One of the biggest questions I get from readers – whether they’re kinky, demisexual, polyamorous, or any other off-the-beaten-path sexual minority – is “How do I meet people like me?”
It’s a fair question. When you’ve grown up already having non-standard sexual desires, it’s easy to feel isolated – and since the fulfilment of these desires often hinges on meeting other humans who are also into them, the whole ordeal can sometimes feel futile. “Why did I bother figuring out my shit and coming out,” you might wonder from time to time, “if I can’t meet anyone halfway decent to explore this stuff with?!”
Enter SwingTowns: a dating and networking site for swingers, polyamorists, and non-monogamists of various other stripes. Hallelujah!
When I signed up for an account, I was instantly impressed with the multitude of options SwingTowns offers its users to identify their gender and sexual orientation. These drop-down menus include (for gender) butch, crossdresser, femme, genderfluid, genderqueer, intersex, man, other, trans – F to M, trans – M to F, transgender, and woman, and (for sexual orientation) asexual, bicurious, bisexual, “bisituational,” gay, heteroflexible, homoflexible, lesbian, other, pansexual, queer, straight, and unsure. While these lists certainly aren’t exhaustive, I’m not sure it’s possible to make an exhaustive list of all the ways people can identify – and SwingTowns certainly has most other dating sites beat in this regard.
I also like that you’re able to choose to identify publicly as poly (“looking for friendships and emotional connection that may evolve into sex later”), a swinger (“looking for sex or sexual activities that may evolve into more sex and friendships later”), both, neither, or “other.” These are pretty broad categories, and certainly not all poly people or swingers would agree with the definitions given, but I do notice a pretty distinct schism between these two types of non-monogamist and their proclivities and codes of ethics in the communities I run in, so it’s nice to be able to state upfront what your basic relationship style is. You can also create a profile as either an individual, a couple, a polycule (3 or more people), or a club/group.
SwingTowns supplies good prompts for (optionally) filling out sections of your profile – it asks you, for example, what kind(s) of person you’re looking for, what your fantasies and desires are, and “Is there anything else you want people to know about you?” It doesn’t require your real or full name, and it doesn’t require photos that show your face.
As one would hope for a site of this nature, SwingTowns has granular privacy settings which allow you to change, for example, which users can see your photos, who can message you, who can see your profile at all, and so on. There’s also a blocking feature, and a reporting feature, though I can’t say for sure how robust these are (I have yet to find a dating site/app that really emphasizes safety and an anti-harassment stance as fervently as I would like). You can also filter out particular demographics – say, straight men – from your searches, though it’s unclear to me if you can ban them from being able to see you altogether. (You can, however, easily just reject every request you get from a straight man trying to view your profile or message you.)
I have had a few exchanges with actual humans on SwingTowns – mostly with couples seeking a unicorn for a threesome, or dudes “looking for some fun” – but many of the messages I’ve received on the site have been invitations to groups or meetups for swingers local to particular areas near me, like Hamilton and Niagara. To that end, I wonder if this site might be especially useful for non-monogamists who also happen to be vanilla – there’s a fair number of non-monogamy groups and events listed on FetLife, the social networking site for kinksters, but despite the high rate of overlap between the kinky community and the non-monogamous community, not all eschewers of monogamy are perverts in other ways!
The FetLife comparison is apt, because like that site, this one is nowhere near as slick and modern as a high-budget dating site like OkCupid. The interface is often clunky, confusing, and hard to navigate. For example, when someone requests access to my profile, looking at their profile doesn’t bring up options to accept or reject their request – as far as I can tell, you have to do that from the email SwingTowns sends you to notify you of the request. The site sends a lot of emails, by the way: I would recommend examining your notification settings ASAP upon joining, so as to shut off the deluge of emails you’re sure to receive – unless you want them!
There’s an ill-considered Tinder facsimile that shows you a photo of a user and allows you to “pass” on them or “like” them, but often the photos don’t contain faces or any meaningful details because this is the type of site where people would largely rather remain anonymous (understandably), so the “swiping” system is pretty hard to use successfully – especially since, when you click on someone’s photo to try to learn more about them, very often access to the person’s profile is restricted and has to be specifically requested. I can see how it would be challenging to create a system where people can feel safe sharing their private info (even just the fact that they’re non-monogamous, which, to some people, is very private info) while also making it easy to sift through potential matches. SwingTowns’ system is far from perfect, but it’s a noble attempt and I think they’ll keep working to make it better.
You can upgrade to SwingTowns’ premium membership plan for $17/month (last I checked, anyway) or a discounted “lifetime” price. Similar to OkCupid’s “A-List” membership and other such services, this one gives you better search tools for finding matches, advanced privacy settings, and a few other perks that would make it easier to use the site. However, the basic features would work just fine for connecting with other non-monogamous people, groups, and events in your area – which, of course, is the whole point. It may not be the most polished dating site on the web, but given how hard it can be to find experienced and enthusiastic non-monogamous folks on standard dating services, I think the trade-off in ease of use is worthwhile for the types of connections you could make on a site like this.
This review was sponsored, which means that SwingTowns paid me to write an honest, fair review of their service. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.