Original subtitles

The structure of any civilization depends for its strength on conformity.

Conformity to accepted social behavior patterns.

Throughout history, these patterns are constantly changing.

What is acceptable at one time in history is perhaps not acceptable to

later generations.

Nowhere is this conformity more apparent than in the relationship between the

sexes.

Civilization finds its strength in high social standards and society will be

made chaotic and life impossible without them.

It is therefore the people who deviate from these social standards who attract

the most attention.

The film you're about to see is an investigation into a minority group and

is by no means typical of modern urban life.

Excuse me, sir.

Excuse me. Are you English?

Yes, yeah.

You are. Could you tell me where you're from?

Brighton. Brighton. Is this lady your wife?

Yes. I wonder if you know... I hope so.

Have you heard about the cult of wife-swapping?

Well, we've read all about it, yes.

You've just read about it?

Yes, and talked about it, you know.

You've discussed it with your wife?

Yes, this... Your discussion, yes.

Would you consider doing it yourself?

We would consider it. We've talked about this.

You might consider it.

I think one should be a little bit more discreet myself, you know.

Most men do, from what I've been told.

But as far as, you know, man and wife knowing about it, you know, and allowing

each partner to do it.

I honestly don't know if it comes out in practice.

Would you prefer adultery, perhaps, to wife swapping?

Well, it's been accepted for a long, long time, you know. I think wife

swapping is a new thing. Tell me, I get the impression that you might have had

some experience of this. Would this be fair?

Well, I have been married once before, actually.

That's about as far as it goes.

And what about wife swapping? Well, we have that in Sweden, too.

Would you do that in Sweden?

I wouldn't. You wouldn't? No.

But I think there's quite a lot of people doing it.

Yes.

Married couple, two couples, and say exchange, but people are not bothered

about it. It's an individual problem.

Everybody has to make up their own.

We're not bothered about it. If people like it, they can have it.

I wonder if you know about wife swapping in London?

Well, you wouldn't know anything about it.

We only got married yesterday.

That's it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Do you know anything about wife

swapping? Who's got words to swap?

You don't believe in marriage, in fact?

No, it's a drag, man.

It's a drag, you know?

And what does a lady think about that?

Well, you know, nobody gets married now, do they?

So you don't believe in marriage as an institution?

Well, no, so many marriages break up these days, you know. I mean, it's much

better just to live with a girl, and then if it breaks down, well, then you

part.

It's a drag maybe if there's children.

It's perhaps a situation that I haven't really sussed out yet.

But as far as I'm concerned at the moment, then I'll live with her, but

certainly not marry her.

This thing of wife swapping, is this possible in Grand Rapids, Michigan?

Oh, it's happening.

It's happening in Grand Rapids? Oh, yes.

Wife swapping. Wife swapping. Do you know about this? Have you read about

this in Canada?

I didn't read about that, but I know what you mean.

You know what I mean? I know what I mean. Would you approve of it or

disapprove of it? Personally, I'll approve of it.

You'll approve?

I'll approve.

Is your wife here? Yeah, she's right there.

Well, I wonder what she would say about it.

No, I wouldn't like to try it.

You wouldn't like to try it? Your husband has just said he would.

I don't think he will be doing it if I'm not approving it.

I'd like to swap my wife for a new motor.

There is a comforting, if overworked, saying that there is nothing new under

the sun.

All new phenomena, we tell ourselves, have a precedent in history.

People don't change, only circumstance.

Indeed, there's nothing new about adultery.

They invented adultery the day they invented marriage.

What is new and almost certainly unique in the social history of the Western

world is the prevalent and still growing phenomena known as wife swapping.

It is the first time that anyone does anything that's the most frightening.

The fear or the excitement of the unknown complicates and confuses the

rational thought processes.

I was suddenly confused that evening as Paul, my husband, drove me towards my

first meeting with an organised wife-swapping club.

As we drove nearer and nearer the address we'd been given, my fears grew.

I couldn't believe Paul would go through with it. I hoped he would turn the car

round and drive me home, where we would both pretend it had been a practical

joke to test how far each of us would go.

I had always considered us a fairly normal married couple.

We had a lovely house, a daughter of seven, and if our marriage wasn't

exactly ecstatically happy, whose was?

It was at first a very ordinary evening.

We had had dinner, and Paul was reading our daughter to sleep.

At last the eggs cracked open one after the other.

What makes this new sexual license unique is that it is not the indulgence

of the idle and idolized, nor is it the immature behavior of teenagers.

Our wife-swappers are, in the main, drawn from that very strata of society

which has previously been considered the very backbone of respectable urban life,

the affluent professional middle classes.

Paul and Ellen had been married seven years.

All the resentments and frustrations of those years while Paul was building his

career had led to a slightly fractious relationship in which sexual interest

had all but gone.

The marriage which came into being primarily for the sake of the child is

being held together almost entirely because of it.

Let us now recreate the moment when Ellen first heard the phrase wife

swapping. The time before she came to be riding with her husband toward her first

organized club experience.

By the way, Leonard and his wife are coming round.

Leonard? Yes, Leonard.

You remember, the chap with the boat on the river.

When are they coming?

Tonight.

You might have warned me.

Don't start making a big deal of it.

They're just dropping in.

It's just that I hate a mess.

Look, there's something I should tell you.

Tell me later. What time are they coming?

Listen to me, Ellen.

I've got to talk to you.

I'm fed up with our marriage being a pretense for the sake of our in-laws.

I want us to find a basis on which we can live together.

Do you have any idea when we last made love?

I stopped keeping a diary when I was 15.

Ellen, this is serious.

I really can't see what this has got to do with Leonard and his wife.

Well, if you'd listen, I'd tell you.

They had a similar problem.

So?

We found a solution.

Really? What?

We read about it a few months ago.

Read about what?

Well, those clubs.

What are you talking about?

Wife swapping.

My first reaction was one of shocked disbelief. I felt totally betrayed.

The doorbell was already ringing and Paul was answering it.

I couldn't focus my mind enough to even think what kind of monsters Leonard and

his wife were going to be.

My first impressions of them were very hazy.

I remember nothing of the introductions Paul made, nor can I remember anything

of what anyone said in those first few moments.

I felt an overwhelming embarrassment over the purpose of their visit. Now,

what do you have to drink?

Gin? I remember Paul asking what everyone wanted to drink, while I sat in

desperate... Panic, groping in my mind for something to say to these strangers

that had so suddenly intruded into our lives.

Then Paul was asking me to fetch ice from the kitchen.

Any ice, darling?

Only later did I know what was said after I had left the room.

Did you ask her?

I had when you just arrived.

Look, Leonard, I don't want to waste your time like this, but...

Maybe we'd better forget it.

Leave it to me.

Leave it all to me.

Can I help you, Ellen?

This stupid eyester. I can never get the eyes out. Yeah, don't worry about it.

I'll fix it.

The one I skewed is my speciality.

Leonard, I decided, was quite charming, but I couldn't say the same for his

wife.

Jean suggested we play poker.

Leonard's wife said very little, but managed to make quite clear what she

wanted. Nothing wrong with cards, is there?

What does Ellen think?

I don't mind.

What are we going to use for chips?

Let's play for... Matches, darling.

What a drag.

At first, the poker session seemed to be quite normal and sociable.

We played, perfectly well aware that Jean, Leonard's wife, was growing more

restless with each hand.

However, as the game went on, I began to relax, and I'd almost forgotten the

reason Paul had brought these people to the house.

But obviously Jean had not forgotten.

She couldn't sit still for long.

What did you do that for?

Corks. What?

What she means is a cork game.

What you have to do is you get two corks. Pass that cork in.

What you do is you get two corks and you... I'll show you.

It seemed a simple, almost childlike game, but it was more difficult than it

looked.

Well, what happens if you fail? You take something off.

All right.

Again?

I suppose my reasons for playing were simply a spirit of competitiveness or a

feeling of security.

A feeling that this was my house.

that Paul was my husband and within these walls nothing disastrous could

happen.

Maybe it was not wanting Jean and Leonard to know there was any division

between Paul and I.

They treated it all so casually, as if there was absolutely nothing

extraordinary about what we were doing.

Maybe it was merely feminine perverseness, of wanting to see how far

I would go, or Paul would let me.

I felt I was being tested, that this was a game designed specifically to test my

nerve.

Perhaps I hoped that Paul would see that it wouldn't work, or that he couldn't

let it work and he would intervene.

Whatever it was, whatever I did or thought of doing,

I knew I wasn't going to be the one to call a halt.

And in the event, neither was he.

When he didn't intervene but merely looked up at me almost apologetically, I

felt as if I had won a great victory.

I had plunged, played their silly game, met Jean on her own ground and imagined

I was winning.

I might even have begun to enjoy it.

except that Jean was making plain her one transparent aim, to get Paul.

Oh. And I always thought you were good at this game.

Who says I'm not?

It was obvious she was deliberately losing.

At this point, I thought she would drop out of the game.

That was not her intention.

Well, that's you out of the game, isn't it?

small you and me all or

nothing

My first impulse was to intervene, to tear them apart.

But instead I sat there in a turmoil of indecision, and the moment for

intervention had already passed.

My only thought then was to get out of the room in some way, a problem resolved

for me by Leonard.

As I left the room that night, I was aware that something new had entered

into my life.

Paul?

There was one last test to come.

Paul.

What was she like?

We saw Leonard and Jean several times after that, and on better acquaintance,

Jean and I became good friends.

Then Paul, along with Jean and Leonard, started pressing me to join this larger

group, of which Jean was a leading member.

After much persuasion, I finally agreed.

And now this.

I didn't want to go through with it.

I wanted to ask Paul to turn the car and take me home.

But the car was already stopping there was now no going back

Not

now

the friendly exchange between two couples but a confrontation with total

strangers

It is one further stage in the escalation of the pleasure seekers.

Paradoxically, although it's the wife who will face the severest test, it's

often the husband who will, in the situation, start to have second

thoughts.

Are you sure about this?

They asked us to wait outside the room, and for the first time I realized that

Paul was more nervous than I.

But when the hostess brought us into the room, I suddenly felt quite calm.

My first impression was of faces with masked eyes, and behind the

eyes, minds assessing me.

I sat looking directly back at them, wondering what their thoughts were.

As they watched me, I felt a growing sense of excitement,

anticipatory excitement.

I felt suddenly flushed with confidence, glowing at the focal point of all those

eyes, and then a sudden terror in case no man there would want me.

All this time, even though the hostess had been introducing me, I had hardly

heard a word she had said. We must, of course, proceed with the usual formal

initiation of the wife.

If any of you know this candidate to be in any way unreliable,

indiscreet, or in any other way barred from membership within this group,

Then now is the time to speak.

There was a total silence.

At that moment Paul might have spoken, and it would have ended there.

But he said nothing.

I knew then I was going through with it.

In the absence of any objections, we may proceed to initiate the

candidate.

Candidate, in order to ensure your loyalty and discretion within this

group, and before any of us may be permitted to identify ourselves to you,

we require a total commitment from you. Do you understand?

You may choose your first lover.

Disrobe.

The total commitment, the eternal gift, not given to one man in love and trust,

but dedicated to a group in cynical lust.

Is it only, as Ellen insists, merely a spirit of immature competitiveness?

Or are there, beyond mere sexual recreation, more driving psychological

forces at work?

We asked an eminent London psychiatrist.

There can be many individual reasons for participating in this cult of wife

swapping. Without knowing the full life histories of the participants, I can do

no more than consider the fundamental and general issues likely to be

involved.

Primarily within the sexual relationship of any couple, disposed towards wife

swapping, there is likely to be an imbalance of sexual needs and

enthusiasms.

Out of the frustrations that this will create, the idea may grow that group

sex activity will improve things.

Over the years, there may develop, particularly in the male, a desire for

more sexual variations and excitement.

In the past, if he couldn't obtain this from his wife, he would have taken a

mistress or resorted to a prostitute.

And today, with the present fashion for thrill and the efficiency of

present-day birth control methods, he might attempt to induce his wife to

become a partner in his promiscuous activities.

The appeal to the husband in this is that he could gain sexual variation and

avoid the complicated guilt that would arise from having an affair.

The wife's reaction to such a proposal would be more emotionally

complex. She would have her own conscious or unconscious motivations,

but initially,

she would nearly always be submissively indulgent in the interests of her

husband's pleasure.

Woman's drive for so-called equality means

that if her husband finds such activity tempting, she will want to find

it equally so.

Women are in perpetual competition for the admiration of men, and for self

-respect they must succeed to an adequate extent in this competition.

This is manifest in the way that they dress for social occasions, and as ever

was, vie with each other for the attention of the gallants.

In wife-swapping,

This urge extends from being flirtatious to the display of actual

intimate sexual prowess.

And in this, the total effect is only obtained if the husband is

fully aware of his wife's success.

Her confidence may grow in direct contrast to

her husband.

who may well, as in the case of Paul, have amounting sets of doubt and

hesitation.

All this applies to the case of Paul and Ellen in general terms, but

primarily the appeal of wife-swapping can be simply a strong

voyeuristic impulse.

In the particular case of Paul and Ellen,

the sexual interest has fallen to a low ebb,

and by their standards, group sex seems to have succeeded.

But the most important fact here, primarily, and for the future, is the

children of the marriage.

Children can be the strongest bond between man and wife.

We now understand something of the fundamental impulses which drive people

towards seeking group sex activity.

And we've seen how one couple, through the council of friends, found their way

into such a group.

It is a feature of most couples established in the so-called swinging

set that they will constantly seek to involve others, a feature they share

with drug addicts and alcoholics.

We hadn't known this couple very long.

but when they invited us for a weekend on their boat, we jumped at the chance.

Everything seemed to be perfect, even if I was nervous when it was suggested I

try my hand at steering.

I wasn't used to boats, nor to the close contacts that seemed inevitable in such

confined surroundings.

Despite this, I couldn't dismiss a feeling that his wife was taking more

than a friendly interest in my husband.

The atmosphere was unsettling and strange.

But this, I reminded myself, was the point.

The change from everyday life.

It would be silly to spoil it because it was different.

To say anything would have seemed ungrateful to two very charming people.

But still there was an atmosphere, and I was apprehensive.

The atmosphere that's being created around this young couple is the result

of careful and detailed planning.

They are far from the routine of household chores and the prying eyes of

neighbours.

The setting is such that the innocent couple...

cannot easily pack their bags and depart.

They are placed off balance by the unfamiliarity of their surroundings.

And what would, under normal circumstances, call for immediate rebuke

will cause hesitation and uncertainty.

Time seemed to be divided almost equally between frantic activity and sailing

placidly along.

Toward evening I'd almost forgotten my first apprehensions.

I was quite relaxed, happy and content to laze in the sun, until my husband

reminded us that it had been a long time since lunch.

we moored that evening it fell to me to

prepare the evening meal and the easy familiarity of this task further

lessened my fears to the point where they seemed faintly ridiculous i had of

course absolutely no idea what was happening elsewhere on the boat

When her husband came forward to chat to me while I worked, I was even pleased

that he was taking such a flirtatious interest.

I was beginning to think I'd been totally wrong about him.

What followed was a shock.

Quickly followed by even greater shocks.

There was, of course, only one thing we could do after that.

The other couple seemed amused at the way things had gone.

They told us that they'd planned it from the start, that they'd done it before

with many other couples, and couldn't understand why our reaction should be

different.

Our married life was such that we felt no need to indulge in such behaviour.

I couldn't help thinking that they were rather pathetic.

There was something desperate in the way they were searching for sexual

excitement.

something we had found with love in our own marriage.

But what of the many couples who, having taken such a decision, lack the means to

make entry into this guarded, furtive and transient world?

How do they fare on this ground so filled with traps and pitfalls for the

unwary? ...by these so-called friendly magazines, magazines for finding

friends, sex magazines, kinky magazines.

The kinkiness comes out of their loneliness. What sort of people buy the

magazine? Just look at it. Well, this one, you know, the people that come

through here, the people that buy this, more or less, I've always thought that

they were lonely people.

Just lonely? I think so myself.

Lonely, frustrated, and they're looking for something that doesn't exist.

And they think they might find it in there? Well, they hope to find it in

here. Whether or not they do, of course, is a debatable issue.

How do they go about buying? Do they buy them outright? Well, some of them are

quite brazen. Others take their time. Others sort of lay back until they've

got no customers.

And I try to be as helpful as possible by taking their money as quickly as

possible.

That's a funny fellow.

Yes, sir. What would you like?

Thank you, sir.

See what I mean? It's not a word. They just come and they're gone and this,

that and the other and they just carry on.

It's funny. It's lonely.

He's hoping for a miracle.

Joe, you're the editor of a contacts magazine in which swinging couples

advertise in order to contact other swinging couples. Is that right?

Well, what do you mean by swinging?

I mean married couples disposed towards wife swapping or sex parties, that kind

of activity.

No, no. You know, this is too broad.

I look upon it as being more of a friendship basis.

Pen pals.

Pen pals?

Yeah. Well, some of the advertisements do seem a little more than pen pals.

Well, I agree with that.

Yes, I suppose I agree with that to a certain extent.

But, you know, I don't know what goes on. You don't know what goes on.

You don't know what's in the advertisements that you pass on, then? I

know nothing.

I just pass them on as they are.

You've no idea that the advertisements are genuine or that the replies are

genuine? No, as I say, one can hope that they're genuine.

But do you make any attempt to find out?

I do the best I can.

How many people do you employ?

At the moment, it's just me. I run it single-handed a lot.

That doesn't leave me a lot of time to go into complaints.

I see.

What are your relationships with the police?

Well, I hope they're all right.

But I do get some trouble now and again. I mean, they come in here, and they just

walk in here. They pick up everything they can see, and they walk out again. I

don't say a word.

I don't even say good morning.

Is this a lucrative business?

Lucrative? No, it's a business. I get a living. I'm not making fortunes.

How did you get started in the business, Joe?

How did I get started?

Well, I suppose, by 1953, I was in the Merchant Navy.

I left the Merchant Navy in 1953.

I had a few friends around Soho.

One of them offered me a job in a bookshop.

I was a chairman in one of these bookshops. A chairman?

What sort of job is a chairman in a bookshop?

Well, at that time, it was more or less like a front.

The shop was signed in my name, and they'd pay me so much a week, and if the

shop got nicked, then I'd have to go up the court, they'd pay the fine, and that

was it, all over.

And finally, you got nicked.

Yeah, I got nicked, and I couldn't do it anymore.

Then for a time I worked as an assistant in one of the bookshops, but I didn't

like it. I don't like handling pornographic gear.

Some of the ads you accept in your magazine suggest that pornography is

being offered for sale through your magazine.

Well, I may suggest, but suggest is one thing and receiving is another, isn't

it?

You don't believe that those ads are genuine?

Let's put it this way, I hope they're genuine.

And if they're not, then I don't know nothing about it.

But you say you'll have nothing to do with pornography yet. You hope that

those advertisements are offers of genuine pornography.

One can't be certain about these things.

One runs a business to the best of one's ability.

You're having a little difficulty with the law at the moment, aren't you?

Yes, I'm having a little difficulty at the moment.

I may be sent off for trial.

At the moment, even my lawyer doesn't think I've got a chance.

It's charming, isn't it?

I've got lawyers against you as well as the law.

You've got no chance.

Well, that's what he says.

Why do you think you're dead?

I don't know.

I just don't know. You know, that's what I joked about.

Well, what is the charge?

Obscenity. They've got me on an obscenity charge.

Obscenity. I've looked through that.

What's obscene about it?

Just ordinary small ads, you know. It's just ordinary small ads.

I can see some of your advertisements here. For instance, lesbian mother with

lesbian daughter.

Also, both lovers wishes to exchange letters on the subject of incest and

unnatural relationships within the family circle. I have another one here.

Young, long-legged, attractive wife loves playing in school uniform. We are

keen exhibitionists and do it yourself. I don't expect any medals for this.

But you tell me this.

What would these people do if they didn't have this magazine to write to?

I'd provide an outlet for them. If they didn't have this outlet, anything could

happen.

So, in fact, you consider you're providing a social service?

Yeah. A social service.

A social service?

Possibly. But these introductions do not always lead to the ideal meetings

between two couples of similar disposition.

For some, consequences can be more far-reaching.

First of all, I'd like to thank you for coming along to talk to us.

That's all right.

You are, I believe, an enthusiastic member of the wife-swapping set.

Well, I don't like the word wife-swapping very much. I prefer to be

known as a swinger.

Oh, well, the swinging set. Yes.

I wonder if you'd like to tell us how you first got into the swinging set.

Well, there were these friends of ours, you know, they sort of suggested

we might like to go to a party.

Really? Friends directly to a party?

Yes. I see.

And you went?

Yes. They said we didn't have to join in, but after we'd had a few drinks and

that, it just sort of happened. Everybody else was doing

it.

And why did you go?

What motivated your first visit to a party like this?

Well, things were...

you know getting a little bit tame after you've been married a few years you know

and you know things have tamed down quite a bit so really you went in search

of sexual excitement i suppose so yes and how did you feel at the time i mean

when you were making love with a strange man a man other than your husband for

the first time well i was a little bit high but i kept looking around to see

whether my husband was watching he wasn't He was, well, I don't think he

was, anyway, he's occupied himself.

I see.

You know.

So it never really occurred to you to question his reaction?

Did you talk about it afterwards?

Yes, we did talk about it.

We found it quite stimulating, actually, you know. Within your own marital sex

life? Yes, yes. I see.

And you used the past tense earlier. Are you still a member of the group?

No.

I...

thought, you know, some of the men at the parties weren't all that marvelous

and you can't really turn down offers. The first one that asked me was very

nice, you know, he's a very good looking chap, but there's some sort of old ones

and I thought, well, while I was doing it for nothing, I might as well take

money for it.

And you did?

Yes, yes.

And in fact you became a prostitute?

Well, I wouldn't call myself that.

It's just people that we know.

You know. People that you know?

Well, yes.

Men that I've met, you know.

So, in fact, instead of now going to parties, you charge to go to parties?

Um, yes, I suppose so.

I see.

What does your husband do?

Well, he was a motorman on the railway.

I see. And what is he doing now?

Um, well, he's in prison at the moment, you know.

In prison? Yes.

We got done.

How long did he actually get?

Six months.

Well, it's quite a transition from being an ordinary housewife into becoming a

professional prostitute. How did you do this? What made you do this?

Well, we've always spent more than we've ever earned. We've always had money

troubles and spent more than we've earned. But we got into a terrible mess

financially at one point. We were behind on rates and everything.

I'd been talking the week before to a woman who, you know, said, why didn't I

go to some of her parties?

The men there paid. They paid £20 a time, and it seemed the solution at the

time, you know.

So this woman arranged professional parties for men?

Yes, yes. With the appearance of being ordinary swinging parties?

Yes, that's right, yes.

But the men played? Yes.

And by this means you...

in fact, solved your financial crisis? Yes, well, she introduced me to several

of her friends, and, you know, they've become good clients.

Now you have this steady clientele. Yes, yes.

They all seem very satisfied, you know.

I must say, you seem quite satisfied with your life.

Oh, yes. You know, it has many interesting sides.

Occasionally I try to find people on my own, sometimes with a few mistakes. I

made one mistake, I... found a young boy and um he wanted to beat me it was

rather funny you know nothing else just beat me and i don't think he wanted to

pay me he didn't want to play no no but you made it quite clear you were now a

professional yes and if he had paid you oh yes that would be all right yes that

would be all right yes so in fact anything goes in your world now oh yes

yes i've learned quite a few things I see, including the visiting times at the

prison.

Yes, unfortunately.

What will your husband do when he comes out of prison?

Well, I think he will find some kind of job.

In fact, he'll be more careful?

Definitely more careful, but I don't think he'll work all that hard. Maybe

he'll be a professional photographer or something like that, you know, where,

you know, he has some kind of front job.

Just a front? Yes, just a front. So you fully intend to continue? Oh, yes, yes.

It'd be silly not to, wouldn't it? No income tax.

You don't pay tax?

Oh, no.

All tax-free? Yes.

You seem very content and happy.

Well, no.

No, not really. I mean, I haven't got my husband, have I?

No. But much else, it seems.

Yes. Would it be fair to say that you became...

a call girl, and your husband has a criminal record because of the swinging

sex? Oh, definitely, yes. I didn't realise people paid that much to have

sex with someone anyway, and I wouldn't have dreamt of, you know, going around

finding someone to have sex with.

Unless the currency of marital sex had been defaced by the swinging sex. Oh,

yes, definitely.

Yes, I wouldn't have done it.

Thank you very much indeed for talking to us.

I suspect this woman is much less secure than she pretends to be. But how

difficult it is to comment on someone without knowing her or her husband's

circumstances. However, it would seem to me that her husband's personality is

more directly responsible for the woman's position than she realizes.

But of course...

Any woman can become a prostitute. In fact, in many women there is a latent

envy of their more commercial sisterhood.

From what the woman says, I judge that they were quite an ordinary couple

before their contact with wife-swappers.

Normal in the sense that they recognized certain moral boundaries.

But what is obvious here is that the couple's wife-swapping has pushed those

boundaries to a point where their moral senses can now encompass prostitution

without a feeling of guilt.

But it is quite probably more the husband's personality which is the

governing factor, a certain weakness, giving up, giving in to the lure of

luxury, the ease of life.

I judge the woman to be complacently compliant in a more

sensitive or complicated character, this attitude to life would have ended in

disaster.

Utter disaster.

To feed the ever-deadening senses of the wife-swappers requires new faces, new

excitements.

It can be a dangerous game.

But danger to many is synonymous with excitement.

And the jaded palate will go to extraordinary lengths to engender it.

This has given rise to an extension of the... wife-swapping groups, the Thrill

Club.

We're in a London discotheque.

At this moment, not even our camera crew knew what was to happen here.

We'd waited many hours at similar rendezvous when nothing apparently had

occurred.

All we know at this moment is that something connected with two couples at

this table is supposed to happen.

This young wife, as a sealed envelope, But absolutely no idea what's inside,

except that it contains instructions.

Sealed orders?

That's exactly what they are.

Orders to be opened at 10 p.m. and acted upon.

These are the rules of their particular thrill club.

The envelope is opened.

This couple are members of a thrill-seeking dare club, constituted

with the express purpose of seeing who dare be the perpetrator of the most

outrageous conduct, preferably, as here, in a public place.

The young wife carries out her orders.

But such is the progress of the permissive society that such an

exhibition as this can occur with hardly more than a ripple of interest.

Where once an outraged management might have demanded indignantly that this girl

leave at once, she now dances on undisturbed.

She may feel a sense of disappointment and perhaps the need next time for a

more outrageous dare.

a more lascivious challenge.

An outlet for an exhibitionist streak is one thing, possibly even therapeutic.

But the search for greater, more dangerous stimulants may uncover such

latent tendencies or even foster new ones as to become dangerous.

This thrill club, or dare club as they call themselves, has quite obvious

sadomasochistic overtones.

The escalating nature of masochistic demands is well known and can

get... totally out of control, to the point where the victim, the masochist,

is reduced to punitive pulp.

For a husband and wife to embark on such an adventure, they would require a deep

-seated need for such an activity, as I believe the next sequence will

illustrate.

This is the young lady that we first saw on the bridge in the opening sequence.

She waited on the bridge till she was kidnapped and taken to a moored boat to

which she swam.

Now, what is important to know is how she came to be on the bridge.

And more important, why?

I was alone in the house when the telephone rang.

My husband, who's a member of the same thrill club, was quite prepared for me

to have adventures outside of our own marriage.

He, of course, in return, had many adventures with other members' wives.

Hello? Hello, Marion.

Are you alone?

Yes.

Speak my name, Marion.

Master.

Now, I want you to put down the telephone and move closer to the window.

Do you understand?

Yes.

What are you wearing, Marion?

Housecoat.

Take it off, Marion.

Yes.

Now we have a little fun thing for you to do, Marion.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

You are to go to Westminster Bridge and wait on the centre span.

Where you will be collected.

Your wardrobe will be one raincoat and a pair of shoes.

Nothing else.

Have you understood that?

Repeat your instructions.

I must go to Westminster Bridge, wearing just a raincoat and a pair of shoes,

and wait till I'm collected.

Very good, Marion.

All this will happen in two hours' time.

You will leave a note for your husband that you will not be home tonight.

This young wife has accepted a commitment which the self-imposed rules

say she cannot refuse.

She is motivated by guilt.

Guilt towards the sex act.

She is inhibited to a degree where she must pretend that she has no

responsibility for what she does.

She is able to enjoy sex without guilt only because she is doing what they tell

her to do.

It's not her she can claim, but them.

In allowing herself to be so used, she plays with fire.

In the name of thrill-seeking, she plays a highly dangerous game.

She is feeding the fantasies of others, fantasies of power and control, which,

if allowed to escalate, can end in tragedy, because the logical terminal

aim of all sadomasochistic relationships is the seeking of total destruction.

This young wife eventually learned a bitter lesson.

To gamble with emotion is to hazard sanity.

After several adventures similar to this reconstruction, she suffered a total

nervous collapse, necessitating prolonged hospitalization.

Today, she considers that this collapse saved her from an escalating round of

activity from which she may never have retrieved her sanity.

It is surely appropriate that the most popular of sex party games should be

those that originated in the nursery.

There are many variations on these games, and here we see two couples

who've come together in order to indulge a taste for blind man's buff.

Blind man's buff with additional adult interest.

These two couples came together through an advertisement in one of the many

introduction magazines.

They have nothing in common except an interest in promiscuous sexual activity.

Yet both feel the need of the ritualistic opening gambit, a desire for

costume, or, as in this case, blindfolds to distance themselves from normality.

Or is it, in this specific case, merely ritual?

Perhaps there is, on one side at least, a more practical reason for the

blindfolds.

One of these couples, so enthusiastically playing this game, is

much blinder than the other.

The cables snake towards another room, an even darker room.

At this man's fingertips is a closed circuit television recorder.

Every move made in the other room is being monitored and recorded, while

every possible distraction is created to prevent one of the couples noticing the

squat, unblinking eye of the television camera that observes them with such

clarity and objectivity.

The light level necessary for closed circuit television recording is much

less than that required for the more traditional tool of the blackmailer, the

conventional film camera.

Technological progress helps everyone, even blackmailers.

This was our first meeting with this young couple, although we had come to

know them well by correspondence.

Our previous experience of this kind of thing had been very limited.

It was important that the meeting was at their apartment.

There were reasons why we couldn't have them to our own home.

One night, they unexpectedly rang us and insisted that we come round at once.

It wasn't very convenient, but they were so insistent that we finally agreed to

go.

When we arrived, we found a man we had never seen before, a complete stranger.

My husband pointed out that we weren't anxious to meet new people and asked who

he was.

Our host was evasive.

The man himself was offhand and left us to set up something, as he said.

We sensed there was something very wrong with this evening, especially when we

were invited to watch television.

By this time we were prepared for almost anything.

except what we actually saw.

It was quite the most horrifying experience of my life.

The fact that it was on television made it seem even worse.

I had a somewhat irrational fear that it was being transmitted publicly, and I

sat wishing the ground would open up and swallow me.

Naturally, it was blackmail.

We had originally met this couple through an advertisement in a magazine.

We'd taken them at face value.

An expensive mistake.

We had to pay.

More and then more, until finally it reached the point where we were forced

to move.

It cost us our home, many good friends, a great deal of money, and set my

husband's career back several years.

It was our first experience of the swinging set.

and will most definitely be our last.

We just hadn't realised we were getting involved with that sort of person.

The phrase, that sort of person, interests me. I wonder if the woman were

able to look more objectively at herself, would she realise that to the

majority of people, she herself is that sort of person?

Retribution came to them in quite a direct fashion.

But you know, in this kind of activity, retribution is inevitable.

It may come in many forms.

There are always dangers inherent in any form of promiscuous activity.

The horrors of venereal disease, pregnancies of uncertain paternity.

Yes, even in the age of the pill.

And the most likely source of retribution is

the children of the marriage.

There are three requisites for the happy maturation of a child.

That it knows that it is loved by its mother, that it knows that it is loved

by its father.

And finally, and this is not always appreciated, that the parents love each

other.

The children of swinging couples will inevitably find out by intuition of

nothing else.

Children are not so blind or insensitive as their parents would like them to be.

This will inevitably give rise to confusions and insecurities in the

children, creating an emotional backwash that will affect, if not

destroy, the fundamental relationship.

There are, of course, couples who say they don't want children either

presently or ever. They may reach disagreement.

early in the marriage, but it is seldom that the paternal or maternal

instinct is completely suppressed.

More often than not, it is the wife who, knowing that her childbearing days are

strictly limited, will be the first to change her mind about having a family.

And should the husband find this fulfillment inconvenient with its

need to curtail their group activities, then that marriage is headed for

disaster.

No relationship is so resilient as to withstand the pressures that will build

inside a wife faced with such an insensitive partner.

Chia? Hello, darling. I'll be a minute.

Hello, darling. Hi.

And I thought you'd forgotten.

Forgotten? Our wedding anniversary.

Oh, God.

It went com... Completely out of my mind.

So that's what all this was in aid of.

Our ninth, too.

Tenth? I thought we were just going to have a quiet dinner, just the two of us.

But how can we?

It's our turn.

Last Friday in the month, it's our turn to be hosts.

We can't let everybody die, not tonight.

Jimmy and Carol are coming.

Look. I tell you what, we have our celebration tomorrow night.

Promise.

But tonight... The circus is coming to town.

Circus?

Yes, our private sex circus.

That's what it's become, Cliff.

Don't be silly, darling.

It just happens to be our turn, that's all.

Now, look at this.

Carol will be mad for this.

To hell with Carol!

Look, darling, don't start spoiling things. Just when we've got a great

little group together and everything's starting to be fun... Fun?

It strikes me that without an audience we wouldn't even have a sex life.

But look, I got this specially for you and Carol.

I changed my mind.

Why?

I'm not a lesbian.

Lesbian?

Two girls fooling around?

I suppose I wanted to see you and Jimmy fooling around.

I'm not.

Queer? Neither am I.

Well, it's different for men.

That's a sweet old-fashioned double standard. You can't let everybody down.

Not tonight.

The show must go on.

Mustn't let the side down.

Not in front of my friends, darling.

I've heard all that blackmail before, Cliff. I've heard it till I'm sick of

it. Well, tonight the performing bear takes a night off.

The show is cancelled.

Got it?

Happy anniversary.

There was a sudden silence in my mind.

I looked around at all those faces I knew so well.

They were all strangers.

Every gesture, every smile seemed laden with inexpressible obscenity.

Then I realized that I was the stranger.

I prayed Carol wouldn't come.

That I might be spared this final humiliation.

I wonder where Carol is.

She isn't here yet.

It's a shame to disappoint everyone.

Do you think I should give her a ring?

I shouldn't bother.

Well, I hope nothing's happened.

No, I think I will give her a ring.

She made it.

I'll get you a drink, all right? Scotch, all right? Yes.

I love the dress, darling. I can hardly contain myself.

Try getting canned.

Try and look as if you were enjoying yourself.

I'm not, so why should I?

Here you are, darling.

What time does the show start?

Come on, Sheila. It's up to you. You're the hostess.

Okay, circus lovers.

You'll get it.

Set the lighting, darling.

Put your hands on your head, darling.

Sheila, place her towards us.

Animals.

Animals, all of you.

Pawing, scratching, tearing each other to pieces.

You've taken the act of love and dirtied it.

You've taken a private moment and made it a public spectacle.

You've taken something precious and meaningful.

and made it obscene.

But I'm tired of my house being used as your farmyard.

And I'm tired of seeing myself and my friends used as bills of exchange.

And I'm sick, sick, sick of the lot of you.

And you can get out.

Out.

Go and foul somebody else's nest.

Now, wait.

This is my house, too. These are my friends. They didn't ask for this. Oh,

thanks, Madeline. Tell them. No.

Let me give them what they did ask for, then.

Get out. Don't follow somebody else's nest. Get out! Get out! Get out of my

house!

They've gone.

Good.

You've effectively lost us most of our friends.

I suppose you know that.

What was it you called them?

Farmyard animals?

Well, you behaved exactly like one.

Did you have to make your demonstration so public?

Did you have to make it in front of all our friends?

I've tried to talk to you alone.

Time after time.

You wouldn't listen.

I'm listening now.

I've said enough.

To them, maybe, but not to me.

Well, what was it?

Pride?

Jealousy? Or just plain bloody-mindedness?

I'm just tired of being pushed.

Pushed? Well, I seem to remember that it was you who said that sex could be a

recreation as long as we had each other.

Loved each other.

I didn't know that had changed.

You don't love me anymore, Cliff.

You just like what I do.

Oh, look, we did nothing that we hadn't agreed on.

Well, tonight, perhaps, but that was because it was arranged, expected, had

been for weeks, and you knew that.

Apart from that, it was fair exchange.

But it's not a fair exchange, Cliff. It can't be.

Between a man and a woman, sex has a different meaning.

All a man has to consider is if a woman is attractive enough.

But a woman must ask herself if she'd want the man's child.

Oh, for God's sake, what are you suddenly?

A nest builder?

This is the day of the free, swinging, permissive woman.

She doesn't exist and never did.

All women got was the vote and the pill.

Thanks very much.

That's not evolution, Cliff.

It changed the way they lived, not the way they are.

And is that what you want?

Is that all any woman wants from life?

Emotional security for happy pregnancies?

It isn't what she wants, it's what she is.

A woman isn't a sex machine.

She's a child bearer.

It's the fact of life.

And until you understand that about women, you'll understand nothing.

And what about the other women there tonight?

What makes you different?

There's no difference.

I just spoke the truth tonight, Cliff.

And there wasn't a woman there who would deny it.

And if you can't see that, or don't want to, then there's nothing left.

What does that mean, for God's sake?

It means you can divorce me.

God knows you've enough grounds.

And so we have come full circle.

We saw the young couple at the beginning and their introduction to wife-swapping.

We followed other cases illustrating the propensity for escalation and

the final crushing effect such activity will have on marriage.

In this particular case, Cliff is a manifestly narcissistic and

indulgent He won't take the responsibility or make the sacrifice

involved in having children.

The need for greater and greater sexual license will propel him along the

road of escalation and he will not hesitate to divorce Sheila to

attain those ends.

Sheila, persuaded into swinging by Cliff and...

in the expectation of some mysterious or temporary thrill and excitement, became

more and more disillusioned and trapped, until eventually she realized

that artificially induced lust is not an adequate substitute

for real love.

It dawned on her too late that her husband's standards were as superficial.

as the rest of the group.

Within these groups, innovations have to be devised repeatedly to

satisfy the craving for new sexual adventures.

Erotic stimulation increases surreptitiously, but it must reach the

summit and become boring.

The participants will then have to look for more florid sexual extravaganza

somewhere else, or retire finally into their own exclusive marital

relationships.

All of these sexual adventures are searching for something, unconsciously

searching for something they have lost, or perhaps, and this is the tragedy,

something they have never found, a secure emotional

relationship.

To seek such a relationship within group sex activity

is to bet on a three-legged horse.

Any number of couples can participate in this new permissive novelty.

But the game they play is a game of escalating risk and ever diminishing

return.

They will stake everything in a game where the winners gain nothing and the

losers lose all.

Tomorrow Have you known

What you know now Would

you still choose this way And play the game

That had no name to you but sorrow

You learned to borrow

Give it back now. It's your turn to play and joke up to the pack.

Don't turn around. I'm sure you found you justified.

The reason you stand looking down, watching light twist by.

You're alone as you wait to meet.

Whatever.

you pay for yesterday don't

think of tomorrow you know

if in the end time

has shown it's really like they say

to keep the love you have

tomorrow tomorrow