Hooking Up with the Joneses

Mention the word "swinger" to most people and they flash on the 1970s: hot tubs, key parties, shag rugs, and Barry White booming out of the eight-track. But in fact, the logistical hurdles to spouse swapping used to loom so large that it's amazing anyone managed it all. To gain entrée to "the lifestyle" (as it's called), you had to schlep to an adult bookstore for one of the newsletters that acted as clearing-houses for swinger activity. In this smudgy samizdat, you would find a few hundred ads. To contact someone, you had to send money to the newsletter staff; after days or weeks, you might be able to set up a date. Often, people traveled hundreds of miles to swing. "If you lived in Boston, you'd read swinger ads from Pittsburgh. It was that whole I-don't-want-to-do-it-with-someone-from-my-backyard thing," says Kim Airs, a sex educator and founder of the now-closed Brookline sex-toy shop Grand Opening. She says it's still common for swingers to drive out of state to attend events—because who wants to go to an orgy and run into your yoga instructor?

Ed would know. The éminence grise of the Massachusetts swinger scene, he's a relic from the old, labor-intensive era of swapping, and as a host, he makes an effort to keep his parties full of strangers if his guests so request. He still runs one of the most venerable house parties around, from his base in a town just west of Boston—though of course the actual house itself has changed many times over the years. Before our first meeting, Ed tells me how to pick him out of a crowd: He'll be the guy who looks like Jerry Garcia in his senior years, if Jerry had gone on a diet and the diet sort of worked. This description turns out to be spot-on. When Ed slides into the seat across from me at the Taqueria Mexico in Waltham, he's vintage Jerry, right down to the aviator frames. He also gives off the same vibe that seemed to emanate from Garcia in the 1980s—deep and inconsolable boredom. In fact, Ed admits that organizing the parties has become tedious, but for some reason he keeps doing it anyway. He himself is not even married, which makes him an anomaly in this world; instead, he takes his girlfriend to events.

In an average week, several people contact him about his parties. Almost always it's men who call. When he hears a male voice on the line, Ed will say, "Can I speak to your lady?" Often, there is no lady, which means Ed will refuse to reveal party details. Like most other hosts, Ed prohibits single men from his soirees. Many swingers enforce an odd double standard when it comes to homosexuality: All the men must act 100 percent straight, while most of the women are assumed to be "bi-curious" and can fool around with other wives. That means you can never have enough women at your party.

And what to do with all the leftover guys? Gangbangs, of course. These are parties in hotel suites, where many men have sex with one woman. Ed—God love him—dislikes the word "gangbang." He calls these events "ladies' choice parties," and indeed, that's a more accurate term, because the woman runs the show. Before the party, she picks prospective lovers from a password-protected website. The lucky guys appear at the appointed time and place. Afterward, everyone chips in for the cost of the hotel room.

But what about the husband who stays at home while his wife is off gangbanging? When I ask Ed about this, he simply shrugs. This is the part of spouse swapping that boggles the mind: All of the couples I encounter seem to love each other without the stain of jealousy.

"You know," I tell Ed, "I've noticed that swingers tend to be people who are very good at being married." Many are high school sweethearts who have stayed together for decades. They never got a chance to have a period of exploration on their own, so they go through their awakening together, as middle-aged people. "That's why I think my boyfriend and I have no interest in swinging," I go on. "Before we met, he and I both spent years running around as single people. We've already had our slutty years. For us, monogamy still seems exotic."

"Shhh, shh," Ed scolds, making a downward motion with his hands. Several times during dinner, he reminds me to keep my voice low—even though we're sitting in a booth and the people around us are conversing in Spanish. More than the fear of being overheard, I suspect, Ed relishes the secrecy involved for another reason: Through swinging, Ed gets to feel like an outlaw.

Massachusetts' strait-laced zoning restrictions prohibit people from getting naked in any commercial space. Such laws, designed to discourage strip clubs, also make it difficult for people to swing in public spaces. I had hoped Ed might invite me to one of his parties, but as it turns out, he doesn't have any scheduled (right before press time, Ed did find a location, and extended an invitation to the Boston fact-checker). He's just put money down on two properties where he might throw parties, but still hasn't nailed down a single location. "You can't have a [spouse-swapping] club in Massachusetts," says Ed, "so anything you do is going to be temporary."

Spend any time with the swingers, and you'll gain a new appreciation for the contradictory culture of Massachusetts, this blue state with old-school blue laws. Here, we'll defend your right to have consensual sex with any other adult; we'll sell you vibrators, handcuffs, and birthday cakes shaped like asses. And yet actual sex freaks us out—it's so sweaty and Dionysian and messy. At heart, we're still Puritans. If you want to chug Jägermeister with your boobs hanging out, you'd best drive to Rhode Island.