Article Directory 3rd Coast StudiosArticle: os Engagement proposed by Tippoo … are to make ot the executive directory at Paris : Article I. Ten or fifteen thousand troops, consisting of …

In the fifties the journalists referred to it as “wife-swapping.” Today it’s named “swinging,” but not considering of its name this non-monogamous subculture seems to be growing in popularity among ordinary, middle-aged married couples in the United States and Canada. The popular media are paying increasing interest to the phenomenon, often putting a encouraging spin on the effects which swinging has upon marriages. 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 rewarding ventures which supply all levels of social activities for swingers including vacation plans, special vacation sites for swingers, and annual gatherings and seminars. Lifestyles, Inc., a swingers tour bureau, booked 700 couples at a resort in Jamaica in January of 1999.
What exactly is swinging? Dissimilar “open marriages” of the 1970’s which promoted non-possessive love and tolerance of infidelity in their spouses, or “polyamory” - the love of several sex partners at once – swinging is non-monogamous sexual action, treated much 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 main focus. Wife swapping is usually done in the presence of one’s spouse and requires the consent 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 followers 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 desires for sexual diversity, the pair can discover their fantasies together without cheating or guilt. By removing the need for dishonesty from the marriage, a new level of reliance and honesty about all of one’s feelings is supposedly achieved without the harsh baggage of distrust.
Swinging as an alternative lifestyle is of both practical and intellectual importance because the challenge to merge sexual non-monogamy with emotional monogamy is deeply “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 actually strengthens or weakens marital relationships, but in an era where 38% 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 shakiness and parental neglect of children has become a major national worry, any attempt 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 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 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 population. Swinging appears to make the vast majority of swingers’ marriages happier, and swingers rate the gladness of their marriages and life satisfaction generally as higher than the non-swinging population.