Quote by northwest-cpl
At the time of SH's inception I don't believe there were many (if any) other sites of it's kind around. People who were "swinging" had been using other media (contact mags, word of mouth etc) to discover like-minded people and arrange meets.
The original creators of the site (Mark and Helen) were swingers themselves. They found a niche in the market which could be filled by SH.
There were plenty of swinging websites around before SH. Dirty Davids and then Dean and Mattys were both large sites, albeit not as big as SH has become, but much larger than SH in its first year. There were many small sites that came and went. I was a user of many swinging sites since about 2000 and prior to that used the old bulletin boards to find information about swinging. I first became aware and started looking at SH in Spring 2003 when it was a tiny site and registered in Dec 2003 to attend the first NW munch.
Mark's skill probably lay in getting SH to the top of the list in all the search engines, which allowed SH to quickly grow to the size it is now, allied to his statement that SH would always be a totally free site. The definition of swinging that seems to be the accepted view on this site comes from the views of the originator of the site and his immediate circle of friends. Go to a club and ask the many people there that do not use the internet for their views on the SH definition for an alternative view.
Should people be here who don't actively play? Why shouldn't they be? There is no problem with using this site for whatever you want to use it for. As a social site it seems to very successful. My personal view is that, within the forums, and especially the cafe, the people who might feel more uncomfortable being here are those who are here for sex before friendship and the so-called 'hardened' swingers.
I think you have hit the nail on the head there to some degree and might be why some may think we are a clinque bunch in here, I don't feel that to be the case, as I have never met anyone that uses these forums, but feel perhaps we share a common theme, that being a swinging interest with the mindset that was originally set out.
`
