The Opening of the American Marriage?

Last weekend, the Husband and I had two other couples out to visit us at our house. We had a smashing time. Good food, good wine, bottomless cocktail glasses, many laughs. I love my friends. Adore them, actually. Attractive, witty, successful, interesting people they are.

Nevertheless, I won't lie: I have no desire to have an orgy with them.

Not that they were asking, just to clarify.

But still, I've been watching CBS's Swingtown, and it's gotten me thinking about what it might have been like to have been a married suburbanite in the mid-1970's, when Swingtown is set.

Swingtown's central characters are Susan and Bruce Miller, who in the first episode, move from their modest ranch in a middle class suburban housing development to an elegant, traditional home (symbolism alert!) in an affluent neighborhood. Actually, it's just a few blocks away from their old house, but it might as well be on a different planet for reasons that go far beyond the quality of the architecture: their new across-the-street neighbors are Trina and Tom Decker, who within mere minutes of the Millers' arrival, welcome Susan and Bruce with a bottle of champagne and a boatload of innuendo (mustachioed Tom, played to sleazy perfection by former Melrose Place heartthrob, Grant Show, has never met a smarmy double entendre that he didn't adopt as his own, and Trina, looking like Donna Pescow's younger and sleaker sister, seems never to have met a married couple that she didn't feel compelled to seduce). The Deckers also present the Millers with an invitation to a party that very night at their open-plan, modern house (more symbolism!).

Like lambs to the slaughter, Susan and Bruce make their journey "across the street" (still more symbolism!), where Trina sings the praises of open marriage (if only that poor Gail Saxton would just open her marriage, then maybe she wouldn't have to be a disgusting old coke whore!) . She also offers Susan her very first quaalude, which Susan swallows obediently (without water!). Susan and Bruce, who have spent the past 16 years raising their two children and who have never had sex with anyone except each other, cap off their night, as well as Swingtown's pilot episode, with a romp in Trina and Tom's basement-level "playroom" (it should be noted here that Trina and Tom have no kids).

With Trina and Tom.

The next episode, there is absolutely zero awkwardness between the two couples. This, despite that they have seen each other naked. This, despite that they have seen each other seeing each other naked. Despite that neither Susan nor Bruce has had any prior experience with "the morning after" after casual sex, or for that matter, the morning after any sex with anyone other than each other.

Maybe I am a bit naive, but this scenario struck me as not just a bit implausible. But then, what do I know about it? I was but a child of 10 for most of 1976, and all I remember of the parties my parents threw back then was the rumaki and the Lipton's onion dip. Maybe the grownups back then were way more sophisticated than I ever could have realized? Maybe they were somehow, truly more "open" than I am even capable of imagining?

If that is true, then perhaps they were also less picky about their sexual partners? The Deckers' wild parties feature a never-ending carnival of hook-ups. You can always find an orgy going on in the "playroom", and regardless of who is participating, Trina and Tom are usually willing to join in the fun. Maybe this is because they only invite people with whom they would both be willing to have sex?

Or perhaps they are simply not as selective with regard to their sexual partners as, say, I would be.

Call me crazy, but I can't see myself having sex with someone to whom I was not attracted, even if I were IN an open marriage (which I am not). If I were at a party where keys were being swapped or "open-season" had been otherwise declared (not that I ever have been), I would probably be the girl hiding behind a piece of furniture, cringing, "Gee, I hope I don't have to sleep with that guy. Or that guy. Or that guy." And even if, somehow, there was someone at the party with whom I could even imagine myself getting intimate -- would I even be in the mood?

I remember seeing Ang Lee's The Ice Storm and wondering the same thing. In the film, set in 1973, some of the characters attend a "key party" (at which that evening's sex partners are assigned by lottery; the men throw their keys in a bowl, and the women close their eyes, pick out a key and go home with the key's owner, marital vows be damned). Unlike the Deckers and their friends, the party-goers in The Ice Storm seem, for the most part, genuinely frightened and/or disgusted by what they are doing.

Which led me to wonder: why do it?

Swingtown does not exactly beg that question. Instead, it depicts a slice of the world during a slice of the 20th Century in which, if we are to believe the hype, everyone looked like a potential sexual partner, and everyone was always in the mood.

Speaking of the hype, I checked with some folks who were right around the same age as the Deckers and the Millers back in 1976, and while there was unanimous confirmation as to the existence of key parties and mate-swapping back then, no one, and I mean no one, was willing to cop to having participated. As a wise philosopher once queried (and I paraphrase): If a swinger swung in the 70's, and no one was there to see it, did it make a sound?

Either way, I'm just really, really, really glad that I live in an era where sexual freedom means that I don't have to feel that a night out with my friends is incomplete without an orgy in the playroom. As attractive as my friends are, the Husband and I haven't even gotten around to finishing our basement. And besides, after a really good meal, a couple of cocktails and a whole lot of laughter, all I really want to do is pass out on the couch.

Comments

[JJ30]

Most of you on here talk as though this happened in the 70's and it doesn't go on today. Swinging is very much alive today (may not not as apparent and open than in the 70's) but it's very much alive. It's probbaly happening in your neighborhood and you wouldn't even know it.

[Lauren Cahn - Huffpost Blogger]

Hey, JJ, how about inviting us to a block party?

[fleaba]

Ah yes, the 70s.
The one thing I can say is that after all those partners, the sex was really pretty mediocre.. Sure there were moments,(like the two cowboys at the Boulder rodeo) but they were fleeting.

The best sex, for me, happened to be with someone I could really trust and could spend time figuring out all the ways it can be great. Believe me, it won't be at a swingers party. I mean that whole swingers thing was really pretty cheesy. Red flocked velvet wallpaper, playboy mansion, Plato's retreat and all sorts of guys with combovers, gold chains and women with platinum hair. .

I do remember that two sorority sisters (stoners)and I shared this one boyfriend. We sort of sent him back and forth across the country; post college. It was actually a great arrangement, he was fun, smart, funny, literate and okay in bed. He didn't mind. We were all friends and would laugh about it.

One last story about open marriage has to do with an ex husband who always hit on my friends when I was out of town. He would work it, with the old, "We have an open marriage" line. Somehow he forgot to tell me. And that cost him. Of course that was the 80s and he should have known better!!!

[fleaba]

Actually, the seventies was okay .and yes everyone pretty much slept with everyone else. Especially in the ski town where I lived. If I do the totatls, well...it's pretty astonishing. Too bad about AIDS and all that, but to be honest the sex wasn't as hot as sex with someone who stuck around and I trusted.

By the way, you gotta love my first husband who, when I was out of town, hit on all of my girlfriends, telling them that we had an open marriage. Not.,

[BetterAmerica]

I could never "swing". It would make me crazy if my husband was with another woman and I am satisfied enough not to want anyone else.

[feezie]

Open marriage = Cheating on your spouse

[Lauren Cahn - Huffpost Blogger]

Cheating is when something is against the rules. If the rules allow outsiders into the bedroom, then it is not cheating.

[ianrthorpe]

Must watch out for Molly Parker.

Perhaps it's a British thing but I have always thought an "open" relationship simply meant the partners did not feel obliged to confine themselves exclusively to their spouse while swinging is a communal activity in which one must be "up fot it" (oops, pardon;) wth any group member of the opposite gender.

Humans have a deep love of ritual so the secret assingations, the code words and the pretences, the nights in out-of-the-way hotels involved in conducting an affair are 95% of the appeal in my view.

Swinging would just take all the fun out of it.

http://www.greenteethmm.com/

[larry278]

The nets have now made open marriage, ilicit sex & swinging boring. This must be part of a fundie plot. There is nothing fun about being a fundie. Puritanism has won.

[Jasel]

Marriage 2008 = a joke anyway. Might as well let people do what they want (including the gays. Too many hypocrits on that issue for my taste)

[mouselion]

Open relationships (and clandestine polyamorous arrangements, as well), always, ultimately, culminate in some form of despair. That's why the root for the word "passion" is Latin for "suffer". There's nothing new we are trying today, in regards to relationships, that the ancients hadn't tried as well, I suppose. A lot of talk these days about the virtues of open marriages. These folks are trying to convince themselves of a theory -- and desire -- which they hope will make them happier. Might work for a while, but I have *never* seen this form of lifestyle last -- with *anybody*. Relationships are not supposed to stay at the passionate, fireworks stage, anyway -- they are supposed to change over time. That's not to say that a couple can't enjoy a great love life throughout their entire relationship -- they will have a better chance of that happening if they concentrate on each other instead of other people who ultimately won't be a part of their life together.

[rockyersocksoff]

You're simply uninformed.

People DO live this Lifestyle happily.

They are very rare, but NOT non-existant just because YOU don't believe it.

I am not one of them, but I have met and observed many of them, and they are wired differently than we are. They lack a certain jealousy/insecurity gene most of us have, and more importantly, in nearly ALL successful swinging couples it is the WOMAN who sets the tone. These aren't the clumsy pairs where a man pressures a reluctant woman.

Or at least it isn't for long. They have a saying: A guy may drag his wife to a Swing Club, but he better be ready to drag her OUT!

BTW, I haven't wasted my time on Swingtown, but Molly Parker is HOT. I miss Deadwood :(

[Lauren Cahn - Huffpost Blogger]

Molly Parker is totally hot, and an amazing actress.

[sowhatdemos]

It WAS a fun time! Maybe only the rich had key parties, we poor folks just slipped out & around!
But yes, everyone wanted everything, wanted it right now and we had a blast!

[uheardme]

Swingtown is an EXCELLENT show. Open marriages are called "shacking up". If you want an open marriage, don't get married.

[minapod]

You'd have to have been there, in the 70s. I was only fifteen in 1970, but the sexual revolution was in full swing, and everyone wanted to sleep with everyone, not just swing. "Love the One You're With" was an anthem, at least in SoCal. The constraints of marriage were felt acutely , so the perfect solution to staying married but participating was to swing consensually. Some friends who were about 8 years older than me who opened their (common-law committed) marriage to swinging with a couple living downstairs from them. I couldn't understand, but it seemed there was a natural affinity with all parties, so it worked for a number of years. Once while visiting, this female friend offered me the chance to sleep with her mate, whom I'd know for years, was there when they met. I declined as I knew him as a friend and my friend's partner, it just felt uncomfortable. Still, I did do a sleep over with one of her lovers, and her mate knew him, they all were friends, and he was very cute, and single. I did participate in a number of non traditional sexual experiences, and it seemed more of a chance for tribal bonding and expressing the freedom of not being hung up on owning anyone, and having fun in creative ways. This was before herpes, clamydia, HPV, and AIDS were known enemies. No condoms with The Pill, abortions were easy to get. You'd have to have been there.

[Tulka2]

Before sex was death. When sex was as wholesome as taking a bath. And they say things don't change.