How typical is "swinging" among married couples?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Inspired–as it were–by a concurrent IMHO thread, I now pose this question: How typical/common is swinging among married US couples? I’m not asking for research studies so much as your own anecdotes of self and friends. I’m also talking about consensual swinging involving hubby and wifey, not just hubby doing the wild thang on the sly while wifey sits home reading Harlequin romances.

For the life of me, I can’t imagine ANY of my married friends as swingers and I know these people, or at think I do, very well. (For reference, I’m talking about fairly attractive, intelligent professional people, many upper management, if that’s relevant–most all in their early 30s to mid 40s.)

I know infidelity is ages old, but swinging? Didn’t that fall by the wayside in the early 70s, at least as anything more than a highly marginalized cultural phenomenon?

[While I can understand the appeal at the id level, not so when I factor in the incidence of HIV, herpes, genital warts, and HPV. I mean, how “safe” can safe-sex swinging really be, especially when factoring in spontaneity, accidents, less than clinical “protocols,” anonymity-fueled irresponsibility, and not a few damn skeevy people out there in HornyLand, USA.]

As for me, no thanks. The Law of the Lowest Common Denominator means that even infrequent swinging would bring you in contact, if only “indirect,” with some really skeevy, skin-crawling folk.

Discuss.

2

Just the thought evokes a shudder and a prolonged “EEEEEEEWWWWWWWW!” Then again, I’m most definitely monogamous and I’d never have married my husband if I thought he wasn’t also.

Personally, I don’t care what other consenting adults want to do, but I don’t understand why people would want sex with random others. I suppose I’m a prude or something. But I prefer to dance with the one what brung me, thanks.

3

I have known a few people that had an “open marriage” basically meaning it was ok to have sex on the side as long as 1. there were no secrets whatsoever and 2.no major emotional entanglements and 3. no diseases/safe sex. Both parties were free to pursue these affairs and not necessarily at the same time. I wouldn’t say it was the norm but not unknown either, and from my experience they weren’t necessarily people you would have guessed were pursuing an alternate sexual lifestyle.

I don’t exactly know how this differs from “swinging” but I think that is more of a group thing? I guess I don’t even really know what “swinging” is.

4

44 year old married guy checking in.

I’ve only known 2 people that I’m certain cheated on a spouse… and I’ve never known of any who did so in any organized fashion.

Old fashioned “swinging” and spouse swapping may weell still go on, but I’ve never even heard rumors of it actually happening anywhere that I’ve lived.

5

I know of many married couples who are poly. They have their steady boy/girl friends in addition to their spouse. But it’s not swinging as asked by the OP. They do not have sex with strangers.

6

Well, to quote from the book - “He’s just not that into you if he’s sleeping with other people”.

I don’t know of anyone engaged in organized “swinging” parties. I do know of people having extramarital affairs:

A bigwig at my company who apparently goes after much younger women in order to compensate for some kind of Napoleanic complex (IOW Little Man’s Disease)

A girl (now divorced) who was bored and unhappy in her normal marriage to a regular guy and now prefers to date an controlling older married man who’s “about to leave his wife”.

A guy who in the true European style treats his girlfriend of many years like a mistress while he (often unsuccessfully) tries to bang whoever he can.

7

OK, let’s clear up a few things.

Swinging is not cheating on a spouse. Neither is being in an open marriage. Cheating requires betrayal of trust; if your spouse knows about and has given you permission to sleep with another, it’s not cheating.

Extramarital affairs without the knowlege and/or permission of your spouse isn’t swinging. It’s just plain old cheating.

Swinging usually implies a situation in which couples meet with other couples for casual sex. This can involve group sex, or merely swapping. It can be with people you’ve just met, or swinging partners you’ve known for years. Most swinging organizations have ways to keep out the skeevier, creepier types you don’t want to associate with.

Open marriages, on the other hand, are those in which the members of the marriage may have log-term relationships with others outside the marriage, with the knowledge and approval of their spouse.

I don’t know any couples who are full-fledges swingers. My wife and I have an open marriage, and we know one other couple who is in a similar relationship.

8

:rolleyes: Dr. Sacher-Masoch, line one…

9

One of my ex-wife’s coworkers invited us to dinner over to her and her husbands house for dinner one night.

Half way through eating dinner they both made it very clear that we were invited in hopes that we might be up for some “Wife swaping”. (As he put it)

We declined and the rest of dinner was a wee bit uncomfortable to say the least.

Heh, to bad too, she was pretty hot. I just couldn’t bare the idea of giving MY wife up. Wich to me is the down side of wife swaping. :stuck_out_tongue:

10

Hubby and I know two married swinger couples. We’ve been to swinger clubs twice - we did not engage in swinging sex, but we went.

You might be surprised at the variety of people at these clubs. There is no demographic that fits everyone at a swingers club. We saw people in their 20s up to 60s, unattractive to positively striking, thin to fat, blue collar to corporate types, black, white, Asian, Latino - every group you can think of was there. You wouldn’t be able to “tell” that there was anything “different” about these people if you worked with them. There’s a website (name escapes me) for the “swingers organization” that lists clubs in *all * areas of the country (Indianapolis has a few), often with links to websites. The clubs very strongly recommend safe sex and have “supplies” available if you come unprepared.

Heaven only know what the point of this post is, but here it is!

11

To my knowledge, I don’t know any swinging couples. Mr. Del and I have never been asked, although I’m pretty clueless when it comes to dropping hints so perhaps if it happened it whooshed me completely.

Now I’m wondering if I’m relieved we’ve never been approached, or offended. It’s always nice to be asked, I guess. :confused: Okay, after further consideration, I’m relieved.

12

I do not, as far as I know, know any swinger couples. I’m thinking that my close friends would be pretty unlikely to do it.

I’ve known a few people in open marriages. The one I knew best was dating a friend of mine, and eventually divorced her husband and married my friend. Their marriage was not open.

13

None that I am aware of. I knew of it in the seventies, but wasn’t involved. :o

14

Gay guy checking in.

My SO and I have been together almost 25 years.

We used to do three ways, and sometimes four ways, in the past. Haven’t done it for awhile due to opportunity, but we never had a problem.

Being safe is very important.

But more important is to know that what you have will not be destroyed simply because you have sex with someone else. It is just sex. We know where the love is.

15

Swinging (gah, I hate that term… but don’t know a better one) and selectivity, mutual trust, personal limits and boundaries and good relationships are not mutuall exclusive concepts.

Not unlike traditional dating, people (couples) of similar looks and personal interests/desires, tend to gravitate to one another with mostly successful and satisfying results.

Responsibility for safety is everyone’s business and is widely respected and observed. Breaking established rules is the fastest way to be singled out as being skeevy, looks not withstanding.

And yes, there are model attractive beautiful people doing it just as there are the not so beautiful. As in all walks of life, like finds like.

I can’t comment to what extent this happens as a percentage of “traditional” long term relationships and marriages. Though it’s not infrequent, it is largely a “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” attitude. You just never know and sometimes people you’d least expect.

16

I cannot attest to what the exact “percentage” would be, and it will be difficult to determine because swing parties and other swing social activities are kept very private. As regards Avarie’s statements, they are mostly accurate. The practice encompasses people from all backgrounds.

Identifying a quantifiable number is going to be made more difficult by the fact that there are lots of folks who would be “swingers” by the definition, but who would not classify themselves as such. My wife and I have a couple that is very close to us as friends, but with whom we’ve gotten a little carried away on occasion. We’ve never outright had sex with them, but there has been some mutual observation going on more than once. Though this couple would never classify themselves as “swingers,” there is a small subset that would classify them as “soft-swingers” (people who don’t trade partners, but only watch or are oral-sex-only).

Concerning the website Avarie mentions, do a Google search for NASCA (not at work!!). NASCA is the North American Swing Club Association. Their website will list all NASCA-affiliated swing clubs in your area with contact info (but no physical addresses).

I can’t remember who was in Austin, TX that said they weren’t aware of swing clubs in the area, but this is a testament to the private nature of these clubs. Austin is actually a veritable hot-bed of swinging, followed closely by Dallas/Fort-Worth. Houston is next, followed very distantly by San Antonio.

If anyone wants more detail than that, I’ll share, but only in e-mail, which is in my profile.

17

Let’s say you were okay about giving your wife up, was your wife on board for giving you up?

18

From what i have seen, it tends to happen to older couples who got married before having their jollies. It just the sex part that needs tweaking.

19

There was a very active swinging community at Fort Richardson, Alaska back in the early 80s. I knew quite a few of the married couples who took part. It wasn’t exclusive to the Army families, either. They overlapped with a rather eclectic swinging group in town. I attended several gatherings at the invitation of a couple I knew, who asked me to “escort” a single female friend of theirs each time. This was pre-AIDS, of course. I have no idea if the groups still meet, since I left the state in the mid-80s.

20

No, I was just being facetious.