Back to the history of swinging.
In the fifties the mass media referred to it as “wife-swapping.” Today it’s called “swinging,” but regardless of its name this alternative lifestyle seems to be growing in recognition among mainstream, adult married couples in the United States and Canada. The popular media are paying increasing attention to the trend, regularly putting a encouraging spin on the effects which swinging has upon marriages. The North American Swing Club Association (NASCA) claims there are organized swing clubs in almost all states as well as Belgium, England, Germany, and Japan. These clubs are profitable ventures which provide all levels of group activities for swingers including vacation plans, special vacation sites for swingers, and yearly gatherings and seminars. Lifestyles, Inc., a swingers journey agency, booked 700 couples at a resort in Jamaica in December of 1997.
What precisely is swinging? Not like “open marriages” of the 1970’s which promoted non-possessive love and broadmindedness of betrayal in their spouses, or “polyamory” - the love of numerous 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 dedication to the love relationship with one’s marital partner, remains the main goal. Swinging is typically done in the presence of one’s spouse and requires the involvement of both to the experience. Although 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 privacy and dishonesty inherent in one’s natural desires for sexual variety, the couple can discover their fantasies together without cheating or guilt. By removing the need for cheating from the marriage, a brand new stage of trust and honesty about all of one’s feelings is supposedly achieved without the harsh baggage of distrust.
Swinging as an alternative lifestyle is of both practical and intellectual importance because the challenge to combine sexual non-monogamy with emotional monogamy is basically “unusual” from the western model of romantic 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 relationships, but in an era where 38% of husbands and 29% of wives, sometimes so-called milfs confess to having had at least one extra-marital affair, where divorce rates for first marriages are approaching 61%, and where family instability and parental neglect of children has become a main national worry, any effort to redefine “love” and fortify 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 population reported in earlier 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 happiness of their marriages and life satisfaction in general as higher than the non-swinging population.