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In the fifties the newspapers referred to it as “wife-swapping.” Today it’s named “swinging,” but despite of its name this swinging lifestyle seems to be increasing in popularity among ordinary, grown-up married couples in America. The popular media are paying increasing attention to the phenomenon, often putting a encouraging spin on the effects which the lifestyle has upon marriages. The North American Swing Club Association (NASCA) claims there are structured swing clubs in just about all states as well as Switzerland, England, Germany, and Japan. These clubs are productive enterprises which offer all levels of group activities for swingers including vacation plans, special retreat sites for swingers, and annual gatherings and seminars. Lifestyles, Inc., a swingers journey bureau, booked 700 couples at a resort in Jamaica in February of 1998.
What precisely is swinging? Not like “open marriages” of the 1970’s which promoted non-possessive love and broadmindedness of betrayal in their spouses, or “polyamory” - the love of several sex partners at once – swinging is non-monogamous sexual activity, treated much like any other social activity, that can be practiced as a pair. Emotional monogamy, or dedication to the love relationship with one’s marital partner, remains the primary goal. Wife swapping is frequently done in the attendance of one’s spouse and requires the involvement of both to the experience. Though swingers often become close friends with other swinging couples, there are policy 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 secrecy and dishonesty inherent in one’s natural wishes for sexual diversity, the pair can discover their fantasies mutually without cheating or shame. By removing the need for deceit from the relationship, a fresh level of trust and honesty about all of one’s feelings is supposedly achieved without the negative baggage of suspicion.
Swinging as an alternative lifestyle is of both practical and scholarly interest 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 really strengthens or weakens marital relationships, but in an era where 37% of husbands and 30% 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 main national concern, any attempt to redefine “love” and reinforce the marital relationship 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 broad population. Swinging appears to make the vast majority of swingers’ marriages happier, and swingers rate the contentment of their marriages and life satisfaction commonly as higher than the non-swinging population.