For anyone that knows me, I like to analyze everything.  I admit, sometimes to a fault.  So with that being said I still analyze the “lifestyle”.  The big question I have been asking myself lately is whether or not this is really a healthy endevour for C and I.  With this question in mind I decided to do some research to see what the psychology world had to say about swinging….and here is a little bit of what I found.

Swinging is non-monogamous sexual activity, treated much like any other social activity, that can be experienced as a couple. Emotional monogamy, or commitment to the love relationship with one’s marital partner, remains the primary focus.

While swinging involves having sex with people other than one’s spouse, its adherents claim that it enhances the relationship of the swinging couple both sexually and emotionally.  By removing the secrecy and dishonesty inherent in one’s natural desires for sexual variety, the couple can explore their fantasies together without deceit or guilt. By removing the necessity for deceit from the relationship, a new level of trust and openness about all of one’s feelings is supposedly achieved without the destructive baggage of jealousy.

It has yet to be demonstrated empirically whether this alternative lifestyle actually strengthens or weakens marital relationships, but in an era where 37% of husbands and 29% of wives admit to having had at least one extra-marital affair, where divorce rates for first marriages are approaching 60%, and where family instability and parental neglect of children has become a major national concern (Wagner, 1998), any attempt to redefine “love” and strengthen the marital bond is worthy of attention.

According to King (1996) one of the things that normally occurs in a relationship leading to changes in how we interact with our partners is sexual habituation. At approximately three to seven years into a marriage, it begins to take increased levels of stimulation to produce the same level of sexual excitation previously obtained by a glance or a simple touch. A couple that is receptive to new and different sexual experiences will begin to explore different avenues of shared sexual fulfillment in order to continue to grow together. At this stressful point in marriages infidelity increases and the divorce rate peaks. Couples who find a way to reconnect physically and emotionally are more likely to make it through this period. Swinging may be one creative solution to the problem of habituation – it provides sexual variety, adventure, and the opportunity to live out one’s fantasies as a couple without secrecy and deceit.

I haven’t come to my own conclusion as of yet, but C and I are enjoying this journey of life and right now, we are determining where the swinging lifestyle fits in.

Related posts:

1. Attitudes of Swinging and Swingers
2. How it all started
3. One night stand or an ongoing relationship when swinging?
4. The perfect mix for me
5. Identifying a swinger