Some people do speak of marriage as a Text Chemistry Review sort of death, and I suppose it is, in a way. In order to get married we must die to our single selves. We cannot, or at the very least we are not supposed to hook up with co-workers, cruise bars for sex on weekends or chat up the dentist. I did have a friend once who wanted to ask her dentist out on a date. If she ever gets married, that opportunity is forever lost! We mourn the death of our single selves at bachelor and bachelorette parties. Personally, I think the guys get the better deal in that department since most women are simply too uncomfortable with the idea of male strippers, and female strippers are quite frankly much hotter than the guys.
A bit of superficial research on the topic of swinging turns up this amusing commentary from Wikipedia, "Swinging has been called wife swapping in the past, but this term has been criticized as androcentric and inaccurately describing the full range of sexual activities in which swingers may take part." Apparently swinging has a formally documented history dating back to the 16th century, and certainly just as solid a history dating back to the inception of marriage... it just wasn't that easy to transmit and preserve documents pre-Renaissance! Of course the ancient Romans had their share of fun orgies.
What must it have been like to be a wealthy Roman? Maybe these new Meetup participants are looking to find out! If you are finding humor in this as I have been, do read the Wikipedia write-up on swinging. It is impressively comprehensive. I haven't been called a prude in quite a few years, but some of the swingers lingo was quite alien to me until today. Cuckolding is a familiar term, but I had never heard of "soft swap," "dogging," or "hot wife."
