.
Darrell added: “This has made us significantly stronger and much more open to conversation; we can sit down and talk about things immediately and constantly.
“We have created a global group of friends through the movement, ranging from people who clean floors for a living to the bosses of large corporations.”
NewsAmericasNow.com
