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In the fifties the magazines referred to it as “wife-swapping.” Today it’s named “swinging,” but not considering of its name this sexual behavior seems to be escalating in popularity among typical, middle-aged married couples in USA. The popular media are paying increasing interest to the fact, often putting a optimistic spin on the effects which swinging has upon relationships. The North American Swing Club Association (NASCA) claims there are structured swing clubs in more or less all states as well as Canada, England, Germany, and Japan. These clubs are profitable businesses which provide all levels of group activities for swingers including vacation plans, special vacation sites for swingers, and annual conferences and seminars. Lifestyles, Inc., a swingers voyage agency, booked 700 couples at a resort in Jamaica in February of 1999.
What precisely is swinging? Unlike “open marriages” of the 1970’s which promoted non-possessive love and tolerance of betrayal 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 experienced as a pair. Emotional monogamy, or commitment to the love relationship with one’s marital partner, remains the ultimate goal. Swinging is typically done in the attendance of one’s spouse and requires the approval 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 followers claim that it enhances the relationship of the swinging couple both sexually and emotionally. By removing the secrecy and dishonesty inherent in one’s natural wishes for sexual diversity, the couple can discover their fantasies mutually without cheating or guilt. By removing the need for deceit from the sexual life, a new height of reliance and sincerity about all of one’s feelings is supposedly achieved without the negative baggage of jealousy.
Swinging as an alternative lifestyle is of both practical and academic interest because the challenge to mix sexual non-monogamy with emotional monogamy is deeply “unusual” 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 in fact 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 61%, and where family insecurity and parental neglect of children has become a major national concern, any effort to redefine “love” and reinforce the marital relationship is worthy of our interest. If swingers have found a way to stabilize relationships, extend 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 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 contentment of their marriages and life satisfaction in general as higher than the non-swinging population.