In this edition of Dear Tom & Bunny, they share some more structured guidelines for navigating the swinging lifestyle and give recommendations for bisexual-friendly clubs in Portland.

Question 1: Why Don't You Have a Guideline to Make the Lifestyle More Consistent with Everyone?

Q: Dear Tom and Bunny,

Hey guys, long time listener, first time emailing.

We watch all of your videos, and now I am binge-listening to all of your podcasts, and I have been curious about something. You are always saying to your audience that you are not telling people how the lifestyle should be, but how you both navigate the lifestyle, and you speak as to what works for you as a couple and that everyone should define the lifestyle that best works for them including listening or watching others who do lifestyle podcast as they may offer advice that better fits what they may be looking for, thank you for being so upfront, and as an audience member we appreciate your direct approach and honesty. With all of your experience in the lifestyle, why are you not defining the lifestyle so there can be somewhat of a guideline to make the lifestyle more consistent with everyone? Everyone knows what an inch is, a gallon is because they are defined, but listening to many others, it seems that many try to define how the lifestyle is and how we should live in the swinger’s lifestyle. We would love to hear how you would define the lifestyle on how people should participate so everyone would know what level others were at, what is the possibility of you doing that in the future? Also, we see many who call themselves Lifestyle Coaches, Couples Coaches, but you don’t list yourself as any titles, but you seem to be helping a lot of people navigate through a lot of questions they are having. Sorry, this is so long, and again, we both want to thank you both for putting yourselves out there for people like us.

F and F

A: Hello, F and F,

We always love to hear compliments and positive re-enforcement of what we do both on YouTube and on our podcast. We do get asked a variation of your question from time to time, as we know some people need structure or they feel lost in this sea of self-expression both sexually and opening up to strangers.

Most of our content comes from direct messages, emails, and comments on our YouTube as well as our Website. We do get quite a few messages on our Instagram and Facebook, and even though we do have twitter, we don’t get too many direct messages there (???). When we see these messages, we both decide which ones are more commonly asked and then we break out the camera or podcast equipment.

What you are seeing or hearing is really how we honestly feel at the time, and we talk about what works for us because this lifestyle is so huge that we couldn’t possibly paint lines down a road and expect people to follow the direction as everyone is different. When we say everyone is different, we can’t describe in one reply how many variations of the lifestyle there are. Everyone wants to define some aspects that they don’t feel fit them, so they will change something to a different variant such as the common sexualities (straight, bisexual); when we got into the lifestyle, there were only two!  The belief was that if you were bi-curious, you were just bisexual, so you didn’t see a lot of what we do today. We think there is one for straight, one for gay, one for lesbian, one for trans, and let’s see... On bisexuality, off the top of our heads, we constantly see Open-Minded, Bi-Curious, Bi-Comfortable, Bi-Situational, Bi-Feverish, and, of course, Bisexual. We have heard many other variations, sort of like the LGBTQ+; when we first heard of them, they were just LG and they keep adding letters to denote what people identify as.

So, why did we mention all that? For one, we just did a podcast on Bisexual Couples, Single Men, and Single Women, so it was fresh, but as you can see, everyone has their own definition of how they want to be seen in the lifestyle. So another view would be terming just the lifestyle!

When we first started discussing entering into the swinging scene 28 years ago, we would hear the common term "Wife Swappers," and, to be honest, even back then, it sounded a little derogatory to the women, but we didn’t know how it was going to evolve! When we entered into the swinging lifestyle, people were making references to "Swingers." That we could deal with, and then it got changed to "The Swingers Lifestyle," and the word "Swingers" was being removed and people would reference “The Lifestyle.” Today, there is a big movement to remove the word "Lifestyle" and change it to something like, “Consensual Consent Sex-Positive Non-Monogamy.” Whew, that’s a lot of words. :) We will use whatever the majority uses with no problem, but we personally just call it “The Lifestyle.”

As you can see, with everyone wanting self-identification, there would be no way to create a roadmap that everyone would follow, and we honestly do not think there needs to be one. With all the many dynamics of how people feel, such as some people feel that only Couples & Single females are swingers and that single men have no business calling themselves swingers (this is not how we feel, just being politically incorrect), you have couples who list themselves as Straight Female/Straight Male, Bi whatever female/straight male, Bi whatever female/Bi whatever male, and that is just their sexualities! Add in that everyone has different tastes in people, body type, hair no hair, eye color, or hair length, height, weight, smoke, drink, condoms, no condoms, to fully-shaved, groomed, all-natural, etc… you get the point.

We as a couple want to pass on our experiences and views to others, especially new couples who have a lot of questions and are given many different suggestions or directions as just another option that may help them. We tend to agree with a lot of people. Now, we also don’t agree with a lot of what we have seen out there, and that is another reason we started doing our videos and then moving into podcast. For example, we often hear, “The Swinging Lifestyle is the BEST thing for your marriage!” We had actually just seen a newsletter from a club with that as a heading. If ASN publishes this as-is, we say BULLSHIT! Sorry — that is one thing we totally disagree with. We feel that “communication is the BEST thing for your marriage,” and if you have awesome communication like we do, which we hope everyone does, then the swinging lifestyle can be amazing, but it really does start with communication. Another example that we disagree with is when we hear phrases like “how to talk your wife into swinging.” We feel that if there is open and honest communication, nobody has to be “talked” into anything; it should come naturally, and they should both want to try it; if someone has to be talked into something and it doesn’t go as they hoped, the other person is going to blame it on the other, which we wouldn’t want to see happen. People often say that the divorce rate is lower in the lifestyle (add dumbfounded look here); how does anyone prove that? Sorry — we get passionate, and you can clearly see that there is no way to create a hard-fast rule on how people should be in the swinging lifestyle.

As for us being Lifestyle Coaches? From the amount of positive feedback and communications, we don’t need the title as we know we are helping a lot of people out there.

Thank you for following our videos and podcasts.

Question 2: Are there any Male-on-Male Bi-Accepting Swingers Clubs in Portland?

Q: Hi, Tom and Bunny!

First off, I love your videos! Your honest and blunt information is truly appreciated. It’s nice to see a confident couple talk openly like you both do. 

My wife D and I have been married for three years and together going on ten. After nearly a decade together, we’ve decided to take a more serious look into the lifestyle. I’ve been bisexual my entire life, and my wife is more bi-curious. We’re traveling to Portland, Oregon, and would love some of your advice.

We watched your YouTube video on Club Privata as well as “how not to be a douche.” I figured that one was pretty important. I also listened to your 12/9/19 podcast on bisexuality. Anyways, for my questions: 

Which clubs in Portland are the most “open-minded” or accepting of bisexual males?

Is male-on-male play even acceptable in these clubs? I thought I heard you say it is still not accepted, even to this day.

My wife and I are hoping to experience one or multiple clubs in the Portland area. Any advice you could lend us would be GREATLY appreciated! Again thank you for doing what you do! We really look forward to hearing back from you!!

E & D

A: Hello, E & D,

Thank you for watching our videos and listening to our podcast; it’s very humbling when we get praises, and we do really appreciate it very much.

We have been to clubs all over the United States, and you did hear correctly when we said that bisexual males in the lifestyle have not been fully embraced or accepted by many clubs. What we did not mention on our podcast is why most clubs do not fully support the growing numbers of bisexual couples, females, and — least of all — bisexual men.

We do not have any hard facts to prove our opinion; we’re just basing it on common sense. However, we do feel that the main reason is the background, age, and their morality instilled into them. Your more progressive clubs have learned that being in the swinger’s club scene puts them in the moral minority, and one should not throw stones living in a glass house.

Many have expressed that male bisexuality is something they do not wish to happen in their clubs for many reasons from a majority of couples (including women in the lifestyle), where they are accepting and expecting women to be bisexual, and yet they do not want to witness two men in a sexual encounter — from kissing to oral, and the most common we hear is anal sex among two men.

It is interesting the number of couples, men, and women who have adapted to anal sex with women as a normal sexual encounter, but they have not accepted two men in an anal sex encounter. We’ve been asked the same type of questions in a different scenario, where the male is pegged anally by a female with a strap on, and that was more accepted by a majority and identified as something that is more natural because of the prostate orgasm.  We planned to do more follow up with club owners and attendees on their views of different scenarios and produce a second podcast as a follow-up to the original.

So, we did check, and we contacted Club Privata in Portland, where we did the video tour that you saw on our website. While they do not have any issues with couples and their sexuality — and they did say that there have been many times where bisexual contact between men has taken place — they were also upfront that some of the guests were not as open-minded as they were. They do not have any specific nights designated for bi couples, bi women, and bi men in the swingers lifestyle like Club Sapphire in Seattle does, which is about three hours away. Club Privata did offer a suggestion that you may want to check out PDX Sanctuary, which we did, and they seem like they would be the most sexually-open club in the Portland area, and they actually list on their Facebook that they are a Sex-Positive LGBTQ+ event space. We absolutely love Club Privata, and you can see their quality in our video tour, but we have personally never been to PDX Sanctuary, so we cannot offer you a personal opinion.

Please follow up with us after your trip. We would love to hear all the details on your encounter and, more importantly, if you had a good time and how you were treated at whatever club you decided to attend, if any.

This article originally appeared in the January 2020 issue of ASN Lifestyle Magazine.