Sex, Jealousy, men, and women

Jealousy occurs when you feel a valued relationship is threatened. In an evolutionary perspective, jealousy function as a way to motivate people to fight of threats against their relationships. Men feel a stronger sexual jealousy than women do. The reason in an evolutionary perspective is that female infidelity and hence the risk that other men impregnates their partner reduces the man’s possibility to reproduce himself. For women the strength of the feeling of sexual jealousy is dependent of the risk she feels there is that it will make her lose her partner to another woman. The sex itself don’t have the same importance as for men.

Strong feeling

Sexual jealousy is a very strong feeling. It can lead to loss of self-esteem, feelings of sadness, depression, rage, embarrassment and humiliation. It is also the primary source for domestic violence and the leading course of the murder of mates or ex-mates. As men react most vividly to sexual jealousy, it is not surprising that they have the most violent reactions.

Infidelity

In many studies, it is documented that men react more to sexual infidelity that women do and than women reacts more to emotional infidelity than men do. These studies also finds that men spend much more cognitive time on sexual infidelity and remember sexual infidelity much more that women do and vice versa for emotional infidelity.

The strength of male jealousy is increased if their rival are conceived as more attractive. That is wealthier, have better job prospects or more physical strength. Women reacts more if a rival surpass them on facial or bodily attractiveness.

Swinging

When a man engages in swinging or the like, he is motivated by his desire for sexual variety and at the same time he is more in control of the situation. This is the reasons that many men don’t feel the same sexual jealousy in these situations. Women on the other hand don’t fear that they will lose their partner to another woman in the swinging context and hence they also feel less sexual jealousy.

Swingers often explain that they are nervous about jealousy before they engage in the lifestyle but that they after experiencing their partner with someone else a few times actually feel liberated from their jealousy and that it make them love their partner even more. Several studies find that for most swinging people sexual jealousy diminishes over time and mutual trust between the partners are strengthened. Swingers communicate a lot about sex and their feelings in general, which make them better able to handle jealousy. Sex with others becomes a natural and fun thing and is not seen as a threat to their relationships. The lack of jealousy among swinging couples make their relationships more open and trusting in general. Some swingers even express that they feel compersion. This is the opposite of jealousy where you feel joy when your partner have sexual or emotional experiences with others.

However, jealousy does occur. Some get jealous if their partner share intimate feelings with others, some if their partners have more sexual encounters with others than themselves, some if their partners kisses someone else, some get jealous if their partner receives gifts. It is dealt with by being open and talking directly about it. Most swingers make rules for their activities, which is a tool to avoid jealousy. In this way, most swingers are able to handle the feeling of jealousy when they do occur.

 

Source:David M. Buss: sexual jealousy, Kourtney Ty Vaillancourt: Reconstructing the Meaning of Fidelity: A Qualitative Inquiry into Swinging Relationships

 

The Swinging story – US Pilots were the first to swing

In the 1970s, people experimented with open marriages. The idea was that people should allow their partner to do whatever they wanted sexually, and that you did’nt own your partner. Polyamory were you can have several partners at the same time was also widely tested. These relationship types are still chosen by some people but a broader population never accepted them. Swinging on the other hand have been growing steadily during the years. Swinging focuses only on sex there is no emotional bond to the additional sex partners. Swinging couples joins the community together even though one partner might be more active. Swinging is a way to experience sex with other partners under certain agreed upon rules and still be in an emotional monogamous relationship.

US Pilots were the first swingers

There is some evidence that swinging began in the USA during world war 2 among US Air Force Fighter pilots and their families. They had developed a close bond on the air force bases were families took care of each other and were wife swapping was generally accepted. It spread all over the world and gathered momentum during the sexual revolution in the ‘60s and ‘70s. It has gathered further momentum in the recent years as the internet has expanded and made contact among like minded people a lot easier.

In Europe, swinging started in the northern areas and then spread to southern Europe including Italy a little later. In 2007 a studied confirmed earlier studies that about 1,5 mill Italians are swingers. In Italy, the average swinger is 41 years old. Women begin swinging from the age of 25 and men from the age of 30.

Swinger activities and meeting places

Websites for swingers began as amateur sites with personal ads. Today they are professional driven businesses were swingers can hook up with people who have similar interest. They can share photos and videos, they can chat with others in public or privately, they can use web-cams etc. In general, swingers make full use of the market for sexual recreation. They buy sex toys, visit swinger clubs, visit swinger web sites, watch porn, visit erotic fairs, travel to swinger resorts on vacation etc. Its estimated (2007) that Italy have 200 swinger clubs who sells about 700,000 entrance tickets a year, which amounts to 46,600,000 euros in entrance fees.

For vacations, swingers travel to summer residences or small out-of-the-way hotels to meet with other swingers. Alternatively, they travel to bigger resorts were swinging is accepted and were people come to from all over. The most outstanding place in Europe is the naked city of Cap D’agde. Here swingers blend with nudists and can enjoy themselves in a nightlife with several swinger clubs. Another well-known place is Ile di Levant in France, but you can also find swinger resorts in Spain or Greece.

The processes of swinging

Swingers often begin with soft swinging. That is having sex with one’s own partner in swinger clubs and only having limited physical contacts with others. When they have had some experiences they move on to more hard swinging were they might have oral sex and eventually full intercourse with other partners. As long as this is a positive experience, swingers move on to still more advanced sexual experiments. This might include threesomes, group sex, gang banging, sex vacations etc. These experiments makes it possible to find a swinging level that suits the particular couple. After some years, habituation often kicks in and some leave the swinging community completely or only visit it more seldom. They have had the experiences they wanted.

The biggest limitation for swinging couples activities is the fear of social stigma. They are afraid that friends and families will regard them as crazy or morally corrupted. However, western society is getting still more open towards sex and different sexually experiments. This has no doubt been one of the drivers behind the steadily growth of the swinging community.

Source:Fabio D’Orlando: Swinger Economics.