An Economic Justification For Polyamory
Jul. 15th, 2009 11:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqI'm reading More Sex is Safer Sex, The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics by Steven E. Landsburg. I'm not far into it, having only read the first chapter (for which the book is named). He makes the interesting assertion that if sexual conservatives (that is, people with very few sexual partners) were to have more partners, then the rate for sexually-transmitted disease would decrease. He gives a lurid example:
Of course, this is what you'd get if people were rational actors at all times and that's not the case, especially with affairs of the heart. Would it make sense to choose your sexual partners based on how few partners they've had in an attempt to reduce your exposure to STDs? Sure, but that's not how we choose our partners, otherwise we'd see cougars trolling the gaming stores instead of the bars.
The abstinense-before-marriage crowd would like to see discreet networks of one or two. We know this doesn't work because we do have illegitimate children and STDs. Conversely, a highly connected network with a few high-bandwidth nodes would be worst because then disease spread fast - we saw that with AIDS in the gay communities of the 80's. Given human nature the best would be multiple discreet networks of large enough size to satisfy the majority. This is basically a description of polyamory.
If we wanted an ideal, sexually open society, then polyamory is probably the best model to use. This is real polyamory of the multiple-committed-partners-with-full-communication model, not the I-must-be-polyamorous-because-I-want-to-sleep-around-on-my-wife model.
Which is not to say it's the best model for everyone - I'm personally prone to self-esteem issues, which is one thin, easily-flammable issue away from jealousy, so I'm not suited to it.
But here's the thing, if it is a good model, why aren't we doing it? I think when people look at it completely rationally, they'd agree that it could work. Many might then add "but I'd still like to have my one-and-only sweetie." This seems to be how it goes when the topic is raised in my circle of friends, there's a sizable minority that actually are poly and there's a majority that is accepting of it, but it's not their thing and they don't participate in it at all. There's probably a small minority that thinks "immoral sluts", but keeps their mouths shut, but I doubt I could identify them.
So there's two things holding it back. The first is the boatload of sexual hangups we have as a species/society/individuals. The second is the mental ideal we have of romantic pair-bonding bliss. What would it be like if we could split these off?
My gut feeling is that we'd seem somewhat higher levels of polyamory (and it would be a lot more open), but it's never going to overtake the mainstream, regardless of it's economic fitness. An even more blended and likely scenario would be a majority of pair-bonded people. Next would be a smaller group of people who are nominally pair-bonded, but tolerate the occasional fling by either partner. Smaller still would be the truly polyamorous, in secularized common-law poly marriages. Finally, you'd just have married swingers. Surrounding it all would be singles, most of whom would be looking to join one of these sets.
It'll be interesting to see how much closer we are to this in another generation.
Consider Martin, a charming and generally prudent young man with a limited sexual history, who has been gently flirting with his coworker Joan. As last week's office party approached, both Joan and Martin silently and separately entertained the prospect that they just might be going home together. Unfortunately, Fate, through its agents at the Centers for Disease Control, intervened. The morning of the party, Martin happened to notice one of those CDC-sponsored subway ads touting the virtues of abstinence. Chastened, he decided to stay home. In Martin's absence, Joan hooked up with the equally charming but considerably less prudent Maxwell -- and Joan got AIDS.More formally, consider a population where the vast majority of women have only one sex partner per year, but the vast majority of men want two sex partners a year. This means that there is a very small population of women servicing all the men as their second partner. In this case, STDs flourish because the promiscuous few become disease vectors. Conversely, if the men and women all have two partners per year, then a significant portion of them will be in spouse+secondary relationships that slow the spread of STDs. Even if these relationships turn into large networks of loosely connected lovers, a lot of the networks are likely to be isolated and therefore relatively safe (Human beings being the horn-dogs they are, I don't consider any network to be truly isolated).
When the cautious Martin withdraws from the mating game, he makes it easier for the reckless Maxwell to prey on the hapless Joan. If those subway ads are more effective against Martin than against Maxwell, they are a threat to Joan's safety. This is especially so when they displace Calvin Klein ads, which might have put Martin in a more socially beneficent mood.
If the Martins of the world would loosen up a little, we could slow the spread of AIDS.
Of course, this is what you'd get if people were rational actors at all times and that's not the case, especially with affairs of the heart. Would it make sense to choose your sexual partners based on how few partners they've had in an attempt to reduce your exposure to STDs? Sure, but that's not how we choose our partners, otherwise we'd see cougars trolling the gaming stores instead of the bars.
The abstinense-before-marriage crowd would like to see discreet networks of one or two. We know this doesn't work because we do have illegitimate children and STDs. Conversely, a highly connected network with a few high-bandwidth nodes would be worst because then disease spread fast - we saw that with AIDS in the gay communities of the 80's. Given human nature the best would be multiple discreet networks of large enough size to satisfy the majority. This is basically a description of polyamory.
If we wanted an ideal, sexually open society, then polyamory is probably the best model to use. This is real polyamory of the multiple-committed-partners-with-full-communication model, not the I-must-be-polyamorous-because-I-want-to-sleep-around-on-my-wife model.
Which is not to say it's the best model for everyone - I'm personally prone to self-esteem issues, which is one thin, easily-flammable issue away from jealousy, so I'm not suited to it.
But here's the thing, if it is a good model, why aren't we doing it? I think when people look at it completely rationally, they'd agree that it could work. Many might then add "but I'd still like to have my one-and-only sweetie." This seems to be how it goes when the topic is raised in my circle of friends, there's a sizable minority that actually are poly and there's a majority that is accepting of it, but it's not their thing and they don't participate in it at all. There's probably a small minority that thinks "immoral sluts", but keeps their mouths shut, but I doubt I could identify them.
So there's two things holding it back. The first is the boatload of sexual hangups we have as a species/society/individuals. The second is the mental ideal we have of romantic pair-bonding bliss. What would it be like if we could split these off?
My gut feeling is that we'd seem somewhat higher levels of polyamory (and it would be a lot more open), but it's never going to overtake the mainstream, regardless of it's economic fitness. An even more blended and likely scenario would be a majority of pair-bonded people. Next would be a smaller group of people who are nominally pair-bonded, but tolerate the occasional fling by either partner. Smaller still would be the truly polyamorous, in secularized common-law poly marriages. Finally, you'd just have married swingers. Surrounding it all would be singles, most of whom would be looking to join one of these sets.
It'll be interesting to see how much closer we are to this in another generation.
