Swingers come from all walks of life.
It is one group of people that can not really be labeled in any way except for saying that they swing.
Though dominantly white and upper middle class people of all races, incomes, and education levels swing.
In swinging there is very little descrimination about such things.
Estimates of how many swingers are in the USA range from about three million to eight million.
Wikipedia references an
ABC News reporter John Stossel producing an investigative report into the swinging lifestyle. John Stossel reported that at that time, more than four million people were swingers, according to estimates by the Kinsey Institute and other researchers.
With a US population of 310,500,000... 4 million swingers in America... That is about 1 out of every 77 people!
If we go with the high end estimate we are looking at 1 in every 39 people.
Take the lowest possible estimate and we have 1 in every 103 people.
That is a lot of people know matter how you look at it!
If we wish to go with the lower estimate of 1/103 = "Swinger", there is virtually no way a person doesn't know at least a few swingers.
If we go with the higher estimate of 1/39 = "swinger", we can assume that at least a few of our close friends swing.
Consider the number of couples you know.
If you know 20 couples and use that ratio then at least one of those couples probably are swingers.
As for getting back to the
who part of this.
One good study done back in 2000 by Dr. Curtis Bergstrand, Associate Professor of Sociology, Bellarmine University and Jennifer Blevins Williams also of the Department of Sociology, Bellarmine University came up with some very interesting results.
You can find it
here if you wish to check it all out, but the parts I found most interesting are:
From this study -
The averaged typical swinger age was 39 years old.
Was in a current marriage lasting 10.5 years.
Had been involved in swinging for 5 years.
Swingers represent the full spectrum political orentation.
Democrat 31.7%; Republican 27.7%; Independent 27.0%; Other 13.6%
They are decidedly more liberal however than average.
Table 3. Comparison of Swingers and GSS Sample On Political Ideology
|
|
1=Liberal |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5=Conservative |
Total |
|
GSS Sample
(N=29,788) |
39.4% |
12.1% |
12.6% |
8.9% |
25.7% |
100% |
|
Swingers
(N=1092) |
11% |
19% |
43.6% |
19.7% |
6.8% |
100% |
Chi Square =
46.14
df =
4
n.s.
The study also found that swingers are slightly more likely than the general population to say that they are members of a religious organization.
Where the study gets particulary interesting is when it gets to the
Measures of Marital and General Life Satisfaction.
Swinging couples have higher levels of happiness than married couples in the general population.
62.6% of swingers found that swinging improved their marriages/relationships, 35.6% said their relationships stayed about the same, and only 1.7% said they became less happy.
Even among those who said their marriages were "Very Happy" prior to swinging nearly half (49.7%) said they became happier.
Among those with the most unhappy marriages 90.4% said their relationship became happier after swinging.
So... basicaly swinging tends to improve the perceived quality of a couples' marriages regardless of how satisfying it was before swinging.
I found all of that info very interesting.
Again... If your like to read the whole thing you can find it
here.
The Swinging Paradigm is another interesting study on swinging.
This 2009 informal web based study gives a lot of insight into swinging.
Using an online survey form and soliciting self described "swingers" 1,376 respondents gave the world some cool data.
Of those respondents about one-fifth of the men and about two-thirds of the women identified themselves as bisexual.
Less than 1% of both men and women reported being homosexual.
One of the most interesting aspects of that data is that online less than 1 in 30 males admit bisexual desires on swinging match making sites.
The average range of ages of both men and women was between thirty-six and forty-five years of age, and the sample was predominantly white.
Less than 1% of the respondents were under twenty-five years of age; and about .3% of the sample was over the age of sixty-five.
If you go to any large club this age range is pretty much what you will see as the dominant age group.
I personaly always say the average swinger is around age 40.
Approximately two-thirds of the respondents were married or cohabiting, while the remainders were single, widowed, divorced, or other.
About half the respondents were in their first marriage, one -fourth was in their second marriage, and the remainder of the respondents reported being married for the third time.
I personaly would say that is a pretty good picture of it, but I would guees that of the hundreds of couples I have met at least 60% are on their first marriage.One-third of the men and women had been in their present relationship between ten to twenty years, while about 5% reported having been in the relationship for less than one year. One-third of the sample had been married for over twenty years.
The typical respondent had a college education; about two-thirds of the respondents had at least an associate's degree, bachelor's degree, or some post-graduate education.
Swinging satisfaction for both men and women was closely matched in this sample of swingers.
More than half the men and women reported being highly satisfied with their swinging experience albeit close to 45% of the men and women reported enjoying swinging only occasionally. Less than .5% of the respondents said they did not enjoy swinging.
The responses to the question of who first introduced the idea of swinging to the relationship show that more than two-thirds of the men reported having introduced the idea of swinging to their spouses; in contrast, less than one-third of the women admitted to having done so.
I personaly would have guessed it to be a much higher percentage of men introducing the idea of swinging because I have heard it being that way so many times.
About two-thirds of the respondents reported living in either urban or suburban communities with a population density between 100,000 or over 1 million people.
About one-fourth reported living in a rural setting with a population density of less than 50,000 people.
Swingers are every day ordanary people except for the fact that they swing.
They hold regular jobs, and have regular lives.
They are our coworkers, neibors, and friends.
They are... just people of all walks of life.
