The human brain is a glorious collection of neurons that mostly respond to various signals from our well known senses and it performs a few other trivial tasks as well (like keep us alive). Our brain is our most powerful sex organ - an impressive bonus for humanity. The complex features of our brain drive us toward our instinctive behaviors and interestingly, allow us the capability to consciously override instinctive programming. Our invention of morality rules is a product of our ability to understand abstraction and consider long-term goals for humanity at large.

The function of morality is to replace some instinctive behaviors with alternative behaviors designed to foster the general advancement of a polite and civilized society. Broadly speaking, our instincts establish a higher priority for self preservation than species preservation while morality rules serve to reverse that priority or at least, benefit deserving individuals with a bias in favor of promoting rewards for the community. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. Morality rules also tend to protect weaker individuals from undesirable selfish impulses of the stronger.

Invariably, all known human civilizations enforce morality rules regarding sexual behavior. I think it's quite ironic that some societies are more understanding and lenient toward "cheaters" than swingers. Other societies execute both groups. I think the prevailing logic is that cheaters fail to live up to morality they acknowledge as proper (simply a pitiful character flaw), while swingers blatantly reject the sexual exclusivity rules as false morality. Most early societies used the death penalty as a deterrent against sexual immorality - clearly, it was less than completely effective.

Societies generally derive their morality rules from the collective of ancient wisdom and get reinforced or refined over time. Let's explore the history of the sexual exclusivity rule to illuminate its social value. If we're going to discount the validity of a long-standing rule, we must shoulder the responsibility of rationalizing the improved social value or continue to covertly practice our deviancy in the shallow hopes of avoiding detection and punishment (certainly not the moral high ground).

At first glance, historical artifacts provide few universally accepted answers. Several branches of modern scientific study are actively involved with reconstructing historical truths and resolving the hows and whys of early human social development. Civilizations pillaged and destroyed historical artifacts when they conquered each other and the Roman Catholic Church played a big role in the destruction and creative replacement of information contrary to its doctrines.

I think the rise in political power of the early Catholic Church is a significant milestone in the broad enforcement of the marital sexual exclusivity component of morality rules. Around the mid first century A.D. The Catholic leadership fully embraced the concept of sexual asceticism based on principles of natural law. It took several hundred years of political pressure to affect these radical changes. The church changed the meaning of certain words to make their ancient documents appear to support their new objectives. Voluntary celibacy was held in the highest regard and men who had insufficiently strong character were limited to one wife at a time. Sex outside of marriage earned the death penalty and it was strongly limited within marriage to procreation attempts. Proponents of the new sexual morality included: Apostle Paul, Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine - indisputably wise men. None of the sources of this new morality listed valid logical reasons for the superiority of their prescription for the new social order. Every one of their weak reasons (remote extensions of natural law) were completely rejected by subsequent scientific observation. The few logical reasons remaining is that sexual asceticism promotes strength of character in individual citizens, or perhaps the allure of sexual freedoms would be too rich of an opportunity for the strong to unduly manipulate the weak.

Whatever the original reasons behind the morality rules were, the new question becomes, "What are the current reasons to admonish swinging?" We have the advantage of observing a century and a half of the old rules in practice. Do the rules need to be adjusted? Or perhaps, once we come to the personal understanding that those rules don't apply to certain situations, then we're ready to accept the responsibilities of moral non-monogamy.

Our swinger's license gets validated by every swinger that chooses to interact with us. We recognize each other by the respect we show in our behaviors. We don't need a secret handshake or decoder ring. Swinging is a fun reminder that I got lucky as hell when I picked my wife as the person to spend my life with. And that,,, is unimpeachable morality.

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I read back over this blog entry and I realize this is only a skeleton of a story and my biases are clearly exposed. For the sake of brevity, I must assume the readers have a background knowledge of world history to fill in the supporting details and follow the logic of my outline. I began my study of the history of this morality rule because I needed to make a personal decision about the morality of my participation in this hobby. I read translations of ancient manuscripts, and narratives of historical findings. I happen to know a little Greek from my military travels, so that came in handy. I made my decision from a position of knowledge and with confidence from first hand experience. I still struggle with applying this morality to the larger population.

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Apologies to Steven Hawking, I just thought that would make a catchy headline. I guess I owe him props on his new theory and book although I remain unconvinced his theory discounts the existence and interaction of God. I haven't read the book, I'm afraid it would require way too much effort to digest. I do believe if Steven were-able bodied, there's a non-zero probability he would be a swinger.