Back to the sources of swinging.
In the fifties the media referred to it as “wife-swapping.” Today it’s called “swinging,” but in any case of its name this swinging lifestyle seems to be growing in recognition among mainstream, grown-up married couples in America. The popular media are paying increasing attention to the phenomenon, frequently putting a optimistic spin on the effects which swinging has upon marriages. The North American Swing Club Association (NASCA) claims there are structured swing clubs in about all states as well as Belgium, England, Germany, and Japan. These clubs are productive businesses which offer all levels of social activities for swingers including vacation plans, special retreat sites for swingers, and yearly gatherings and seminars. Lifestyles, Inc., a swingers voyage agency, booked 700 couples at a resort in Jamaica in January of 1998.
What precisely is swinging? Not like “open marriages” of the 1970’s which promoted non-possessive love and acceptance of betrayal in their spouses, or “polyamory” - the love of many people at once – swinging is non-monogamous sexual activity, treated a lot like any other social activity, that can be practiced as a pair. Emotional monogamy, or commitment to the love relationship with one’s marital partner, remains the principal focus. Wife swapping is typically done in the presence of one’s spouse and requires the consent of both to the experience. Though swingers often become close friends with other swinging couples, there are rules restricting emotional involvement with non-spousal partners. While swinging involves having sex with people other than one’s spouse, its apologetics claim that it enhances the relationship of the swinging couple both sexually and emotionally. By removing the secrecy and untruthfulness inherent in one’s natural desires for sexual variety, the pair can discover their fantasies mutually without deceit or shame. By removing the need for cheating from the relationship, a new stage of trust and honesty about all of one’s feelings is supposedly achieved without the negative baggage of distrust.
Swinging as an alternative lifestyle is of both practical and intellectual importance because the effort to mix sexual non-monogamy with emotional monogamy is deeply “abnormal” from the western model of idealistic love which assumes that sexual and emotional monogamy are reciprocally reinforcing and inseparable. It has yet to be demonstrated empirically whether this alternative lifestyle really strengthens or weakens marital bonds, but in an era where 37% of husbands and 29% of wives, sometimes so-called hotwives admit to having had at least one extra-marital affair, where divorce rates for first marriages are approaching 62%, and where family shakiness and parental neglect of kids has become a major national worry, any attempt to redefine “love” and strengthen the marital relationship is worthy of our interest. If swingers have found a way to stabilize relationships, prolong family ties, and enrich the lives of couples we would be remiss if we did not take their lifestyle and their redefinition of monogamous love seriously.
It is concluded that swingers surveyed are the white, middle-class, middle-aged, church-going section of the population reported in previous studies, but when it comes to attitudes about sex and marriage they are less racist, less sexist, and less heterosexist than the general population. Swinging appears to make the vast majority of swingers’ marriages happier, and swingers rate the contentment of their marriages and life satisfaction commonly as higher than the non-swinging population.