Risque… or too risky? I have a great career and a boyfriend. So why do I love being a swinger? 

By all conventional measures, my boyfriend and I satisfy the criteria for a successful middle-class couple in their early 30s.

A Cambridge graduate, I’m an account manager for a multi-national corporation, while Tom works for a major accounting firm and our demanding jobs keep us busy from Monday to Friday.

At the weekend, we spend time at the flat I own near London, cooking and flopping in front of the television, often after going on long cycling trips.

We hope to start a family together one day. So far, so very normal.

What you’d never guess is that we have another, less orthodox, way of spending our time. 

For, every six weeks or so, we head out to anonymous houses in the Home Counties to enjoy sexual encounters with strangers.

Yes, Tom and I are swingers. And, contrary to expectation, I enjoy it just as much as him.

A recent study suggested almost a third of straight men are open to the idea of having more than one partner, but that just 11 per cent of women fancied the idea of more than one man. 

But perhaps it’s less a case of men being more up for it than it is of women keeping such thoughts to themselves.

This week, in a quest to produce an updated, 21st-century version of the 1970s compilation of female sexual fantasies, My Secret Garden, actress Gillian Anderson asked women to send her their erotic musings. I strongly suggest she canvasses the women among the 24 invitees at our last swinging soiree.

That event in the suburbs began like any other drinks party. A room full of smartly dressed people from their mid-20s to late 30s, most of them well-educated professionals, sipping Taste the Difference prosecco and talking about politics. 

I was wearing a cocktail dress, while the men were in smart-casual shirts and jackets (it is not a jeans-and-trainers scene). 

The fun usually begins when you realise that half the party is making its way upstairs — and that the women are peeling off their clothes to reveal lingerie that would outshine a Victoria’s Secret catwalk. 

The men might be hopping out of their trousers; Tom has two pairs of special party pants.

Women especially are told this sort of sexual experimentation is not liberating but demeaning and tawdry, that it indulges men’s fantasies, because women are hard-wired to crave monogamy and stability, not promiscuity.

So, what’s the appeal for a privately educated Oxbridge graduate like me, whose background could not be more conventional?

After all, my two siblings and I had a very happy childhood in the Home Counties — our parents were childhood sweethearts who have been blissfully married for nearly 40 years.

I met my first boyfriend when we were both 16 and I couldn’t wait to have sex. We did a lot of experimenting, and when we broke up after a year, I wanted to experience that again.

I got together with my second boyfriend just before I started my English degree at Cambridge University.

We were together for more than two years before I met Charlie, a philosophy student whose virginity I took, when we were in the same play. We were together for seven years and lived together for five.

The relationship was difficult — he was depressed, angry, possessive — but I stayed because we had a good, if conventional, sex life.

When we finally broke up, everything felt up in the air: where I lived, what made me happy — and how I loved. I’d been in monogamous relationships since I was 16, but chasing the kind of relationship my parents enjoy — an ideal it feels impossible to emulate — hadn’t left me happy.

That same year, I had also had a serious gynaecological operation that had left me feeling fragile and with an enormous scar. I wanted to reclaim my body and find out what did make me happy.

I downloaded Hinge, the most widely used dating app among my friendship group. But I found that it was populated by the dullest men, all clad in dad fleeces and droning on about their skiing holidays.

So, throwing caution to the wind, I tried Feeld — an app for the ‘open-minded to meet the like-minded’ — aimed at those who want to pursue non-traditional relationships, such as polyamory or threesomes. That sounded much more exciting.

Clearly aimed at millennials, with its Tinder-style swiping, Feeld can be rather woke, offering 20 options to describe your gender identity. 

My desires didn’t need a drop-down menu — I just wanted a man who enjoyed sex as much as I did.

I relished the freedom that came with casual hook-ups. I’d chat online for a while to an interesting-sounding guy, whom I would then invite over. He’d arrive smelling of aftershave and holding a bottle of something alcoholic.

I knew it was risky, but I always told a friend what was happening, and believed that a man visiting me was less dangerous than travelling to a stranger’s flat where no one knew where I was.

Later, after a brief post-coital cuddle, he would leave me in peace. I didn’t have to meet his parents, listen to his boring work stories or do his washing. And if he ignored me after that, there were plenty more fish in the sea.

Not all of the interest was from single men, though. I was also bombarded with messages from couples who wanted threesomes.

Single women willing to have sex with couples are known as unicorns because they are incredibly rare, and it was rather exciting to be in demand. I met up with two couples, but found the encounters made me feel lonely. Being a gooseberry on a cinema trip is bad enough — imagine how awkward it can be in bed.

Luckily, on that same adventurous app, I met Tom.

We soon realised we were attracted to each other outside the bedroom as well as in it, and as our connection deepened, we agreed to have a monogamous relationship . . . of sorts. It would be loving and committed, but it would also include nights when we were allowed to have sex with strangers, so long as we were together.

Little by little, we tiptoed into what’s called ‘the lifestyle’.

You’ve probably never heard of the specialist swinging website we use, but given there are more than 500,000 users globally, most of whom are in Britain, the odds are that you know a couple who are signed up.

Our local pub became the place for screening potential meets, hoping the waitress wouldn’t overhear us.

If we liked them, we invited them back to my flat for wine, nibbles and more. At first it felt odd seeing Tom kissing and caressing another woman. 

I admit I sometimes felt jealous, and yet he and I were building intimacy, too. The best part of an encounter would often be the moment we shut the door on the other couple, poured some wine and analysed the evening’s proceedings. 

‘She kissed me like a Hoover!’ ‘Did you see the hole in his boxers?’

For me, the swinging scene became more enjoyable when, through the site, we got to know a couple who are legendary party hosts.

After we’d met them a few times, they invited us to his 40th birthday party, with charcuterie, sushi, cupcakes — and ten other handpicked couples, all wearing black tie.

It was our first private event, and we arrived at the unassuming house (with all the blinds firmly shut) wondering whether we would be opening the door to a Game of Thrones-style festival of debauchery.

Instead, we were introduced to each guest one by one, handed a glass of bubbles and instantly thrown into conversation about holidays and house prices. 

When groups eventually began disappearing upstairs, I was worried that Tom and I would be the last couple left standing, like the girl not picked for the netball team.

But after a couple more glasses of fizz, we plucked up the courage to have our first of three encounters that night.

I know what you’re thinking: ‘Surely she just goes along with it to please her boyfriend?’

Men often think women take sex far too seriously — or that they use it as a bargaining tool to get what they want.

But for me, sex is an arena where I can be my confident, fun self, without emotion, commitment or judgment — and where I know I can make men putty in my hands.

I know what gives me (and them) pleasure, and it’s empowering.

What’s especially interesting to me and to younger body-positive swingers is the broad range of shapes, sizes and anatomies you see at parties. Men find them all sexually desirable.

Apps and websites are not the only way to meet others. There are resorts, cruises and clubs catering specifically for swingers all over the world.

Whatever country we are in, safe sex is non-negotiable: this means explicit consent at every stage (particularly important if you have only just met) and the use of condoms and testing for sexually transmitted infections (STIs). 

You can never eliminate every risk, but you can be savvy about the partners you choose, and by testing yourself regularly, keep yourself as safe as it is possible to be.

Tom and I do have ground rules — we only swap when we are in the same room; we only pursue a couple we both find attractive; and we always stick together.

I’m also not afraid to say ‘no’ when I am not happy. Part of the reason Tom and I stopped meeting couples on one website is because we had several encounters where it was obvious the other woman was, at the very least, being pushed into the experience by her controlling partner.

During one meeting, the man was treating his girlfriend as though she was the extra in his own private porn film — filming her, telling her what to do and what to wear.

Any man mistaking me for a performing seal will soon be shown the door.

We hope that our open and honest approach means that if either Tom or I is unhappy, we can discuss what went wrong and how to prevent it happening again.

Tom also doesn’t have an ego or get jealous — essential if you are to be comfortable watching your girlfriend have sex with other men.

For my part, I am mostly over my jealousy these days — and if I want to know whether Tom had a better time with a strange woman at a party than he has with me, I will ask him.

Without clear communication and agreed boundaries, your relationship will stand very little chance if you pursue this lifestyle.

In fact, the biggest problems we have encountered at parties are from the single men. While they are often banned from couples-only areas, this will not stop 99 per cent of them engaging in creepy behaviour — staring, following you, sitting close to you in the hot tub, crowding around doors.

Unfortunately, single men are huge money-makers for these establishments; they can be charged an entrance fee double or triple the price for couples. 

Couples-only events are always really popular, but I suspect without the single-man premium many clubs and spas would go under.

While we prefer to meet other couples spontaneously, there are those who love the socialising aspect of swinging.

One couple we got to know have made so many friends that they had a significant ‘swinger cohort’ at their wedding (Tom and me included) — a secret which was kept from the other guests (including the bride’s mother).

When I tell my university friends about our experiments, they mostly react as though I’ve revealed some impossibly disciplined new fad — like giving up cheese or taking ice baths. 

‘Oh that’s great for you, but I could never do that,’ they say.

Being shocked at unconventional set-ups would be verging on the offensive among my urban millennial friendship group. And yet I suspect that among many of them, prioritising sex and excitement in a relationship is still seen as shallow and sluttish.

While I find it quite disappointing that most of my friends — many of whom are ambitious, confident women — have defaulted to conventional relationships, I wonder whether in a decade or so (perhaps when the divorce courts are calling), some of them will rethink.

Tom believes swinging would improve every marriage, and while I wouldn’t go that far, I do think that questioning the expectations of conventional relationships stops you becoming complacent.

While we expected to experience many things on our swinging adventures, what neither of us imagined was the growth in intimacy and understanding between us. To us, it’s all a bonding experience — a special secret only we share.

We plan to have a family in the next five years — but that won’t stop us occasionally handing over the children to babysitters and having a naughty weekend away.

We know plenty of couples who have young children and make it work. How they summon the energy is a mystery, however.

If things don’t work out between Tom and I, it won’t be the swinging that is to blame. 

Names have been changed.