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In the fifties the magazines referred to it as “wife-swapping.” Today it’s called “swinging,” but anyway of its name this lifestyle seems to be growing in popularity among ordinary, grown-up married couples in America. The popular media are paying increasing attention to the phenomenon, frequently putting a optimistic spin on the effects which swinging has upon relationships. The North American Swing Club Association (NASCA) claims there are organized swing clubs in more or less all states as well as Canada, England, Germany, and Japan. These clubs are lucrative businesses which offer all levels of social activities for swingers including vacation plans, special holiday sites for swingers, and yearly gatherings and seminars. Lifestyles, Inc., a swingers journey agency, booked 700 couples at a resort in Jamaica in January of 1998.
What exactly is swinging? Not like “open marriages” of the 1970’s which promoted non-possessive love and broadmindedness of unfaithfulness 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 practiced as a couple. Emotional monogamy, or commitment to the love relationship with one’s marital partner, remains the principal focus. Wife swapping is frequently done in the company of one’s spouse and requires the approval of both to the practice. 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 advocates claim that it enhances the relationship of the swinging couple both sexually and emotionally. By removing the privacy and dishonesty inherent in one’s natural desires for sexual variety, the couple can explore their fantasies mutually without cheating or guilt. By removing the necessity for cheating from the sexual life, a new level of reliance and sincerity 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 intellectual interest because the attempt to mix sexual non-monogamy with emotional monogamy is basically “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 actually strengthens or weakens marital bonds, but in an era where 37% of husbands and 29% of wives, sometimes so-called milfs confess to having had at least one extra-marital affair, where divorce rates for first marriages are approaching 60%, and where family insecurity and parental neglect of children has become a major national concern, any effort to redefine “love” and fortify the marital bond is worthy of our attention. 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 segment of the residents 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 general 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.