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In the fifties the newspapers referred to it as “wife-swapping.” Today it’s named “swinging,” but anyway of its name this alternative lifestyle seems to be rising in recognition among ordinary, middle-aged married couples in the United States and Canada. The popular media are paying increasing interest to the trend, 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 about all states as well as France, England, Germany, and Japan. These clubs are rewarding enterprises which provide all levels of group activities for swingers including vacation plans, special retreat sites for swingers, and yearly conferences and seminars. Lifestyles, Inc., a swingers journey agency, booked 700 couples at a resort in Jamaica in January of 1998.
What exactly is swinging? Dissimilar “open marriages” of the 1970’s which promoted non-possessive love and broadmindedness of unfaithfulness in their spouses, or “polyamory” - the love of several people at once – swinging is non-monogamous sexual activity, treated much like any other social activity, that can be practiced as a couple. Emotional monogamy, or commitment to the love relationship with one’s marital partner, remains the major focus. Wife swapping is usually done in the company 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 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 wishes for sexual diversity, the pair can discover their fantasies mutually without cheating or guilt. By removing the necessity for cheating from the sexual life, a brand new stage of confidence and honesty 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 academic importance because the effort 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 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 59%, and where family shakiness and parental neglect of kids has become a major national worry, any attempt 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 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 segment 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 common 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.