Back to the beginning of wife swapping.
In the fifties the magazines referred to it as “wife-swapping.” Today it’s called “swinging,” but not considering of its name this lifestyle seems to be increasing in popularity among typical, middle-aged married couples in America. The popular media are paying increasing attention to the fact, frequently putting a positive spin on the effects which swinging has upon relationships. The North American Swing Club Association (NASCA) claims there are organized swing clubs in about all states as well as France, England, Germany, and Japan. These clubs are productive businesses which offer all levels of social activities for swingers including vacation plans, special vacation sites for swingers, and annual gatherings and seminars. Lifestyles, Inc., a swingers journey bureau, booked 700 couples at a resort in Jamaica in January of 1997.
What precisely is swinging? Unlike “open marriages” of the 1970’s which promoted non-possessive love and acceptance of unfaithfulness in their spouses, or “polyamory” - the love of numerous people at once – swinging is non-monogamous sexual activity, treated a lot like any other social activity, that can be experienced as a couple. Emotional monogamy, or commitment to the love relationship with one’s marital partner, remains the principal goal. Wife swapping is frequently done in the attendance of one’s spouse and requires the involvement of both to the experience. 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 secrecy and dishonesty inherent in one’s natural desires for sexual variety, the couple can explore their fantasies together without dishonesty or guilt. By removing the need for dishonesty from the sexual life, a brand new stage of confidence and sincerity about all of one’s feelings is apparently achieved without the negative baggage of suspicion.
Swinging as an alternative lifestyle is of both practical and intellectual importance because the attempt to mix sexual non-monogamy with emotional monogamy is basically “deviant” from the western model of idealistic 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 relationships, but in an era where 36% 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 60%, and where family instability and parental neglect of children has become a main national concern, any effort 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 past 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 happiness of their marriages and life satisfaction commonly as higher than the non-swinging population.