Armchair Philosophizing: On the Exchange Value of Sex

Some time ago, my friend Cate commented to me that she thought polyamory was a “more mature” form of relating than monogamy.

Cate doesn't identify as poly herself, so I was surprised. “Really?” I asked. “What makes you say that?”

“I think it's about the evolution of human relationships,” she said. “With poly, people are no longer treating each other like emotional property.”

Although, as I admitted in my last entry, I'm not always as mature as I'd like to be, I do agree with Cate in principle: I think there's something very fine – noble, even – in recognizing that we do not own the people we love.

Similarly, I also maintain that it's a bad idea to measure our value – our personal worth – in terms of the sacrifices others make for us.

I'm continually amazed by how often people approach relationships like economists running a cost-benefit analysis: Is this a good deal for me? Is someone else getting a better deal? Could someone else offer me a better deal? How much am I worth to him/her? Am I being cheated? Am I valuing myself enough?

Underneath it all, there's our genetic legacy. We've been bequeathed a fundamental disparity between the sexes, and a resulting preoccupation with the idea of fair exchange. Biologically speaking, sex is more risky for women than it is for men. Yes, reliable birth control helps, but if it fails, it's the woman who has to pay the final bill, one way or another. And this is why a lot of women have an aversion to “giving away” their sexual favors.

Only a loser gives it away for free: this is what we've all been taught to believe. And no one wants to be a loser.

And so it is that sex frequently comes with a price tag: it's affixed by the person with more to lose, and paid by the person who has less to lose. In heterosexual relationships, it's usually the woman who sets the price, and the man who pays it.

Which brings us to an oft-noted, oft-lamented disparity in the fortunes of heterosexual poly men and heterosexual poly women. Poly women don't have a whole lot of trouble finding male sexual partners. Poly men do have quite a bit of trouble finding female sexual partners – in fact, they have much more trouble than their supposedly monogamous brothers do.

The twisted logic goes something like this:

A married man makes sexual advances toward a woman other than his wife, and, assuming the sleaze factor doesn't completely turn her off, she's likely to feel flattered: He must really want me, she thinks. Look how much he's risking to be with me! Maybe I'm worth more than his marriage!

But let's say the man is poly, and he tells the object of his affections, Hey, it's on the up-and-up: my wife is cool with me having sex with other women. So how about it? The woman thus approached is likely to feel insulted: I'd be a chump to go for this deal, she probably thinks. He has nothing to lose. And I'm worth more than that!