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I love the dichotomy.

You're either some repressive, woman-hating beast (or woman with stockholm syndrome) or a open minded advocate of completely free sexual relations. There's a good reason why we've gravitated towards monogamy (at least as an ideal) -- it works.

Relatively modern communities that have (19th century utopian groups like the Onieda community are a great example) tried a more "free love" approach tend to veer off into chaos, or require their an repressive social structures to remain intact. People are a pain in the ass, and dealing with a web of sexual and intimate relationships is very difficult.

There's a middle ground between Catholic teachings and chimpanzee mating behavior. Most of us manage to muddle through somehow.

> There's a good reason why we've gravitated towards monogamy (at least as an ideal) -- it works.

Does it? Look at the divorce rate...

I think really it works (to an extent) in our current society because monogamy, like the article suggests, was accepted as a cultural norm because it supports the notions of private property and capitalism.

I wonder if there's a correlation between non-monogamy in a society and the amount of socialism in its current politics.

I wish he used citations; he tends to mix citable data with personal opinion, so you can never truly tell which of his assertions are actually true.