Back to the history of ”the lifestyle”.
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 increasing in recognition among majority, adult married couples in USA. The popular media are paying increasing interest to the fact, frequently putting a positive spin on the effects which swinging has upon relationships. The North American Swing Club Association (NASCA) claims there are structured swing clubs in almost all states as well as Belgium, England, Germany, and Japan. These clubs are productive businesses which supply all levels of group activities for swingers including vacation plans, special holiday sites for swingers, and annual conferences and seminars. Lifestyles, Inc., a swingers travel agency, booked 700 couples at a resort in Jamaica in January of 1997.
What precisely is swinging? Not like “open marriages” of the 1970’s which promoted non-possessive love and tolerance of infidelity in their spouses, or “polyamory” - the love of several sex partners at once – swinging is non-monogamous sexual action, treated much 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 primary focus. Swinging is typically 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 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 pair can discover their fantasies together without deceit or guilt. By removing the necessity for deceit from the sexual life, a new level of reliance and honesty about all of one’s feelings is supposedly achieved without the harsh baggage of suspicion.
Swinging as an alternative lifestyle is of both practical and intellectual importance because the challenge to combine sexual non-monogamy with emotional monogamy is deeply “abnormal” 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 in fact strengthens or weakens marital relationships, but in an era where 36% of husbands and 30% of wives, sometimes so-called hotwives confess to having had at least one extra-marital affair, where divorce rates for first marriages are approaching 60%, and where family instability and parental neglect of children has become a major 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, extend 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 previous studies, but when it comes to attitudes about sex and marriage they are less racist, less sexist, and less heterosexist than the general public. Swinging appears to make the vast majority of swingers’ marriages happier, and swingers rate the gladness of their marriages and life satisfaction commonly as higher than the non-swinging population.
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