On Open Marriage and Swinging Pt. 02

It seems as though there has been a lot of chatter in the Loving Wives comments section recently regarding the rarity of swinging and open marriages, and the doomed outcomes of those arrangements. The majority opinion of those who have commented seems to be that open marriages and swinging are not very common, and that couples who engage in such "alternative lifestyles" end up divorced more often than not. These opinions are reinforced with statistics that are derived from unspecified sources. My goal with this essay is to examine these claims as much as possible and reveal the truth behind the claims.

First, let's take a look at the question of how common swinging and open marriages really are. These days, anyone can become an armchair researcher thanks to Google. More often than not, someone with a clear agenda can abuse the power of Google by performing a quick search, finding the first link that validates their preconceived opinion, and declare victory. This is true regardless of the topic at hand. There is a name for this practice: "confirmation bias."

Let's try to avoid confirmation bias, then, by researching this question as thoroughly as possible. I'll start by performing a search on "number of open marriages." This search results in over 785,000 matches, though if you click through the first several links, you'll find mostly opinion pieces that include anecdotal interviews and vague references to "studies" without specifying the actual studies.

For example, a CNN article includes a quote from a California psychiatrist who claims that "less than one percent of married people are in open marriages." Where did he get that figure? The article doesn't mention it. Interestingly enough, while clicking through a few links, I found a WebMD article that quoted the same California psychiatrist from the CNN article. In that article, we gain a little a little more insight into where he derived that figure of "less than one percent." We learn that he has counseled thousands of couples over the past thirty years and has encountered very few instances of open relationships among his patients. So, his estimate is based on nothing but his own experience. We call this "anecdotal evidence." Setting that aside, I can't help but mention the obvious fact that if very few couples in open marriages are seeking marriage counseling from this guy, isn't that a data point in favor of open marriage?

Instead of this one psychiatrist's anecdotal guestimating, a more useful estimate of the number of couples in swinging or open marriage relationships could be revealed through a wide-ranging survey of married couples conducted by an unbiased researcher. Thankfully, some actual research does exist. A researcher named Morton Hunt conducted a survey of sexual behavior for Playboy magazine in the 1970's. He found that somewhere between 2-4 percent of married couples have an open relationship.

A similar survey by Blumstein and Schwartz found that 903 married men out of 3,498 (i.e. 26%) had an agreement with their spouse to allow extramarital sex. Of those men, only 217 (6.2% of the total) actually engaged in extramarital sex at some point during the previous year. The numbers for women were slightly lower at around 5 percent. Spanier and Cole also conducted a survey of several hundred people and found that just 1.7 percent of married couples were in an open relationship. This study, however, was limited only to people living in the traditionally conservative Midwestern United States.

The problem with all of these surveys is that they were all conducted during the 1970's and 1980's, well before the age of the Internet. The Internet has opened many previously-locked doors, for better or worse, since the mid-1990's. A married couple looking to explore an open relationship today has far more access to other like-minded couples (and singles) looking for the same. There are countless websites dedicated to swinging, and each of those sites has a membership numbering in the hundreds of thousands - or even millions. The most popular site, Adultfriendfinder, claims a membership of more than 72 million worldwide.

In addition to the countless websites catering to swinging couples, there are numerous sites dedicated to couples in open marriages, sites for polyamorous couples, and at least one infamous site targeting married people looking to cheat on their spouses. Even the online classified ad site Craigslist shows dozens and dozens of ads placed every day by married couples seeking a third or fourth sexual partner. A quick search for swinger clubs in my area shows more than a dozen within an hour's drive. If swinging and open marriages were really so rare, would the market be this saturated?

Even if we assume the lowest figure from all of the surveys conducted more than thirty years ago, there would be more than a million open marriages in the United States alone. (1.7% of 60 million married couples.) If we assume the top range (26%), then we're talking about more than 15 million open marriages in the US alone. The only honest answer to the question on the prevalence of open marriages, then, is: "There is no way of knowing for certain...but it's probably more common than you believe it is."

Next is the question of how many open marriages end in divorce. Let's plug "open marriage divorce rate" into the ol' Google machine and see what it spits out. Again, among the very first links displayed is that same CNN article, which claims that "some research suggests that open marriage has a 92 percent failure rate." Which research? "Some" research. Helpful, isn't it?

Now, if you have an agenda to advance, you could practice some good ol' fashioned confirmation bias, declare victory, and run with this figure as proof of your argument. Let's try to be a little more thoughtful and honest than that. As with our first question, the answer to this question is equally impossible to determine due to the lack of research on this topic. We do know for a fact that somewhere between 40-50% of all first marriages (and 60% of second marriages) end in divorce. If we assume that as many as 98% of all marriages are monogamous, and 40-50% of all marriages end in divorce, that doesn't seem to be much of a winning argument in favor of monogamous marriage, does it?

A national survey of divorced people shows that 55 percent of divorces were caused by infidelity. If those couples had taken infidelity out of the equation by allowing sex outside the marriage, would they have saved their marriages? It's impossible to know what may or may not have happened, but it seems logical that at least some of those marriages could have survived.

The one and only study that I was able to find that mentioned the divorce rate for open marriages was called The Janus Report on Sexual Behavior. This report, conducted in 1993, found that 1-2 percent of women listed open marriage as the primary reason for their divorce. If we assume that only 1.7 percent of all marriages are open, then this would be a devastating data point in favor of the notion that open marriage leads to divorce! If we use the high-mark estimate of 26 percent, then we're looking at a divorce rate of only 13 percent, which is well below the average. Most "experts" seem to peg the open marriage rate at around 4-5 percent, which would mean the divorce rate for openly-married couples is no different than traditionally-married couples.

What do we know of couples in an open relationship? Are there any indicators that they are less happy than monogamous couples? If so, it would seem logical that unhappy couples would be more likely to divorce. A peer-reviewed study performed for the Journal of Sex Research found no differences in marital satisfaction between couples in open marriages versus couples in monogamous relationships. Similar research was conducted by Brian Gilmartin, who came to the same conclusion.

Another study performed by Bergstrang and Williams found that couples in open marriages expressed higher levels of satisfaction than the average married couple. They also reported that 63 percent of swingers found that swinging improved their marriage, and 36 percent said their relationship stayed the same (leaving only one percent less happy.) Of those who reported being unhappy with their marriage prior to swinging, a whopping 90.4 percent said their relationship became much happier after swinging. A similar study by Edward Fernandes called The Swinging Paradigm came to the same conclusion that respondents to the survey reported high levels of marital and sexual satisfaction in their relationships.

There is little doubt that the concept of swinging or open marriage is frowned upon by most societies. Many seem to believe it is morally depraved behavior and a threat to the institution of marriage, children, and families. However, a study performed by Terry Gould for the Canadian magazine Saturday Night in 1998 discovered that couples that participate in swinging reported having strong, loving, and committed relationships and lived otherwise traditional family lives. Aside from having sex outside the marriage, they led completely ordinary lives.

So, what have we learned so far? We've learned that it's nearly impossible to know exactly how many married couples have an open arrangement, and that it is equally impossible to know how many of those open marriages result in divorce. Of course, this doesn't stop those with an agenda from claiming to possess all the "facts" on these topics.

Inevitably, whenever I discuss the topic of swinging or open marriage, I'm informed by the readers of this site that I am "advocating" for swinging, that I have an agenda myself, or even that I am actively trying to recruit committed married couples into the swinging lifestyle (for reasons I cannot fathom.) There is no point in denying these accusations, as my detractors would insist that they know me better than I know myself.

Swinging and open marriage is not for everyone. In fact, I would strongly advise against it for most couples. That said, there seems to be a lot of misinformation about swinging on this site, and it's important to know the facts before leaping to a conclusion or you might end up looking foolish. Swinging is far more common than many people believe, and couples in an open marriage are no less satisfied with their marriages than couples involved in a traditional, monogamous, relationship. Contrary to popular belief, open marriages do not end in divorce any more often than traditional marriages.

What I do freely admit to advocating is the institution of marriage itself. There are countless benefits to marriage, both from an individual standpoint and from the standpoint of society. According to various polls and surveys, married people are generally happier than single people. They also live longer and earn more money. Children of married couples graduate at a higher rate, commit fewer crimes, are happier and healthier, and lead more productive lives.

The benefits of marriage are blatantly obvious...yet fewer and fewer people are getting married with each passing generation. The marriage rate for the Baby Boom generation is 91 percent according to an Urban Institute report. "Late boomers" are at 87 percent, and "Gen-X'ers" are marrying at a rate of 82 percent. The "Millennial" generation is marrying at a rate of just 70 percent - and that figure is falling like a rock. According to Gallup, the percentage of married people between the ages of 18 to 29 has fallen from 32 percent in 2006 to just 16 percent in 2014. According to a Pew Research Center poll, 25 percent of Millennials claim they will likely never marry.

When people do decide to marry, they are waiting longer than ever before doing so. In 1960, the median age at first marriage was 20 for women and 23 for men. Today, it is 27 for women and 29 for men. This leaves little time to have children, which translates to fewer children per married couple. Couples averaged 2.3 children in 1970. Today, that number is well below 2.0.

While marriage has declined, single motherhood has experienced a dramatic rise. In 1950, less than five percent of all children were born to single mothers. Today, that figure is a staggering 41 percent. Among the black population, that figure is 72 percent! Study after study shows that children raised in a single-parent household perform more poorly in school than children raised in two-parent households. They commit more crime, earn less money, and require more government assistance. Worst of all, they often become single parents themselves, which perpetuates the cycle for another generation.

The long-term ramifications caused by the demise of marriage and the rise of single-parenthood are already being felt - especially in major cities across the United States. The rampant and pervasive poverty, dependence, and crime in the inner cities has been destroying generations of people for fifty years, and those problems are only growing more pervasive as time passes.

So, what can we do to encourage the Millennial generation to settle down and marry for the good of themselves and society as a whole? One Oregon State University researcher recently polled married and unmarried couples between the ages of 18-25 and found that 40 percent of those questioned disagreed on whether or not they're exclusive with one another. 30 percent reported cheating on their partner. It seems that monogamy has grown out of style for the younger generation.

If that is true, then perhaps a redefinition of marriage that excludes monogamy would appeal to more young people and encourage them to get married. Today's generation earns less money and carries more debt than past generations. The economic incentive of marriage, alone, should be enough to encourage young people to marry. It is far easier to pay off student loan debts with two incomes than with one. However, it seems that fear of commitment outweighs any economic benefits for today's youth. If that commitment excluded sexual exclusivity, then maybe marriage would become more appealing to young people.

The bottom line is this: whether or not you believe that non-monogamy is both rare and harmful, monogamy itself appears to be fading into our past. The word "marriage" has been redefined many times throughout history, and that trend will continue forever. We can either shield our eyes and deny the changes that lie ahead or we can accept that what worked well for us in the past may not work as well in the future.