Back to the past of wife swapping.
In the fifties the journalists referred to it as “wife-swapping.” Today it’s named “swinging,” but despite of its name this lifestyle seems to be growing in popularity among majority, middle-aged married couples in America. The popular media are paying increasing interest to the phenomenon, frequently putting a encouraging spin on the effects which the lifestyle has upon relationships. The North American Swing Club Association (NASCA) claims there are organized swing clubs in about all states as well as Switzerland, England, Germany, and Japan. These clubs are productive enterprises 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 travel 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 tolerance 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 experienced as a pair. Emotional monogamy, or dedication to the love relationship with one’s marital partner, remains the principal goal. Swinging is frequently done in the presence of one’s spouse and requires the consent of both to the practice. Although 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 variety, the couple can discover their fantasies mutually without dishonesty or shame. By removing the necessity for deceit from the sexual life, a brand new level of trust and openness 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 academic interest because the attempt to merge sexual non-monogamy with emotional monogamy is basically “unusual” 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 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 62%, and where family instability and parental neglect of children has become a major national worry, any attempt to redefine “love” and strengthen the marital bond is worthy of our attention. 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 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 general public. Swinging appears to make the vast majority of swingers’ marriages happier, and swingers rate the contentment of their marriages and life satisfaction generally as higher than the non-swinging population.