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We usually try to write insightful posts that answer questions, however, in this case, we have questions we can’t answer and would appreciate some anecdotal insights from our friends and readers.

Google Trends is an amazing tool – it lets you see the prevalence of trends over a certain period of time. I entered “swinging”, and was shocked to see this pattern. Something happened in 2006 that gave rise to interest in swinging, and immediately precipitated a decline. What happened? We’re going to spew a bunch of things that happened around that timeline with the hope that we might make sense of something. But first we have to ask if this is statistically relevant data to correlate people searching on the term “swinging” and people actually swinging. This would be the first thing to determine before going too deep into a study of “what” happened, but there are some clues and evidence that *something* DID predicate some cultural changes in the mid-00s.

More Social Swinging

There’s been a lot of discussion within private groups about the fact that swingers today are much more “social”, and how this trend started happening around the mid-2000s. Is this correlating evidence? Coincidence? Or did something cause this? I would appreciate anyone whose been swinging more than 11 years to reach out to me and offer some insights. What was happening then?

Facebook

Social media creates feeling of “lonely together” – we get the illusion and “juice” from participating in a community, but we aren’t experiencing true connectedness. Is it possible that Facebook is fueling people’s needs to have more “real” relationships? Does the “juice” one get from Facebook satisfy the same pleasure centers in the brain as “hookup-sex”?

Mobile

This was the time of the smartphone. Is there something inherent about being connected to everyone at all time that could have an effect on your desire / fantasy to have consensual, non-monogamous sex?

POLY ON THE RISE

Purely anecdotal, but there seems to have been a point in the last 10 years where “polyamory” seems to have become more discussed. The search trends back up this assertion. But like the uptick in more “connected” swinging, poly represents more connected relationships.

MILLENNIALS COMING OF AGE

We’ve noticed (again…anecdotal evidence) that younger swingers are starting way more “open”. They seem to be ok with separate rooms and separate dating.

Other?

Above are things that are directly related to our “connectedness” with one-another. What about influences that aren’t? Politics? Social/cultural value shifts? Economic changes? If this “blip” happened around 2008, I might correlate it to economics, but it was during a boring part of George Bush’s term as president. He wasn’t even campaigning yet…just making a mess in Iraq.

Connectedness

The theme that keeps reappearing when we look at technologies like mobile / Facebook, and the correlating trends of people wanting more “connection” /FWB in their swinging partners, is the word “connectedness”. We would need to do some real time-consuming research to understand what’s happening, but hopefully we can use our social tools to crowd-source some anecdotes. Cultural shifts don’t necessarily happen with a spike, so we’re left scratching our heads.

What are your thoughts?

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