"Designed for"? Sociobiologically speaking there is a good argument that men are designed to be promiscuous -- spreading your sperm widely is likely to be an effective strategy for having your genes show up in the next generation. The argument that often accompanies this, which is more problematic, is the sociobiologically women are designed to be monogamous --
the idea is expressed in the old couplet:
hogamous, higamous, man is polygamous higamous, hogamous, woman's monogamous
-- because you can only have so many kids anyway, and it's useful to have a guy who will stick around to help bring home woolly mammoth steaks, keep predators at bay, including opportunistic sex partners who won't stick around (rapists or Casanovas).
The argument for women depends on a highly questionable and culturally loaded set of assumptions about the relative roles of men and women. One might argue, conversely, that it's good sociobiologically speaking for women to have lots of partners so that they can complete and she can pick the best one. This relates to the discussion we had a while ago about the sociobiological point of women's orgasm. That sort of argument depends on the availability to caretakers who will take care of kids of no obvious patrimony, however, and also is tied into the idea that the woman is selecting what is in the end a long term partner.
> > It is a little-acknowledged secret that
> many active homosexuals will have more
> than 1,000 sex partners over the course of
> a lifetime (the average among heterosexuals
> is seven -- still six more than we were
> designed for).
>
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