‘It’s everybody’: Swinger lifestyle grows in popularity in North Carolina

LINCOLNTON, N.C. ( QUEEN CITY NEWS ) — They could be your friends, co-workers, or even your pastor at church. Swingers tend not to talk about their lifestyle, but the underground movement is growing.

“Oh, it’s everybody. It’s everybody,” Danielle said.

By day, Lincolnton is your quintessential small southern town. Its Main Street is in constant motion, lined by colorful storefronts, with steeples casting shadows over everything in between.

By night, there is a secret shared with a trusted few, hidden between the walls of a local hotel.

“How many people in your life know that you do this?” Queen City News asked Danielle.

“Well as far as the vanilla side of my life. None. None know this,” she said.

Today, in broad daylight, Danielle is doing something only a few in her community do — she is talking openly about her experience as a swinger.

“Everybody has different reasons, actually I can tell you everybody has different reasons. For me and my husband, it was just not that we weren’t happy, it was more of a what excitement can we add,” she said.

Swinging is not a new concept. It exploded in the U.S. during WWII. The term ‘wife-swapping’ was introduced to describe a non-monogamous lifestyle. Danielle uses the term ‘lifestyle’ to describe it and says despite the definition, it is much more than sex.

“If I were to define lifestyle, I would say that you are walking into a group of people that you are probably going to find lifetime friends who have zero expectations and probably think you are the hottest thing on Earth. I mean honestly,” she said.

For the most part, group meetups are not random. They are organized months in advance by a social club.

Club organizers in the Charlotte area, who wanted to stay anonymous, say they have over 1,500 members and the number is growing.

“Talk about the people that are in the club,” Queen City News asked the club organizer.

“People anywhere from 25 years old to 75 years old. You’ve got people that are looking for a place to go where they can totally dress the way they want to in a safe environment. Nobody is going to judge them and meet like friends,” he said.

To maintain anonymity, the club books up entire hotels. Couples from across the region show up, mingle, and then head their separate ways in the morning.

“Privacy is very key and that’s why we do the entire hotel, we won’t do an event unless it is 100 percent private. And we do make guests sign waivers. So, you can’t break confidentiality, so if you do see your child’s fifth-grade teacher, you can’t say anything because you could ruin someone’s life. It is very private,” another organizer said.

Despite the unspoken and written agreement to keep meet-ups private, swinging in North Carolina might be more popular than you think.

“Literally, I started with Google search years ago,” Danielle said.

Researchers with Joy Love Dolls looked at Google Analytics to find that for every 100,000 North Carolinians, 498 people inquire about swinging each month.

With a population of 10.7 million, that’s over 53,000 people showing at least some interest in the lifestyle.

“We’ve had preachers. Now, whether or not that goes against what you believe, I don’t know but we’ve had preachers, we’ve had people who go to a party on Saturday night and go to church on Sunday. That works for them,” Danielle said.

“As a society, monogamy has been ingrained in our culture. What breaks that mold for some couples?” Queen City News asked Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Dr. Charryse Johnson.

“From what we know is research and what we hear from those that we work with is not feeling satisfied in monogamy, or wanting aspects of monogamy but also feeling like there’s other aspects of their lives that they are missing out on,” she said.

In her career, Dr. Johnson has worked with several couples actively swinging or thinking about it.

“Pleasure and belonging are probably two of the most known ideas behind why people bring out swinging, but there are a lot of dynamics to what makes people decide that is something that they want to do,” she said.

From her experience, she says swinging has had a variety of impacts on couples that she has worked with. Some thrive with a deeper understanding of trust and respect, others fall apart.

On an individual level, Dr. Johnson says like anything that involves pleasure, too much can become addicting.

“So, we have absolutely seen that there are individuals who can get into something like this and then really struggle to stop or struggle to find pleasure back into normalized situations because the level of pleasure that they are now experiencing, they don’t know how to get any other way, and that is a challenge,” Dr. Johnson said.

Still – she says the number one topic brought up in sessions with swinger clients is shame and the thought process of being exposed.

“I think your secrecy is people with normal jobs and normal lives, not wanting people to know their lifestyle because sadly that’s who judges,” Danielle said.

In the 6.5 years that Danielle has been a part of the lifestyle, she says she has gained more friendships than anything else.

“The amount of trust and respect you have in your partner to be able to do this is immense and if you have an ounce of jealousy in you, that’s not going to work for you, but if you don’t and you can do this and have fun together, you just flourish,” she said. Lincolnton, like many other small towns in the Carolinas, has its secrets.  One is not in broad daylight, no longer hidden in the shadows.

“It’s enlightening,” Danielle said.

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