“Swinger Wives” from Atlanta subject of new TLC International series

By Barb Oates


What’s with the wives?
You’ve got TLC’s Sister Wives, VH1’s Basketball Wives, Investigative Discovery’s Prison Wives, then of course you’ve got the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, New Jersey, New York, Atlanta, etc. There’s also the Desperate Housewives, The Stepford Wives, Army Wives and BBC’s Footballers’ Wives, but those are fictional so we’re not going there. Instead we’ll focus on the newest entry to the wives club, TLC International’s Swinger Wives.

John Sechrist, TLC’s executive producer of the series, says “It’s going to make for some really fun and interesting television, which will be water cooler talk the next morning.”

The series focuses on real women in Atlanta who are leading everyday normal lives. “They have kids. They work. They have husbands. And, on weekends they participate in the swinging lifestyle with their husbands,” John Sechrist says. “It’s a really fascinating show. I’ve worked on Sister Wives and that’s another subculture that you think on the surface you know everything about it but when you actually watch it your like “Wow! I’m totally clueless when it comes to this world and I’ve learned something.’ The relationships that I’ve seen in the show are fascinating and not at all what I expected.”

The series is slotted to air on TLC International overseas and in the States it will air on Discovery Fit and Health. A premiere date had not been scheduled.

As for Sechrist’s thoughts on potential backlash on the subject matter – he’s quite familiar: “Before TLC, I helped create a network called Logo so I’m use to backlash. The thing about backlash is, I love debate. I don’t think every television show is going to appeal to every person so I think once you see the show it will stand on it’s own two feet. There are a lot of interesting factors that come up. You also have to remember we are Discovery so don’t let the title be so misleading. When it comes to authentic portrayls of subcultures, if anyone’s going to do it the Discovery family is the place to be for those kinds of stories.”