Ahem ... I hope I didn't give the impression I was singling you out mmkeekah, or trying to give you a bad time. If anything, maybe I was trying to give the whole forum a bad time. You know, ask uncomfortable questions that make people think.
See now what I kind of think is that it's good to have a sex-positive outlook on life in general. For example, let's say a couple of people were having sex, and it was just for the sheer sake of sex. Well, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Sex is great, awesome, etc. ... granted it's not everyone's cup of tea, but if anyone is having sex just because they like sex, I say cool, go for it. It's hot.
I don't know what the "right" definition for swinging is (Can there be a right definition?), but if it were "People getting together just to have sex," I wouldn't think that was a bad thing. Sex is cool.
Having said that, I also don't mind giving swingers credit for other stuff besides just sex. This is actually educational for me, I didn't realize extrasexual elements of human interaction mattered a lot to swingers, but now I think such elements do matter a lot.
If I was looking for concrete definitions (and I suppose I was to some extent) for poly and swing, for purposes of comparison or whatever, then I find that you (mmkeekah) provided
perfectly good ones:
Swinging:
"The practice of partners in a committed relationship (i.e. in love) or single people engaging in sexual activities with other consenting adults as a recreational or social activity."
Polyamory:
"The practice of building multiple intimate relationships at a time with other consenting adults."
Sounds good to me.
The general impression I get (from everyone in general so far) is that swinging and polyamory, taken as a whole, both have sex going on in many instances, while in certain particular cases (of swinging or polyamory), maybe sex isn't going on. Now is swinging and/or polyamory a sexual word? I'm guessing that most of the unwashed masses, when they hear "polyamory" or "swinging," the first thing that comes to their mind is "sex." And if that's true, maybe that's the problem. Maybe we need more people to understand that "polyamory" and "swinging" are relationship words.
Still, there's the virtues of sex-positive perspective to consider. If people want to think of me as slutty because I'm poly, for example, that's actually okay with me. I'm glad and proud to be slutty. Wish I'd embraced that part of me a long time ago.
Not sure if that helps, but at least I didn't ask as many questions that time.