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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.

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?

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 ...

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.

This is the OP on our mutual account. I just copy pasted (below) from another post I typed a few days ago. Everything everyone is saying is true. "We tried after just 2 weeks of talking about it. Did just about everything wrong you could do. Our very stable and loving relationship took a hit, this is something she has wanted for a long time and just brought it to my attention. She said it was done, never again, etc. I told her I wanted to try it with her and talked it over. After 6 or 8 weeks of full discussions, what went wrong, how we feel, what we want and expect, what to do, not to do, safe touch, safe words, and so on, we tried again. We now have 2 couples we play with regularly, one of them we hang out with as friends now, without playing as well(not everyone's cup of tea, but we enjoy it and the friendship) Everything has gone smooth, and with the help of others here, our communication is excellent (thank you GoldCoCouple for the advice) so when there is a "bump" we bring it up after the experience and adjust our rules and boundaries. Make sure you both know what you are getting into and the first time, at least for us, is not what you expect. Hell, sometimes with our regulars it isn't what we expected, we just make a point to have fun and keep to our rules." So overall bad experience turned good with communication and time.

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.?

Both me and my SO can and are much more open and honest about...everything. While I always wanted to be more 'kinky' in my previous relationship, she was too afraid and untrusting to even consider swinging, or a threesome, or even just watching another couple having live sex (porn was okay, but only in the bedroom). I never imagined seeing, let alone doing, most of the things we have done. Friends are much more fun when you can talk openly about sex!

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.

Among the things I could have contracted, I’ll take the sore throat.

Alura, how interesting! You know, my wife and I were talking about something similar just the other day. We both had bad colds this year and it was the first time either of us have been sick in well over 10 years. The country seems to have been in constant drama and turmoil the past couple of years. With the nasty tweets and the constant fighting of the partisan Congress, it's a daily thing. I've wondered if the stress that so many of us deal with has increased the amount of illness. You know, it might be a good study for someone looking for a topic for a masters or PHD thesis?

Just because someone is better at ONE THING, nothing else matters...I don't think so. Any time we find something that someone else is better at, we ask the other to teach us how they did it so we can get better and do it again.

I like your food analogy. I like Italian, Steak, Thai, Chinese, Greek (yeah I know), Southern and I’m willing to try new things. I am not giving up the corned beef sandwich just because I had pizza. And now I learned I enjoy Clams, lol, but not giving up hot dogs.

We’ve been in this to one extent or another for more years than I care to remember. My most astounding discovery was the educational value it provided both of us. We’re all reluctant to critic the love making skills of our SO. We are also unable to conceal our reaction to somebody doing something new and very pleasurable to us for the first time. The course we adopted was to not look at it as somebody being better, but instead ask what it was they did that you found so pleasurable. Most often, that proved to be a simple technique easily learned and added to our repertoire of skills. Lovemaking skills aren’t inherited naturally. They are learned and perfected skills, taught through trial and error. The greatest lovers are those who took the time and effort to learn how to provide ecstasy to the person they’re with. With that in mind my suggestion is to not ask, “was he/she better than me.” Instead ask, “You really got off on whatever he/she was doing to you. What did they do to get that reaction from you?” Then work on whatever it was until you are better than they were.

Condoms don’t feel good to anyone. STDs don’t feel good, either.

Eurotrash, I am eager to see the referreed journals that support your hypothesis that HIV does not cause or lead to AIDS. I ask for this because I think it is easy for all of us to make broad generalizations about important topics without really critically evaluating the research. So...I would appreciate the citations.

I think ya'll are great people, but I have to give my opinion on this. I think it is not good to in a way tell people not to use protection. I'm sorry, and I am NOT meaning to offend you in any way, or imply that you have poor judgement. BUT there are people who read these posts. You have every right to your opinion, and every right to determine what you do with your body within your comfort zone. AND I know that there is no 100% effective protection other than abstinence. But I do think that people should be careful in saying that its okay not to use a condom, when people can read this and say "well, they don't use one, so we won't either." Now, this is completely jmo. And again, please forgive me if I offend. But condoms, although not 100% safe, definately are safer than not using one at all.