Is wife sharing the same as swinging?
They overlap but aren't identical. Swinging is the broad umbrella for couples who socialise and play with others together, including partner swapping between two couples. Wife sharing is narrower — it centres specifically on the wife's experiences and doesn't require her husband to have a parallel experience of his own.
Swinging is the umbrella term for the broader community and its social and sexual practices — couples (and often singles) who meet, socialise, and play with others, with the full consent and involvement of everyone. It covers a wide range of specific arrangements: soft swap, full swap, group play, and couple-anchored dynamics like hotwifing.
Wife sharing sits inside that umbrella as one specific dynamic rather than a synonym for the whole community. It centres on the wife having experiences with others while her husband's role is to know, encourage, and often be present or nearby — he isn't necessarily having a matching experience of his own the way partner swapping implies.
A couple can accurately describe themselves as swingers, as into wife sharing, or both — the terms aren't mutually exclusive. Many couples who identify primarily with the hotwife or wife-sharing dynamic still attend broader swinging events and communities, since the social infrastructure — clubs, meet-and-greets, verified platforms — largely overlaps.
For couples deciding which describes them, the more useful question is usually about format rather than label: do both partners want their own separate experiences (closer to swinging/swapping), or does the arrangement centre specifically on one partner's experiences (closer to wife sharing/hotwifing)? Either way, the same foundations — explicit consent, agreed boundaries, and a mutual veto — do the actual work.