{"product_id":"the-lifestyle-a-look-at-the-erotic-rites-of-swingers-9780679309529","title":"The Lifestyle: A Look At The Erotic Rites of Swingers","description":"\u003cp\u003eCAN OPEN EROTICISM between more than two consenting adults be considered natural sexual behaviour? Is it possible to experience sex with other partners while happily ensconced in an emotionally monogamous marriage? Didnt this type of sexual \"swinging\" disappear with the 1960s and 70s? What are millions of middle-class couples getting up to on the weekend? These are the questions that arose as award-winning investigative journalist Terry Gould embarked upon a journey through a thriving subculture known as \"the lifestyle.\"  Ignored  dismissed or denigrated by the mainstream media  ordinary  married couples in the lifestyle are now getting together to openly express their erotic fantasies. Acting within strict rules of etiquette  everyday people -- social workers  physicians  school teachers -- participate in everything from sexual costume parties to multipartner sex as a form of social recreation within marriage.  Is swinging merely an invention of sexually permissive modern times? As Gould discovered  the phenomenon has roots that go back thousands of years. From prehistoric fertility rituals to Dionysian festivals  from the nineteenth-century Onieda commune to the twentieth-century social mirror of films such as Bob \u0026amp; Carol \u0026amp; Ted \u0026amp; Alice and The Ice Storm  spouse sharing has always been a part of human sexual practice.  A deeper biological urge seems to motivate this pleasure-seeking practice  one that combines two paradoxical urges: the drive to seek long term partners for raising offspring and the equally powerful drive for sexual and genetic variety. Lifestyle couples have resolved these conflicting urges.  For the rest of us  including our law enforcement agencies  the lifestyle can appear pornographic when strobe-lit by the cameras flash. But examined in the cool light of the latest research on evolutionary and emotional roots of human sexuality  the practices of lifestylers assume a profound meaning for all. The Lifestyle gives us a controversial and unique understanding of what it means to be part of a fast-growing subculture of consenting  mainstream adults who are changing the rules of sexual behavior for pair-bonded humans. Then again  perhaps they arent changing anything at all.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45652127088693,"sku":"ByrdShop_0679309527","price":301.43,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780679309529.jpg?v=1781849356","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-lifestyle-a-look-at-the-erotic-rites-of-swingers-9780679309529","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}