Social Media Strategies for Swingers
Chantelle Austin
on 8 August 2011
It’s the 21st century and the era of social media, which is great for connecting and sharing but can also be a recipe for disaster if you’re unaware or aren’t prepared. And if you are a person who is also a swinger that loves to share, then it’s “danger Will Robinson!” (Ok, showing my age now I think).
The following are just suggestions, take what you think will work for you and weigh up the risks of doing the opposite - no, seriously, think first on this one because once it’s out in the cyber world, you can’t take it back! (I know, I tried!) These are not the only strategies or ideas, but they work for me.
My number one strategy; create a separate “fun” account for your “alter ego”. While Facebook allows you to put people into lists and you have the capability to allow certain lists to see, or not see, your posts and updates, it is still very easy to make a mistake (trust me on that one). So to keep your vanilla friends separate and minimise the potential for accidentally posting a drunk comment on your wall saying “Me + 6 boys = hot fun times” where your devout catholic father can see it, a separate account is the way to go. Plus it’s kind of fun to have a naughty persona you can let loose with.
When friending people on your Facebook accounts, keep them separate. So don’t use your fun account to friend playmates vanilla accounts, and vice versa. Use your fun account to friend your friends fun profiles only, and keep your vanilla profile friended to their vanilla profile, this minimises those times when you post a comment on their vanilla profile “come to my husband’s birthday” status from your fun account saying “Busy, going to but will make it up to him in all the ways we both know he enjoys ;)” (Yes, done this one).
Having two profiles can get confusing as to who you are logged in as. If you have their vanilla profiles on both it’s easy to post as your fun self which can blow your alter ego’s cover and have people asking questions. Especially if you post on your husband’s vanilla profile saying “Love you babe, can’t wait to be wrapped in your arms again” from your fun profile. Another good reason to keep fun to fun and vanilla to vanilla, and if possible, both of you should have fun profiles!
Some people only have the one profile (their vanilla one) which has their friends, family and potentially work colleagues on it so you can choose to friend them or not if you are concerned about ousting them, but I recommend you allow them to choose to let your fun profile friend them instead and then be extremely mindful of what you post or how you comment on their status. Best practice in this scenario is to keep all public posts/comments vanilla and only send risqué private messages.
If having two profiles seems like too much hard work then the other way, which I briefly touched on earlier, is to put your friends in lists such as “family/vanilla” and “swingers/playmates” then make sure you tell Facebook which list to share (or not share) a post with. Personally I think this takes more work than having an account where you don’t have to think too much about what you can and can’t say, and who to, but each to their own. Either way you are keeping them separate.
One other thing that caught me out, Facebook messaging and chat can both be sent to groups! Yes, more than just you… So check whom the message is being sent to first before you reply swinger-style, and where possible, don’t hit “reply to all”. The safest option; send a separate message to them directly just to be sure (wish I’d read something like this earlier!).
At the end of the day we’re all human and while we take steps to prevent the cross over and saying the wrong thing, it does occasionally happen (particularly to those who are share-a-holics). The best thing you can do is to admit you stuffed up, beg forgiveness (grovel if you have to), delete their vanilla profile to stop it happening again, and move on.
If anyone else has other strategies or Facebook scenario conflicts, feel free to comment or ask your questions, I’m sure I haven’t covered every possible sharing violation here. Until then, enjoy your sexual exploration and try not to share too much information on the wrong walls!
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