Are Swinging and Swapping Immoral?

[Slopeshoulder]

This is a serious question that I'd like to discuss soberly. This is not a joke thread.

There's an article in today's NY Times about a guy in China who has been given hard time in the big house for hosting orgies. He even earned their quote of the day. Let's debate the morality of his lifestyle, from a religion and values perspective.

CAVEAT: no R-rated material allowed. Also, personally I'm gleefully monogamous and plan to stay that way. I have no skin in the game (no pun intended). But the topic is ethically interesting and timely.

Option 1: the Bible says this kind of behavior is really really horrifically sinful, consistently. And tradition affirms it, as do mainream religious mores. End of story.

Option 2: there's no god, but it's unethical.

Option 3: there's no god, but it's ethical.

Option 4: there is a God, but it's ethical anyway.

For the sake of debate, I'll argue for option four.
Here's how:
First, assume there's a God for the sake of discussion. Now...

- Point one: the overarching themes in judeo-christian tradition regarding human relations, sexual and otherwise, emphasize the centrality of love, respect, charity, consent, mutuality, fairness, non-abuse, non-exploitation, non-violence, sobriety, justice, honesty, inclusion, human flourishing, not-objectifying others, etc. It's the themes that matter. It's not about what the Bible says, it about what it means. To mean anything it needs to be reappropriated for each generation.

- Point 2: The minor themes have to do with proscriptions and prohibitions
of things like pre and extramarital sex, licentiousness, lust in the heart, etc. But, like not eating pork, these are associated with ritual purity in that cultural context(a spiritual notion) and pragmatism and health (in other words, not spreading desease, creating unwanted children, blurring tribal boundaries, inspiring jealousy and attendant violence, and undermining property boundaries: including the mrs.). These specifics matter less and are timebound.

- Point 3: Within boundaries, sex is good and a gift (in scripture and tradition). Asceticism is not mandated, merely a choice for some.

As to point 1: swingers and swappers can meet all these criteria (where love is defined broadly as charity, empathy, and inclusion, as it is in scripture and tradition, and not in the modern romantic sense). Moreover, swingers and swappers have overcome jealousy and define human connection broadly and optimistically.

As to point 2: In modern times, non-tribal civil structures, birth control technology, and law are more evolved, so most of these decontextualized and ancient specific proscriptions and prohibitions no longer inhere or apply to us today. Plus, as above, swingers and swappers have overcome jealousy.

As to point 3: so S&S may not be advisable, or enjoyable, or for me or you, but it is not inherently immoral or unethical. An imagined religoius swinger and swapper association is not prima facie oxymoronic. It even might sacrilize the behavior, which is not unknown to world religious history.

We're specifically talking about swinging and swapping only.
We're NOT talking about cheating, pedophilia, bestiality, S&M, or homosexuality in this thread. So so don't lump them in without a reason.

Please debate. I'm pretty sure that in this forum appeals to scripture as authoritative are allowed, but please adress the issues up for debate as outlined in the options above if you select option 1.

[Slopeshoulder]

Swinging or swapping just to satisfy lust is forbidden

My interest is extra-scriptural. But do we not legitimately lust for our partners? is satisfying lust not an integral part of sexual experience, in marriage as well? the difference between a cuddle and a schtup is the presence of lust in the latter instance, creating biological arousal. Even when you insemintated your friend, you had an erection, and that came from some aspect of lust. So lust itself seems like an insufficient grounds all by itself to rule out anything. Some other factor must apply. Probably harm or hurt, as you suggested.

I disagree. There is a HUGE difference between DESIRE and LUST. Desire is a godly attribute while lust is turning desire into something evil. Biological arousal is desire whereas lust is like taking a girls virginity then dumping her. Lust is a desire for something you are not entitled to IMO. Rape is lust for example. It can be a lust to dominate as well as satisfying a sexual need.

Scripture even tells you not to treat your wife as a sex object to satisfy lust on. It even classifies it as fornication. So my understanding of fornication for example has to do with the motive of your heart, not your marital status. The problem is only Yah can know the motives of your heart.

There are all kinds of ungodly lusts. For example you can lust for power over others. You can lust for money, ie greed, whereas a desire to have the money to meet your needs is not Greed. It is a matter of application that can turn desire into lust.

I agree and do find the distinction between desire and lust useful. Desire acknowleges our human reality, while lust is, by definition, always a perversion of desire, always bad. That helps. Thanks.

[Slopeshoulder]

Part of the problem is the creation of soul ties with everyone you have full sexual contact with. It opens up a spiritual door between those individuals.

I agree. But is this not a matter of degree? Can't sexual relations with my wife and that one nighter where the sex was amazing but we had nothing in common both be spiritual in their own way (as suggested earlier by me and others) albeit to dramatically different degrees?

The more open doors you have, the greater the spiritual risk you have from allowing spiritual problems in your partner's life to gain access to your life.

Not if you kick her out in the morning and tell her not to act like a psycho or you'll call the cops.

Because of this reason, it is BEST to limit yourself to one sexual partner for life but that can not always be achieved.

We agree. But not for that reason.

Apparently you don't understand the consequences of soul ties.

While I was going through this part of my life I was also in a major conflict against witchcraft within my dorm. My own fiancée/wife's dorm roommate was a high priestess of Ashtoreth.

That coven was also a major distributor of date rape drugs in the area and I got into major conflict against them. It also explained the need of all the rape counseling I was asked for. Many of the coven members tried to seduce me to fall into error but never succeeded because I knew the spiritual consequences.

They couldn't have paid me to have sex with them. I told one of them that I didn't want what I would catch from her. She laughed and said her witchcraft protected her from any disease. I told her it was her demons I didn't want. She laughed even harder.

When you engage in sexual intercourse you merge with your partner on a spiritual level. Spiritual problems in their lives then have grounds to attack your life. Those spiritual forces can KILL you even from a one-night-stand.

I was protected from the witchcraft they were sending against me. If I had fallen for their seduction, it would have killed me. It would have opened the door for their witchcraft into my life.

You have no idea the power those witches had over those that slept with them. It killed many people. Most of the coven and the men that followed them are either repented or dead. Many of them that are still alive are still in prison and some will be for life and this conflict occurred in 1988.

One of the things the coven did to attack me and my wife was to sabotage a military aircraft. They were convicted of treason on top of the drug distribution and rape charges. They were able to get their male followers to commit treason.

Some of the men involved were military police. Do you have any idea what happens to crooked cops in prison convicted of gang rape, drug distribution, planting false evidence and treason? None of them survived.

I barely survived the encounter and lost my wife to their retaliations against me. 17 years afterwards I wrote the story as a trilogy that I am trying to get published. It is entitled 'Battling Jezebel'.

I KNOW what is and is NOT sexual sin. The coven was trying to get me to commit sexual sin so their witchcraft had grounds to effect me. I also know what doctrines are rooted in Baal/Ashtoreth worship.

For example, they tried to send their witchcraft after me after I got Estelle pregnant. It still failed. They summoned their goddess to explain why it still didn't work against me. Her explanation was that I still hadn't fallen into sin.

What I think I do understand is that both you and the witches were engaing in differing versions of what I would call magical thinking. I reject all magical thinking. So I reject the basic premise or assumptions of your argument. To me this reads as a fantasy.

[Elias Jezebelsbane]

What I think I do understand is that both you and the witches were engaing in differing versions of what I would call magical thinking. I reject all magical thinking. So I reject the basic premise or assumptions of your argument. To me this reads as a fantasy.

I understand. Unless you have actual experience with spiritual forces, it is hard to comprehend. What you classify as 'magical' I call 'spiritual'. Most Christian denominations totally ignore the spiritual aspects whereas my primary spiritual gift is 'discernment of spirits'.

My story is basically a replay of the battle between Elijah and Jezebel played out in modern times on a smaller scale. It took me 17 years before I would even acknowledge those events. As a matter of fact I suppressed the memories for years.

I have seen the consequences of dealing with spiritual forces from a first-hand perspective and yes many people think I'm crazy unless the read the entire story and see how it actually played out.

[Elias Jezebelsbane]

Since when does biblical counsel require a secular degree? My degree is in Electrical Engineering yet I have spent several years in bible college and read Hebrew.

No worries, I was just wondering if you were a minister, psychologist or therapist by profession, that's all.

BTW, as an aside, I've noticed that a really high percentage of people I've met who tend to be "bible-based" tend to be engineers. I've always been curious about that.

No, I never got a therapist degree though Estelle, the woman I mentioned, did go on to get her degree after leaving the AF. She has been a counselor teaching the material I taught her for many years through a staff position at her church. So basically one of my students did go on to get the secular requirements to continue presenting the material. She has been in a successful family counseling ministry for many years.

I stopped doing all counseling when I lost my wife because our relationship was the reason that people were coming to me. It was out of respect and an honest desire to know how I had helped turn my fiancée from a bitter angry woman into a sweet loving wife. I only did one session of rape counseling later because of a girl that heard about my efforts in the AF and came to me as a result. One of my close AF friends visited me while I was in college and told some of the events that happened while I was in the AF.

I never remarried so why would people come to me for that kind of advice?

On the point about engineers, well we tend to be logical thinkers that dig into the reasons behind scripture instead of just taking it at the surface meaning. That is one reason I went back to bible college. I wanted to understand the underlying language to see how things could be mistranslated. I wanted to understand the ancient biblical paganism that I had run up against and learn what scripture really said about that without the translators limited knowledge base or personal bias.

I don't take English translations as 'gospel truth' until I have researched the original language. ONLY the original is the word of Yah, not the translations that have been corrupted by man. You can't even count on the vowel pointing in the Hebrew because that was added centuries later. Many translations take that vowel pointed Hebrew as the basis of translation but the vowel pointing can change the meanings of the root words.

A good example is Isa 57:9. Many translations incorrectly translate MLK as 'king' where the passage is talking about the paganism that had corrupted Israel. It should have been translated Molech, not Melek. Molech was the name of a pagan deity whose name means 'shameful king'. When used as a name, it had the vowel pointing for 'shame'.

That passage is talking about the sexual practices in the groves and the child sacrifices in the valley below. That valley was the valley of Hinnom where Molech was worshiped. It pertains to doing ritual witchcraft in conjunction with the pagan worship. That valley was later renamed Gehenna and was used as a representation of hell itself and directly ties pagan witchcraft with debasing yourself to the shameful king of hell.

Those are the kind of errors in translation I had to learn Hebrew to uncover and it was because of my logical thinking as an engineer that drives me to dig out those errors.

[Jacob Simonsky]

All I want to say in this regard is that there is no beauty in the world that can compare with a modest woman. When we reduce the human sexual experience to something like taking out the trash we are on the bottom with nowhere to go but up.

The animals' sexual lives are dictated by their glandular processes but we have imagination a gift of creative power given us to be used, as all else is used, in either high or low expressions. There is no way to make "sex as entertainment" sound like an achievement.

[Slopeshoulder]

All I want to say in this regard is that there is no beauty in the world that can compare with a modest woman.

I used to believe this, in my adolescence, when my girlfriend looked like jayne mansfield, I loved her deeply, she was a maniac in bed, but sweet and modest elsewhere. But i came to learn that this POV is usually associated with fear of sexuality, insecurity and inadequacy, virgin-whore neurosis, need to control, and a creepy love of "innocence."
Re: beauty, I'll take love or a symphony.

When we reduce the human sexual experience to something like taking out the trash we are on the bottom with nowhere to go but up.

How is this related to the OP?
In what way is it related to bringing out the trash? Why? Where is the argument to support this? Sounds like an unsubstantiated claim based upon a priori emotional concerns. Just a judgement. (BTW, as a reminder, I'm happily monogamous).

The animals' sexual lives are dictated by their glandular processes but we have imagination a gift of creative power given us to be used,

Agreed, so why not use this imagination to create the variety in sex that we create in art, technology, etc? Why not use our imagination to do all sorts of things my cat would never think of? Why is this somehow confined to loving mongamy as the only acceptable state? You haven't made that case. You've only shared your preference, laced with judgements.

as all else is used, in either high or low expressions. There is no way to make "sex as entertainment" sound like an achievement.

Why not? See above. The majority seems to disagree. If I were single I'd pick sex with an attractive woman over other forms of entertainment every time.
If you want to limit your experience to loving monogamy with a modest (and submissive, naive, "innocent"?) woman, good for you and congrats if you've found a person who shares your worldview. But on what basis do you judge others who might feel differently? Upon what basis, other than predictible references to modesty in women and to trash, do you make your decision and presume to advise and judge others?
Personally, "swinging and swapping" is sure not for me. I prefer the intimacy of loving monogamy, am lucky to have it, and have lost all desire for other woman. And I recommend it to others if they can find it. I also acknowledge that monogamy seems to make society more stable historically, given the nature of jealousy and the fact of financial and domestic commitments. But the topic is interesting. I've never done it, but in my other thread about casual sex I make it clear that my exeriences with that, while less rewarding than loving monogamy, were pretty amazing and while a distant number 2, number 2 nontheless, tied with music and contemplation.

[Jacob Simonsky]

Why not? See above. The majority seems to disagree. If I were single I'd pick sex with an attractive woman over other forms of entertainment every time.
If you want to limit your experience to loving monogamy with a modest (and submissive, naive, "innocent"?) woman, good for you and congrats if you've found a person who shares your worldview. But on what basis do you judge others who might feel differently? Upon what basis, other than predictible references to modesty in women and to trash, do you make your decision and presume to advise and judge others?
Personally, "swinging and swapping" is sure not for me. I prefer the intimacy of loving monogamy, am lucky to have it, and have lost all desire for other woman. And I recommend it to others if they can find it. I also acknowledge that monogamy seems to make society more stable historically, given the nature of jealousy and the fact of financial and domestic commitments. But the topic is interesting. I've never done it, but in my other thread about casual sex I make it clear that my exeriences with that, while less rewarding than loving monogamy, were pretty amazing and while a distant number 2, number 2 nontheless, tied with music and contemplation.




When you age and grow a bit more you may come to think differently...

[Slopeshoulder]

When you age and grow a bit more you may come to think differently...

I'm 51 and diabetic. Are you waiting for me to be impotent? is that the secret? or does self hatred and repression come with age? Should I anticipate this?

I have 2 degrees in ethics, one from a seminary.

I've had two long term monogamous marriages.

So how dare you patronize and presume?

Who do think you are?
This is all you bring to debate? An opinion spray followed up by an insulting one liner? Maybe I'm not the one who needs to grow.

Thanks for ignoring the substance of my post. And ignoring every question. I guess you have nothing to offer but your fear and bigotry. Pity, I was hoping for reasoned arguments. Wanna go for three strikes? Readers, take note.

define age.

define grow a bit more.

link these to changed thinking.

substantiate.

or RETRACT.

OK, that's it, I'm going to go have vigorous and meaningless sex with my rockin' hot wife; that's the only "growing" I'll be doing, thanks....goodnight.
Perhaps a "modest woman" is rocking your world tonight. Hope so. Is the light off? the nightdress pulled up tight? Covered in pink roses with ruffles and lace? The voice squeaky? Nice. I haven't had that since '77, but that and a pair of double D's is a fond memory. Seems creepy now though, for reasons outlined above in my previous post.
See ya James. Have a nice life.

[micatala]

When you age and grow a bit more you may come to think differently...

Moderator Comment


Just a reminder to avoid making personal comments like this. I also note that while you list yourself at age 69 and so may be said to have grown in some ways more than most of us, slopeshoulder is over 50 and so is not exactly a spring chicken.

Please review the Rules.


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Moderator comments do not count as a strike against any posters. They only serve as an acknowledgment that a post report has been received, but has not been judged to warrant a moderator warning against a particular poster.

[Slopeshoulder]

slopeshoulder... is not exactly a spring chicken.

Oh man, that hurt.