Back to the past of ”the lifestyle”.
In the fifties the newspapers referred to it as “wife-swapping.” Today it’s named “swinging,” but despite of its name this non-monogamous subculture seems to be growing in recognition among typical, grown-up married couples in the US. The popular media are paying increasing interest to the fact, often putting a optimistic spin on the effects which the lifestyle 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 France, England, Germany, and Japan. These clubs are beneficial businesses which supply all levels of social activities for swingers including vacation plans, special vacation sites for swingers, and yearly conferences and seminars. Lifestyles, Inc., a swingers journey bureau, booked 700 couples at a resort in Jamaica in January of 1997.
What exactly is swinging? Dissimilar “open marriages” of the 1970’s which promoted non-possessive love and acceptance of infidelity 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 practiced as a couple. Emotional monogamy, or commitment to the love relationship with one’s marital partner, remains the primary focus. Wife swapping is frequently 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 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 variety, the couple can explore their fantasies together without deceit or shame. By removing the necessity for cheating from the marriage, a new stage of trust 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 importance because the attempt to mix sexual non-monogamy with emotional monogamy is fundamentally “deviant” from the western model of romantic 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 bonds, but in an era where 36% of husbands and 29% of wives, sometimes so-called hotwives declare to having had at least one extra-marital affair, where divorce rates for first marriages are approaching 61%, and where family shakiness and parental neglect of kids has become a major national worry, any effort to redefine “love” and reinforce the marital bond is worthy of our interest. If swingers have found a way to stabilize relationships, prolong 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 population 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 common population. Swinging appears to make the vast majority of swingers’ marriages happier, and swingers rate the happiness of their marriages and life satisfaction commonly as higher than the non-swinging population.