I think public perception of swinging has been constructed from a history of rumour, moral panic and sensationalism.

One of the most common media depictions is keys-in-a-bowl, but researchers have failed to locate a single person who could say they went to such an event. Given the wild and varied spectrum of behaviours that people have happily shared with researchers, it is unlikely that this was people were being coy. It is likely that either these events never happened at all, or were so rare that they cannot be considered part of any trend.

It makes complete sense that they can't find verified occurrences if you think about it, The key party trope throws consent to the wind and codifies the behaviour at the ultimate indiscriminate act. It's moral judgement in a can. It also carries connotations of women as chattels that can be traded, which is a weirdly regressive thing to throw into the mix.

On the positive side, it is becoming more common to see media references to key parties be followed by people pointing out that they are not a thing that happens. It is moving to a place of a once believed inaccuracy, much like Marie Antoinette’s 'Let them eat cake'.

I think depictions in fiction are becoming better. Now there are so many sources of media, I think it is easier to get positive representations out there. There have always been writers prepared to make this stuff, but often had to make concessions to get their work in front of people.

In the 80's the show Kate an Ally (about two solo mothers sharing a home) ended episodes with them standing in the hallway reflecting on the day before going to bed. This was caused by a stipulation from the network that they had to be shown to be going into different bedrooms. How absurd this seems now shows that progress does, in fact, get made over time. It's slow, but it happens. We just have to be prepared to nudge things in the right direction when the opportunity arises.

The story so far....

We are a couple with no play experience, but no longer newbies to the scene. It has been over a year now that we have been engaging with the community (seriously, almost everybody has been lovely). Being the risk adverse individuals that we are, we do not want to jeopardise the idea of growing old together. As such we are taking things slowly, perhaps much more slowly than most, and doing all of the research that we can. In doing so, I ( Mr ) have become somewhat of a lifestyle geek. It has been fascinating to see all aspects of different goals, behaviour, expectations and societal perceptions.

We have watched the UK TV series Open House with interest. The fact there is show on regular television showing people interested in the lifestyle is a big towards normalisation, but they are still limited in the range of experiences they depict. They show separate room swapping as the most common first step, which seems to be atypical. I think they offer a reasonable level of support, the prep and debrief with the specialist (therapist first few seasons, coach most recent season) is apparently a few hours, cut down to a few minutes for the show. They show a fairly common pattern where the partner that is initially the most enthusiastic is the one most likely to have doubts or second thoughts. It's hard to gauge the honesty of reality productions sometimes but it comes across as a lot more sincere compared to the similar American cable tv shows.

There's still a fair way to go before you'll be hearing "Oh, we can't make that evening, we're going around to the Robinsons for sex that night" but one lives in hope. Just last year a professor in the United States had his tenureship revoked for consensually making and sharing the pornography he had made with his wife and others. That case showed that the challenges are real, but at the same time the bulk of the media coverage depicted it as an injustice rather than a scandal.