[Ads-l] "Key party" [1957]

[Andy Bach]

The page
https://midcenturypage.com/2022/01/20/mid-century-true-crime-the-melvin-clark-murder/

>From the mention story
https://vintagegaze.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/midcenturypage-swap-mate-scandal-cosmo-march-1959-14.pdf


Gives a 1953 date for the swapping parties, but doesn’t use the “key” word

Andy Bach
Afbach at gmail.com
Not at my desk


On Mon, Jan 1, 2024 at 2:12 PM Bonnie Taylor-Blake <b.taylorblake at gmail.com>
wrote:

> A little something to spice up the new year.
>
> After rewatching Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm" the other day, I went looking
> for early appearances of "key party."
>
> Neither OED nor Merriam-Webster have entries for "key party," but in a 2018
> article SF Weekly's Joe Kukura reported a 1965 appearance of the term.
>
>
> https://www.sfweekly.com/archives/did-key-parties-ever-really-happen/article_7cdda389-9c58-59d7-b46b-92f5cc51da93.html
>
> Although I did finally stumble on an early "'Key' party," I gave up looking
> for "key party" itself after getting mired in so many mentions of "key
> party officials" and similar. (Some patient person here may well find
> earlier uses of "key party.") But the wife-swapping "key parties" wasn't
> that difficult to find.
>
> And although "key party" is the designation that seems to have survived, I
> see that "key game" was a popular synonym, at least in 1959. I've included
> a usage of that term far below.
>
> Kukura also cited something contending that "the original spouse-sharers
> were none other than World War II fighter pilots [...] It was the pilots
> and their wives who invented the term 'key club,' which was unknown in the
> '40s, [and] became widely known in the '50s and '60s."
>
> Unfortunately, I was unable to find references, subtle or otherwise, to
> wife-swapping "key clubs" except for "Key Club Wives," the name of an adult
> film that came out in the late '60s.
>
> But I did find descriptions of these diversions that go back to 1955 and
> 1956, though these popular-press articles lack the specific terms "key
> party," "key game," and "key club." (I'll tweet those out.)
>
> -- Bonnie
>
> ----------------------------------
>
> We hear rumors going around in one of the nicer sections of Greater
> Pittston that is rather shocking. The report is that some of the
> not-so-young and not-so-old married couples have a "Key" party every now
> and then. At the end of the party, the wives throw the keys to their home
> on the floor, and whoever picks up the keys, goes that night with the owner
> of the key, while her husband is tagging along to another home with someone
> else's key. Hard to believe. We'd have to see it to believe it, although
> sources in the area swear to the authenticity of the rumor. [In "Our Town,"
> Sunday Dispatch (Pittston, Pennsylvania), 21 July 1957, p. 4.]
>
> For information about sexual activities in the suburbs, you must go to
> indirect sources. There is plenty of gossip. You can get information about
> "key parties" in Westchester County [New York] from people who've never
> been to one and can't pinpoint where they took place. [Earl Ubell,
> "Suburban Women Seem More Satisfied With Their Husbands," Burlington (North
> Carolina) Daily Times-News, 22 January 1959, p. 3A.]
>
> Soon they were seeking more variety and excitement and started having what
> they called "key parties." The women would throw their house keys in the
> middle of the room and the men would each take a key plus the woman to whom
> the key belonged. [From a letter to Ione Quinby Griggs, "One Mate Swapper
> Now in Death Cell," The Milwaukee Journal, 13 March 1959, p. 4.]
>
> Questioned as to details, Patrick said that "seven or eight couples
> actually swapped mates for the evening by drawing keys from a bowl while
> blindfolded, or in a darkened room, and the owner of the key "paired off"
> for the night with the person who had drawn tthe [sic] key. Further
> information, the prosecutor stated, indicated that at least one of the
> couples regularly hired a babysitter to look after their children while
> they attended the key parties. ["Prosecutor bares wife-swapping in Oak
> Harbor 'Key Game!'," Island County Times (Coupeville, Washington), 13
> August 1959, p. 1.]
>
> DURBAN, South Africa -- (Reuters) -- Strip poker and "key parties" are now
> out of date in Durban. The craze now tickling the fancy of Durban's gay
> young social set is the "feather game" -- so called because feathers figure
> prominently in the game, which ends with most of the women players stripped
> to their underwear. ["Feathering for strips," The Houston (Texas) Post, 26
> May 1963, Section 7, p. 2.]
>
> Then she described another social aberration, called "key parties," in
> which she and her husband had participated. In this type of social life, a
> group of couples go off to a motel and register. Then they all get together
> in the lounge and after getting pretty well tanked they toss their room
> keys onto the floor. Then they draw lots and in turn each woman picks up a
> key and goes off with the man it belongs to. [Norman Vincent Peale, "Moral
> Structure Hits Skids," Staten Island Advance, 15 August 1964, p. 3.]
>
> ---------------
>
> The ultimate solution was the key game. Into a hat the men tossed their
> flat, brass, remarkably similar house keys. A brisk shaking, and then into
> the hat groped the wives at a given signal. To whatever master of the house
> the key belonged, so belonged for the night the woman who had drawn it. [In
> George Scullin's short story, "The Sordid End to the Swap-Mate Scandal,"
> Cosmopolitan, March 1959, p. 32.]
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org