Back to the history of swinging.
In the fifties the media referred to it as “wife-swapping.” Today it’s named “swinging,” but anyway of its name this lifestyle seems to be escalating in popularity among mainstream, adult married couples in America. The popular media are paying increasing attention to the trend, regularly putting a optimistic spin on the effects which the lifestyle has upon marriages. The North American Swing Club Association (NASCA) claims there are organized swing clubs in just about all states as well as Switzerland, England, Germany, and Japan. These clubs are rewarding enterprises which offer all levels of social activities for swingers including vacation plans, special retreat sites for swingers, and annual gatherings and seminars. Lifestyles, Inc., a swingers journey bureau, booked 700 couples at a resort in Jamaica in December of 1997.
What precisely is swinging? Unlike “open marriages” of the 1970’s which promoted non-possessive love and broadmindedness of unfaithfulness in their spouses, or “polyamory” - the love of many people at once – swinging is non-monogamous sexual activity, treated much 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 main goal. Wife swapping is frequently done in the attendance 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 policy restricting emotional involvement with non-spousal partners. While swinging involves having sex with people other than one’s spouse, its supporters 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 together without cheating or shame. By removing the necessity for dishonesty from the marriage, a new height of reliance and openness about all of one’s feelings is apparently achieved without the harsh baggage of suspicion.
Swinging as an alternative lifestyle is of both practical and academic interest because the attempt to merge sexual non-monogamy with emotional monogamy is fundamentally “abnormal” from the western model of idealistic love which assumes that sexual and emotional monogamy are mutually reinforcing and inseparable. It has yet to be demonstrated empirically whether this alternative lifestyle actually strengthens or weakens marital bonds, but in an era where 37% of husbands and 30% of wives, sometimes so-called milfs admit to having had at least one extra-marital affair, where divorce rates for first marriages are approaching 59%, and where family instability and parental neglect of children has become a main national concern, any effort to redefine “love” and reinforce the marital bond is worthy of our interest. If swingers have found a way to stabilize relationships, prolong family ties, and improve 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 residents reported in past studies, but when it comes to attitudes about sex and marriage they are less racist, less sexist, and less heterosexist than the broad public. Swinging appears to make the vast majority of swingers’ marriages happier, and swingers rate the contentment of their marriages and life satisfaction in general as higher than the non-swinging population.