My evolutionary psychology nerd is out to play.
There is a sentiment in the culture that monogamy is limiting and constricting in the same way as binary gender norms. There’s a push for people to be ‘open’ and ‘fluid.’ While that might be cool in theory…in practice it is proving to be an absolute disaster (for most average people).
Here’s why.
Did ya’ll know that about 16 women reproduced for every one man before Christianity turned the Western world monogamous?
“Before the advent of agriculture roughly 12,000 years ago (when humans primarily lived in nomadic hunter-gatherer societies) roughly 2 to 4 women reproduced for every man. However, just a few thousand years after agriculture, approximately 16 women reproduced for every man. Once people could stockpile resources and amass large armies, chiefdoms killed and /or enslaved the men the conquered while capturing all fertile females.” This pattern was interrupted in the western world in part as a result of the spread of Christianity and its monogamous edicts.”
- Joseph Henrich via Rob Henderson
I was thinking about it and you know where we can find a similar dynamic to the one above? Dating Apps in 2023. Around 10-20% of the men are having sex with most of the women, while the other 80% of the men are left in the dust.
The only difference between the chad of today and the chief of yesterday? The chief had to have physical resources to afford and maintain multiple women, while the chad of today just has to be ‘hot’ and slightly charming (women pay their own rent, of course). Oh yeah, and the women of yesterday didn’t have a choice, while the women of today enter into this dynamic willingly. Equipped with inspiring articles like “What To Do If You Start Catching Feels” and “How to Have Casual Sex Without Getting Attached,” women are inadvertently reimagining the days of sex slavery, but calling it empowerment.
Meanwhile the usage of antidepressants has surged by nearly 65% in the past 15 years, with women being twice as likely to take them as men. There are multiple factors, no doubt, but one of them is the deep levels of unhappiness, loneliness, and dissatisfaction women are experiencing right now. #notempowerment.
Okay, so the ‘hot guys’ are fine (only on the surface, but that’s a conversation for another time) and the women are clinically depressed. So what about the other 80% of men? They are also not great and what’s happening with them can be explained by the Male Sedation Hypothesis put forth by Chris Williamson.
To understand the male sedation hypothesis, we need to briefly understand the phenomenon that is called ‘Young Male Syndrome,’ as dubbed by evolutionary psychologists. This refers to a testosterone fueled pattern of risky, competitive, and at times violent behavior exhibited by young men in their teens and twenties. This becomes a ‘syndrome’ when the behavior gets out of control. When does that happen? When a large enough group of these men get left out of sex and mating (i.e. leaving a legacy).
This is exactly where we are today.
When ‘young male syndrome’ reared its head you’d find men leaning away from healthy competition and leaning towards violence. You would see more wars, more conflict, more pillaging other groups, more chaos. Then thanks to the teachings of Christianity, they recognized there must be a better way to stabilize and maintain order in a society. Enter monogamy: a system where all men and women were given the opportunity to find a mate and partner for life.
Was this perfect? Absolutely not. Are we still recovering from centuries of women being devalued and mistreated by men. Indeed we are. But if we’re comparing ‘sex-slave to a chief with multiple women’ and ‘singular wife to one man,’ I’d say the latter is a major improvement.
In order for it to work though, there had to be rules that everyone played by. One such rule was that each sex had a key to something and by coming together in a committed partnership you got to unlock the thing you didn’t have. Women held the key to sex and men held the key to protection. (Sex leads to children and legacy and protection leads to safety and provision and comfort). Men got to exhibit their competitive nature and women got to experience devotion from one man.
Mutually beneficial. A clear template. Organization and stability. In the west, this template more or less lasted through the 1950s and 1960s until ‘free love’ and the birth control pill took over.
I think the “free love, sexual positivity, casual sex” movement was really well intentioned. People were sick of the 1950’s template and fair enough. Unfortunately being “open” and “fluid” is not a template and without a new one, people are finding themselves in a purgatory of perpetual confusion and dissatisfaction.
One such purgatory is the Male Sedation Hypothesis which says that thanks to porn, pot, and video games men are sedated out of exhibiting their violent tendencies. With the rates of sexlessness happening right now, we should be in the midst of a ‘young male syndrome’ so big, it should be scary.
But we’re not.
In my view thanks to the reckoning we’re having with monogamy and the culture’s current distaste for ‘maleness,’ men are also being discouraged from exhibiting their good natured competitive side too.
Both of those things together is two low blows back to back. As it turns out, the louder we shout “free love, sex positivity,” the less sex people actually have, meanwhile those in monogamous unions are having more sex than anyone…
Paradoxical huh?
PT 2 of this essay coming shortly, in the meantime let this one marinade.