Quick thoughts on polyamory

Evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller wrote a piece for Quillette that sees polyamory becoming a mainstream part of modern society.

Assuming that he is right that openness to polyamory is growing, I suspect this is part of a larger trend toward greater cultural libertarianism: pursue your desires as long as you don't aggress against others. It's another step in the move away from institutions and roles and toward contracts. It's the view that there there is no proper way but your way (as long as you don't harm anyone).

I'm surprised that Miller doesn't see this trend as getting close to as a society that is purely a reflection of biology.  Many traditional institutions seem to be designed to check human nature. "I want all attractive women." "Sorry, you get one." "My old wife isn't sexy anymore. I want to trade in her in for a younger model." "Sorry, you get one, for good."

What does a cultural libertarian society look like?  What does nature look like? Miller should know. Women are picky and want a high-status partner who reliably gives his abundant resources to her. Those men are in short supply. Men want many partners but so do other men, and they find themselves in a competitive situation with limited resources. High mate value men tend to win by getting the most attractive women, and getting the most women. Low mate value men tend to get a partner by devoting resources only to her, but some of these men get no one.

Isn't this what we'll get if polyamory grows? There will be no institutional constraints on alphas. They will focus on being players, and many women will respond to their attention. Men of low mate value will have a harder time winning over a partner, and their offer of monogamy will be worth less in a society that does not value it. Like the alphas, they will long more strongly for multiple partners since there are no dominant institutions telling them monogamy is the right way, but many of them will get no women, forget about many. A large population of young men with no access to partners is not good for the stability of society.

Evolutionary biology teaches that humans tend to follow one of two strategies: high mating effort or high parenting effort. One tends to happen at the expense of the other. Under polyamory, interest will be shifted toward pursuing mates. Parental effort will suffer. That means fewer children--as if we don't already have a problem replacing ourselves--and the care given to children will be of lower quality.

It looks like such a system would select in evolutionary terms for dominant and slick men rather than solid, steady men. Society benefits from more steady men and fewer con artists.

More promiscuity leads to more jealousy which is a major cause of homicide. The US already has the highest rate of homicide among wealthy countries.

From what I can see, we need more monogamy, not less.

UPDATE: This pro-polyamory position taken by Miller seems to be another case of privileged people advocating lifestyles that can work for them but that wreak havoc on vulnerable populations. I suspect that people like Hugh Hefner bear some responsibility for present-day Black America.

End of the nuclear family?

As I wrote earlier, I'm addressing the claim that the nuclear family is outdated and something men should avoid one statistic at a time. The graph above, from Childstats.gov, shows that almost 70 percent of kids are currently in a household with two married parents. While it's true that a minority of those families are stepfamilies, a stepfamily is a nuclear family, and as a reader wrote earlier, they've always been around. That's about 3 times the number of kids in mother-only families.

My initial impression is that there is a lot of Internet exaggeration about these negative family trends. It sounds like a rationalization to me. It's convenient to say that I can't be admirable like my grandfather because that world is gone. It hasn't gone anywhere, and it is what you make it.

Alphas v. Herbs: Via Audacious, I learned about Roissy's parody of modern fathers. "Herbs" they're called. Pretty damn funny, even though I'm guilty as sin.

I was tempted, myself, to write a little parody of Bad Boys--too easy, really (and I see myself heading in a direction that would be labelled racist)--but instead I'll be direct and say that in my experience there is no comparison between the two, at least for someone with my personality.

When I was single, I never had any trouble finding attractive girls to hang out with. During the years I was an atheist, being a playboy seemed pretty appealing, but I really couldn't pull it off most of the time because I have a conscience. Maybe I'm too beta to attract girls who just want to have sex, but for me to have casual sex, I would have had to deceive the girls into thinking I was interested in something more. Girls wanted to have sex because they saw it going somewhere. If a woman wants nothing more, fine, but guys who steal a copulation through fraud, to my mind, are not much better than those who get it by force. They're basically sociopaths.

Now, the experience of raising a child is gold compared to that mess. I'm not even going to attempt to describe it. You'll have to do it to see what I mean. But you know the intense love that moms feel for their kids? Sure, there are biological differences between the sexes, but much of the affection comes through interaction. Dads and kids are often not close because Dad is annoyed by kids or is interested in other things. For guys with that kind of temperament, fine, but for the other type, you have missed a great deal if you go childless, or aren't involved with your kids. And I don't mean to romanticize it, because it is hard, but it makes me feel like a man like chasing tail could never do.

Let me put it another way. Those in favor of gay marriage have neglected a strong argument for guys like me. Most would agree that kids ideally should be raised by married parents. All the rights talk doesn't grab me, but this does: "Mr. Guhname, just like you, I want to have the chance to have a son and raise him to be a man. You know how rewarding and meaningful that is. Let me do the same."

Sentimental, I know, but there it is.

Real reason to oppose gay marriage: People speculate why someone like me opposes gay marriage. I've been told it's religious bigotry, some irrational hatred of homosexuals, or I might even add Bradlaugh's comment over at Secular Right that we have an instinct against it.

In my case, all three are incorrect. I do have a natural yuck-reaction to gay sex, but myself, I wouldn't be against people getting married because they do gross stuff. As for hate, that is just silly. I don't instinctively have feelings about groups, but if I think about it, I have a mildly positive feeling about homosexuals.

Yes, my religion teaches that homosexual sex is wrong, and gay marriage is a slap in the face of every traditionally religious person in the country, but my orientation to social policy really is secular.

So, what's my real problem with it? It's one part of a much larger problem. In my view, the country made a huge mistake in the 1960s when it began to dismantle the traditional moral regime. You folks can tell me where I'm wrong, but America has functioned optimally when there was a consensus that: premarital sex is bad; promiscuity is bad; loose womanhood is bad; playboys are bad; pornography is bad; masturbation is bad; out-of-wedlock births are bad; single-parent families are bad; abortion is bad; divorce is bad; prostitution is bad--you get the point--and, finally, homosexual sex is bad.

Much of the country has rejected many of those values, and the division has been dismantling and discrediting the old system. Even if a kid is raised the old way, he can always say, but my buddies' parents don't believe that. What once was authoritative is now just one viewpoint, one lifestyle.

The reigning morality has become, choose for yourself the moral way. All too often, that means choose the selfish, short-sighted way. In my view, the result has been: more out-of-wedlock births; more divorce; more mother-only famlies; more men not civilized by marriage and fatherhood; more disappearing fathers; less child support; more welfare dependency; more poor kids; more crime; more STDs; more abortion; more girls who are pumped and dumped a hundred different times.

To the mention of girls who have many sex partners, let me add: more pornography; more strip clubs; more girls gone wild. Now, you might respond that freer female sexuality is not a problem. I simply cannot imagine a greater tragedy in my life--and I am not exaggerating here--than to, say, read about some girl at a party who had sex with a bunch of guys in front of everyone, and to learn that the girl was my daughter. It's painful to even contemplate it. I'd be tempted to find the guys responsible and go all Taxi Driver on their asses.

So, what does this have to do with gay marriage? Gay marriage is the further discrediting of a moral system that I argue is a constructive and rational system. The old way seems to be correlated with a thriving society, and to my mind social policy should aim to optimize societal success. Not only should we throw out gay marriage, we should work for a moral revival across the board.