“I want to offer our friends – a married couple – exchange partners,” one friend shared with me. “Swing?” I asked. “Well, yes,” she answered without a note of embarrassment.     

This statement did not cause any protests or surprise, but it would be cunning to say that I took it for granted. I can’t call myself a hypocrite, but it all seemed a little wild. Maybe I just lagged behind life? It Does mean specialists in marriage, when they said that the husband and wife, it is desirable to have a common hobby, which they might like to have at least once a week ?!   

Swing? Swing!

As it turned out, swing is a movement that is getting stronger every year, the number of supporters of this form of leisure is steadily growing. If you believe the research data, in the largest cities of Russia, every eighth pair tries proximity with another pair, and every twentieth does this anyhow regularly. The number of fans of swinging is constantly growing, at about 1 percent per year. If this trend continues, then in 15 years in Russia a fifth of all families and couples will be engaged in it. It seems that a new form of sex is being born before our eyes. Is there really a future for her ?  

Where the wind blows

Of course, this “genre” of sexual relations is not a new phenomenon, it was practiced en masse in ancient Rome, among the Eskimos, and in some primitive cultures (I think it’s not worth reminding how they ended up there). Some higher monkeys are not indifferent to swing. 

The swift twentieth century has become a kind of “rebirth era” for swing. Swinging began to take shape in the movement among American hippies. It owes its birth to an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases, which began to mow the ranks of supporters of free love. Hippies believed that sexual intercourse with people legally married was the best way to protect against unpleasant diseases of the genitourinary system. Today, swingers are fighting for the recognition of their movement as official, actively promoting this form of social and sexual activity, publishing their own newspapers and magazines. 

Interest club

Modern swinger communities prefer to protect themselves with absolute secrecy. This environment has its own code of honor calling for “to protect the anonymity of swingers, to refrain from unauthorized mentioning of names”. In addition, according to the ten commandments of the swingers, it is completely ruled out that anyone was forced to swing, attempts to destroy the marriage, disrespect for partners, and any illegal activities defaming the “like-minded circle”.

The afflicted find each other, first of all, on the World Wide Web. It’s enough to drive the word “swing” into any search engine, and you will see more than a dozen links to various sites and forums that provide comprehensive information on a topic of interest. On some resources, you can arrange a meeting with like-minded people.

Most often, meetings of the “affinity club” take place in ordinary restaurants or clubs. And since the participants do not know each other in person, they agree on a certain symbol that makes it possible to see their own among strangers. So, for example, in Moscow these modern shtirlits come to a meeting in black wide-brimmed hats. As a rule, a prerequisite for joining a “club” is the presence of a couple, but sometimes this is not necessary. 

Today, such meetings are possible only in megacities such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk. However, the growth rate of the swing movement in Russia, as well as the President’s program “Internet to Every Home” give every reason to believe that after ten years the meetings of the “club of interests” will take place in almost every hayloft of our vast Motherland.