Product Details

• Actors: Robert McGinley (II), Wild Bill Goodwin, Dant'e Amore
• Directors: David Schisgall
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Fox Lorber
• VHS Release Date: March 13, 2001
• Run Time: 78 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000059HDP
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #23,533 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
It's Saturday night in suburbia; do you know where your neighbors are? This eye-opening, pruriently fascinating documentary explores the "swinger" subculture--and we don't mean big band music. These are middle-class, middle-aged couples who like nothing more than meeting at someone's house, swapping spouses, and getting jiggly with it, if that's your idea of a good time, and for an estimated 3 million Americans, it is. From California to Colorado to Louisiana, The Lifestyle filmmakers interview swingers, attend a swingers convention, and even get some "Martha Stewart tips for a swinging house party" (pizza and karaoke are recommended, and two bathrooms are considered a must). The conversation is graphic, and except for one brief scene, the hard-core footage is fleeting. Director David Schisgall is more interested in putting a human face, if you will, on those for whom swinging is just as natural as going out to dinner and a movie.

Among the film's breakout stars is 73-year-old "Wild Bill," who one minute movingly discusses his beloved wife's death from breast cancer and the next recalls a particularly close simultaneous encounter with three women. Even if the swingers in this film don't win any converts to the Lifestyle, they are at least articulate on how it has impacted their lives. Many insist that their marriages are stronger. "It's not who you have sex with," one states, "it's who you're going home with." The film is nonjudgmental, although Schisgall can't resist getting some cheap shots at his subjects' Republican leanings. "A lot of people don't understand (swinging)," one participant remarks. After watching this film, they still might not understand it. A more likely reaction is the one predicted by one couple who imagine what their unwitting parents would think if they saw this film: "This would just blow their minds." --Donald Liebenson

From the Back Cover
Three million neighbors would rather get down with the Joneses than keep up with them. Experience the Naked truth behind group sex in America. By turns funny, touching, shocking, and surreal, The Lifestyle is an intensely personal two-year journey through a dozen swingers' homes, workplaces, conventions and parties. This is the first in-depth account of this undiscovered subculture that exits amidst our suburbs and small towns. Your trip through this new, unexplored lifestyle will take you past drawn shades and behind closed doors. Then decide for yourself.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An O.K. documentary that misses the mark, December 19, 2001

By	Bob Hannaford (new orleans) - See all my reviews

It is nice to see someone "attempt" to make a documentary about the "swinging lifestyle"- unfortunatly, this one misses the mark. One walks away from this film thinking that "swingers" are all 55+ yrs old and the only young people in the film almost break up.

The problem is simply that most younger, educated, attractive couples in the swinging lifestyle cannot go "public" and join in on a documentary. So what's left are people that misrepresent what's really out there. I hope one day someone can capture the excitement, diversity, variety and just plain fun that the swinging lifestyle provides. This film doesn't.

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars If you are hoping to expose someone to the lifestyle, April 14, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: LIFESTYLE: SWINGING IN AMERICA - LIFESTYLE: SWINGING IN AMERICA (DVD)

do not show them this film. The swingers in "The Lifestyle" are the senior citizen variety. Not middle age boomers, mind you. We are talking post-retirement folks. Don't get me wrong...God bless these seniors and their active libidos. It's just that I was hoping that somewhere between the world of the tan, shaved, oiled hard-bodied early 20's performance swingers (ummm... are they all east of the Mississippi?) and this group of more relaxed, experienced swingers that this film would focus on the 30-50 year olds who make up a big chunk of swinger demographics. The folks who have kids who are growing up, or gone, and beginning to focus effort/energy on their relationships.

There was one couple in the film who were interesting on a number of different levels. You know... intelligent, attractive, thoughtful. Who end up leaving the lifestyle after it begins to have a negative affect on their marriage. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Taken as a documentary on a fraction of this burgeoning sub-culture I would give it a much higher score. The one star vote is based on the disappointment I experienced when I realized that this isn't the film that I will pop in when we are entertaining friends and we would like to see if they would like to take our relationships to a deeper level.

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable film!!!, June 10, 2001

By	"nwdixieboy" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This documentary is not only very well made, but manages to push even the sexually liberated person's buttons by portraying for the most part swinging couples who for lack of a better term resemble most of our parents. The dichotomy between the middle class normality of these parental figures and their very liberated view of sexuality is most effective. I think if they had chosen to do a documentary using "the beautiful people" it would have been far less effective. It is a very spiritual, inimate portrayal of a a valid alternative to the marriage-divorce syndrome which is wrecking America's family life. Monogamy for life is not the only alternative any more for happy heterosexual couples. As a gay man who's sexual culture is so focused on physical beauty, it was refreshing to see normal looking people having good sex lives with other normal looking people and feeling sexy, desirable and fulfilled. Real life is neither Life With the Cleaver's nor a porn movie.