Chicagoans is a first-person account from off the beaten track, as told to Anne Ford. This week’s Chicagoan is Cooper S. Beckett, 38, swinger, pegging enthusiast, relationship coach, host of the Life on the Swingset podcast, and author of the memoir My Life on the Swingset: Adventures in Swinging & Polyamory and the novel A Life Less Monogamous.
“Swinging sort of muted our problems for a while, but nonmonogamy is not a fixer, so ultimately they came back, and we recognized that we were better off not married. Swinging gave us four years that we wouldn’t have had otherwise, and I consider that a big win. Even though our relationship didn’t survive, swinging is who I am now. It’s not that having sex with people is the saving point. It’s the change in perspective that has made a source of guilt and shame OK.
