Attitudes toward extrarelational sex as a function of participant's and third party's gender

An experiment was conducted to examine whether attitudes toward extrarelational sex, i.e., "swinging," differed as a function of participant's gender and gender of the third party, i.e., the "swinging" partner. Participants were asked to imagine that their current romantic partner had expressed an interest in "swinging" with another individual (male or female, randomly assigned). Analysis yielded several significant differences by participants' gender. Specifically, men expressed greater interest than did women in joining a swinger's club, reported a higher likelihood than did women of actually joining such a club, and believed more than women that their sex life with their partner would improve after joining a swinger's club. Participants also preferred a female more than a male swinging partner, although this comparison was not statistically significant.