I appreciate your personal perspective on the topic. Agreed that not all Poly people are swingers. But all Swingers are a form of Poly. Poly is the very “Big Umbrella” as you more or less pointed out. I attended a workshop many moons ago which had a literal, laminated “map” of all the many, many variations of Polyamory. Swinging was indeed just one corner of the Poly community. I also agree with you about the “clubbing” side of Swinging, and that is the cornerstone of this lesson, to differentiate expected behaviors between these two “clubbing” communities. Hopefully Swingers reading this will absorb the vast differences between proper behavior in a BDSM club versus what they are used to in an ordinary Swinger’s club.

It seems to me that Swingers promote themselves as “poly” without the “amory.” But at the end of the day, it’s “polyamory” and in my opinion you can’t just hack out the concept of “many loves”.

BDSM people and Swingers often have one thing in common that differentiates them from more private poly people: club culture. Both like to have events where they can get access to play spaces and / or people that they normally wouldn’t. That is a much more public kind of poly, and not all poly people are Swingers.