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In the fifties the magazines referred to it as “wife-swapping.” Today it’s named “swinging,” but in any case of its name this non-monogamous subculture seems to be increasing in popularity among ordinary, middle-aged married couples in USA. The popular media are paying increasing interest to the fact, frequently putting a optimistic spin on the effects which the lifestyle has upon marriages. The North American Swing Club Association (NASCA) claims there are organized swing clubs in just about all states as well as Belgium, England, Germany, and Japan. These clubs are profitable businesses which offer all levels of group activities for swingers including vacation plans, special vacation sites for swingers, and yearly conferences and seminars. Lifestyles, Inc., a swingers tour bureau, booked 700 couples at a resort in Jamaica in February of 1997.
What exactly 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 numerous people at once – swinging is non-monogamous sexual action, treated a lot like any other social activity, that can be experienced as a pair. Emotional monogamy, or commitment to the love relationship with one’s marital partner, remains the ultimate goal. Swinging is typically done in the company of one’s spouse and requires the consent of both to the practice. Though swingers often become close friends with other swinging couples, there are regulations 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 secrecy and untruthfulness inherent in one’s natural wishes for sexual diversity, the pair can explore their fantasies mutually without dishonesty or shame. By removing the need for cheating from the sexual life, a brand new height of reliance and honesty about all of one’s feelings is supposedly achieved without the negative baggage of envy.
Swinging as an alternative lifestyle is of both practical and intellectual importance because the effort to merge sexual non-monogamy with emotional monogamy is basically “deviant” from the western model of romantic love which assumes that sexual and emotional monogamy are reciprocally 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 36% of husbands and 30% 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 shakiness and parental neglect of kids has become a main national concern, any effort 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 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 earlier studies, but when it comes to attitudes about sex and marriage they are less racist, less sexist, and less heterosexist than the broad 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.