Back to the past of ”the lifestyle”.
In the fifties the mass media referred to it as “wife-swapping.” Today it’s named “swinging,” but despite of its name this alternative lifestyle seems to be growing in recognition among ordinary, grown-up married couples in the US. The popular media are paying increasing attention to the fact, often 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 Switzerland, England, Germany, and Japan. These clubs are beneficial enterprises which offer all levels of group activities for swingers including vacation plans, special retreat sites for swingers, and yearly gatherings 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 acceptance of betrayal in their spouses, or “polyamory” - the love of numerous sex partners at once – swinging is non-monogamous sexual action, treated a lot like any other social activity, that can be experienced as a pair. Emotional monogamy, or dedication to the love relationship with one’s marital partner, remains the principal focus. Wife swapping is usually done in the presence of one’s spouse and requires the consent of both to the practice. 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 untruthfulness inherent in one’s natural desires for sexual variety, the couple can discover their fantasies together without dishonesty or shame. By removing the need for dishonesty from the marriage, a brand new height of confidence and honesty about all of one’s feelings is apparently achieved without the harsh baggage of jealousy.
Swinging as an alternative lifestyle is of both practical and scholarly interest 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 actually strengthens or weakens marital bonds, but in an era where 38% of husbands and 31% 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 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 attention. 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 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 general 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.