What is Swinging and Swingers?
The ultimate swingers, adult dating and swinging guide
Swinging, sometimes referred to as the swinging lifestyle, is "non-monogamous sexual activity, treated much like any other social activity, that can be experienced as a couple." The phenomenon of swinging (or at least its wider discussion and practice) may be seen as part of the sex revolution of recent decades, which occurred after the upsurge in sexual activity made possible by the prevalence of safe sex practices during the same period. Swinging has been called wife swapping in the past, but this term has been criticized as andocentric and inaccurately describing the full range of sexual activities in which swingers may take part.
History
While contemporary swingers look to earlier practices, such as ancient Roman acceptance of orgies and alternative sexual practices[swinging in the 20th century began differently.
According to Terry Gould's Book The Lifestyle: A Look at the Erotic Rites of Swingers, swinging began among USA Air Force pilots and their wives during World war II. The mortality rate of pilots was high. Gould reports that a close bond arose between pilots, with the implication that husbands would care for all the wives as their own, emotionally and sexually, if the husbands were away or lost (thus bearing some similarity) levirate marrage.
This is debatable, however, since it would have been unusual for wives to accompany their husbands on foreign tours. Other sources point to U.S. Air Force pilots in the California desert as the original participants. Though the beginnings are not agreed upon, it is assumed swinging began among American military communities in the 1950s. By the time the Korean War ended, swinging had spread from the military to the suburbs. The media dubbed the phenomenon wife-swapping.
In the United Kingdom there was a proliferation of neighbourhood groups in the early 1970s - known as "wife swapping" groups -and press articles in later years suggest the peak was 1973-75.