"No kissing, no full-sex... yeah that didn't last long!" John and Kate spill all on their swinging lifestyle

“You’re John Lewis, aren’t you?”

Those were Kate’s very first words to the man she would someday marry. They were both waiting to be served at the bar of a local club one Friday night, when Kate realised she recognised him - from a photo her friend had shown her months earlier of a guy she’d just started dating.

John didn’t miss a beat, sliding his eyes towards the cute brunette. “You’re a fucking stalker aren’t you…?”

It’s a ‘meet-cute’ worthy of a Netflix rom-com. They got chatting, sparks flew, and it didn’t take long for the now-single John to ask her out. Two days later, he showed up on her doorstep with an Indian takeaway... and just never left.

“Well I was homeless at the time, so I was scratting around,” John deadpans quickly, earning him a good-natured eye roll from his wife of close to 17 years.

Self-proclaimed lifestyle advocates, these two have been on my radar for a while now. With 18 years together under their belts, and seven years of swinging under their sheets, their Instagram is a full-frontal celebration of non-monogamy: wild parties, soul-deep friendships, and Kate’s signature affirmations - so drenched in feel-good energy they could brighten even the gloomiest of Monday mornings.

In person, they’re all laughter, cheeky stories, and ‘finishing-each-other’s-thoughts’ sort of chemistry. They’re the kind of couple that makes non-monogamy look like a damn good time.

They’re also the kind of couple that makes you want to book a hotel suite and slip them a key…

I first met Kate at a boudoir shoot I did with Lust and Lace in a gorgeous country manor earlier this year, while John caught my attention when he appeared in a laugh-out-loud episode of the SwingHub podcast that was packed with too many great stories to count. He’s all dry wit, razor-sharp one-liners, and knowing smiles; she’s effortlessly lovely - the kind of person who radiates warmth without even trying. Both are deeply thoughtful, though in totally different ways. When my husband, J, and I ran into them at the SwingHub Hunted after-party in Liverpool, I saw my chance to dig a little deeper into the pair behind the polished pictures. A few days later, we’re all in PJs on a late-night Zoom call. I’ve got a notepad full of questions, but within minutes, it’s clear I won’t need them. These two don’t hold back - and the stories flow fast.

They’ve been happily exploring non-monogamy together for the past seven years, though, as they tell it, their first five years was more of a polyamory warm-up.

“We played exclusively with one couple, our best friends, that whole time,” Kate explains, snuggled up on the sofa beside John.

Their first experience is a story I remember from John’s podcast appearance. From what I recall, there were drinks, a bit of flirty tension, and then somebody touched somebody else...

Kate smiles at the memory. “There was no chat beforehand, we’d never even discussed doing anything like that, we just dove in headfirst. The next morning, I woke up and thought, ‘oh my God, we need some boundaries,’ she laughs.

“I told John: “okay, no kissing, no full sex…” Well, the next time we all met up, that went right out the window within minutes.”

For five years, they kept things cosy — weekends away at AirBnBs, drinks and dinner, and then back to one of their houses for dessert. Finally, they realised they were all ready to explore a little further afield.

“We love those guys, they’re still our best friends,” says John.

“But it got to the point where it was all a bit predictable; come Friday night, we all knew exactly what was going to happen. I love the chase, the thrill, the adrenaline...”

 “I’m all about connection,” Kate cuts in.

“I could’ve kept going with the same people for years and still loved it, but I also really enjoy meeting new people. We’d talked a few times about going to a club, but it had never materialised.”

Why not? I ask. Kate points at John, who holds his hand up: guilty.

“Yeah, I was a scaredy-cat, and a total over-thinker,” he admits.

“I had so many ridiculous worries, like... what do sex clubs smell like? What do you do with the condom afterwards?!”

Kate laughs; she’s clearly heard all these before. “John’s a planner, whereas I’m YOLO. I’ve always been the more highly-sexed of the two of us. I’ll be the one going ‘It’ll be amazing, let’s just go for it!’ and he’s more like, ‘yeah, but... where will we park?’”

It wasn’t until they stumbled across SwingHub in the summer of 2023, while on holiday in Greece, that everything changed.

“They were looking for beta testers for their app,” Kate recalls.

“And I was like, yes, yes, yes! I signed us up immediately. I was dying to explore.”

John adds: “Everyone else was outside sipping ouzo by the pool and we’re up in our room setting up a VPN and taking verification pictures for our application!”

Their first event was the SwingHub launch party in October 2023, and after finally breaking the ice, it’s clear they’ve never looked back. They’ve come a long way in the years since that first experience together - tipsy, horny, and hopeful - to a couple whose shorthand together is now the stuff of legends.

Not that they were always as good at communicating, they admit.

“Don’t forget, we leapt into all this with no discussion, so we've had to spend time working things out as we went along,” says John.

“There was one moment, early on, when we were talking about something in the car, on the way back from one of our first meets. I’d brought something up, Kate was getting defensive, and I could tell this could easily turn into an argument, so I said to her ‘You don’t need to defend yourself. I just want you to listen and understand this is how I feel.’ She thought for a second, then said ‘you’re right, I’m sorry, I get that’.”

Kate nods. “That conversation was the key to how we’ve developed our communication since - and that’s across our entire marriage. If something feels off, we discuss it, deal with it, and move on. No drama. It’s such a good feeling knowing there’s absolutely nothing you can’t say to the other person.”

These days, they rarely need a debrief. They know each other’s rhythms. They talk something out when it's needed - and when it’s not, they don’t.

“We don’t even argue now,” John chips in, “because we’ve found that everything can be diffused with an honest conversation. That doesn’t mean we always agree, but we always take the time to listen to each other.”

They’re also low-key lifestyle legends; the ones who take nervous newbies under their wing.

“If we see a couple in a corner, clearly worried out of their brains, we’ll always make a point of going and having a chat with them, and trying to help settle those first-time nerves,” says John.

“I remember what that first time in a club is like, and it’s so nerve-wracking, so if we can help put someone at ease and play a part in making it a positive first experience for them, we always will."

These days they play almost exclusively at clubs and events, declaring private meets “a nightmare to arrange.” Though there is one club story they have that clearly falls within the “nightmare” category for an entirely different reason - the time an elderly woman with no teeth crawled across the bed towards them like a zombie in heat.

“We were putting on a bit of a show at a bed at our local club,” John tells me, with a grin in Kate's direction.

“There were quite a few people standing around having a drink and watching, which we quite like sometimes, when we suddenly clocked this woman, in her late 60s I’d say, crawling ‘seductively’ across the bed towards us. She opened her mouth, at which point we saw she had no teeth, and asked Kate if she could suck her nipples.”

“Well,” John continues, shaking his head with a chuckle. “Kate just froze underneath me, her eyes wide like a deer in the headlights, so I jumped in and said “Oh I’m sorry, we only play together.” She asked us if we were sure, and we both nodded, then she crawled away.”

They both howl with laughter at the memory.

“When she’d gone, I told Kate, “You fucking owe me…”

So do they have signals, I ask? Ways to communicate in the moment? Oh boy, do they - from the ‘secret’ emojis they use in pre-event chats to highlight a couple they both fancy, to code words and hand gestures they can fire across a club, they’ve seen - and used - them all. Their one tip? Don’t make them too subtle.

“One of the first signals we ever had was me twiddling my watch to say I was ready to move on from a conversation,” John glances at Kate.

“Ten minutes of twiddling went by while we were chatting to this girl, and I’m thinking 'Kate, darling, you’re really not getting this are you?!'

Kate giggles: “He just buggered off to the loo and never came back. That signal, I understood.”

I shoot off a few quick-fire questions then: “Who’s more likely to say “just one more time” at 3am?”

“Oh, me,” John says without hesitation.

“When I’m in the groove, there’s no stopping me. Kate’s more likely to be the one tapping out after six hours.”

Six. Hours.

“Who flirts more?”

Kate.

“Who’s more likely to ghost someone they’re not vibing with?”

Kate.

“Who has the bigger crush list right now?"

Kate laughs and jerks a thumb in John’s direction. John agrees: “Definitely me,” then leans in towards the camera and says pointedly, with a wiggle of his eyebrows: “Why do you think I’m doing this interview..?”

I can tell he’s pleased by the telltale blush that creeps over my cheeks.

But it’s not all DMs and date nights. They’ve got three kids — two of whom already know what mum and dad get up to (the third will when the time’s right). They’ve gone public on podcasts and Instagram, and been on the receiving end of stares and whispers at school sports days - though why really is a bit of a mystery. After all, they’re not content creators. There’s no OnlyFans account (much to the disappointment of some of their followers). This isn’t business for them, it never has been - it’s pure pleasure.

Kate adds, “We don’t even drink anymore. We probably go to three events a month, so all of our spare money goes on travel and hotels. People often think I’ve been drinking, because I’m giggly and always the first up on the dance floor, but I’m just high on life. Plus it’s so great waking up the morning after a party with a clear head, being able to remember everything, and with no anxiety or worry that you've overstepped the mark.”

The decision to go public, they tell me, came about after John’s first appearance on the SwingHub podcast back in February 2024.

Kate recalls: “I said to John, if people are going to see this, I need to tell my mum first. It had gotten to the stage where we were already toying with the idea of coming clean to our families, because we were fed up of lying and feeling bad about it, and having to constantly come up with excuses for where we were. We’d been to every friend’s wedding and 40th birthday at least twice, and every work networking event you could imagine. So I took my mum out for lunch and her response was brilliant. I said “Mum, do you know what non-monogamy is…?” and she said “Oh my God! Who??” I said “Erm, me and John,” and she was like “Tell me everything!”

“The next thing I know, she’s on my Instagram telling me that she thinks Gage from SwingHub is hot!” Kate giggles.

“After that, I didn’t care who knew, I could happily tell the world. We talked to our two eldest kids, and they’d already figured it out, because we have tracking apps on our phones and they’d noticed when we were at all these different clubs! We chatted to them both and got them to ask us any questions they had, but really all they were bothered about was that we were happy, we loved each other, and we weren’t getting a divorce. After that, they were fine.”

So would they go the whole hog and appear on a show like Channel 4’s Open House: The Great Sex Experiment?

They look at each for a beat. “We haven’t been asked,” John replies. “But if we were approached, we’d give it some serious thought. We’re not content creators and that might make us an interesting addition.”

Kate nods: “Non-monogamy is quite fashionable right now, and there’s a risk of it becoming a trend that people try without understanding it. It takes trust, communication, and a rock-solid foundation to keep your relationship at the centre of it. It’s not something you should try on a whim because you see it on TikTok. I think there could be a bit of Insta vs Reality if you’re not careful.”

One thing that has surprised them, they reveal, is the way their vanilla life and their spicy life have begun to meld together.

Kate says: “When we were starting out, we expected to keep all this very separate from our personal lives. We weren’t looking to make friends.”

John agrees: “I thought we’d meet people once or twice, and then move on, keep things fresh. But then, at the first SwingHub party we went to, we got chatting to some lovely people, and then all met up soon after to go to a club together. It felt like we’d all been friends forever.

Kate beams: “Really early on, we realised we’d made friends for life. That friendship group has just grown and grown. We all see each other socially and in our vanilla lives now too. And these are people we would never have known existed if it wasn't for this lifestyle! We’ve found our tribe, and the great thing is we’ll all grow old together, then we’ll buy a big house, make a retirement commune, and all still be shagging when we’re old and wrinkly!”

Sounds like a dream. And speaking of dreams, I realise it’s time to let these two hit the sack. It’s late, and 90 minutes has flown by in the blink of an eye, and I think I've finally landed on the 'secret sauce' of John and Kate: they’re so real - and it’s appealing as hell! They’re open about everything - the nerves, the wins - and showing no sign of slowing down, with a sexy bucket list that includes trips to sex clubs in Gran Canaria, Vegas, and Mexico, as well as checking off every club in the UK.

“I don’t think there’s anything off-limits to us these days, and that’s an incredibly freeing,” says John, as we wrap things up.

“I can’t think of anything Kate could suggest now that would be a ‘no way,’ but then…” he smiles at his wife, curled up in her silky black PJs. “...you never do know with Kate, I’m sure she could probably come up with something outlandish if she put her mind to it.”

Kate’s nose wrinkles into her trademark giggle once again. “If I did, John would just need six weeks to ask all his questions and process it - and then he’d be all in!”

We wave our goodbyes, and I click the button to end the call, delighted that, in this instance, not only has John and Kate's Reality lived up to their Insta, their Reality actually pinned their Insta down, whispered something filthy in its ear, and left it begging for more...

God help me if they ever slip me a hotel key.

See you next week

- The Secret Hotwife