My family is very unusual, but not in a way that I would ever dream of complaining about. Until just a couple of generations ago, we were all ethnically Inuit. While my grandparents’ generation brought the first infusion of European blood into the family, our cultural Westernization had already been mostly complete by then. The one major relic of our legacy that remains is a rather unique syncretic development. Long ago, wife-swapping was not uncommon in our tribe and often served to develop or strengthen bonds between otherwise unrelated families. As our ancestors assimilated, this custom somehow managed to linger, though in a curiously altered form. Rather than forging a kind of kinship between multiple families, it morphed into an expression of solidarity within each individual family. Upon a couple’s marriage, each spouse is at least permitted if not gently encouraged to be sexually available to the other spouse’s siblings. In essence, the sexual satisfaction of both spouses as well as their brothers and sisters, indeed even procreation, is viewed as a cooperative family effort. There is never any compulsion, of course, but there is no guilt either. Everyone is also encouraged to be very honest about their feelings to ensure we’re all genuinely comfortable with the arrangement.
I use the term “siblings” a bit loosely here, since an obvious consequence of this lifestyle is that at least some of the family’s legal siblings are in fact what we call “couslings,” or biological half-siblings/half-cousins. Any child not sired by his/her biological mother’s husband is usually adopted by that husband shortly after birth. A mother who is herself unwed has the similar option of letting her baby’s biological father’s wife adopt him/her. However, this is mostly just for the purpose of official guardianship. In actual practice, extramarital parents play as great a role in their children’s upbringing as they are able and willing to play, which is often considerable, with aunts and uncles tending to be about as involved and invested as moms and dads.
The overall close-knitting of our family might explain the other major aspect of this lifestyle that would likely shock outsiders, namely our lack of concern for privacy. When scratching the erotic itch, none of us care whether any other adult kin are in the room or not, and any incidental witnesses reacted with amusement or encouragement at most. At least in my immediate branch of the family, this may be one of the things that led to a new development in the tradition, namely a kind of general “Help yourself!” attitude. Each participant in the tradition is always assumed to be at least passively receptive to sex by default unless he/she either states otherwise in the moment or is known to be exclusively committed to a partner outside the family.
As one might expect, few if any of those who’ve married into our spouse-sharing clan reacted with anything less than shock when they first learned of this custom. Still, even we are surprised at how relatively easily they come to embrace such a controversial proposition. Then again, precisely as a result of our upbringing, we may naturally be drawn to partners who are just liberal enough to at least hear us out on the matter. I suspect that what helps the most in easing new members into it is being able to observe just how genuinely close we all are with very little if any of the rampant jealousy they expect. Even among those who were initially quite uncomfortable with the idea, some grew more open it at their own pace. In any case, for the majority who agree to participate at some point, a kind of initiation ritual has evolved. It can be carried out (and rescinded) at any time but usually occurs shortly after a newlywed couple’s honeymoon.