Why is the propaganda against swingers so hateful? Correcting the Record

My husband showed me this meme currently circulating on reddit, and it pissed me off. This meme has 20,000 upvotes. What makes it funny?

I think the joke is making fun of swingers for being weird and undesirable. Before I was a swinger, I shared this widely-held societal belief. But it is untrue and, I think, intentionally misleading. Now that I am a swinger, have friends who are swingers, and know the truth, I’d like to see this hateful anti-swinger propaganda put aside forever.

In my experience, couples who swing are the most attractive couples I have met. Of course, there is variety. Swingers often say there is the same variety in the swinging community as there is in the grocery store, and I think that is fair. But there is this weird thing: strangers come up to me and my husband and ask us if we are swingers all the time. We ask why. They say, every time, that we seemed super happy and sexy and in love. Turns out, among people who actually know swingers, swingers have a reputation of being hot and in love. What quan with the meme? What resonates? And for whom?

While we ponder that question, let me pose another: Who benefits from this representation of swingers?

Reality #1: Swingers are Typically Healthier and Happier than Non-Swingers

In my experience, swingers want to be competitive. We are all playing the field. If we want to hook up with hot couples, we need to be a hot couple. The sexier we are, the sexier our play partners. We have all the motivations vanilla couples have for wanting to be healthy and fit, plus the additional reward of wild sexual play with sexy strangers. I want to be wanted, objectively sexy, and not just to my spouse. I get to go on cruises where everyone at the pool is naked; I get to go to nightclubs and watch people have sex or be watched myself. I want to look good when I do these things. In addition to the standard reasons for wanting to be healthy and have a healthy relationship, I get, “If I am fit, I get to have sex with hotter people,” and, “I have so much fun fucking other people with my partner, I want to live forever.”

Swingers, in my experience, are couples who have lots of sex and also spice it up occasionally with voyeurism, exhibitionism, thirds and/or group play. Couple’s therapist Seth Meyers argues couples who swing are mentally healthier than their traditionally monogamous peers: “I’ve worked with couples who swing and couples who wouldn’t dare, and one distinguishing characteristic I have found is that couples who swing have less fear than monogamous couples. What’s more, they cheat less. In terms of the fear, monogamous couples often fall into the toxic jealousy trap, afraid that a particular behavior or gesture might lead to a full-fledged affair and the end of the relationship. Monogamous couples also often fear that their best days are behind them, that they lost the opportunity for sexual excitement in favor of settling down and getting married. On the other hand, swinging couples are often deeply in love and emotionally connected, but they don’t value sex in the same way their monogamous peers do.” BOOM. Although, swinging is so taboo, there is nearly no studies of swingers to confirm. Who benefits from that?

Vanillas, (i.e. people who do not swing), on the other hand, have fewer incentives to be healthy and maintain a healthy relationship with their spouse. They get the standard reasons like, “It’s good to live a long life,” and, “I want to do right by my partner who I love.” Is that enough of an incentive? Let’s see. “An estimated 160 million Americans are either obese or overweight. Nearly three-quarters of American men and more than 60% of women are obese or overweight.” Twenty-five to fifty percent of married couples reported not having sex last year (a whole year!!), basically doomed to a sexless existence. Even though people who have more sex consistently reporting greater levels of happiness, life satisfaction, meaning, positive moods, marital satisfaction, i.e. “reasons to live,” for some reason, vanilla married couples can’t seem to get it in.

Reality #2: Memes like this Exist to Discourage Swinging

Why do these stereotypes–which depict swingers as unsexy, weird, and unappealing–prevail? You know precisely why! Why? Because swinging enhances relationships, and that is just far too threatening to the big status quo (where everyone is addicted to suffering), the Church and the State. Traditional monogamy, sexual shame and moral judgment are baked in to our culture for reasons. If everyone knew that they would find people like themselves among swingers, if people knew that swingers were often hot, healthy, super in love, highly emotionally intelligent and in tune with their partners, and they get to have the roman bathhouse experiences we all longed for growing up? Well, that’d be threatening. Maybe they’d put down the sugar and pick up a dumbbell. Maybe they’d care less about their next performance evaluation at work. Maybe they’d need less alcohol, less retail therapy, and fewer medications to be happy.

These memes and the societal joke that swingers are gross discourage people from even entertaining the idea of entering the lifestyle. Boo these lies! Don’t believe everything you see on reddit. Come swing, it’s fun. If you think you’d like it, you probably will, and you will probably be healthier, happier, and experience greater levels of marital satisfaction as a result.

Reality #3: Stigma around swinging prevents swingers from speaking up

There is at least one other reason these stereotypes persist, and I want to mention that too: Swingers are rightfully fearful of speaking up. Not unlike homosexuality now or in the recent past, there are serious consequences to being found out as a swinger that keep people you may know in the closet. It is still legal in every state to fire someone because they are a swinger. Imagine, losing your income, your profession, because of who and how you associate. Isn’t that a federally protected right? I guess not. It is also discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Don’t we have a federal law that protects against that? I guess not.

This, in addition to the very real stigma and social consequences tied to swinging, keep even the proudest swingers gagged and hidden. How sad for these people, having accomplished so much freedom, to still not to be free to be who they are around most of the people they know! We can’t speak up for ourselves! Imagine, someone laughing at that reddit meme and showing it to a loved one, not knowing they are a swinger because (obviously) the family couldn’t stand to know it. How ick and unseen the loved one will feel while also not saying anything! That is how wrongful, hurtful stereotypes continue, and no one is to blame. Well, close-minded people might be to blame. Close-minded systems, rather. I hope for the day when everyone can adopt the “live and let live mentality” of swingers. Where swingers are safe to be out and proud.

In the meantime, reddit hoes: