Customer Rating:  
Summary: Researcher view of swinging in U.K.
Comment: I can't agree with the advertisement that this book is the "first expose' of the recreational sex scene", but I did find it to be an interesting collection of stories on the various ways that swingers choose to engage in their hobby. I found especially interesting some of the differences in the U.K. that are revealed in this book, such as "dogging", which I don't believe has met the same level of popularity (or notoriety?) in the U.S. (Dogging is apparently popular in the U.K., where people drive to a public parking area at night to have sex in their car while others watch or perhaps participate). Other stories have been selected by the author to show a representative set of ways that people engage in swinging, including swing clubs, meeting on the internet, attending house parties, etc. The stories are based on interviews done by the author with actual swingers.
Although the author's professionalism provides a very polished and well-written book, I found "A Private Diary: Our First Year in Swinging" was actually a more enjoyable read. The stories in this book had a more commercial flavor, such as you might expect, for example, from a "made for TV" movie based on a true story, where the author takes some liberties in the telling of the story to make it more appealing and marketable. In "A Private Diary", the stories may be less grammatically polished, but they have a much better feel of realism that I enjoyed. I would still recommend this book as an interesting view of swinging differences found outside the U.S. Perhaps dogging will start to catch on here as well?
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