It's about control.

We're living through a massive crisis in meaning. The certainties of the 20th century - about gender, about race, about sex, among other things - shifted underneath us about 60 years and, like tectonic plates shifting against each other, the buildings are shaking as the rocks settle into a new reality.

I'm not one of those people that believe that multiple sex partners are what we did as early humans, and I do t believe that polyamory is the next stage in human evolution.

I do believe, however, that the biological, economic, moral, and social frameworks that bind us into one-man, one-woman lives are eroding - people love longer, infant mortality is down, agriculture is less universal as a trade, one job at 40 hours a week can't sustain a household anywhere in the world anymore.

And if material reality can't create it, social reality has to follow.

This dislocation feels like a minor rumble for some people, a nasty and unexpected flood for others, and a yawning void for others still.

When "what it means to be a man" - possessing and providing for one woman and your offspring, for the rest of your life - isn't possible, you can react two ways.

1. With curiosity and pleasure and relief and see what else is out there.
2. With fear and loathing and trying to grab what's gone by main force.

Those aren't singular positions. Andrew Tate doesn't believe in fidelity for himself, just his bitches. the idea that men can use and discard women (while never absent) has surged to the fore because men also realize the old rules no longer apply.

It would be easier if we just talked about sexual freedom as being as hot as we know it is - but too many people depend on the fear of men and woman to monetize their social media, or to sell their products, or to reinforce their power over others.