Three Guidelines for Avoiding Unwanted Festival Threesomes with Swingin' Hippies

If you're touring or hitchhiking or hanging out with a couple or crowd of swingin' hippies, you may not know it yet, or you may be hoping they don't hit on you. There's nothing wrong with an orgy unless you feel forced into it. This creates tension and imbalance in what could be a beautiful connection, platonic or not. So follow these rules if you want to keep or make swingin' hippie friends yet do not want to engage in a sweaty tent threesome.

1. Don't take the molly.

This is paramount to resisting any sexual advances really. If you outwardly do not want to sleep with anyone, do not take this drug. Because all of a sudden, you will.

2. Don't slap the bag. Don't try the moonshine. Avoid the ice luge. And definitely turn down the tickle-my-pickle.

You might think you will be more comfortable with swingers if you kick back a few drinks, but you could lose composure and control. Blacking out is really common where people are getting more inebriated with every hour we're raging this mountain together. At least with the molly, you're a revved up, happy and cognizant participant. But if you hit the tequila, you might vaguely remember ripples of entangled bodily flashbacks in the morning. So yes the tickle-my-pickle (tequila shot chased by pickle juice shot) is exhilarating, but it's so great that especially at a festival, there's no reason to ever stop drinking them. Point being, if you are camping with some swingin' hippies you don't want to swing with, save the boxed wine and liquor for another night.

3. Keep it real.

How do you say no if you are unwilling? Well if the swingers are true heads and not free-love-pretenders, they will respect your boundaries graciously and pass you the joint like nothing happened. But, as ever with sex, people can get frustrated and pushy. Are these cats really your friends? Keep it real. If they do too, yes, they are.

Basically, if you really like hanging out with some hippies and just don't want to sleep with them, never feel obliged to. Swingin' hippies can be the most providing, gregarious, loving people on this festivus planet, but no matter how many shows they take you to or chemicals they feed you, you don't “have” to swing if that's not your way. I'm an enthusiast, but not an advocate.

Everyone has their boundaries and the right to have them respected. Take me, I'm a belly sleeper; don't snuggle me until the morning. You, who knows, you might love swingin' shows with swingin' hippies. But don't feel guilty or like less of a open-mind if you don't swing all the way. If they are your friends who love you, the love will be stronger from a more clarified light. If they are random campsite neighbors who became your new best friends in two hours, keep keeping it real and gauge what their intentions are. Obviously not every hippie couple is trying to swing with you (though if you put that energy out there, it might seem that way). The thing about festival sex is you're either gonna do it or not, so ensure your decision is enhancing your festival experience, not compromising or dampering it in any way.

NOTE: This post uses “swingin' hippies” as a generic term for festival goers who like sex with multiple partners at the same time. They are not always middle-aged and living in a curtained van with three pitbulls asking whether you'd like to go twist palm-leaf roses on the side of a road on the other side of the country. (If this happens, definitely establish whether you want to be in or outside the couple's bed-life, because you're going to be sharing the back-of-the-bus mattress either way.) But sometimes the festival people coming onto us are doped-up dubsteppers or overstimulated twenty year-olds or vegan pagans. In the frenzied festival uproar, we can't always choose our suitors. But we can take simple, common sense steps to avoid discomfort and regret. Nobody likes to wake up in an irrelevant town in a strange van entangled with not one, but two random wooks. But in case you do, read on.