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The Modern Origins of Swinging
Plus some of my memories of time spent in a swinger’s club
You may be under the impression that “key parties” and “wife-swapping” were inventions of the sexual revolution, but before the 1960s and The Summer of Love, Air Force pilots and their wives were having sex with each other’s spouses in a dynamic that came to be known as swinging. The details are somewhat in dispute since this was not a topic that was studied or written about much at the time that it was first happening, but there is consensus that modern swinging began mid-century in the Air Force. There may have been some underground clubs in the roaring 20s, but it was military couples that really brought it out into the larger culture.
According to one source, pilots during WWII were often able to move their wives close to bases where they were stationed.
Swinging has its roots from U.S. Air Force fighter pilots during World War II. These men were wealthy enough to move their wives close to base, and the fact that their fatality rate was the highest of any branch of service led to an unusual social milieu in which non-monogamy between these pilots’ wives and other pilots became acceptable. These arrangements persisted near Air Force bases throughout World War II and into the Korean War.
By the time the Korean War ended, these groups had spread from the bases to the nearby suburbs. The media picked up on them in 1957 and promptly dubbed the phenomenon “wife-swapping.’’
Investigative journalist, Terry Gould, who wrote a book called The Lifestyle: A Look at the Erotic Rites of Swingers believes that it is unlikely that wives would have been housed near to places where WWII pilots were stationed and that this kind of thing more likely took off in the 1950s. The close bonds formed by sexually sharing spouses made the group feel closer and more cohesive and it helped ensure that widows would be taken care of both emotionally and sexually in the event that their husbands did not come home. Gould believes that this took place before deployment, not in the midst of it. However, it is true that by the time the Korean war ended, swinging had spread out from military communities into the larger suburbs.
