Back to the history of swinging.
In the fifties the media referred to it as “wife-swapping.” Today it’s named “swinging,” but in any case of its name this sexual performance seems to be rising in recognition among mainstream, grown-up married couples in the US. The popular media are paying increasing interest to the phenomenon, frequently putting a positive spin on the effects which the lifestyle has upon marriages. The North American Swing Club Association (NASCA) claims there are organized swing clubs in more or less all states as well as Canada, England, Germany, and Japan. These clubs are productive enterprises which provide all levels of social activities for swingers including vacation plans, special holiday sites for swingers, and annual conferences and seminars. Lifestyles, Inc., a swingers journey bureau, booked 700 couples at a resort in Jamaica in February of 1997.
What precisely is swinging? Dissimilar “open marriages” of the 1970’s which promoted non-possessive love and tolerance of infidelity in their spouses, or “polyamory” - the love of many people at once – swinging is non-monogamous sexual action, treated much like any other social activity, that can be experienced as a couple. Emotional monogamy, or dedication to the love relationship with one’s marital partner, remains the primary focus. Swinging is usually done in the presence of one’s spouse and requires the consent of both to the practice. 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 adherents 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 guilt. By removing the necessity for deceit from the relationship, a fresh stage of trust and honesty about all of one’s feelings is supposedly achieved without the destructive baggage of jealousy.
Swinging as an alternative lifestyle is of both practical and academic importance because the challenge to combine 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 relationships, but in an era where 38% of husbands and 31% of wives, sometimes so-called hotwives admit to having had at least one extra-marital affair, where divorce rates for first marriages are approaching 60%, and where family shakiness and parental neglect of children has become a main national worry, any attempt to redefine “love” and reinforce the marital relationship is worthy of our attention. 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 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 common population. 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.
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