Swingers, like polyester leisure suits, seemed to have their heyday in
the '70s. But couples who openly swap partners for a night of passionate
sex with strangers, are becoming a growing trend in a sort of new
sexual relationship revolution -- and those who swing say the rest of us
monogamists are missing out.
"Nightline" went inside the top secret world of swingers -- as guests,
not participants -- to a highly provocative masquerade party at a hotel
in New York City hosted by a group called Behind Closed Doors.
Forget the notion that swingers parties are full of middle-aged folks
who are bored stiff by years of marriage. Behind Closed Doors selects
its members based on attractiveness and age. The younger the better, and
not everyone makes the cut.
The couples said they don't find anything wrong with monogamy, but they were looking for something more exciting and raw.
"Our best sex is with each other," said Sara of Eatontown, N.J., who was
at the party with her boyfriend Michael. "We have pretty amazing sex at
home when we're alone. When we come here it's a physical attraction,
not an emotional attraction."
Michael, a 28-year-old construction worker, and Sara, 24, who works in a
doctor's office, have been in a committed relationship for more than a
year but they do "full swaps," complete with intercourse, but they
refuse to kiss strangers.
"Sex is more of a primal, more of an urge-based," Michael said. "The kissing is more intimate so we like to keep that for us."
National surveys suggest as many as 60 percent of marriages involve
cheating. One study conducted by the University of Washington Center for
the Study of Health and Risk Behaviors showed that in the last two
decades, the number of unfaithful wives under the age of 30 increased by
20 percent and number of unfaithful husbands under 30 increased by 45
percent.
Yet every swinger "Nightline" spoke with said they have a cure for that.
They said their relationships are more spicy, more honest and more
secure because they swap partners.
"People that are of a certain degree of attractiveness are probably
looking to interact and swap partners with other people that are a
certain degree of attractiveness so they are a good-looking person,"
said Nicole Cray, a self-described swing school instructor for Behind
Closed Doors. "If you're not a good-looking person, it's probably not
the right party for you."
Janel and Stevens of Edgewater, N.J., are both in their 30s and have
been together for nearly two years. She manages properties and Stevens
is a disc jockey. When they attended Behind Closed Doors' party, they
engaged in so-called "soft swapping."
"So we do not engage in penetration," she said. "It's a comfort level.
We flirt, we hug, we kiss, but there's nothing much further than that."
Janel said swinging works for her and Stevens because it's something they can do together.
"Think about traditional relationships and how much cheating and lying
and deceiving there is how much more disrespectful is it when you do it
behind your partner's back," she said. "We're sharing something."
Swingers are part of a change that researchers have noted in younger
couples' attitudes toward infidelity in recent years. Younger
generations are marrying later, and come to the marriage with habits
acquired over years of dating -- among them, sleeping with other
partners after the initial attraction wears thin.
Sara and Michael, another couple at the Behind Closed Doors party, said
they got into the swinging scene because of a Super Bowl bet they made
with each other -- if the Patriots won, Sara earned a threesome with
another guy, and if the Giants won, Michael got a threesome with another
girl.
"Needless to say the Giants won and I had a week to come up with a girl,
found a girl, had an awesome experience and ever since then, every
weekend, we've been meeting other couples," Sara said. "We're not the
jealous type, but we believe that 'sharing is caring.'"
It usually costs about $200 for a ticket to one of Behind Closed Doors'
parties and there's an etiquette involved. Only single women or couples
are allowed inside, but no men who are flying solo.
"Women set the rules," said Nicole Cray of Behind Closed Doors. "Men can
talk about what they want but women make the decision about what they
want to do and don't want to do."
And women aren't just setting the rules, they are driving the explosive growth of the swinger culture on the Internet.
Five years ago, AdultFriendFinder.com, a website that helps swinging
couples connect with other couples for a monthly fee, had 5.4 million
swinger subscribers worldwide, and now the company said they have more
than 10 million. Ryan Hunt, the community manager for the website, said
the majority of the traffic to the site is coming from women.
"This is a new generation of swingers," Hunt said. "Usually people get
into swinging between 35 and 50+ but we've seen people who are now more
comfortable with being online and having kind of a more sex-positive
attitude towards things that want to explore swinging at a younger age."
Another website, AshleyMadison.com, lists 14 million people in 22
countries who are looking to have extra-marital hook-ups. Behind Closed
Doors also has a website, SchoolofSex.net, that serves as a social
network for members to meet each other online.
But there is a reason why the Bible includes a commandment against
coveting thy neighbor's wife -- we might be biologically hard-wired to
have several sexual partners. Helen Fischer, an anthropologist who has
studied sex and adultery for years, said she has lived in 42 countries
and there is "not a culture in the world that is not adulterous."
"We are predisposed to eat meat. We are predisposed to fear when an
animal is running towards us and we probably are predisposed towards
adultery," she said.
Another couple who attended the Behind Closed Doors event was Cassie and
Mike from Bristol, R.I. They have been married for four years, both
have kids and successful careers -- Cassie runs a hair salon and Mike is
a solutions engineer. They look like your next-door neighbors, but they
spend the evening scoping out the room for strangers that seem
approachable for sex.
"I think the best way to describe [swinging] is 'dating as a couple,'"
Mike said. "We find it erotic to go out and meet people that have
similar interests and similar sexuality."
"Just makes it hot," Cassie said. "Swinging is not love. I'm in love
with my husband and it just enhances out sex collectively afterwards."
"There's a lot of branches on the swinging tree, so you have to figure out which branch do you swing from," she added.
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