Back to the beginning of ”the lifestyle”.
In the fifties the journalists referred to it as “wife-swapping.” Today it’s named “swinging,” but not considering of its name this alternative lifestyle seems to be rising in recognition among ordinary, middle-aged married couples in the US. The popular media are paying increasing interest to the fact, frequently putting a positive spin on the effects which swinging has upon marriages. The North American Swing Club Association (NASCA) claims there are structured swing clubs in more or less all states as well as Belgium, England, Germany, and Japan. These clubs are rewarding businesses which supply all levels of social activities for swingers including vacation plans, special holiday sites for swingers, and yearly gatherings and seminars. Lifestyles, Inc., a swingers tour bureau, booked 700 couples at a resort in Jamaica in December of 1999.
What precisely is swinging? Dissimilar “open marriages” of the 1970’s which promoted non-possessive love and broadmindedness of betrayal in their spouses, or “polyamory” - the love of several people at once – swinging is non-monogamous sexual activity, treated a lot 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 main goal. Swinging is typically done in the presence of one’s spouse and requires the approval of both to the experience. Though 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 advocates claim that it enhances the relationship of the swinging couple both sexually and emotionally. By removing the privacy and untruthfulness inherent in one’s natural wishes for sexual diversity, the couple can discover their fantasies mutually without deceit or shame. By removing the need for cheating from the relationship, a brand new stage 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 scholarly importance because the attempt to merge sexual non-monogamy with emotional monogamy is deeply “deviant” 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 in fact strengthens or weakens marital relationships, but in an era where 38% of husbands and 31% of wives, sometimes so-called hotwives declare 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 kids has become a main national concern, any effort to redefine “love” and reinforce the marital bond is worthy of our attention. 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 segment 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 general population. Swinging appears to make the vast majority of swingers’ marriages happier, and swingers rate the contentment of their marriages and life satisfaction generally as higher than the non-swinging population.