Terry Gould is the best selling author of The Lifestyle: A Look at the Erotic Rites of Swingers, a book that has been profiled on ABC's 20/20 and CBS's 48 Hours, and is widely considered to be the only serious investigation of the modern swinging subculture by a mainstream journalist.

Kasidie: I've really been looking forward to speaking with you. Your book has had a huge impact on me. When I started reading The Lifestyle, A Look at the Erotic Rites of Swingers, I couldn't put it down. In many ways it has greatly affected the way I view the lifestyle, and it has actually been a driving force behind much of the ideology behind Kasidie Magazine.

Terry Gould: Thank you, I'm honored.

Kasidie: Your book is unique in contrast to other books about the swinging lifestyle in that you are not actually a swinger yourself. You wrote it purely as an outside observer of lifestyle. Most people who go that deep into the lifestyle or spend that much time around swingers are usually people who are interested in getting into the lifestyle themselves.

Terry Gould: Yeah, let me start by saying it was just a professional engagement of journalism. That's what I do when I tell a story, I stay with it. I've written several books and studied the subject matter for years. That's not unusual for any journalist. In my case, sometimes organized crime sometimes social phenomena. It takes a long time to treat a subject seriously and understand it and explain it. Not just on the most obvious and spectacular manifestations you see on the outside that can be covered by a daily newspaper but culturally historically morally ethically biologically.

Kasidie: I understand that this book and its research resulted from an earlier article you wrote for a magazine?

Terry Gould: In this case the book was published in 1999 and if we go back ten years before then, I was senior editor of a magazine and I was covering a story on swingers. So I did what a lot of journalists did in those days. I found an ad in a local newspaper, went to a club party and from that wrote an article. The people I encountered that particular night in that particular club were not very flattering to that subculture.

Kasidie: You mean physically?

Terry Gould: In all respects. They didn't have a heavy degree of self-consciousness. So I wrote an article about that. The important thing to recognize is that when people come in from the outside, as I did, they tend to notice the things they don't like about the lifestyle first. Because when the subject of sex comes up it becomes personal and you're more prone to be judgmental. But about a year or two later, I met a woman who was familiar with the lifestyle and she explained that what I had done was given a skewed survey based on this one club of something that was actually a very wide-spread phenomenon and had a lot of other aspects to it. For instance, if I were to do a story of the gay lifestyle and I went to a bondage S&M club and I walked in there and saw people walking around in dog collars. If I walked away and said "This is what it means to be gay", I'd be giving the readers a skewed survey of a multi-faceted complex subculture, but I would be drawing out the one manifestation of it that actually belied what was going on in all other areas.

Kasidie: That sounds like the standard for most current television journalism.

Terry Gould: Well, especially with sex. Sex is such an easy target. So, anyway this woman invited me to see the other side of things. She belonged to what she called a "Cadillac Club." It was a ranch out in the country. I was actually very startled. I went to a dance and I saw upper middle class professionals. They were basically from all walks of life, but there was a preponderance of upper middle class people there. They were articulate.

Kasidie: It wasn't what you expected? Were you shocked?

Terry Gould: I was shocked because there was really nothing to be shocked about. They were sunny suburbanites they basically had an optimistic view of life. They danced, they self-parodied, they had an awareness that the outfits they were wearing could only be worn at a place like this. Some of them had been in it for years. Some went to clubs every Saturday night, others went only once or twice a year. They all knew each other. I got intrigued. I started researching around 1992 or 93 and discovered this was a verifiable subculture which was virtually uniform across the continent. It had rules, etiquette, a main demographic, a travel industry, clubs and rituals. It was like the jazz scene. There was accepted lingo and forms of behavior and they had a name for it, "The lifestyle."

Kasidie: This is pre-internet?

Terry Gould: I don't think anybody was on the internet back then.

Kasidie: So this subculture was the same uniformly across the country even before the swinger dating websites popped up?

Terry Gould: Because it had attracted a culture of people who were in it for pretty much the same reason. They called it "the lifestyle" because they lived in a certain kind of style that allowed them to combine their North American middle class values, emotional monogamy, raising children with their North American fantasies of dressing like movie stars and going to exciting parties. They had no where else to express that longing to go to a Mardi Gras party with their spouse. They were primarily in that subculture not to sleep with other people, but to eroticize their own marriages. So you had this cohort of middle and upper middle class people. But they couldn't show up in a Frederick's of Hollywood outfit to regular bars or they'd get in trouble. But in the safe bounds of this subculture they could express their sexuality in a very safe environment. I got very intrigued, most journalists in the 80's took the easy shots at the lifestyle.

“At some level most men believe that their wives could behave very licentiously if given the opportunity to do so, and that's why there's jealousy and fear.”

Kasidie: I often feel that a lot of this fear of swingers comes from a belief that swingers are going to somehow corrupt the rest of society. As if we're trying to force our lifestyle on others... which has not been my experience.

Terry Gould: The swinger subculture is basically set up as a conservative institution. The misconception of the lifestyle by the straight world is that it's just a vehicle for men to have sex with other women while their wives come along. But that's not what it's about at all. If it were about that, it would not have grown by such leaps & bounds over the last 20 years, penetrating all ends of the continent and Europe and Australia and doubling and tripling in numbers. Most people use it to spice up their own marriages. Most people will tell you that it wouldn't be as exciting to just to go to these clubs alone to have mechanical sex with a stranger. They wouldn't consider it a lifestyle if that was the case.

Kasidie: Your book talks a lot about women and their sexual "power". I think you used the term "the insatiable female". You said that a lot of our society's sexual stigmas stem from fearing the full sexual potential of women.

Terry Gould: At some level most men believe that their wives could behave very licentiously if given the opportunity to do so, and that's why there's jealousy and fear. Everything inside us comes down to us from millions of years of natural selection and evolution. If a biological trait served some purpose it stayed with us. If it didn't serve a purpose it left us. One of the traits that women have is the ability to have multiple orgasms. Some women can have fifty orgasms.

Kasidie: I know some of those women!

Terry Gould: [laughs] Right, so why is that? Why does man have one orgasm at a time and women can have a train of them? There's a postulate that at some point in our evolutional history were receptive to more than one partner. When you look at the biology of sperm, you discover that only 1% are design to fertilize the egg. So at some point in our past history, sperm were competing in the women and may the best man win. So at this time there was no such thing as natural female monogamy. There was no chastity belt that nature provided women and men were very aware of that. So they stayed near them to keep other men away so they could be sure that the child she bore was his. So this is why we have all these rules and male dominance today, because men didn't want to end up raising someone else's child.

Kasidie: But we're skipping a big block of time in human history here, aren't we? Between now and the cave-dwelling days, haven't there been civilized and educated cultures that have practiced non-monogamous sex, even group sex?

Terry Gould: There was a study in the late 1940s that found that 39% of cultures and societies throughout history have practiced some form of approved extra marital liaison. The spring festivals and solstice festivals, and in many cultures permit licentiousness. We have a day of the week we call Saturday. Saturday is named after the god Saturn and that's where you get the word Saturnalian which means "Orgy". So Saturday literally translates to "Orgy Day". So it's written in our culture.

Kasidie: Hold on... Saturday means "Orgy Day!?"... Most swingers already celebrate that!

Terry Gould: Well, Saturday is traditionally the day we can loosen up and do what we wouldn't normally do on Tuesday.

Kasidie: [laughs] Speak for yourself!

Terry Gould: The origin of the day goes back to an orgiastic festival. Sure it feels good, but it benefits them in other ways. That's what I found in the lifestyle. The rituals and erotic rites benefit them in social ways that keep them coming back. Those social ways are adventatious, usually towards their family life. It seems extremely paradoxical. They gain benefits from that lifestyle by meeting a slew of people they would not meet in their straight life. These people are invested in each other. They form non-sexual mutually beneficial relationships. You meet a computer guy at the club and he helps you out with a computer problem and you give him tips on stocks or investment advice. There's constantly an exchange of knowledge or services.

Kasidie: It probably seems paradoxical to those who are not in the lifestyle... But to those of us in it, it's very natural. Many relationships developed among swingers are completely non-sexual.

Terry Gould: Absolutely, and I think it's a relief to a lot of people, that they can develop non-sexual relationships and to be able to engage others intellectually as well as physically. Something I've noticed is that those connections are not unique to the swinging lifestyle. When I would go to these swinger events I would feel like I was in Prague in the 1500s or in the Amazon amongst the Syriono tribe. It's one species behaving in a way that gives you a window to other cultures at other times within that same species. I was amazed that people weren't aware of it and nobody was already studying it. I went to a huge convention in 1996 and I asked couples to fill out an anonymous survey. 1/3 of the people had post graduate degree, 1/3 voted republican in the last election. 40% of the people actively belonged to a major religion and 80% were married. Very rarely did you see casual couples there.

“If you look at warrior cultures from way back throughout human history, you'll find that there's a large degree of spouse sharing. The reason there is because the warriors that get killed left their widows behind.”

Kasidie: So we've established that much of this sexual behavior is not new to human history. But where does the modern concept of the lifestyle come from?

Terry Gould: In World War II, the United States & Canadian Air-force had all these bases across North America, training pilots to go overseas. These were officers usually the rank of captain or up, fairly well paid, and they usually brought their wives to live on the bases. If you look at warrior cultures from way back throughout human history, you'll find that there's a large degree of spouse sharing. The reason there is because the warriors that get killed left their widows behind. Those warriors that didn't get killed took care of the widows.

Kasidie: So it was like a life insurance plan for the widows?

Terry Gould: Exactly. So you have this society of Air Force pilots living on the bases with their wives around them. These pilots had a very high death rate- higher than the death-rate of the other armed services. 1/3 got killed in combat so there were a lot of widows left. So swinging was going on all over these bases. These pilot were exceptional men. The Air Force chose the best of the best, and their wives were exceptional too. So you have these good looking guys and their beautiful wives who are risk takers. So when the survivors came back home after World War II, they moved to the suburbs but they still kept at it, and still kept sharing wives.

Kasidie: How did they find each other now that they were among civilians?

Terry Gould: There was this guy named Leidy, a former pilot who now travelled the country as a salesmen. He'd call up his buddies from the Air Force and he began making a list, which became known as "the Leidy list". Every town he visited, the list grew a little longer. Then he passed copies of the list around to everyone who was on it. The Leidy list was basically the first swinger magazine because it was a way for people to get in touch with each other. That was the modern origin of the lifestyle. That list was passed around to upper middle class, suburban, married people and that's basically where it stayed for the next 50 years. That's why you see a lot of clean-cut people with healthy attitudes and above average intelligence in the lifestyle, because that cohort stayed the same right from its origins right after World War II.

Kasidie: Not being a swinger yourself, I'm curious what preconceived notions you had about swingers beforehand. Before you went to that first party- the unflattering one you found in the newspaper- what did you expect to find?

Terry Gould: First of all, that first dance I went to was in a dingy basement.

Kasidie: I'm not surprised, most parties that are advertised in a paper are not the highest quality. You usually need to know someone and be trusted by them in order to find out about the better events.

Terry Gould: Yeah it was really tacky. The music was loud. Lets face it, sex is a very personal experience. You could go into a board meeting and get along fine with fifteen people sitting around a table. But when the subject of sex, or the possibility of sex comes up, it immediately becomes a personal experience. You're either aroused or turned off. That's why a lot of journalists when they walk into that lifestyle, if they're not intrigued by it, their repulsed by it. They don't give themselves the same discipline of mind that they do when they analyze the gay lifestyle, which is to treat them with dignity and respect.

Kasidie: Why do you think that is?

Terry Gould: Because we're dealing with primarily heterosexual middle class people and I guess the mainstream media feels they're well guarded enough that they can protect themselves and they're no real oppression going on. When in fact, over the course of my book there was this constant pounding by mainstream media that portrayed swingers as gluttonous, weird and dangerous. It enabled conservative elements in society to start arresting them, raiding their clubs for all kinds of spurious reasons, like illegal alcohol sales and running whore houses. Law enforcement or DA or captain who wanted to make a name for themselves would phone the press before raiding a swinger club. In one instance in Montreal, the police phoned the press and then ushered these fifty swingers right out into the cameras. If you'd seen the video footage you'd see people with raincoats over their heads like it's a mafia bust. This happened again and again.

“If people have control of their own sexuality, then that means they're not under the control of society.”

Kasidie: That part of your book got made me want to scream. Those situations made me really angry.

Terry Gould: What wasn't understood is that good people were getting severely hurt. When these people came to court you saw they were pharmacists and airline pilots and DEA agents. So basically they came from mainstream society and were being arrested for what? For nothing!

Kasidie: So what is the inherent danger that people feel from swingers? Why the animosity?

Terry Gould: Well, it goes something like this: If people have control of their own sexuality, then that means they're not under the control of society. From 6000 years ago we've had a controlling caste of rulers priests and scribes. The rulers are close to god, the priests sanctify their relationship with god, and the scribes write it all down in the text. The main preoccupation of these religious texts are sex. It's like a relationship of a mafia boss to people on his block. He says to them: "You've done something wrong! I can punish you for it... but if you pay me I can speak to the big boss and he'll absolve you of it." So you have this relationship where sex is wrong. There's a wrong way to have sex and a right way... and the right way is with one spouse, only in a certain way, and only for procreation. If you did it the wrong way, it means you've sinned and are going to hell. But you could get absolution from the rulers, priests and scribes if you paid them. People from the beginning of time were condemned to sin again and again and again.

Kasidie: So all this fuss about sex basically stems from a big money scam?

Terry Gould: People were told they couldn't do something they had to do. Then they had to get absolution of their sin and were therefore constantly beholden to the very people who set these rules. So it was a perfect way to control everyone. And this still happens today, right down to our liberate world. When you walk in the supermarket you go down a virtual tunnel of popular magazines where all you see are all the nearly naked movie stars. Their sex lives emblazoned and celebrated on the covers yet when you turn to the advice columns inside, they tell us we should act in the exact opposite manner.

Kasidie: I've always been fascinated by the fact that the moralistic behavior expected of regular people somehow doesn't apply to celebrities or people of influence. For instance, Snoop Dogg glorifies marijuana and has produced his own line of porno films, yet he's also appeared on Sesame Street. Parents are okay with their kids looking up to Snoop Dogg, yet they'll petition to remove another child from their own child's school if it is found out that his parents are swingers.

Terry Gould: What research into the lifestyle taught me is that there is a real big difference between morals and ethics. Most people do not understand that difference. Morals are fashion, they change all the time. In the 1950s it was immoral to have oral sex. Now it's promoted between married people. It's considered a perfectly moral act now. It used to be immoral for a woman to look directly into a man's eyes. Morals will always change. There is no rock hard moral prescription that is unchanging thru the ages. What does not change is ethics. There is only one ethical principle from which all others derive. Its very simple to remember, you could live your life by it. It is "Do not do unto others that which you do not want others to do unto you." You can approach every situation and decide how to act based on that simple principle. What I found in with the lifestyle is that while some people might think it's immoral, it's actually completely ethical because it follows that maxim. It's the one rule of etiquette that cannot be broken in the swinger subculture. It's an ethical framework. Within that framework they can exhibit all sorts of sexual variety that does not impact their ethical behavior in other areas of their lives. They do not become less ethical people by behaving "immorally".

Kasidie: So, by that very definition, these religious and political groups that are always trying to impose their own moral values onto sexual subcultures... are actally the ones who are behaving unethically?

Terry Gould: Absolutely, it's a true paradox. The people who impose their own morals, which are not universal, upon people who are behaving ethically, is actually immoral. That is what that lifestyle highlights when other people criticize them. Because they are ethical people behaving in a way that society considers immoral. That is why they pose a threat because people confuse morals and ethics.

Kasidie: You make a point in your book (which is constantly being validated by recent news events) that the people who most aggressively impose their morality on others, and who are quickest to condemn certain acts as immoral... are usually the ones who are secretly partaking in those acts themselves.

Terry Gould: Always! They do it for two reasons. One being that they lighten their own sense of sin when they condemn others. Second, the alpha male in primates, will always try to suppress the sexual urges of the other males. If you can suppress the sexuality of competitors then you can breed more effectively. By eliminating the competition, you have increased your odds. That's where it comes from. And it never ends. You've got the preacher who speaks out against homosexuals and then drives over to the next city on a Saturday night and partakes in homosexual activity. The hypocrisy never ends. I think the world needs a lesson and it needs it really badly. What is moral and normal for today is not necessarily what is ethical and natural. Morality and normality are ideas we impose. But what is ethical and natural is always universal. In the lifestyle what swingers try to do is accept ethical behavior and combine it with natural behavior. They enjoy sexuality and are kind and forgiving to one another instead of focusing on the "morality of the day" and getting angry about people that are not following it. So we really need to distinguish the two. People in the lifestyle seem to get what is ethical and natural. The practice of ethical and natural behavior can only result in kindness... and if you have kindness you need nothing else.

Kasidie: I'd like to thank you for talking with me today. But I'd especially like to thank you for writing this book. It's not only an incredible insight into the psychology and culture of the lifestyle for anyone who is not familiar with the inner workings of swinging... but it's also an informative, inspiring and personally vindicating book for those of us in the lifestyle. It is filled with some of the most eloquently and intellectually argued justifications for the swinger lifestyle that could easily disarm any and all of the criticisms that are so often flung at us by moral opposition. Frankly, after reading The Lifestyle, I felt like I could hold my own against Bill O'Reilly if I had to.

Terry Gould: I think sexual subcultures like this have been going on for thousands of years, and they will continue to keep going in their own style. I believe that until there's some obvious damage can be shown from them, they should be left alone and treated with dignity and respect.

Kasidie: That certainly means a lot to us. Thank you.

Terry Gould's books and articles on organized crime and social issues have won 47 awards and honors. His most recent book, Paper Fan: The Hunt for Triad Gangster Steven Wong, was nominated for the Tara Singh Hayer International Press Freedom Award.

The Lifestyle: A Look at the Erotic Rites of Swingers can be purchased on Amazon.com