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In the fifties the media referred to it as “wife-swapping.” Today it’s named “swinging,” but regardless of its name this non-monogamous subculture seems to be escalating in recognition among ordinary, middle-aged married couples in America. The popular media are paying increasing interest to the trend, frequently putting a positive spin on the effects which the lifestyle 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 Belgium, England, Germany, and Japan. These clubs are productive enterprises which supply all levels of group activities for swingers including vacation plans, special retreat sites for swingers, and annual gatherings and seminars. Lifestyles, Inc., a swingers tour agency, booked 700 couples at a resort in Jamaica in January of 1997.
What precisely is swinging? Not like “open marriages” of the 1970’s which promoted non-possessive love and tolerance of unfaithfulness in their spouses, or “polyamory” - the love of numerous sex partners at once – swinging is non-monogamous sexual action, treated a lot like any other social activity, that can be practiced as a couple. Emotional monogamy, or dedication to the love relationship with one’s marital partner, remains the main focus. Wife swapping is frequently done in the presence of one’s spouse and requires the approval of both to the practice. Although 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 apologetics claim that it enhances the relationship of the swinging couple both sexually and emotionally. By removing the privacy and untruthfulness inherent in one’s natural wishes for sexual variety, the couple can discover their fantasies mutually without deceit or guilt. By removing the necessity for cheating from the sexual life, a new stage of trust and openness about all of one’s feelings is apparently achieved without the destructive baggage of envy.
Swinging as an alternative lifestyle is of both practical and scholarly interest because the challenge to merge sexual non-monogamy with emotional monogamy is fundamentally “deviant” 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 in fact strengthens or weakens marital relationships, but in an era where 38% of husbands and 30% of wives, sometimes so-called milfs declare to having had at least one extra-marital affair, where divorce rates for first marriages are approaching 61%, and where family instability and parental neglect of children has become a major national worry, any effort to redefine “love” and fortify the marital bond is worthy of our attention. If swingers have found a way to stabilize relationships, extend 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 previous studies, but when it comes to attitudes about sex and marriage they are less racist, less sexist, and less heterosexist than the general population. 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.