Lifestyles agents do not specifically describe their tours as swinger vacations because nonswinging playcouples often take them. The phrases “adults-only tour” and “for open-minded couples,” plus some fleshy photos of nude bathers in the brochures, were generally thought to signal the right message. A Lifestyles tour was actually cheaper than going on your own and the atmosphere was spicy if you chose to hang around with the people you flew in with.
“So—what do you think of them?” I asked.
“We don’t judge people,” Joe replied. “But I will say this. There’s a big difference between being open about your sexuality and being maybe too fond of it. That’s what I’m reading so far.” He creased his cheek and wavered his hand to indicate that he thought swinging might be a bit dicey. “I’m not sure when it comes to kinkiness. It depends what’s in the head—motivation, compulsion, that sort of stuff.”
“Last night, two rooms down from us—” Doris rolled her eyes to the spinning fans, then looked back through palm fronds in the direction of their block of rooms, where most of the lifestylers were still in dreamland, eight-thirty being the crack of dawn on a swing vacation. “I could only imagine what was going on in there,” she whispered. “They were sure hollering.”
“The women were,” I said.
“Yeah! God, did you hear it? Wasn’t that something? It was like opera.”
“Personally, I think people can fool themselves on all kindsof levels,” Joe said. “This could be one of them. Not that I’m not curious how they handle all the issues though. Like there’s just basics I don’t know how they overcome. Jealousy’s a big one. Also, I didn’t even know this stuff was going on. But I was talking to the manager, Pascal, he says there’s a zillion people doing it—the whole place is gonna be taken over in the fall by swingers. So, why is that now? It’s like it’s come from out of nowhere.”
“Actually,” Doris said, “I’m noticing these women are all very extroverted—and they’re all in professions.”
“Yeah, but that teacher gal—the nuclear guy’s wife—you know what she was telling me? She dresses up—they go out and just pick up a guy in his twenties. She likes ’em young. Then she goes and teaches little kids Monday morning. The whole morality issue—how can they reconcile it?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Beyond Good and Evil
Our virtues/lie in the interpretation of the time.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ,
Coriolanus
IV, vii
“S ometimes the nude must go naked and the naked must go nude,” Chuck declared, sitting among a dozen lifestylers under one of the palm umbrellas that lined the clothing-optional beach.
“Don’t confuse me now!” Carla called back to him from the shore’s edge. “I’m trying to get this right here. I don’t get asked this every day.”
She drew her legs up from the sand and placed her elbows on her knees and the heels of her hands against her temples. A few feet from where I sat beside her a flock of pelicans rose and fell in the waves of the Sea of Cortes, keeping their beady eyes on Carla, who’d been moodily tossing them crusts of her sandwich. She was a man-sized Westerner, as much a presence on the sand as she probably was in the corporate office where she ordered around personnel. She wore two-inch dangling earrings, a thin necklace, a thinner waist chain that caught the sun just above her belly button, two ankle bracelets, and bright red polish on all twenty nails. When she’d shown up that morning on the beach Joe and Doris had opened their eyes wide at the way she adorned and sexualized her naked but definitely not nude body.
“I suppose, when it comes right down to it,” Carla finally told me, “an immoral act’s gotta be something you do that’s gonna benefit you which you
know
is gonna hurt someone else. That’s my definition of an immoral act. Seeing as I’m being quoted.”
She turned around from the water
“So—what do you think of them?” I asked.
“We don’t judge people,” Joe replied. “But I will say this. There’s a big difference between being open about your sexuality and being maybe too fond of it. That’s what I’m reading so far.” He creased his cheek and wavered his hand to indicate that he thought swinging might be a bit dicey. “I’m not sure when it comes to kinkiness. It depends what’s in the head—motivation, compulsion, that sort of stuff.”
“Last night, two rooms down from us—” Doris rolled her eyes to the spinning fans, then looked back through palm fronds in the direction of their block of rooms, where most of the lifestylers were still in dreamland, eight-thirty being the crack of dawn on a swing vacation. “I could only imagine what was going on in there,” she whispered. “They were sure hollering.”
“The women were,” I said.
“Yeah! God, did you hear it? Wasn’t that something? It was like opera.”
“Personally, I think people can fool themselves on all kindsof levels,” Joe said. “This could be one of them. Not that I’m not curious how they handle all the issues though. Like there’s just basics I don’t know how they overcome. Jealousy’s a big one. Also, I didn’t even know this stuff was going on. But I was talking to the manager, Pascal, he says there’s a zillion people doing it—the whole place is gonna be taken over in the fall by swingers. So, why is that now? It’s like it’s come from out of nowhere.”
“Actually,” Doris said, “I’m noticing these women are all very extroverted—and they’re all in professions.”
“Yeah, but that teacher gal—the nuclear guy’s wife—you know what she was telling me? She dresses up—they go out and just pick up a guy in his twenties. She likes ’em young. Then she goes and teaches little kids Monday morning. The whole morality issue—how can they reconcile it?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Beyond Good and Evil
Our virtues/lie in the interpretation of the time.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ,
Coriolanus
IV, vii
“S ometimes the nude must go naked and the naked must go nude,” Chuck declared, sitting among a dozen lifestylers under one of the palm umbrellas that lined the clothing-optional beach.
“Don’t confuse me now!” Carla called back to him from the shore’s edge. “I’m trying to get this right here. I don’t get asked this every day.”
She drew her legs up from the sand and placed her elbows on her knees and the heels of her hands against her temples. A few feet from where I sat beside her a flock of pelicans rose and fell in the waves of the Sea of Cortes, keeping their beady eyes on Carla, who’d been moodily tossing them crusts of her sandwich. She was a man-sized Westerner, as much a presence on the sand as she probably was in the corporate office where she ordered around personnel. She wore two-inch dangling earrings, a thin necklace, a thinner waist chain that caught the sun just above her belly button, two ankle bracelets, and bright red polish on all twenty nails. When she’d shown up that morning on the beach Joe and Doris had opened their eyes wide at the way she adorned and sexualized her naked but definitely not nude body.
“I suppose, when it comes right down to it,” Carla finally told me, “an immoral act’s gotta be something you do that’s gonna benefit you which you
know
is gonna hurt someone else. That’s my definition of an immoral act. Seeing as I’m being quoted.”
She turned around from the water
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