Summer swing

The day before Independence Day has long held personal meaning for me: It was the day that my family and I emigrated to the US from South Korea in 1975. This year, it was to bear another significance: I was assigned to attend a pre-Fourth of July bash at the New Horizons swingers club, a nearly 20-year-old legally established resort in Lynnwood devoted to partner-swapping. I chuckled at the coincidence: Is this what being an American is all about?

What do people wear to a swingers' party? Lingerie? Leather? Slinky cocktail dresses? Or nothing at all?

I imagined the worst of pornographic clich鳭-naked women in spiked heels; big hair; basketball breasts; glossy red fingernails. I possessed none of these.

I took out my best underwear—a black bra and lace panties that actually matched. OK, now what? I was in jeans and a gray T-shirt. Some women, like Heather Graham, can look hot in jeans and a T. I looked like I had just come back from a fishing trip. I searched through my closet and picked out a red mini-dress—one of those impulse buys I had worn only once. I put it on. It looked way too short; I wouldn't want to seem like I was trying too hard.

I tried on a couple more outfits, only to cast them off to a growing pile on the floor. Finally, I settled for slim black pants and a clingy sweater. It was sexy but tasteful; it showed off the silhouette of my body, but nothing else. It was an outfit I could wear to dinner with my parents. I rushed out the door.

In the kink factor, couples swapping partners and having sex in front of each other seems to take the cake. I know plenty of unconventional people—one of them an unshockable amateur pornographer—who think swinging is just plain weird and wrong. Swinging, or—as swingers like to call it—"the lifestyle," completely challenges our culture's ideas of couplehood. At the same time, many swingers are married or in serious relationships. As one happily married swinger told me, "We view sex as recreation. It doesn't have anything to do with commitment. That's a whole other thing."

"Does everyone know where they are?" our guide, Mac, piped. He turned towards me. For a second, I thought he was going to ask for my ID. "This is a swinger's club! People come here to have sex!" he boomed, causing some of us to smile nervously.

About 30 of us first-timers were in the orientation session. I was the youngest one by far. Most of the people looked like they were in their 40s and 50s. A few looked to be in their 60s. Bob Dole would have been proud.

Everyone in the group was paired up except for me. I sidled next to an attractive blond couple so I wouldn't appear too odd. The three of us could have been an item—I was the Oriental chick spicing up their Barbie-and-Ken fare. Barbie remained icy, but Ken turned to me, interested. He smiled and said hello. I smiled back, unsure what the seemingly innocent greeting conveyed. Since people come here to have sex, is a simple smile and hello tantamount to "Hi there, I'd like to spank your bottom"?

Mac led us through a swimming pool area, hot tubs, and then to a den with a fireplace and recliners.

He cited the rules. He pointed to a sign posted at the bottom of a stairway that stated, "No singles." The "play areas" upstairs were for couples or groups only. (Mac neglected to mention that single women were an exception to this rule.)

"Everything you needed to know in this club, you learned in kindergarten," he said. "You share. You play together. And no means no."

Mac also told us to "always ask before taking." I could just see it now—"May I lick your husband's penis?" I would ask the Barbie woman.