Percentages

[Manitobacpl 81]

I been wondering , are there any figures on the percentage of population actually swing ? Is it a cultural thing ie eastern versus western cultures ? I wonder if the percentages in each country varies much ? Just sayin ?

[Chris&Suzanne 204]

I venture to guess there are more Europeans. They are not as uptight as we are. Or Canadians, what else can you do in the winter

[padoc 1,703]

I think it depends upon the location. In the eastern metroplex, the percentage of swingers is probably way higher than in Kansas City or Des Moines. Add South Florida and most of left coast California and you'd have a LOT of American Swingers. Observations about cultures (caveat: all of our swinging experiences took place on the US East coast) our experience is that the majority of swingers are middle aged white couples. I think mixed (black/white) couples are a bit ahead of black couples (a surprisingly small number). Asians are the smallest percentage we've seen over 15 years.

[JandKinBoise 858]

The world may never know. There may be a lot more swingers in large cities, where clubs and on line connections are easier to come by. But in small town America, with it's pile of boredom, comes a lot of secret sex. The percentage of swingers in small towns is probably higher than the cities.

My wife and I left our small Montana town in 1980, where some of our entertainment with friends was group sex. We never again experienced the kind of 'sex with friends' we experienced in our small town. We never just stumbled upon a fun sexy group in the big cities, always a hunt.

One of the suburbs here is an isolated small town just over the hill. It's the local hotbed of swinging. And, the entire area is very white, and very middle class.

Possibly the uptight feelings whites have about sex, makes us think about it more. Most cultures don't focus on sex like we do. If sex is just another thing, not much thought is put into expanding the horizon, it's just not needed.

 

Growing up, my parents decided the best way to deal with the horrors of sex was to simply ignore it. Both my brothers were married in high school. I wasn't because I was lucky and a little better informed. One brother decided to perform an experiment on his family. He decided sex would be like any other subject and was talked about openly and without shame or embarrassment. Sexual material like Playboy, Penthouse and erotic literature was right with the Woman's day and Family Circle. He had 3 kids, the oldest is mid 40s, the youngest mid 30s. None married, no kids, little interest in sex, little interest in porn, much more productive. Maybe the Asians have something there.

[Manitobacpl 81]

Interesting replies .. I noticed the age and middle aged response.. I wonder if younger couples are too tied up in the “I love you and nobody else “ blah blah blah .. we are very much in love (late 50’s) . We are dedicated to each other but still like the thrill of an occasional swing .. not to move off topic ...

[Emt 91]

Interesting replies .. I noticed the age and middle aged response.. I wonder if younger couples are too tied up in the “I love you and nobody else “ blah blah blah .. we are very much in love (late 50’s) . We are dedicated to each other but still like the thrill of an occasional swing .. not to move off topic ...

 

This is what I see and makes logistical sense. If I'm just starting out in relationships, learning about love (or trying to), and have been flooded with monogamy from TV, parents, church, and school up until this point in life... swinging isn't on the radar naturally that much. Plus, due to that lack of development/establishment, my trust and communication isn't going to be on par with what someone who's been in a relationship for a number of years may have.

 

I'd be willing to bet that if there were a way to accurately plot the demographics of swingers globally, there would be an increase in the population with age until we get to a sharp drop off due to death, illness/disability due to age, etc. later in life.

 

I would also agree with more sexually liberal cultures possibly having higher populations of swingers just because they seem to be more sexually enlightened/comfortable in general.

[GoldCoCouple 4,066]

Damn you for pointing a data junkie down this rabbit hole!

 

Here's the problem(s):

 

There is no universal definition of what swinging is. Okay, so it is a couple that has sex outside of the relationship...but is it only married couples? If this is the case then the numbers plummet since you are ruling out a sizable portion of the population. If you include all couples (married and otherwise), how long do they need to have been a couple before they qualify? What about cheaters? While swingers don't consider cheating swinging, if you start asking the population if they consider themselves swingers, cheaters my use this to 'justify' or lessen the fact that they are cheating. What about polyamory? How about fundamentalist Mormons who may have multiple wives but are otherwise kept apart when it cones to the bedroom? How about couples or one member of the couple that fantasizes or just wishes they were swingers? Also just like normal relationships, people break up. Couples also just decide to explore it and then they stop exploring it. Finally, what about the swingers that don't think it's anyone else's business what they do so when asked say nothing?

 

The last “official count” of swingers in America was done by the Kinsey Institute and that found that there were over four (4) million people who identified themselves as “swingers” in America. Of course, the Kinsey Institute did this count over 50 years ago and the criteria used for defining what a swinger was had all of the above problems. The Kinsey reports were published in 1948 (for the male) and 1953 (of the female). There were 150 million Americans in 1950 so 150m divided by 4m gives us 2.66 percent of the population (although in the Kinsey information, they seem to jump from 4 million to 4% of the population being swingers or maybe this is excluding unmarried people and children). Today, the Kinsey institute is surprisingly obscure on the issue, stating nothing beyond that swinging is “relatively uncommon”.

 

The population of the US is now 327 million people. 327m time 2.66 percent gives us 8.7 million swingers (or 13 million using the 4% number). AdultFriendFinders (arguably a swingers website) states it has 27+ million members. This all assumes that they 'growth rate' has been static. Swinging, however, like most forms of sexual behavior, is becoming less 'taboo' and so the indicators would say that swinging is becoming more common. The Kinsey Institute at the time also indicated that the percentage of gay leaning individuals to be 10% (which for the 1950's seems quite high).

 

In 2000, there was the Bergstrand and Williams study published in the Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality. Its goal was to determine if swinging was a 'dysfunction' due to previous abusive sexual experiences – and found that it wasn't. They were not trying to determine how many swingers there were so they had 1092 self professed swingers take an on-line survey. There were some interesting data that come for this report:

 

The typical swinger in this study was 39 years old, had two years of college education, had been married 1.5 times, was in a current marriage lasting 10.5 years, and had been involved in swinging for 5 years. The subjects were predominately white at 90.4 percent of the sample. African-American’s were 4.1 percent of those sampled, Hispanic’s were 3.0 percent, and 1.5 percent indicated “other”.

 

The majority fall into the middle to upper-middle classes and tend to be in professional and management positions.

 

The results suggest that swingers in the sample are the white, middle-class, middle-aged, church-going segment of the population reported in earlier studies. They are, however, more “middle-of-the-road” politically than other studies have found and, at least when it comes to attitudes about sex and marriage, may be less racist, less sexist, and less heterosexist than the general population.

 

There final conclusion:

 

A final measure of the normalcy (as opposed to marginality) of the swinging population used in this research was the presence of abuse or dysfunctional family backgrounds in their histories. Since abuse and family dysfunction are theoretically more likely to produce sex addictions and other disturbed relationship patterns, its elimination as an explanation of the motivation for swinging is important if we are not going to pathologize the swinger. It was assumed in this study that if swingers were more likely than the general population to come from abusive or dysfunctional backgrounds they then would tend to view human nature as more evil or perverse. Table 13 shows the results of this question comparing the two samples. Contrary to the assumptions underlying the pathological view of swingers, no statistically significant differences between the groups were found. If anything, the data suggest that swingers may view human nature as “good” slightly more than the GSS population.

 

So how many swingers are there? Enough to keep this and so many other websites running...but not so many that finding a perfect match doesn't require a fair amount of time and effort. And there are never enough unicorns...

 

Which way to the rabbit hole exit?

[adamgunn 1,460]

Yes, I also feel the age of swingers is tilted towards later in life.

 

Many couples get married in their twenties and early thirties, believe that monogamy is the way to live, I don't think the interest in other people goes away, it's just subdued. Then as the couple reaches their late forties and fifties, the children are growing into high school, they begin to look at being empty nesters. They see their sex life as ordinary, if not just plain boring. This is the point when some couples start fantasizing and consider non-monogamy. And some take the next step, enter the LifeStyle.

 

Certainly not all swinging couples follow this pattern, it just seems typical.

[MrandMrsA 76]

Yes, I also feel the age of swingers is tilted towards later in life.

 

Many couples get married in their twenties and early thirties, believe that monogamy is the way to live, I don't think the interest in other people goes away, it's just subdued. Then as the couple reaches their late forties and fifties, the children are growing into high school, they begin to look at being empty nesters. They see their sex life as ordinary, if not just plain boring. This is the point when some couples start fantasizing and consider non-monogamy. And some take the next step, enter the LifeStyle.

 

Certainly not all swinging couples follow this pattern, it just seems typical.

 

It's as if you can see us and are writting our story! ???

 

It just took a catalyst to get us started - we stumbled on PBTV "Swing". Next thing we knew - we fell down GoldCoCouple's rabbit hole.?

[Emt 91]

It's as if you can see us and are writting our story!

 

It just took a catalyst to get us started - we stumbled on PBTV "Swing". Next thing we knew - we fell down GoldCoCouple's rabbit hole.

 

 

I can't speak for anyone else here but another member suggesting we watch "Swing" has been our standard routine/foreplay over the past few weeks!! Gets us both seriously hot and sexually charged!!

 

I only wish I could subscribe to it through Sling. Ha! We're Slingers AND Swingers!!

[Manitobacpl 81]

Holly smoke ?.. we sure started something there ....

[padoc 1,703]

JandK, you have a good point. In the late 60's, I was a teenager and my family lived in an isolated town in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania (some refer to this portion of the state as Pennsyltucky). Looking back with 20/20 hindsight and recalling a few things I saw and a lot of overheard conversations, I think there was a group of couples in their 30's-40's who had some pretty risqué parties. My folks are both gone so I can't verify now but they were at least on the periphery of that group.

[Guest]

Well...I would guess that maybe less than 1/10th of 1% are swingers (one out of a thousand couples). But hey, medical studies and lab tests show that only 1 out of 100,000 people are actually gluten intolerant or allergic. So, be careful about anecdotal stuff, marketing, wishful thinking, and comparing normal life experiences to a lifestyle. People experiment with sex and sometimes a situation comes up that people step out in a moment of curiosity or convenience. It doesn't mean they are swingers. At this moment I can think of 6 married friends, male and female that have experimented or have been a part of a threesome, or had sex in front of someone else, and they are NOT swingers.

[MrandMrsA 76]

My folks are both gone so I can't verify now but they were at least on the periphery of that group.

 

Did you know that there may be a generic component to nonmonogmy?

[the Nomads 78]

We got to talking about it waiting for a post coital reset and ended up pulling up PBtv Swing as well. its helped quite a bit once we realized that not everyone looks like that. As for the age issue it does feel like we are on the younger side of things though the florida location could have something to do with that.

 

Mr. Nomad

[MrandMrsA 76]

Did you know that there may be a generic component to nonmonogmy?

 

That was supposed to be genetic component! Fucking spell correct!

 

Thanks for the correction Emt.

[Fundamental Law 2,885]

genetic component

Well, one of us is a geneticist and it would be hard to separate heritable (genetic) factors from subtle behavioral imprinting. One approach would be to look at children of swinger families where one or more children are adopted yet raised in the same environment. Another would be to go back to some of the twins-separated-at birth-and-placed in different homes. We think that kids pick up on parental behavioral attitudes and cues. Many kids of swinger parents eventually "get it" that mom and dad are happy and they are fine with that. They may not immediately embrace the LS, but they may gravitate to partners with personalities that align with the LS and be less resistant to the idea if an when the opportunity comes up.