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Guest Androgynygrl

Terminology: why use the term swinger?

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Guest Androgynygrl

I'm just curious who likes the term swinger?

 

To me I think swinger and automatically conjure up a picture in my head of wife swapping hippies. I think I prefer open or hedonist. Even sexually fluid? I think in general when people hear swinger they assume it's men in control and women being rented out for sport. Terminology is always changing and evolving.

 

I'm just interested to know who likes the term swinger and doesn't mind identifying as such and who prefers another term and why? I don't use swinger in my vocabulary because I assume people will imagine full swap scenarios and we only play with women. Also as a military spouse I know the history of swinging in the military community and I'm really not sure I want people pegging me in that slot either. The military swingers I've known were indiscriminate. Key swap parties and such. Not at all my scene. I used to consider myself kinky but after spending time on FetLife I'm feeling pretty darn vanilla. LOL I guess the term for me is sexual free or hedonist. How about you?

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Guest Androgynygrl

I hope I'm not offending anyone with these questions. I'm just really fascinated by the power of words and the labels we use to define ourselves.

 

As a sex worker outreach person I get hit with this a lot. We use the broad term sex worker, but many strippers and web cam girls don't want to be called sex workers. Escorts hate to be called prostitutes, porn stars will swear up and down that they see themselves as adult movie actresses. There's no one term that everyone is comfortable with so society just had to pick one, "sex worker", to broadly identify all kinds of people. Technically, would selling sex toys make you a sex worker? Depends on your point of view. I identify as queer to the LGBTQ community because queer means different, or odd. I feel this is me. To straight people I usually say bisexual because they generally wouldn't get the concept of mostly lesbian but married to a man so it's just easier. It's just interesting the boxes we categorize ourselves into isn't it?

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Maybe it is just a language thing, but for me (and my girl and friends here) it does not sound as 'wife swapping hippies'. It is a happy and positive word, like the music and the playground it can refer to too. Besides, what's wrong with wife swapping hippies? :lol:

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No matter what you want to call it, I don't think it will make any difference. Our 'sanitation engineer' will always be the garbage man (and in our case, it's a woman who drives the automated trash dumping truck). We won't have sex with just anyone, we need for there to be a greater emotional connection, so we don't just 'swing' with anyone. And as for the term 'lifestyle' (as in 'THE lifestyle'), for us it isn't a 'lifestyle'...it's more of a hobby :).

 

We don't see the general public changing so no matter what words anyone may want to use, the public will eventually say 'Ohhhhh, so you mean swingers'. We don't agree with and/or like some of the words, but they are still only words and don't 'define' who we are.

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Words reflect attitudes of society, whether we like them or not. Many of the words around sex reflect the dominance of men over women and disdain for people that arrange their lives around (or even have thoughts of) non-monogamy. Things change, albeit slowly, so we now see the acceptance of many words that were formerly insults as just descriptions as attitudes change and non-traditional lives are accepted.

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I'll admit my knowledge of swinging is somewhat limited. Books I've read, stories shared by Mrs. Intuition about her situation, and my one time experience of a house party of mostly older people from the 60's generation where I truly felt like I was a steak in a lion cage at 20 something years old. Needless to say we didn't stay long. The other was military couples on the base . That situation involved key clubs and women putting Tide boxes in the window when their husbands were on tour to indicate they were "available". Yes this really happened and still happens when the men deploy. The Tide box means surrogate penis would be appreciated. LOL No judgement just that's what I saw as swinging and that didn't define me. I see now it's used as more an umbrella term for all types of consensual sexual play within a couple.

 

Not to be rude but maybe, since your knowledge of swinging is limited, you should start by doing some reading here and asking more general questions about swinging first. Instead of asking why we use the term swingers, ask what the term swingers means to the people here. Same discussion, different approach. Just my $.02, take it for what it's worth.

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Looking at older threads can be very useful and I also highly recommend them as well, but I can also understand the desire to ask current active members their opinions for a more interactive experience. :)

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"Surrogate penis would be appreciated." LMAO.

 

You may not have direct personal experience with swinging (at least the standard heterosexual full-swap variety), but you did have a front row seat to life on a military base. Having visited AG when she lived on base, I can say it's a totally different world. The culture is NOT the same as your average suburb. With families apart due to deployment, frequent moves, soldiers coming home with PTSD, etc, it's no wonder that she's seen some fucked up sexual practices in the neighbourhood. It's not an easy life, not for the faint of heart. The impressions AG has of swinging are a direct result of actually seeing some pretty negative (or at least very hard-core) examples of it.

 

Personally, I don't care what word we use for it; as others have said, people will apply their own understanding of it to whatever term you use. The words will change, but ultimately, putting a pretty pink bow on it won't make it any more palatable for, say, my Mom. I don't mind the term swinger, partly because it's misunderstood. It's the icebreaker that would allow me to get in there and educate someone about what it is and is not. Swinging? You mean like key parties? Ew! Well, I'd say, actually it's more like this...

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I hope I'm not offending anyone with these questions.

 

If anyone is offended by this line of questioning, they'll get over it. ;)

 

We're in the same frame of mind as sunbuckus. It's a neutral term for us. Maybe even a positive. If I remember correctly, we used "the lifestyle", and "responsible non-monogamy" occasionally. But, in the end, take the ribbons and bows off, and it's, well, swinging. :)

 

As for the military. Is this Canadian military where these experiences happened? As former U.S. military, we always heard of such things, and of course someone knew someone who knew someone that heard of a instance of a key party or a "deployment brothel", but no first hand knowledge. Thanks for sharing the Tide info. That is interesting.

 

Thanks for starting the thread. It's fun to sometimes explore subjects that you take for granted that everyone is on the same page, when obviously they aren't.

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I agree, no matter the name you give it, when asked what are you referring to, some people are going to connect it with "swinger or swinging". If you are open to talk to others about it, I'm sure you don't mind what's it's called. I know I don't.

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I agree that the term "swinger" seems like from the sixties, hippie culture. People who are married having sex with other people who are married is more common than most people think. It's just a party!

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It's funny being from the 60's hippie culture. That "culture" is more manufactured by media than the experience me, my wife, and friends from then had. Sure there was some free love, but it was a lot more like what it is today. You start off not being sure of what you're doing and then with experience become experienced. Those of us in our twenties then were just as oogled over by the older crowd as the younger ones are today. Never went to a key party and never experienced the military. Each of our personal experiences has so much to do with the friends we shared with and the new friends we decided on.

 

Being from the hippie culture of the 60's means we are in our sixties now. Sometimes we get the rolled eyes or the polite no thanks because we are so old, and yes we do remember how we thought of people in their sixties when we were in our twenties. But 60 doesn't seem old when you're 60. And we've had some young men and women who preferred the experience and the drama free exuberance of we old farts.

 

But we still feel like hippies. That peace, love, and sexual openness still rings true.

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Guest Ready2dewit

I think it is just a term that has stuck. It's widely accepted and seems to still be pertinent. I usually use the more open term "the lifestyle" as in "are you folks in the lifestyle?" If they don't know what I"m talking about, they probably aren't! LOL

 

I know some people find the term "swinger" tacky and anachronistic, but it seems to still get the message across...maybe it'll morph over time if somebody comes up with a new term. Maybe we should have a contest?

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An even better question: where did the term 'swinger' even come from? I've looked but never found where the term originated from. Maybe because someone is 'swinging' from one partner to another? Wouldn't a better term be 'swapper' since that is more in line with what is happening? 'The Lifestyle' is just a secret phrase that swingers use to identify each other. If you know what it means, you may belong to the 'club'. Looking at the (modern) 'history' of swinging, it does usually say that it started as 'wife swapping' during WWII but at some time in the 1970's the term 'swinging' started being used but most still preferred the term 'swapping'. The only story I can find about the origin of the term 'swinging' is a totally unsubstantiated story about an unnamed Minister who told his congregation that there were weird people who were 'swinging back and forth from bed to bed' in the same manner as monkeys. No names, no location, not even a denomination of the church to help substantiate this story. Modern history also tells of the 'key parties' and/or 'key clubs'...why don't we use the term 'amateur locksmith' since they were dealing with keys and opening up things for other people (lol)? As I have already said in an earlier post, we're not excited by the term, but don't see any way to change it to something else...so we use it. Being the 'nerd' that I am, I needed to try and find out where the term even came from but really wasn't able to find anything definitive (yet). Fear not, I'll keep looking...

 

Side Bar: I say modern history since swapping has been going on for decades. In Roman times, swinging was widely practiced and accepted. Relationships, social status, and family obligations were as serious as at any other time in history, but citizens moved freely between the classes (including slave classes) in sexual activities. From Nero’s infamous bath to the frequent orgies, Romans were not shy in their sexual emancipation. Swinging in earlier times was undoubtedly common, but is difficult to document. In feudal Asia, as well as ancient middle-east, married women “did their duty” for lords and/or for temples, providing them with a sexual outlet irregardless of their husbands approval. The Asiatic Eskimos had the custom of sharing wives between partners (nangsaghag) who were considered "brothers". They all shared food, helped each other in the hunt, and showed each other hospitality. This also included the right to enter into sexual relations with each others wives. On the Aleutian Islands, southwest of Alaska, etiquette required that men should place their wives at the disposal of guests. What might seem as a somewhat extreme form of hospitality makes a lot of sense in the face of evolution. With tribes being isolated from each other for most of their lives they ran into the danger of inbreeding. By sharing their wives with travelers they were able to add more genetic diversity to their gene pool. Another type of wife-sharing practiced by the Eskimos was reciprocal spouse exchange, sometimes described as co-marriage. It was found in all or almost all areas inhabited by the Eskimos. Besides the obvious motive of sex with a new partner, the purpose was to strengthen economic and friendship bonds between the two families, who could depend on each other in times of need.

 

Wife-lending was a practice in pre-Islamic Arabia whereby husbands allowed their wives to live with "men of distinction" to produce noble offspring. The husband, who abstained while his wife lived with the other man, would then be socially considered the father of the child.

 

In Africa, temporary spouse-trading is practiced as an element of ritual initiation into the Lemba secret society in the French Congo through "wife exchange:"

 

In South America the Araweté (Asurini) in the state of Pará, Brazil, practiced "spouse-swapping". When a woman becomes pregnant in the Bari tribe of Venezuela, the women would often take other male lovers. These additional lovers then take on the role of secondary fathers to the child where if the primary father should die, the other men would have a social obligation to support these children.

 

The first actual record dates back to April 22, 1587 where a formal arrangement was signed by John Dee, his wife Lynae, his scryer (fortune teller), Edward Kelley and wife Joanna, whereby conjugal relations would be share between the men and their wives. It has been claimed that two related 18th-century messianic Jewish sects—the Frankists, followers of Jacob Frank, and the Dönmeh, followers of Shabbetai Zvi—held an annual springtime Lamb Festival, which consisted of a celebratory dinner that included a ritualized exchange of spouses.

 

Even Ben Franklin was known to be a nudist and enjoying his sexuality by "swinging" (fathering at least one child this way).

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Semantics! Gotta love it. To me, "swingers" makes me think of the "rat pack" (Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, etc.).

 

"The Lifestyle" doesn't work for me since everyone has a lifestyle. Swappers? Meh.

 

If anyone has the perfect word that conveys the meaning of our wonderful hobby, please share!

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Guest Ready2dewit

Speaking of swinger history (from GoldCoCouples post) has anyone else heard the legend of the "Leidie List" The story goes that there was a sales guy named Leidie, or something like that, and in his travels he compiled a list of couples in various places that were in the lifestyle (we're talking back in the late 40's early 50's, I think). He grew his list and exchanged it among people so there was kind of an underground way to know who was into the lifestyle back before the days of contact magazines, etc. Kind of paved the way for the early contact magazines and the great-grandfather of sites like SLS today.

 

Interesting story, don't know if it is true, am wondering if any of our worldly forum members have heard of it?

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The reason nothing came up, is that it is spelled 'Leidy'. That was indeed right after WWII. A veteran named Leidy was a former airforce pilot who became a salesman. To know where to find people to swing with, he called up his former pilot colleagues and from there he made this infamous list, which her made copies off to give to the people listed in it. And it grew while he traveled, of course. The list became an item on it's own, shared among the suburbs. Or so the story goes, never have seen this tale being confirmed.

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The reason nothing came up, is that it is spelled 'Leidy'. That was indeed right after WWII. A veteran named Leidy was a former airforce pilot who became a salesman. To know where to find people to swing with, he called up his former pilot colleagues and from there he made this infamous list, which her made copies off to give to the people listed in it. And it grew while he traveled, of course. The list became an item on it's own, shared among the suburbs. Or so the story goes, never have seen this tale being confirmed.

 

Here's what I found:

 

The Social History of the American Family: An Encyclopedia

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Guest Ready2dewit

Guess I had it spelled wrong, but thanks to the other posters who at least proved I wasn't crazy or delusional! About this at least.........

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