>Monogamy is, more or less, a female fantasy. This is such a grotesque oversimplification that it's basically wrong. Both men and women have each evolved optim

>Monogamy is, more or less, a female fantasy. This is such a grotesque oversimplification that it's basically wrong. Both men and women have each evolved optimal mating strategies involving a calculated balance between gene-seeking and mate-seeking. It's in a man's interest to find a partner with good/compatible genes and invest his energies into high-success-ratio children. It's also in his interest to "spread his wild oats" as far and wide as possible, since it costs him basically nothing. On the woman's side, children always come with heavy biological strings attached, which shifts the balance - men she sleeps with need to offset that cost with either exceptionally good genes or by committing to help, if not with raising the children then at least during the pregnancy (I imagine hunting for food is no picnic when you're 8 months in). So men and women both engage in "casual sex", at different rates. Men and women both seek committed long-term relationships, at approximately similar rates. Men and women also cheat situationally within those relationships - men with whoever they can get, women with the exceptionally attractive. Men and women aren't the same, but they're fundamentally playing a similar game.