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According to Terry Gould's The Lifestyle: a look at the erotic rites of swingers, swinging began among American Air Force pilots and their wives during World War II.

The mortality rate of pilots was high, so, as Gould reports, a close bond arose between pilots that implied that pilot husbands would care for all the wives as their own — emotionally and sexually — if the husbands were away or lost.

Though the origins of swinging are contested, it is assumed American swinging was practiced in some American military communities in the 1950s.

By the time the Korean War ended, swinging had spread from the military to the suburbs.

The media dubbed the phenomenon wife-swapping.