Everything You Need to Know About Soft Swap 

If you’re curious about open relationships and swinging you may have heard the new hot dating term – soft swap. If you’d like to learn more about the concept, what it entails, and how to introduce it to your relationship, then keep on reading. 

What is Soft Swap?

Soft swap simultaneously falls under the ethical non-monogamy and swinging umbrellas.  

Sometimes referred to as soft swinging, this form of opening up your relationship to others is very cautious of the boundaries and limits. 

The majority of soft swappers will fool around and enjoy different types of intimacy, including:

• Kissing 
• Hugging 
• Foreplay
• Oral sex 
• Kinks

Penetrative sex, however, is usually reserved for the primary partner. Some couples also exclude kissing from approved non-monogamy lists to preserve it for themselves only.  

In some cases, slow swap implies just having sex with your partner but with other people present in the same space. So you won’t even swap your lover with someone, you’ll just have spectators. 

Why Do People Like Soft Swap?

The major reason why many turn to soft swap as their first open relationship experience is because it’s rather structured and has clear limits. Choosing to share your partner with others is not an easy decision to make, and soft swap offers a gentle entry to the entire swinging culture. 

With strict boundaries in place, soft swap requires less change to your traditional routine than classic swapping would, meaning that you’re not spending as many emotional and physical resources processing and adjusting to the new relationship dynamic. 

Here are all the main reasons why many try soft swap and fall in love with this format.

• Gradual exploration and easing into a non-monogamous relationship.
• Feeling secure emotionally as your bond is preserved by clear boundaries.  
• Shake up the sex routine you’re so used to and get that spark back.
• Boost confidence by opening yourself up to more people and exploring your sexuality.
• Lower health risk as you’re not doing penetrative sex, so your risk of catching STIs is not high at all (although bear in mind that it’s not zero).
• Socialising with like-minded people is a great side effect and a way to expand your social circle which gets only harder as we age. 
• If your beliefs are strict about sex before marriage, soft swapping can be your way out to get experience and experiment, but still remain within your belief system. 
• It’s an outlet for those who want to try something that their primary partner is not on board with. 
• Couples with different sex drives can balance out their needs by being open to external intimacy. It reduces the pressure on the partner with lower drive, as the other person can have their needs met somewhere else.

Knowing that a human being who is not your partner wants you can be intoxicating and very stimulating. When you’re in a monogamous relationship, especially a long-term one, libido can slowly decrease as things aren’t as new and exciting as they once were. 

Then once you try soft swap, you realize that you’re actually a hottie and many would love to sex you up. This is a good exercise to stimulate your confidence and become more comfortable with your body, and, consequently, want sex more. As long as you’re not leading someone on without the intention of hooking up with them, getting external validation can be a powerful and liberating experience. 

Soft Swap vs Full Swap 

Soft swap is all about gentle tapping into the swinging culture. There are more boundaries there, for example, no penetration or no kissing rules, and couples are often in the same room with others when swapping happens. 

There is an element of awareness and being knowledgeable which amplifies the sense of control over the situation. It’s not as scary to swap partners when you know they won’t be doing certain things and you know who the “other people” are. 

Full swap is a more aggressive version where a couple can go all the way and try anything in bed. It also implies that couples can swap and have a sexy time separately without their significant others. 

There are pretty much no restrictions with full swap (unless agreed otherwise), so it requires couples a lot of trust and faith in their relationship to do it. 

Soft Swap vs Unicorn

Soft swap and unicorn are sometimes grouped together but they actually represent rather different concepts. 

Unlike soft swaps, unicorn implies that there is one person, often a stranger, joining the couple for a threesome. They’re free to do anything and everything, including penetrative sex, and the unicorn can become a steady part of the relationship dynamic. 

Unicorns are often bisexual and can have fun with both partners in heterosexual couples. With soft swapping, it’s generally the matching sexualities that pair up across two or more couples. So wife A will be with husband B and vice versa. 

With soft swap, there is a huge emphasis on preserving the unique emotional bond and intimacy between primary partners. Yes, they mess around with someone else, but there’s a line they do not cross, and an active effort to keep things casual.

Unicorn, in turn, often becomes a semi-permanent person in the couple’s life and it’s pretty normal to establish an emotional bond between the couple and the unicorn. Unicorn arrangement often turns into full-on polyamory. 

To sum up, both dynamics are part of the non-monogamous world but sit on different sides of the spectrum and cater to different desires and comfort levels. 

The Risks of Soft Swapping

There are drawbacks to soft swap, just like anything else in life, it has good and bad sides. 

One of the biggest constraints of this dynamic is jealousy. It’s one thing to agree on something with your partner when you thought it through theoretically. It’s a whole nother story when you live through the experience. 

You or your partner may say you’re cool with them hooking up with other people, but then seeing it happen in real life or hearing about it afterward can be soul-crushing. 

Non-monogamous relationships, even their ethical and consensual formats are not for everybody. Some people end up hating it but stay quiet because they’re afraid of losing or upsetting their partner. In those cases, the resentment inevitably starts to build up and, unless addressed, results in a huge fight and sometimes a breakup. 

Also, if you’re swinging not with strangers but with people you know, this dynamic can also have a detrimental effect on those non-romantic relationships. So now you’re not only drifting away from your partner, but you’re also losing other people in your life. Speaking of a lose-lose. 

Another common fear that soft-swappers-to-be share is that their primary relationship will fall apart. What if the other people you start messing with catch your or your partner’s attention and eventually they choose them over you? Yikes. Even thinking about it makes us uneasy. And not to scare you or anything, but that’s a very valid concern. 

People do, indeed, often move to their swinging partners and leave the original romance behind. It’s scary, it’s painful, it seems unfair, but if that happens to you then maybe it’s a sign that they weren’t the one all along. 

The next risk that doesn’t initially come to mind when talking about soft swap (although it should) is health risk. Sleeping around is known to be an easy way to catch nasty STIs.

When it comes to soft swap, however, it’s commonly believed that you’re safe and nothing bad can happen because you don’t have penetrative sex. 

Unfortunately, it’s not true that viruses, bacteria, etc don’t transmit unless you have unprotected penetrative sex. There are ways for you to get sick from kissing and all the saliva that gets exchanged. Also, if one of you has tiny cuts in the mouth or elsewhere and the blood gets mixed in, this can also result in one of you catching the disease from the other. Then if you’re not careful with hygiene, there are additional risks that come from that.

And if you think we’re exaggerating, look up how herpes and syphilis are passed. 

When you’re having sex with someone new, you’re already highly aroused and excited. Then if you add the spectators on top of that, it can be tempting to skip contraception not to make a pause or ruin the visuals for those watching. 

If you have thoughts like that – fight them and always be responsible. It’s never worth risking your health, no matter how hot the person in front of you is and how horny you are. 

Last but not least, a soft swap is a shortcut to a full swap, and it’s a very slippery slope. Hard-core swinging can be exciting at first but not work out in the long term. If either of you hates where it’s going, rolling back to how things were can prove to be very hard if not impossible. 

Needless to say, this is a recipe for disaster if partners feel very differently about the dynamic. Also, even if you stop, there will always be visual memories of how it once was.

How to Introduce Soft Swap to Your Relationship 

Bringing up soft swap for the first time is nerve-wracking. Your best bet is to be direct and honest.

• Less is more. Don’t beat around the bush, tell them what you’re interested in right away.
• Explain your motivation and goals for soft swap. Are you trying to spice things up in the bedroom? Would you like to eventually do hardcore swinging?
• Discuss what it means for your emotional bond and how and if you’re going to preserve it. 
• Learn more about the topic and talk to couples who tried it before if you can find someone willing to share
• Brainstorm how and where you’ll be looking for couples to swap with. Will you consider friends or work colleagues? Do you know about local communities? Maybe you will look for potential candidates on Flure?

Have a very explicit discussion about what’s allowed and what’s not. 

Talk about different scenarios, imagine them clearly, and use those visuals for your brainstorming. It will probably be very awkward and quite hard, but it’s absolutely necessary if you want to have a successful soft swap experience and minimize the risks of ruining your bond over it. 

If you feel uncomfortable talking about it, imagine what kind of emotions will be running through your mind once you get to business. The more you discuss and agree on beforehand, the more relaxed and pleasant the experience later on will be. 

As you move on to action, start slow. For example, let your partner kiss someone in front of you and that’s it. Next, you can try watching them make out more aggressively with someone, and you can even pick up someone for yourself too. 

If you decide to start with a proper soft swap and find couples to do it with, let them know that you’re newbies and talk through expectations to avoid disappointment from either side. 

Finally, remember to talk. Communication is king and it’s paramount to pretty much any situation in any relationship. Check-in with each other, ask about comfort levels and preferences, and discuss the experience once it’s over.

It’s important to preserve your bond as you venture out into the wild, so put your partner on the top of your priority list and keep them there, don’t get carried away.