Are We Monogamous?

<p>In this candid discussion, we explore the nuances around polyamory and open relationships. We look at how polygyny historically existed among elites, the market forces leading more high-value men to pursue open relationships today, and the differences between cheating vs consensual non-monogamy. We share our own open relationship dynamics and how radical honesty helps us maintain a strong marriage. </p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> [00:00:00] Hello, Malcolm.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Hello, Simone. Today, we are going to discuss an interesting topic, which is polyamory. We have discussed it in the past. But we didn't really go too deep on the topic. Yeah. And I think it deserves a deeper dive. One, because it's becoming increasingly common. Within especially the urban monoculture, like the, the, the urban populations and the progressive movement.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> But I've also seen it among many of our more successful conservative friends for a different reason. And we can get into why we're seeing it in those circles as well. Hmm.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> That sounds good to me,</p><p>Would you like to know more?​</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> but first we should do a little history lesson because I think that there's this perception.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> That we, you know, if you're talking about the Western tradition more broadly has been historically a [00:01:00] monogamous tradition. And that is true to the extent that most people have been monogamous. Yeah. I thought you were going to</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> say, this is true for poor people.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> It's true for poor people.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> When a culture is polygynous, one man, many women, there's actually been no stable culture in history with anything close to what we call polyamory in our society. Usually, when you have a multiple partner culture, you have polygyny, which is one man, many women. However, there has been one case I know of, of many men to one woman and this was like in Tibet, like it was in a high resource, scarce region</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> of the mountains.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> But, and it's also, I think, commonly with brothers. Yeah, it was basically</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> only done with brothers. And, and it makes sense why that would work because then the guy knows that the kids are related to him. And it was meant as a form of population control was in those cultures. So that's, that's how it ended up developing and being intergenerationally successful.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> It was also cultures that didn't need to worry about neighbors raiding them because they [00:02:00] lived in extremely like they were not competing with their surrounding cultures. They were more competing with their environment. Which is why it was able to become stable, but certainly no culture that's ever really spread.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> But why this is relevant. So if you talk about long lived Stable polygynous cultures. There's some Jewish groups that fall into this. There's some groups in Africa that fall into this. Some Muslim groups fall into this. You're typically looking at around 5% of the population will have multiple wives.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> People assume it's much more now. Historically, there has been short lived polygynous societies like the Mormon population group where this number was higher at the, the height of, of that part of Mormon history, I think around 20% to 23% of men had multiple wives but it was still the vast minority.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Now where this gets interesting is if I look within our existing culture right now, like the various cultural groups, probably one of the ones I'd say is, is most pro what [00:03:00] we'd call monogamy is the Catholic group, right? However, if you look historically speaking, so we're looking to traditional Catholicism.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> You're looking at like the monarchies of Louis the 14th, right? And so when you were saying he would write a book about all of the mistresses he had that everyone knew he</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> had. Yeah. Antonia Fraser wrote a great book called Love and Louis the 14th, where she like, it's a long book and it just details all of his lovers.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> And this isn't just secret affairs on the side. This is, you know, people who were titled people. I mean, like it was, it was very well known. Now the Catholic church didn't like it. And they kept saying don't do this. And one of his lovers may have been rumored to actually marry him in the end secretly, though.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> That's not like historically officially documented. So there's interplay and like the Catholic church definitely has. A, a relationship with not being cool with it, like officially, but sort of in practice they're like, I mean, for example, with getting home [00:04:00] with the eighth, right? Like they were, I think they probably would have annulled his marriage and allowed him to jump from one marriage to the next for convenience.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> If there was not a familiar tie with his first wife and the Pope. Yeah, the Catholic Church, I would say in practice. And</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> they regularly, you know, allowed it. So keep in mind, you know, Louis was king via divine that is what gave him the right to monarchy within his cultural context. When he's saying, why am I king?</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> I am king because of the church. And, and you know, that did not, the, him having multiple partners and everyone knowing and the extent to which everyone knew, I really can be sort of understated or cannot be overstated. Like the mistresses, who he was choosing as a mistress at the time would determine fashion within like the, the, the court culture.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, even to the point where some types of, of court dress like the, the style of disabillé, which basically means sort of like undress we're, we're, we're [00:05:00] said to have been developed. When mistress, like certain certain mistress was pregnant just so like it was a little bit less corseted so she could have her kind of belly like stick out.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> I get better, yeah. Yeah, so like literally that is how pervasive it was and open it was. And now I mean like. This is France. France was really like, you know, known for that kind of thing. You're</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> acting like it's the only monarchy where it happened. I chose France because it's one of the most famous in, in, in pop culture well documented ones.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> And also you write a book about all his mistresses that you would be well aware of. It's such a good book. Talk to the topic. But I think even within our modern society, so if you look at America today let's say America 10 years ago or something, people could say, oh, this was a predominantly monogamous society and there was a great South Park episode on this and the, the central joke of the episode Is a bunch of males on like TV and scientists were trying to figure out why rich men kept cheating on their wives.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> And obviously the joke [00:06:00] was every man knew, but they had to pretend like it was very confusing why men kept cheating on women when they became super famous and wealthy. And this was framed around the Tiger Woods controversy and then some other controversies and they would give a monkey a bunch of money and it would go out and cheat on his wife and they were like, this is such a bizarre phenomenon.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> But, but the joke being. It's it's obvious why this happens. However, I, I think it's not obvious why it happens and that's what I want to dig into.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Yeah, I think everyone's trying to say the quiet part quietly and we would rather say the quiet part out loud, right?</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Yes, well, so let's talk about some things which is just not why it happens, okay?</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> One is people say it happens because biology. There's a lot of biological instincts that humans have that we are able to sublimate. So it's, it's not, I don't think it's just because of biology at least. And we don't see the mirror phenomenon. We do not see, you know, wealthy women cheating on their husbands at really high rates or, or [00:07:00] having these like basically open relationships.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> So what, what's actually going on here is it's market pressures. Hypergamy is the reason this is happening. The same market pressures that lead to your average woman, like average attractiveness, average wealth, average, like if you're just marking women on a scale of zero to a hundred and like your average woman is a 50 your average woman has much, much, much more dating market power than your average man.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Everyone knows it's like the famous Twitter, sorry, the famous Tinder study where they found that your average man, like if you rank them in, so your mean, I'm sorry, so your median man is liked. On tinder by less than 1% of women. That's so incredibly like low power. Whereas your average woman, I forgot what it was.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> I think it might've been around 50% of men like your average woman on tinder. Which is just shows this huge disparity in market. [00:08:00] And because most guys like fall into this average territory in their world, this is what they're focused on, the unfair market dynamics here. However, if you're sort of around like the ultra wealthy or elite society, you're going to notice much more the opposite problem, which is a top 1% man has dramatically more market value than a top 1% woman.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> It's, it's astronomically more. A top 1% man is. is much more desirable than a top 1% women than a average woman is to an average man. And so the question is why, why is it that like, if you're talking about like literally the most desirable male in the world today, they'd be astronomically more desirable than the most desirable female.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> And it's for the same problem. So if all women, because you know, men broadly know this are pairing with the top 20 or so percent of men. [00:09:00] And disproportionately with the ones at the very top of that 20%, the top 1, 2, 3%, that means that any guy who's at sort of the top of the desirability hierarchy is going to have a choice that the women who are trying to date him are not just competing with women of their level of desirability, they're competing with him.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Every, basically every woman in the world and what's worse for, from the perspective of that woman is these other women can augment their desirability to that male by altering aspects of the relationship contract that they are presenting that male with. So when we've talked about this before, the example I've used is you might pay more for an apartment if that apartment allows you to have dogs in the apartment, right?</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Because it nothing has changed about the apartment itself, but it is more desirable to your average person on the market, a woman coming to a man and saying, I don't mind if you sleep around, this can [00:10:00] increase her desirability pretty dramatically to the man. And then</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> I think it's, it's notable also because we've, we've seen a lot of people's requirements for partners.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> It's extremely rare for a woman to say that. Like just period. Yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Yeah. A woman who is, you know. Top 10% can out compete a top 1% woman with some of these guys just by saying that. Yeah. Or, or additional caveats, like I will bring you other people to sleep with. And this creates an environment where men who are in this top 1% of the dating market, and, and we have seen this within the communities that we're in, it is actually, I think, pretty rare in those communities for women to not allow them to sleep around.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Mm-hmm. , and we're talking about within modern America, conservative male circles. And I think that this really surprises people, but here's another thing that people get wrong about this. Okay, so they hear this and they say, yeah, but my [00:11:00] perception has been historically right that when I see people do this polygenous thing allow their partner to sleep around it in the extent or do the polyamory thing, it always leads to the death of the marriage.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Right, or the death of the relationship. And this is really interesting, but I would unfortunately say this is the bad to pay phenomenon because what you are actually noticing where if you have friends where they so so there's a few ways that relationship can be open. And a few ways that relationship can be closed.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> So first I, I need to be clear here. We're specifically talking about polygyny and not poly. Poly is pretty rare among these circles for a man to allow his wife to sleep with other people is actually incredibly rare for these exact same market phenomenon when you're talking within these circles. Now, while most of these men are actually allowed to sleep around when you're talking about these ultra wealthy men[00:12:00] the strength of their relationship.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> is often outwardsly publicly visible by how much they actually choose to. And this is the thing that people miss. For example, if you look at our relationship, if you're asking the question, are we in a, are we like poly or polygynous or whatever the answer is very interesting. Because we are in so far as...</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> I do not have a rule saying I can't sleep with other people. Whereas you have a rule saying you can't sleep with other people in our relationship contract. However, if you're asking, are we polygynous in practice? No, because you make a point of fulfilling all my needs. And, , the contract point that says you are allowed to sleep with other people says you are allowed to sleep with other people after you have notified me, this is the needs that aren't being met.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Can you meet these needs?</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Now? Well, I mean, as one [00:13:00] person who's much older than us and much, much more old fashion said to us at one point was like, well, if I can't have. I'm going to get hamburger in the streets. And like that, I don't know, sounded fairly accurate for, I think, how many husbands feel.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> And I think how the arrangement often works is in many long term marriages, like after a while, a wife may become. Less interested in sex. That happens often, you know, like she just isn't that interested in it. And, or one of the partners becomes less attractive, making it not as fun for the other partner to get intimate.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> And that can go both ways, not just with wives, but with husbands too. Like sometimes husbands just become a lot less appealing. So it's actually really nice solution to just have. That solution met outside the relationship. Like it makes a</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> lot of sense. Yeah. Well, and, and, and some women prefer that, but that does lower their ability to maintain a partner potentially, if they're allowing him to source these things outside the relationship, but it could [00:14:00] but the really, the, the, the larger point that I'm making here is when people say, are you guys polygynous?</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> They, they think what they're asking is, are you sleeping outside of your marriage? The answer there is no. But what they're asking is, are you allowed to sleep outside of your marriage? Where the answer would be yes. And that's a very interesting distinction where there are multiple ways a woman who is married to a very high value male can keep that male monogamous to them.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> But one way... Is to say you are not allowed to sleep outside of our relationship. The other way is to say, I will ensure that you have all of your needs fulfilled to a level where even with the Coolidge effect of being in place, you will not have a desire to sleep with women outside the relationship.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Yeah. And I, I think it, it, it's worth [00:15:00] noting too, that just because you have a rule against someone sleeping outside of a marriage doesn't mean they're not going to sleep outside of marriage. And the, there's plenty of research showing rates of cheating in marriages over time.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> And it happens. And it also appears to happen when you look at Ayla's research on this more than both male and female partners think it's happening. So it's it's a worse than we imagined. So part of this also is well, would you, I mean, I think a lot of people, and we see this also with genetic information, sequenced because they're like, well, if I have a higher risk of getting cancer, I don't want to know.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Which. You know, to us is like bizarre because obviously if you have a like bigger risk of heart attacks or cancer or whatever, you should get screened for that, you know, like you should know about it so you can prepare and reduce odds of that biting you in the ass. However, I think many people have a sort of avoidant response to things like cheating or like health risks.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> And they would just rather not know. So I think there's sort of this subtle in like forced monogamy marriages, this subtle [00:16:00] undercurrent of. Yeah. If you need to cheat on me, just do it and don't get caught. Like I'd rather not know, whereas there's this other sort of mindset of no, I mean, yeah, like we may not I cannot promise that I'm always going to be super attracted to you or super attractive myself.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> And if that happens, I'd rather have it happen in a way that doesn't kill our marriage or that doesn't hurt me or hurt you. And so we just think it's personally, we think it's a better approach, but I think it's also something that requires a huge level of emotional maturity. And a huge level of mutual commitment to something bigger than just each other's feelings or one's own feelings.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Also, it's, it's really helpful to have this in general because if you do decide to sleep with someone outside our marriage it, it is like a warning sign to me that oh, maybe you're not totally happy.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Maybe, you know, we need to reevaluate or talk about, you know, how things are going.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Yeah, and that's the point where I think the person is noticing here when they're like I've seen people who are like Aggressively Polly or whatever are sleeping [00:17:00] around a lot outside their marriage That's a warning sign regardless of what the rules are within your relationship Yeah regardless of whether or not a person is allowed to sleep outside their marriage the fact that they feel the need to Regularly is a sign That there is something systemic that they are not getting from their partner.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Now, for some individuals, they might be able to stably source that from another person. However, I am not sure, and I personally haven't seen proof that relationships like that are actually stable. Probably people will pretend like it's a long term solution. Oh, he's not getting something from his partner.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Therefore, he's sourcing it from somebody else. And this is a stable solution. However, I don't, yeah, I don't know if I have ever seen that be really stable where the man actually felt the need to constantly get that from other people where, where I seen this be much more [00:18:00] stable in relationships is the woman's look, I'm not going to leave you or anything.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> If you, if you sleep around outside the relationship, however, I prefer if you tell me and you try to let me. Solve these needs before you feel the need to go outside the relationship and the level to which this increases the stability of the relationship really can't be overstated because one, the woman has much more information in terms of the guys no longer satisfied with her.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> She learns that at a lower threshold and begin to get a true measure of, like, how does she solve for that? And 2. The, the guy can not in the marriage or it's much harder for the guy to in the marriage just because he wants sex, right? Because with sex with other people, right? And, and this is actually really important because a lot of people, when they're creating sort of the rules of their relationship, there is this implicit understanding that if one partner breaks the rules, then the relationship is over.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> However, what is true. A lot of the time. Now, this is not true for men. [00:19:00] Generally, when a woman treats, cheats to most men, they would rather be outside of the relationship. There was an interesting study that or not a study with a Twitter poll that somebody did where they're like, would you rather sleep with a hundred people other than your wife or allow your wife to sleep with 90% like, no, I would rather she not sleep with one other person.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> So for guys, they're actually usually willing to, or Fairly frequently willing to pull the trigger if the woman sleeps outside of their relationship. And that is for biological reasons. They're imprinted to be really worried about the paternity of the kid. Because historically speaking What is this, actually?</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> I want to look this up.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> I can't find the study right now, but I seem to remember a study saying it was something like 25% of kids or 20% of kids. So it's really, really high, the number of kids born by, and that's a huge cost to a guy if that happens. That's terrifying. Now, for women, The number of women who would actually end a high valued relationship because their partner is sleeping with other women is generally pretty [00:20:00] low unless it's like a point of pride thing or something like that.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> And then this creates a really dangerous Phenomenon, because as soon as they catch the guy cheating, right? But there was this implicit understanding in the relationship. They would leave him if he did that, but then they don't leave him. Well, then that begins to break all of the other rules in the relationship because now all of a sudden, none of the rules in the relationship matter.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Worse, there was the reason for this dishonesty. And I think that that's another thing that this brings in, which is really valuable, which is there's a lack of a reason for me to be. I would I have, I don't know with you sleeping with other men, it's an interesting question because I just, you wouldn't.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> I wouldn't. It's disgusting.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Yeah. Like the idea, I mean, you've never slept with anyone before me. Like it's just not an</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> issue that would come up.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Yeah. So it's, it's not like there would be a desire there, but, but I do feel that there is a level of truth where this is something I would never need to lie to you about where [00:21:00] you get that information and we are able to deal with it.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Internally as a couple. So I guess what we're saying here, and this is an interesting nuance that I think a lot of people don't get is we do think it is a problem when somebody sleeps around a lot outside their marriage. However, I also think that marriages that are built was a rule where the reason that the guy isn't sleeping around is because there is a rule against sleeping around instead of.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> All of my needs are filled in. We're perfectly honest with each other. I think that actually the second type of marriage is probably going to be stronger in terms of within this current market context, where there's like women throwing themselves at me all the time.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Yeah. Um, I, I will add that , I started out sort of insecure in our relationship because Malcolm actually is like quite desirable as a partner and had, gets hit on a lot.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Like he got hit on a lot before we were not open about him sleeping outside of our marriage. And then he got hit on a lot [00:22:00] after that. And it took me a long time to become okay with that. I mean, especially when there's a lot of competition for your husband, like You know, I, I felt before I felt like I really had it, like I brought a lot to the table, you know, and I'd earned my, my position that I really couldn't deal with that insecurity.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> And I do think that you have to have a pretty secure aligned marriage for something like this to work. Especially when you're with a really desirable partner. Now, I think if you have a relatively low value partner, it's, it's, I think it's really easy to feel like, of course you can, cause I mean, good luck.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> But the big risk is really for that small portion of the population like you, Malcolm. And I think this really surprises a lot of people because they like love calling you a soy boy, but I don't think they realize a lot of women are super into whatever it is you're serving. But yeah, like for, for that portion of the population they're the ones who are going to be really interested in it because one, they.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Can get away with the demand is there. The opportunity is actually there. But it, you need a really secure and aligned marriage for that to work as well. [00:23:00] Because you know, if this does happen and the wife isn't secure, it could cause just a lot of. Mental discomfort and suffering that isn't exactly ideal.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Well, this is actually a really important point. The fact that you know that you have allowed me to sleep with these women and I am choosing not to sleep with them, not because I'm not allowed to, but because I actually do not desire to, given what you are giving me, Likely makes you feel much more confident about our relationship than you would if I was not sleeping with him because you had placed some rule against me sleeping with him.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah, I, I think it would be pretty crappy to be in a marriage where you know that your, your husband isn't, isn't sleeping with people because just 100% he's not allowed to. That's pretty</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> bad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> And the impression I get isn't actually, I mean, and I think that the key is a [00:24:00] lot if the, if the husband's sleeping out of, out of the marriage a lot, because I think when most people cheat and I don't have the stats on this exactly, but this is the impression I get for most of the reading I've done about it.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> It's not a lot. You know, it's you know, someone meets a high school friend on a business trip, you know, like stuff happens. And I think it's really helpful to have that flexibility. I think where it's a problem especially is where someone's sleeping outside of the marriage quite regularly. Because usually when we've seen that happen, usually the person that the man is sleeping with.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Is more or less interested in becoming the primary partner. I think it's very unusual for a man to sleep with a woman outside of a relationship regularly for that person to not expect significant resources in return, and that undermines the marriage. So I think that's more like the, the big issue.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Open about this helps undermine that possibility because it does. If, so suppose I was to find a [00:25:00] person who I was regularly sleeping with outside of the marriage, right? You would just be able to say, I am no longer, I'm not okay with that. Yeah. Even the way that this is structured. And that lowers any, any like hook that this person was getting.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> So because we were, we would be being honest in this situation and I would be telling you that this was happening. You would be able to much more reasonably than saying, I am not okay with you sleeping with any other women say, I am not okay with you sleeping with that woman because she's trying to disrupt the dynamics of our relationship.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Yeah. Yeah. And there's always the risk, I think both with that, like permission and without permission that ultimately like the connection between the guy and the woman that he's sleeping with outside of the marriage is going to be stronger than the marriage itself. And that the marriage falls apart, like that's always a possibility, but I don't, I think it's actually less, it's, it's less possible or less likely outs when, when, when it's not cheating when it's, when it's permitted [00:26:00] within the</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> marriage.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Well, and also because the woman would know that the spouse knows about this and has okayed it, so they know that through sleeping with you, because this is actually a really dangerous thing about this way of breaking up a marriage, is through sleeping with the husband, she is doing something that she also knows could destroy the marriage.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Could drive a wedge between him and his wife in a way that breaks up the marriage. So she is getting a one two punch in through this act, which would be a lot harder when you structure the relationship differently. And, I think another thing that's really telling here.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Is a woman asking herself, which is just not done in many marriages these days, which is really sad where you have these total monogamy rules. How do I ensure that my husband is fully satisfied? There is no pressure to ensure that, which is why I think you get many of [00:27:00] these stereotypes, like women getting fat after they get married or women in other ways becoming undesirable.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> So</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> you think there's a problem of entitlement is really what you're saying here. Yeah, like</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> you don't feel that you are like, you work really hard to stay very desirable to me because you know that if you did not I, I would have other options, but because you do</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> also, I just didn't want to look disgusting</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> , I would find the idea of going out and sourcing other women or allowing other women who hit on me to sleep with me.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Really personally disgusting as I've talked to you, the idea, because I have this emotional attachment to you, that you have worked to build through being an amazing wife because you have engendered that Even even though I'm allowed to, even though I regularly get very attractive women, you know, sort of throwing themselves at me turning them down is very, very easy for me.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> And, and, and natural, not like I'm [00:28:00] turning them down because I'm giving something up. I'm turning them down because the idea of strange is disgusting. Well, no, it's interesting and it's something that I think is hard for somebody who's never been in a long term loving relationship to understand. As a male is that male sexuality does sort of transform when you begin to see a partner is like your primary and you began to think of other women as, as like a gross.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Well, and I find this interesting because I mean, I think part of that's that you just. Like your life isn't built around hedonism, so you're not exactly the best sample for like how a male is going to behave when given these types of rules. However, people that we know who do sleep outside of their marriages a lot and have like insanely, maybe even like clinically unhealthy levels, like maybe like literal sex addict addictions often are still very dedicated to their marriages and, and are often sleeping outside of their marriages [00:29:00] because their wives have no physical affection for them.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Well, I</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> think this is with older couples a lot. Yeah.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I just, but I think that that there's something to be said there that even there is some. It's, it's not just right to assume that a man is just going to want to take on infinite wives and not be very attached to them.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Even Louis the 14th had really just one primary mistress at a time. You know, it wasn't like he had five, he didn't have a harem. It's really more like he was a serial. Monogamous like person, but he had a couple dalliances here and there, but he was mostly dedicated to one one after another.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> And I think many men are like that. They want to be romantically devoted to someone. They want the connection. So</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> yeah, I think that this is the difference between the way our society frames men. our society is based around young male sexuality.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Which is really</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> The more the merrier.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Young men really would like to sleep often with five different women a week or something like that, right? [00:30:00] But when you talk about the ideal sexual relationship for an older man or a middle aged man, Most of them are going to say, Oh, yes. It's a single woman every day. Like in movies, they treat this like it's some, some sort of horrifying thing.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Whereas I think if you ask most like mid thirties men, what is your ideal relationship? Even if they are like a really sexually open person, it's yeah, one partner who I really care for. And who I, you know, do something with you know, have kids, work with in some way, and, and every day for the rest of my life.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> And, and that's where I think our biology is also different from what many people anticipate, even when you have the Coolidge effect. So the Coolidge effect, I referenced it before. It's the idea that to a man, a new partner, like all other things being equal, will be more sexually interesting to him than an existing partner or a partner he slept with before.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Well, and to give the backstory allegedly, this is apocryphal, Calvin Coolidge, when [00:31:00] president toured some kind of chicken farm or something. And it was mentioned. To his wife as she was touring, I guess, a little bit ahead of him that like, oh, well, this one rooster will, will have sex with, you know, this, you know, like this many times a day.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> And apparently she wasn't seeing a whole lot of action and she wasn't exactly thrilled about that. And so she told that to Mr. Coolidge you know, this rooster has, you know, sex this many times a day. And he asked. with the same chicken. And that's, you know, the Coolidge effect. His point being, obviously, that novelty is a huge portion of</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> male sexuality.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> And the research bears this out, but I think what we're seeing here is, yes, it increases arousal like pure sexual arousal. However, it is It is very low in terms of what I would want my daily life to be like. Yeah. Yeah, the things can arouse me and can arouse a man that are not things he actually wants to do in the real world because it would be inconvenient or gross [00:32:00] or...</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Otherwise, you know, a waste of time.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> So anyway, I, I've really liked this discussion because for me, just, just the biggest misunderstanding is the difference between there's sort of four types of relationships, right?</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> One in which one of . The partner is sleeping around and they were allowed to sleep around. The other is the partner is sleeping around. They aren't allowed to sleep around. Another is the partner isn't sleeping around, but they are allowed to sleep around.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> And then the final one is the partner isn't sleeping around and they aren't allowed to sleep. Sleep around, right? For me sometimes when people talk about polygyny or polyamory, they're not really considering the situations in which the partner is allowed to sleep around, but they're not sleeping around.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> And, and, and they're also within the way the relationship is contextualized. You're both partners, not really supposed to sleep around. Versus and also the relationship type, you know, is a couple actually Polly, I guess you would say not if they're not allowed to sleep around, but they are sleeping around.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> So I guess people would, [00:33:00] if you wouldn't call a relationship in which somebody is cheating on their partner, but not allowed to yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. And if, if, if people are wondering why this has gotten so big in the big cities, the one point I really make is for the high valued men and women, what you typically see happening.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> is many women to one man, like many women are going after one man, but when you're dealing with the lower value poly individuals a lot of men, you know, big tower, whatever men complain Oh, there's just no woman who wants to date an average guy. And this is, this is true. Like it's, it's very rare.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> And monogamy used to solve this, but the way they're now solving it in these ultra progressive cities. And I've seen this in like group houses and stuff like that is that some dumpy kind of obese average woman will have five guys who she's dating, like one guy isn't good enough for her, but five guys.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Yeah, that's okay. So what, what often really ends up happening in the quote unquote polyamory community is that you [00:34:00] actually have a polygyny when, when you're dealing with the, the wealthy people, whereas one male, many females. And then the, the opposite of that I want to say, I forget what it's called.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> One woman, many men. Holly Diney? I don't know. Polygyny. Yeah. When you're dealing with the like, middle income males because often that's how a male's value is, is, is judged. And then it's women who are, I mean, that's what's, what's happening on OnlyFans and stuff like that to an extent. Yeah.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> I mean, yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> So there's a difference between the aspiration and what actually happens. But anyway, Simone, I have loved talking with you about this and I do feel really blessed that you have created an environment where even though, you know, you would there's no rule against me going with other women, I have no desire to, just because you are such a great wife.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> And, and so people would be like, [00:35:00] Oh, I haven't seen relationships where people say, yeah, relationships don't, but I, I, I just, I definitely don't have any. You,</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> you, you give me too much credit. I think literally you just had so many sexual partners before you got married. You're like, I don't need this anymore.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> I think you put yourself on hard mode in the relationship. You're like, yes, I want you to only sleep with me, but I want you to only sleep with me because you are choosing to only sleep with me. Not because I have created some rule system against you sleeping with other people. Yeah,</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> it's, it's our, it's our philosophy in general, right?</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Like with the travel business that we run, like we really don't like getting contractual clients. We like clients who work with us, not because we've signed some kind of contract and they have to be With us. Mm-hmm. , we want clients to work with us because we provided such a great service that they wanna come back.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Like it sucks to work with someone who has to work with you. And, and in general, I think our philosophy is against coercion and for a free choice, you know, that, that people should have the ability to choose the culture that works [00:36:00] best for them to choose the businesses that works. best for them to choose the nation or home or whatever that works best for them.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> And I think that falls down to like our relationship philosophy as well, that partners should have the freedom to choose whatever sort of partner works best for them. Now, I mean, I think the same goes for women and yeah, so technically we have a rule where I can't sleep with anyone, but that's more because I really don't want to sleep with anyone.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> If you really want, I want you to tell me, because it would mean that our relationship is over if I can't. Fix whatever was causing you to want to do that.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> But also you know, it's, we're perfectly in support of women sleeping outside of marriages too. They just have to be aware of the costs that are associated with that.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Like everything, like free market dynamics, you know, allow people to make choices and pay the price for making those choices. That's fine.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Yeah. Well, but I think it's, it's, it's sort of like a balls on the table thing. Like a business that says. Oh, you want to sign a recurring contract? I don't need a recurring contract, because I know you'll only choose me after you've tasted this.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> So what is it? One [00:37:00] Simone, always Simone? I don't know what the saying would be here, but that is, that is quite a, a, a balls out contract, right? Like just... Slapping your balls on the table. This is how good I know I am that you won't want anything else if you're in a relationship with me.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Well, we shall see, right?</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> You never know where we're going to be in 10 years.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> So we've been together for 10 years at this point. I don't think something crazy is going</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> to change. You know, I mean, there's</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> a lot of years ahead of us. Let's you have 10 more kids.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Like men tend to age better than women. Let's be honest about this. Yeah.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Well, so</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> if I was, and this is where I think this really falls apart, is if you were married to the types of cretin that's I want a 24 year old woman over a, you know, I, I don't know. It's part of me find sleep. The idea of sleeping with much younger women, like really disgusting. I, I've, I've, and, and Simone knows this, you know, I've had a lot of younger women.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Who have worked around us hit on me, [00:38:00] babysitters and the type. Yeah, it's a little weird. It's a little weird. And I just find it, I guess like visually I can be like, Oh like I can look at a younger woman and be like, yes, younger women are more attractive than older women. But like the actual idea of sleeping with them as an older man is I don't know, it's repellent for some, you</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> know, keep in mind that's not the norm.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> So just I do</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> think it's the norm. I do think it's the norm. And I think some of the guys who are doing this are, are really outside the norm because I think you know, when you look at the relationships, we know like these ultra wealthy men, I actually don't see them sleeping with that many younger women.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Unless they're in like weird relationships where they're like actually cheating on their partner. When the wife knows, it's typically not somebody dramatically younger. Would you say that's true or not?</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> I think it really depends. I think there's a lot of variation. So it's, you know, it's hard to say. I wouldn't say that you're, you're normative.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> I mean, it's very unusual [00:39:00] for a man to have the high partner count that you've had. I think it's very unusual for a man to not find you know, like 20 something women to be more attractive.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Well, no, I, I, I can see them more physically attractive, but I think there's, there's, yeah, well, I guess this is my thing about status, right?</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> Where I, I guess I'd find a lower, like sleeping with a lower status woman, really repellent the idea.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, everyone's different, but yeah, I do think that this is the kind of discussion that's not being had out loud a lot. I'm glad we're talking about, I'm curious to see like in the comments, if other people have, have given this a try.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> I mean, I think it's pretty unusual. I mean, the thing is, I think it's super common, but not. Not where people talk about it, I guess. So yeah, I'm curious to see what people say.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> But what would you call it if you were going to come up with a name for it?</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Dread Game Monogamy. Dread Game Monogamy? Yeah, I mean, the red pill uses, or at least used, like back when I read a bunch [00:40:00] of it. They'd be like, yeah, the dread game is where you, you as a man, if you're spinning plates, like if the woman knows that she has competition.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> That's the dread game, but it's also considered an incentive. The female partner is going to be incentivized to be a good female partner because she knows that she has no exclusive contract essentially.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> Well, I'm glad we had this conversation. It's always fun. I like really look forward to these now. It's like my unwinding time. So it</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> is, it is really fun. What do you call it? Like weird base conversations about things. Yeah,</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> that's the point of the meeting</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> that the idea is that no one's allowed to have.</p><p><strong>Malcolm:</strong> We, we are okay with, with, with polyamory, but it's also bad to sleep with someone who's not your primary partner.</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> So there you go. Everyone was that statement. Yup. Yup. And now everyone hates us. But you know what? I love you, Malcolm. So at least that,</p><p><strong>Simone:</strong> okay.</p> <br /><br />This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_2">basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe</a>