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In the fifties the journalists referred to it as “wife-swapping.” Today it’s called “swinging,” but in any case of its name this lifestyle seems to be escalating in popularity among majority, adult married couples in the United States and Canada. The popular media are paying increasing attention to the fact, frequently putting a optimistic spin on the effects which swinging has upon marriages. The North American Swing Club Association (NASCA) claims there are structured swing clubs in just about all states as well as Belgium, England, Germany, and Japan. These clubs are rewarding ventures which offer all levels of group activities for swingers including vacation plans, special vacation sites for swingers, and annual conferences 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 broadmindedness of infidelity in their spouses, or “polyamory” - the love of many people at once – swinging is non-monogamous sexual activity, treated much 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 major goal. Wife swapping is typically done in the presence of one’s spouse and requires the involvement 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 supporters 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 couple can discover their fantasies together without deceit or guilt. By removing the need for deceit from the relationship, a fresh level of confidence and honesty about all of one’s feelings is apparently achieved without the destructive baggage of suspicion.
Swinging as an alternative lifestyle is of both practical and scholarly interest because the attempt to combine sexual non-monogamy with emotional monogamy is fundamentally “abnormal” 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 confess to having had at least one extra-marital affair, where divorce rates for first marriages are approaching 62%, and where family shakiness and parental neglect of children 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, prolong 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 residents 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 gladness of their marriages and life satisfaction generally as higher than the non-swinging population.