San Diego Swings: Van Dam trial brings "swinging" into the spotlight!

San Diego Swings

The murder of little Danielle van Dam brought “swinging” into the spotlight. Log on to the World Wide Web, type in “San Diego” and “swingers” on the Yahoo search, and you get 6,160 hits. That’s more than “San Diego” in combination with “hiking trails” (2,570), “car clubs” (772) or “pet lovers” (359)—though not as many as “golfers” (7,430) or “Republicans” (18,900).

Club Paradise, according to its Web site, “is situated in the back hills of the El Cajon Valley, nestled in a secluded, yet easy to access area.” The facility offers a “high-class, home-party style environment” and boasts “5,000 square feet of fun, including a swimming pool, spa and backyard fire pit to socialize with your new friends while warming your erogenous zones.”

Guests are “welcome to bring some goodies (besides your wife)”—and once their erogenous zones are sufficiently warmed, they may choose from “plenty of play areas ... most prefer the living room floor or kitchen, but [private] rooms are always available.”

Club CB is an on-line club “providing a safe meeting place for sensuous consenting adults.” Member parties promise “the hottest couples, the best facilities, very tasty buffet dinners, scrumptious desserts and a staff dedicated to ensuring your experience is clean, fun and safe.”

Club CB party organizers boast they specialize in “stirring up erotic sensations and placing our members in the ideal environment to meet and expand friendships with the most exciting people in San Diego County ... all while raising funds for local charity foundations contributing to the research for multiple sclerosis and other debilitating diseases.”

Welcome to the wonderful—and apparently charitable—world of swinging, San Diego style.

Tony Lanzaratta, a retired Los Angeles police officer who, as executive director of NASCA International, probably has a better handle on swinging than anyone else in the country, stops short of saying San Diego is a hotbed for what he calls “play couples.”

“It’s impossible to chart,” Lanzaratta says. “But I travel a lot, and I know one thing: I meet a lot of people from San Diego.”

He says there are half a dozen organized swing clubs in San Diego County, some in private homes and some in commercial buildings. None is openly marked. “San Diego is a very conservative city,” he says, “so you just can’t do that.”

But even the local presence of half a dozen organized swing clubs—most of them with Web sites rivaling those of ritzy desert resorts—is no barometer for how many San Diegans actually participate in what Lanzaratta and other swingers call “the lifestyle.” According to the official NASCA Web site, that lifestyle is defined as follows:

“Swinging is social and sexual intercourse with someone other than your mate, boyfriend or girlfriend, excepting the traditional one-on-one dating. It may be defined as recreational social sex. The activity may occur at a swing party, a couple-to-couple encounter, a liaison or with a third person in a threesome. Though single men and women are involved, it is primarily an activity of couples.”

“A lot of people just have little neighborhood get-togethers in their homes, five or six couples who go for it,” Lanzaratta says. “The thing is, people are not card-carrying swingers; they don’t necessarily have to belong to clubs or even frequent parties. People don’t call up and say, ‘We’re with the Rand Corporation; are you swingers?’ So many people keep it hidden.”

NASCA originally stood for North American Swing Club Association, but now goes solely by its acronym. That’s because membership in the loosely knit, Orange County–based confederation of swing clubs now extends beyond North America—and Lanzaratta and other practitioners of “the lifestyle” believe the term “swing” has become dated.

“‘Swinging’ is not really a favored term anymore,” Lanzaratta says. “Swinging kind of connotes 1950s wife-swapping crap. It has little to do with that, and that’s why lifestyle organizations prefer to use the term ‘play couple.’”

Call it what you will—swinging is big news these days, and all because of a vivacious, bright-eyed little girl who was snatched from her home, brutally murdered and then dumped in East County.

The Danielle van Dam kidnapping and murder case has gripped San Diegans from the time the 7-year-old was first discovered to be missing from her Sabre Springs home in early February. It has also pushed into the spotlight—or shoved under the microscope—what had previously been one of San Diego’s salacious little secrets: the thriving local “swinging” scene in which the dead girl’s parents, Brenda and Damon van Dam, were involved.

From the time KFMB Radio talk-show host Rick Roberts first brought up rumors of the van Dams’ mate-swapping lifestyle, there’s been a collective finger-wagging of disapproval—and also a collective curiosity about the phenomenon.

During the murder trial of David Westerfield, defense attorney Steven Feldman tried to convince jurors that swinging may have opened the van Dams’ doors—figuratively and literally—to all sorts of perverts who could have made off with and later killed Danielle. Early in the trial, he even tried to question Brenda van Dam about what he called “sex parties,” but Judge William Mudd stopped the grieving mother from answering broad questions about her sex life because he deemed them “irrelevant.”

“It seems that the San Diego media are finally waking up to alternative lifestyles about 50 years late and for all the wrong reasons, i.e., the van Dams,” Jay, who operates the Free Body, Mind & Spirit Society, one of San Diego’s swing clubs, wrote in an e-mail, replying to a query. “Our membership is composed of mostly late arrivals from the rest of the world. They are quite aware that they now reside in the epicenter of geekocracy and therefore do not wish any publicity. Nobody likes to find burning crosses on their front lawns.”

Lanzaratta, too, decries the spotlight directed toward the San Diego swinging scene by the van Dam case. “It’s too bad there was this sudden interest in the lifestyle because a crime was committed,” he says. “The lifestyle, from what I’ve seen and heard, has nothing to do with the crime. These are everyday couples, and the suspect in this case is not a couple, is he? He’s a single male. So where is this thing coming from? I’m sure the defense is going to use this [the van Dams’ connection to swinging] and say they are unfit parents and all that B.S., but that’s a bunch of crap. They’re just trying to latch onto anything at all. I can’t fault the attorneys, because that’s their job, but for everybody else to jump on the bandwagon is just crazy.”

Lanzaratta’s indignation underscores the basic philosophy that seems to be embraced by most swingers: What they are doing is perfectly normal—and besides, what goes on behind closed doors between two (or more) consenting adults is nobody’s damn business.

“Eighty percent of the human world population is polygamous, so maybe the monogamists are freaks,” claims Jay. “We swingers all seem to feel completely healthy.”

(Jay’s comments aren’t entirely accurate. He might be referring to the legality of polygamy, not the practice. According to the polygamypage.info Web site, “In most of the world polygamy is an acceptable social practice and is never a crime. In much of the Western world, including Britain and most of the United States, the practice of polygamy is not illegal. As long as the marriages are not registered with the state, there is no offense, although there is also hardly any legal recognition of the relationship. In a few states, the bigamy law is used together with a ‘common-law marriage’ law to define polygamy as illegal. These laws also tend to make same-sex partnerships and cohabitation by unmarried couples illegal as well.”)

From the NASCA International Web site: “People who swing come from all economic levels. Every job classification, all races and nationalities are represented, though the majority are Caucasian, middle to upper-middle socio-economic class, and married. Swingers ... tend to be adventuresome, emotionally mature and have excellent relationships with their mates and friends. ... Many single women have joined swing clubs, finding them a refreshing alternative to the traditional bar scene.”

Lanzaratta, 52, a proud swinger for 14 years, says that definition really says it all. Sex is just part of the lifestyle, he maintains.

“It’s first and foremost social, with a capital S,” he says. “Now, what these people do after they meet other couples is between them, but 40 percent to 50 percent never take it to the next step, which is sex. It’s a place to go to be social with like-minded people, but certainly not just to get laid.”

Typical swingers, Lanzaratta says, tend to be baby boomer couples in their 40s or 50s with time and money to travel. The annual Lifestyles convention, which used to be here in San Diego but is now held in Las Vegas or Reno, draws upwards of 6,000 attendees each year, he says.

“They are factory workers and firemen and store clerks and bankers and doctors and newscasters,” Lanzaratta says. “It’s a total cross-section of whatever middle America or normal America is. It’s couples looking for a social outlet. They’re tired of theater and dinner and $100 nightclubs. They want to go to clubs where they can meet and socialize with nice couples, with no lecherous singles stuff or pickup scene. It’s not a meat market; people who go to our clubs have no requirement to do anything.”

Of course, if they do choose to do anything of a sexual nature, he says, “they’ve got privacy, anonymity and the company of other couples.

“Sex is certainly a big part of it,” Lanzaratta concedes, “but it’s not the only thing.”

Sampling of classified advertising on the Internet indicates that sex may be a bigger part of “the lifestyle” for some swingers than the ones with whom Lanzaratta is familiar. Here are some ads from San Diego swingers pulled off www.e-MacDaddy.com, a portal for adult sites:

From Dan: “Hi, I’m a good-looking and athletic male, looking to be a sex toy. I am putting myself out [for] any kind of adventure. 3somes or anything, I’m game. I’m disease and drug free and expect the same.”

From Twoofus: “Me and my wife are looking for a couple to swing with or a party to go to. Is there a good place to just sleep with many people at once? Any info would be helpful or another young attractive couple like ourselves that would be interested would be great.”

From Shon: “Wife and I are looking for a partner to join up for a night. Male or female. If male wifey says must be big. ... Females must be in shape, nice body. No skinny model chicks!”

From SD and NW: “We have been in the San Diego area a little over a year and we are interested in making new friends. We are interested in the swinger lifestyle. We are willing and able to try anything once and we would like to experience this lifestyle. We are a married (wife is bi) couple with no children. We are both clean and in good health. If we sound interesting to you, please e-mail us and we would like to meet you for dinner or just a coffee out. PLEASE NO BI OR GAY MEN.”

So how does one go about joining a swing club? Lanzaratta says that regardless of whether a “lifestyle club” has a physical headquarters or consists of parties held in various places, the mechanism is the same. It all starts with an interview.

“You contact them via phone or e-mail and then they talk to you, talk to the [partner], have you come into an office and meet you in person,” he explains. “They sit you both down and interview you to make sure both of you are on board with this. There have been instances in which the guy dupes the woman into doing this, and no one wants to have any problems.”

Once the prospective swingers “pass” the interview hurdle, they pay an initial membership fee—$130 is standard, and that includes the first “party”—and then are given a date, time and location of the next gathering. Most San Diego swing clubs hold get-togethers for couples every weekend, or every other weekend. “Some are also open on Wednesday night, hump night—no pun intended,” Lanzaratta says with a laugh.

Most parties are for couples only, but sometimes single men or single women are allowed in—typically on Friday nights, when the action’s a bit slower than on Saturday nights. The membership fees allow these functions to be private. “If they were open to the public,” Lanzaratta says, “there could be problems.”

Once at a “party,” couples pay a cover charge of $50 to $60. That fee buys them not just admission but also munchies.

“Most of the nicer clubs have a nice buffet,” Lanzaratta says. After dinner, “you get up and sit somewhere and strike up a conversation with somebody else,” he says. Most clubs have deejays playing music, “so you get up and dance and mingle and drink a little to get more relaxed.”

And from there, well, use your imagination. “If it’s an on-premise club, there’s an area for sex,” Lanzaratta says. “It could be a back room, it could be a bedroom—that varies greatly, too. Some couples will only be with another couple if they’re both there; others want to be separate. The orgy scene is not really that prevalent—it’s usually two couples, three couples max. And then there are situations in which the man doesn’t want to do anything—he wants his wife or girlfriend to be with someone else.”

Robin C. (not her real name) is a young North County mother who briefly tried the swinger lifestyle several years ago, before she and her husband had children. Speaking through an intermediary—she’s deathly afraid of being identified—Robin says she was enticed to try “the lifestyle” by her husband. After much prodding, she relented. They hooked up with another couple her husband knew and had sex with one another.

“I knew it was wrong, but I did it,” she says. Robin and her husband soon opted out of the lifestyle, but the memories are still painful. “What were we thinking?” she asks. “This just isn’t normal.”

Lanzaratta isn’t at all surprised at this story. He says “the lifestyle” is best suited to older couples who have been married for a while and who are on solid ground.

“New relationships aren’t ready for something like this,” he says. “They have still got a lot to learn about each other. In fact, when we have a young couple come in, we give them some food for thought. We say, ‘You guys might want to think about it for a while.’”

Young couples, Lanzaratta says, are also more likely to feel insecure, which can lead to jealousy and guilt.

“Jealousy is pretty common in couples just starting out,” he says. “They need to separate love from sex. It [swinging] is recreation; it’s like going out and playing golf or tennis. And if they can keep it in that context—and if it is that for both parties—only then are they ready. Sure, the first time there might be pangs of anxiety or jealousy, or ‘Wait, you really enjoyed that; I’ve never seen you like that.’

“But they need to discuss everything before they do it and after they do it, and make sure nothing’s hidden. If one partner is more gung-ho than the other, they need to take several steps back and regroup, and ask themselves, ‘What are we trying to accomplish here?’”

Rich Hycer is a psychologist with a practice in Solana Beach. Since 1976, he has counseled hundreds of individuals and couples about relationships. He frowns on swinging just as he does on affairs, and says both can cause irreparable harm in a relationship.

“In most cases, it’s really an avoidance of dealing with the issues,” Hycer explains. “It’s much more important to look to ourselves and to what’s going on between us and our partner than look outside the marriage.”

He says people who are drawn to sex outside marriage, or outside a committed relationship, invariably are looking for a quick fix. “They may feel their marriage or relationship isn’t satisfying, but they don’t want to go through the problems of divorce,” he says. “It may temporarily make people feel good, but it doesn’t deal with the underlying issues that are going on in that marriage or relationship. It may be a short-term, ‘feel-good’ experience, but it doesn’t really solve issues and can become an avoidance.”

Lanzaratta agrees that swinging can be detrimental for couples whose relationships are in trouble. But for those involved in solid, mutually satisfying relationships, he maintains, “it’s just the opposite—it brings couples closer together and deepens their commitment. It’s not the way to fix a bad marriage; it’s a way to enhance a good marriage.”

What drives people to seek sex outside of marriage? Monogamy is unnatural, Lanzaratta says—which is why so many people have affairs, something he rails against.

He adds that, contrary to common thought, women are often the drivers behind a couple’s entry into “the lifestyle.”

“A lot of women would like maybe to have an experience with another woman, but they have no idea how to go about it in regular society,” Lanzaratta says. “This is one place they can find it. This is very acceptable here. It’s the covering up and the cheating that destroys a marriage, not the sex. This is something couples do together.”

Silence on part of defendant may be hard to ignore

By Alex Roth
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

August 4, 2002

During eight weeks of testimony in the David Westerfield trial, jurors have heard from grieving parents, cops, barflies, forensic analysts, bug experts and people who drive dune buggies around the desert wearing video cameras on their heads.

But there's one person whose silence has been conspicuous – Westerfield himself. Closing statements in the kidnap-murder trial are scheduled for this week, and it's now clear that Westerfield won't be testifying on his own behalf.

As a legal matter, it shouldn't make any difference. He has a constitutional right to remain silent, and the jury is forbidden by law from holding his silence against him.

But what about as a practical matter? Jurors are human, and most people might find it hard to understand why Westerfield, if he's innocent of killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam, wouldn't demand the opportunity to say so on the witness stand.

In this respect, the Westerfield trial highlights one of the ironies of the criminal justice system: A defendant's decision to remain silent can be both totally meaningless and, at least arguably, one of the most telling details of all.

"It's the elephant in the middle of the room," said San Diego defense lawyer Dan Williams, who has been providing media commentary on the trial.

In interviews last week, several legal experts expressed opinions on whether Westerfield's decision to stay off the witness stand would have any effect on the verdict. The self-employed design engineer is accused of abducting and killing his Sabre Springs neighbor the first weekend in February.

Jurors will be given a standard instruction not to consider that Westerfield didn't take the stand. Jurors can usually be trusted to follow the law, the legal experts say.

Alameda County prosecutor Jim Anderson has tried 15 death penalty cases, and in every case but one the defendant opted not to testify. In general, jurors have always assured Anderson after their verdicts that they didn't hold the defendant's silence against him, he said.

"From my experience, they do follow the court's instructions and give it no weight whatsoever," he said.

Other experts predicted that Westerfield's silence would almost certainly have some effect on the jury, even if only on a subconscious level. Given the damning physical evidence, there are some questions only Westerfield himself can answer.

How did the girl's blood, hair and fingerprints get inside his motor home? Why did his jacket have her blood on it, and why did he take that jacket to a dry cleaner? Why didn't he bother to tell police about his trip to the cleaner with the bloodstained jacket on the morning of Feb. 4?

While it's unlikely that the jury will openly discuss Westerfield's silence during deliberations – that would be a direct violation of law – it might affect the jurors in ways they don't even realize.

"It's very difficult for them not to be affected by him not getting up there and answering some of these questions," said Williams, a former San Diego deputy district attorney. "It'll be down inside of them. It's got to be. It's just human nature."

Although the public might be tempted to infer guilt from silence, several defense lawyers said there are valid strategic reasons for keeping a client off the witness stand, even if he's innocent.

Many defense lawyers say they don't want a stupid or inarticulate client to testify, even if he's not guilty. The risk is too great that the client will be obliterated on cross-examination.

"Some people make terrible witnesses, including innocent defendants," said Vista criminal defense lawyer Peter Liss.

What's more, even if a defendant is innocent, he may have engaged in behavior that's unseemly, suspicious or simply doesn't make any sense. In those situations, a defendant might sink himself by trying to explain his conduct to the jury.

If Westerfield were to testify, for instance, he would have to explain the child pornography found on computer disks in his home office. Liss said he could imagine prosecutors spending an hour or two asking Westerfield about each and every image.

By taking the stand, Westerfield would give prosecutors the chance to "twist the focus of the case onto an unfavorable aspect of his personality," Liss said.

"Undue attention is paid to the child porn, and it diverts the jury's attention away from the truth," he added.

By testifying, a defendant may also give prosecutors the opportunity to present evidence that otherwise might not be admissible. For instance, when a defendant testifies, prosecutors can attack his credibility by telling the jury about certain criminal convictions in the defendant's background.

Westerfield's criminal record consists of a drunken-driving conviction. It's unclear whether he has anything else in his background that could have been used against him on the witness stand. The judge has held a number of hearings to discuss what evidence will be admitted in the case, but those hearings have been closed to the public.

Despite all the pitfalls in a defendant's testifying, some defense lawyers said they would have recommended that Westerfield take the stand. There's simply too much evidence that needs to be explained, they said.

"This isn't a stupid guy who can't speak for himself," Carlsbad criminal defense lawyer Dave Thompson said. "And we've got this mountain of physical evidence."

The risk, of course, is that Westerfield might offer such an unconvincing explanation that his credibility is destroyed.

"If the guy gets up there and can't explain away the physical evidence," Thompson said, "you now have eliminated all doubt."

Alex Roth: (619) 542-4558;

I've taken the liberty to edit for readability some info published at Scaffold's Fruit Journal, March 29, 1999 Volume 8 No. 2 Update on Pest Management and Crop Development :

Developmental Rates and Thresholds
Insects are cold-blooded, mammals are warm-blooded. We mammals generate heat and control our own temparature. Insects do not generate body heat and control their own temparature, they remain at the same temperature as their environment. At a certain temperature an insect's biochemical reactions cannot proceed and development stops. This temperature is known as the insect's developmental threshold or developmental base and it varies among species.
Charting the ambient temperature makes it possible to track insect development, which is directly proportional to the amount temparature accumulated above the developmental threshold temperature. This accumulation of temperature over a day's time is a heat unit known as degree-days (DD).

Degree-Day Calculation Methods
There are different ways to determine the quantity of degree day heat units. We calculate them by calculating the area under a temperature versus time graph on a given day. The methods are listed below in order of precision in measuring small changes during the day or departures from idealized heating and cooling trends (see figure).
Average or Max/Min Method - This method is the simplest and least precise. It assumes that the daily temperature graph is linear and that the area beneath it is triangular.
DD = [Daily max temp + Daily min temp*]/2 - Devel. Threshold (* If Daily min temp < Devel. Threshold, substitute Devel. Threshold)
Sine Wave (Baskerville-Emin) Method - This method is more precise and assumes that the daily temperature cycle takes the form of a sine wave. This method makes the same use of daily maximum and minimum temperatures and developmental threshold as does the Average Method. Using the Sine Wave Method tends to accumulate more DDs than the Average Method, particularly during the early part of the season.
Continuous Integration Method - This method is the most precise and requires multiple temperature readings hourly or more frequently throughout the day to obtain a temperature versus time graph that is truly representative of a field situation.
Relating Degree-Days to Life Cycle and Development These methods are attempts to correlate a pest event or activity with another event that can be measured more precisely. Events in an insect's life cycle often occur after the same heat units have accumulated each generation, but many generations' observations must be collected to measure this precisely. Degree-days can be used to predict events wherever weather data are available.

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