This did not go out of style. Today in every major city, and many minor ones, there are swingers. The most popular areas are Florida, Las Vegas and Canada. There are swingers clubs and swingers parties. They have more advanced games and ways than the key bowl though. They have the internet; swinger sites, swinger personal ads and chat rooms. They also have clubs that have sex rooms, large parties, conventions and more intimate swinger house parties.
The swinger lifestyle is described as “a form of recreational social and sexual intercourse between consenting adults,” they’re open, adventurous and usually in a healthy serious relationship. They proclaim that it’s best to view swinging as an enhancement to an existing sexual relationship.
This philosophy is nothing new. The Roman orgies could be considered the first recorded evidence of the swinger lifestyle. In the 1800 European artist neighborhoods these free-thinkers were considered Bohemians. They lived communally, pooling their meager resources, smoking opium and practicing their art and free love. In the 50s in San Francisco the Beat Generation emerged, dubbed “Beatniks,” a negative connotation (think sputnik and remember the Russians were the enemy at that time). The Beatniks were all about bettering the inner self, open love, smoking pot and the literary movement, especially poetry.
Then in 1965 the Hippie movement was underway. By far the Hippies were one of America’s largest and most well known countercultures. Hippies started out in the U.S. and spread to Europe, Australia, Japan, Mexico, and beyond. In June of ’67 over 100,000 hippies converged at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco for the Monteray Pop Festival in what was later termed “The Summer of Love.” Scott McKenzie’s version of “San Francisco” prompted them to wear flowers in their hair, thus coining the phrase “Flower Children.”
Hippies were into peace, love and personal freedom. They mostly touted the Judeo-Christian religion, (in their own way), they practiced free love, expanded their horizons with hallucinogenic drugs, they opposed the Viet Nam War, referred to the government they were so unhappy with as “The Man,” and lived in communes. They were predominately white and ranged in age from 15 to 25.
The swingers of today are generally older, most in their 40s and 50s, but some as young as twenty-somethings. They don’t profess any “radical” ideas or go against the mainstream in any political way. They simply believe in being open, adventurous and expanding their sexual relationship with their long-term partners by exploring any or all of the variety of experiences the swinger lifestyle has to offer.
There’s soft swinging, where two couples simply agree to watching the other couple have sex with their spouse/regular partner. There’s closed swinging where couples choose a new partner and go into a private room for one on one sex, also called partner swapping. Then there’s open swinging where a couple has either a man or woman or even another couple join them for sex. Some clubs and parties even offer Roman rooms or special Roman nights where everyone participates in group orgy. So maybe it all did start with the Romans many many years ago.