Ryan:
No, I wouldn't. Because full disclosure in matters of the heart is not the natural way of things in the human species. And having made frequent childhood visits to the crumbling Communist empire in Central and Eastern Europe during the 1980s, I have an instinctive skepticism about unnatural social institutions and arrangements.
Allow me to explain.
Gorillas, seals, many species of deer, in fact about 90% of mammals are polygynous. One alpha male out-dominates the rest, there is massive sexual dimorphism, and he keeps a harem of females. Generally, these animals have sex in public, because there is nothing to hide. Everyone knows who's boss and respects that. The females are all his—it's generally recognized.
Swans (famously), wolves, albatrosses, and bald eagles, among others, are strictly monogamous. They form pair-bonds for life and both parents share the duties of raising offspring. These animals have sex in public too, because once the courtship process is concluded, it's clear who's with whom and there's no secret about it.
But 90% of all birds (excluding eagles, swans and albatrosses), along with a few other species, have a more interesting mating habit. They are
socially monogamous, which means that a female tests the courting male for strength and good genes before forming a pair-bond; but they have extra-conjugal sexual relationships. In other words,
they cheat.
Not just occasionally: they do it all the time. It's why birds sing, in fact. And it happens with both sexes—the males do it to spread their genes wider at little cost to themselves, while the females do it because they can rope in a "beta" male as a "provider" (to look after the kids) while getting "alpha" genes from a sexier "lover".
Sound familiar?
And these birds
all have sex in private. Why? Well, if the beta males ever found out whose kids they were raising, there'd be hell to pay.
Now tell me—where do humans generally have sex? In public, or in private?
Ever wondered why? =)
The Medieval period is much-maligned in the popular imagination. It's generally seen as a "Dark Age" between the fall of Classical antiquity and the reemergence of civilization with the Renaissance. And there's some truth to that. But human ingenuity didn't simply disappear during the Middle Ages and then magically resurface ahead of the Enlightenment. The institutions left a lot to be desired, but the people themselves were like humans at any other time in history: smart, highly social... and
devious.
If you were a young, male piece of Medieval hot stuff, you had an intriguing extreme sport available to you—always assuming you weren't too pussy to engage in it. In terms of risk-reward profile, this sport would cause an Aussie shark-wrestler to blanch. It was known as "Cuckolding Great Lords".
If you were found out, or sometimes if you tried and failed, you might pay with your life. And you wouldn't expect your lover to plead for you... she'd be mindful of her own safety and take away with her the memory of a brave and sexy man who risked his life to please her.
Oh, Cuckolding Great Lords was sport indeed!
Here's how it worked. A great lord, i.e. a socially-protected "provider", would announce his impending marriage to some beautiful girl. From that point on, it was open season, as far as the horny, attractive lesser noblemen were concerned. All the hot young males would race to see who could seduce her first.
The prize?
Her pregnancy, right in advance of her wedding night. And the "great lord", ideally, would be oblivious. So you, as the winner, would pass on your genes, protected by the great lord's name and fortune, unto posterity.
Now
that's human adventure at its most extreme.
Many scientists (for example, Matt Ridley) now believe that the human brain evolved to its (relatively) huge proportions for a very specific reason. The size of the head presents an enormous cost, in terms of risk to the mother and baby during childbirth. So in order not to be punished mercilessly by natural selection, there must be some massive balancing advantage.
Not cooperative hunting. Lions do that without a big brain. So do wolves. In fact, what we're seeking is not a natural selection–driven advantage at all. It's an intraspecific, competitive,
sexual selection–driven one.
The advantage is believed to be language, and specifically, the capacity for seduction of a mate, and for outwitting others (often of the same sex). In other words, lying, cheating, and
deception. Put that in your pipe and smoke it
Your brain is your biggest sex organ. Same applies to women, of course, in spades
Privacy, secrecy about sexual relations, and if circumstances necessitate,
deception are the natural way of things, Mr. Ryan... I always find it simpler to go with the natural flow (like the free market) rather than try to impose a social structure that doesn't
quite fit!
Happy seducing! =)
-Marty
