Whether you choose to pursue the swinging lifestyle or not, committed couples ought to read this book and honestly discuss the insights it offers into our "default assumptions" about sexual exclusivity, why we believe we need it, what we might gain by abandoning it, and how it is the handmaiden of a host of other assumptions about partners as "property."

36 of 37 found the following review helpful:

Finally, a good book on swinging  Dec 20, 2001
By Bob Hannaford
Together sex goes beyond the normal informational guideline (what is soft swinging? where can you find swinger clubs) and answers the more important question of all: Why swing? The author explains the "value of playful sex" and gives one an inside view of chance to understand the motivations and rewards from engaging in the swinging lifestyle.

As a long time member of the lifestyle, I am impressed with the amount of personal insight and candor from which the author writes. Most books on this subject are unrealistic or written by people that truly don't understand what it's like to be a part of the "swinging life". Ed and Dana do and this book is a must read for anyone considering the lifestyle (and should be read by a few folks already in the lifestyle).

2 of 3 found the following review helpful:

Great For those New to this  Dec 12, 2007
By R. Johnson
We are just getting into this scene. Though we did find a few of the safe sex practices not in line with ours ( or most poeple we know) the rest of the information was very useful and informative

Out-dated but it has its points  Mar 11, 2010
By JustAskJulie
This book was originally written in 1976 and revised in 2001. According to the introduction the book is about swinging as it relates to group sex (sex parties). Personally, I wish they'd spent more of the book on just that, and less on a lot of other things.

Too much of the book was, in my opinion, useless or outdated. Too often it seemed that the authors tried to sound over-educated and parts of the book came off too scientific and, in turn, too negative.

While the book was revised in 2001, I'm not sure how much revision was actually done. The authors still focus their discussion on ad writing to doing so for contact magazines and pretty much state that they find little to no use with the online swinger sites (even though at that point they've already set up their own to promote the book).

I would suggest completely skipping over the first 4 chapters and starting at Chapter 5, where the book finally gets into a bit of discussion on actually partying. From Chapter 5 on each chapter has some good points and some not so good.

Chapter 7 discusses "Physical Matters" (from attraction to performance). The way the chapter started I thought they were going to say that beauty is relative and that beauty is about being who you are. But, they took a strong turn away from that to say that beauty is about being the best you that you can be, whatever it takes... even if that means plastic surgery - then you should do it. Once I got past that little "WTF?" moment, the rest of the chapter was actually pretty good, including their discussion on performance issues and how to deal with them.

Chapter 8 "A Swinging Attitude" was also a good one and had a very good discussion of "tolerance" (aka the idea of being open-minded) something that has come up on this board many times.

Chapter 9 "Handling Emotions" did a great job of covering the various emotions you may encounter as you swing, but really did very little in the way of discussing how to actually handle those emotions.

The best chapters in the book were the last 3 chapters which were the most focused on actually sex parties and primarily gave instruction for how to throw a house party. Everything from what you need to have on hand, to how to properly invite your guests, to ideas for theme parties and contests (if you feel the need to go that route).

Overall, I'd say this is not the book for those who are new to swinging and seeking to understand (or help their partner understand) swinging. I would most reccomend this book to experienced swingers who would like a good guide to "how to throw a house party".