The Professionnal Point of View of
Dr. Michel Campbell
Michel Campbell is a Doctor of Psychology as well as a Sexologist
The Views of a Clinical Psychologist
When Jean asked me to contribute to his book on swinging, I hesitated for one moment... My reluctance was due to the fact that I have never personally practised swinging. And I never felt the need to live such a lifestyle. All that I know comes from clinical interviews with swinging couples, readings about swingers' practices and a Canadian survey on the opinion of my fellow-citizens on this sexual practice, i.e., the sharing of one's partner with another couple and, in certain cases, other couples.
Although the rites and practices of swingers have existed from time immemorial in various cultures and in several forms, it is in our time that it has been discussed so much on the social level and especially in the media. In effect, the contemporary reality of the written and electronic media makes it so that almost everyone has heard about these liberal sexual practices that some describe as libertinage or "open" relationships. The decline of religious influence on our sexual lives, which so well characterizes our time, has, without a doubt, played a significant role in favour of sexual permissiveness and the crumbling of moral, religious, social and legal sanctions. Moreover, the valorization of personal and sexual freedoms in so far as they respect others, appears to me, from the point of view of moral values, a contemporary tendency.
In addition, I also believe that science played a dominant role in the evolution of sexual morals with the invention of the contraceptive pill which, it must be said, went deeply against Judeo-Christian values in addition to bringing to the forefront the recreational dimension of sexuality, without attacking its procreative value.
Today, sexuality is more than a procreative act...
(Read all about it in the book)