Dr. Leanna Wolfe – author & sexologist: “Women Who May Never Marry”

Noted sexual anthropologist LEANNA WOLFE visited Jason Schwartz, DreamMakers Foundation Maui, Hawaii, and explored the topics of sexual anthropology in America, polyandry, polyamory, Ashley Madison website… and more. Enlightening and rewarding conversation. January 2013 in Maui, Hawaii.

Summary & Timestamped Transcript Below

[00:22 → 02:15]
Introduction and Guest Background

• The host welcomes Dr. Leanna Wolfe, https://drleannawolfe.com introduced as a sexual anthropologist and sexologist.
• Dr. Wolfe holds a graduate degree in anthropology and a doctorate in sexology; she teaches anthropology and conducts sexological research with an anthropological lens.
• Both she and Dr. Gary Schubach work with clients addressing sexual and relational issues, often intersecting with cultural and cross-cultural contexts.
• The initial discussion focuses on clarifying the difference between polygamy and cheating.
• [02:15 → 05:37]
  Definitions and Types of Polygamy
• Polygamy: Marriage or committed relationships involving more than one partner.
  • Two primary forms worldwide:
    • Polygyny: One husband with multiple wives (most common).
    • Polyandry: One wife with multiple husbands (very rare, about 5% of cultures).
• Polyamory: A contemporary Western practice involving consensual multiple partner relationships without formal marriage.
• Polygamy generally implies sexual relationships and often includes child-rearing in multi-adult households.
• Approximately 85% of world cultures allow some form of polygamy, but in terms of population, about one-third of the global population lives in cultures practicing it.
• Examples:
  • Muslim countries permit up to four wives under Islam (polygyny).
  • Polyandry occurs mainly in certain cultures for economic reasons (e.g., brothers sharing one wife to preserve family land).
• In the Western context, polygamy is illegal, leading to serial monogamy or extramarital affairs.
• [05:37 → 08:25]
  Economic and Social Contexts of Polygamy and Monogamy
• Historically, wealth and property ownership influenced the practice of polygamy. Men with sufficient resources took multiple wives as a status symbol and to care for children.
• In America, monogamy became dominant due to unique land ownership patterns allowing younger brothers to establish their own households, unlike in Europe where inheritance laws favored firstborns.
• The Mormon fundamentalist community still practices polygamy, with an estimated 50,000–60,000 adherents, despite mainstream Mormonism rejecting it since 1890.
• Personal stories highlight the complex emotional and sexual dynamics within polygamous families, especially for women who may struggle with limited erotic expression and autonomy.
• [08:25 → 12:58]
  Polyamory and Modern Relationship Dynamics
• Polyamory involves consensual, multiple sexual and emotional relationships, generally with transparency among partners.
• The internet has significantly impacted relationship structures, with numerous dating and affair sites, including Ashley Madison, which caters to married people seeking extramarital partners.
• Ashley Madison’s philosophy: Both partners having much to lose discourages destabilizing marriages; extramarital affairs are pursued discreetly to avoid “rocking the boat.”
• Examples from popular culture (movies like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and Same Time Next Year) illustrate private, negotiated non-monogamy, akin to responsible cheating or polyamory.
• Emphasis on the human brain’s need for balance between security and excitement: stable home life coupled with novel experiences or relationships.
• [12:58 → 16:20]
  Phases of Love and Attachment
• Dr. Wolfe outlines stages of love:
  • Lust: Physical desire, often fleeting.
  • Attraction: Intense infatuation, the basis for romantic love songs and movies; typically lasts about 1.5 years under constant interaction.
  • Attachment: Longer-term bonding stage where the novelty fades and partners assess compatibility beyond initial excitement.
• Dopamine plays a critical role in the “new relationship” phase, similar to effects from drugs. Couples often seek to rekindle dopamine-fueled excitement, sometimes through conflict and reconciliation cycles.
• [16:20 → 18:49]
  Historical and Religious Influences on Monogamy
• The Christian Church, from the 4th century, legislated bans on divorce, multiple wives, concubinage, and adoption, driven not by morality but economic motives—to consolidate family wealth and increase Church power as a landholder.
• Biblical patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) practiced polygamy, reflecting historical norms.
• Genetic evidence suggests fewer men fathered children than women, consistent with polygyny’s prevalence.
• The shift to monogamy in America resulted from unique social and economic conditions, including land availability and lack of formal recognition of Indigenous land rights.
• [18:49 → 21:28]
  Cultural and Gender Dynamics in Marriage and Sexuality
• Historically, marriage and sexuality have been shaped by male dominance and control over female sexuality.
• Polyandry is rare due to economic and social reasons; polygyny reflects male status and wealth.
• Women’s sexual agency has fluctuated through history:
  • In Elizabethan England, women were considered highly sexual.
  • Victorian era framed women as having little sexual desire, relegating extramarital sex to prostitutes.
• Some orthodox religious groups, including Orthodox Jews and working-class Hispanics, may use prostitution pragmatically for specific sexual needs without emotional involvement.
• [21:28 → 26:43]
  Survey Data and Sexual Behavior Insights
• A survey with about 7,000 participants explored sexual satisfaction and behavior. Key findings:
  • Men often believe other men have more sex than they do; about 17% reported engaging in affairs or seeking lovers.
  • Paying for sex (prostitution) is common in certain communities, especially for specific acts without emotional involvement.
  • Men on Ashley Madison generally report being happy and sexually satisfied in their marriages but seek more sexual variety.
  • Women on the site tend to be unhappy at home and seek extramarital sex due to unmet sexual or relational needs, though many stay in marriages for financial, familial, or social reasons.
• [26:43 → 29:55]
  Changing Gender Roles and Economic Shifts in Relationships
• The traditional notion of male dominance (“man wears the pants”) is shifting.
• Increasingly, women are better educated and financially independent: about 40% of married American women now earn more than their husbands.
• These changes challenge traditional gender roles and marital dynamics, leading to redefined partnerships.
• Dr. Wolfe’s 1993 book Women Who May Never Marry highlighted trends in urban communities where women increasingly managed independent lives, sometimes raising children without male partners.
• Women’s skepticism toward marriage grew as they questioned male control and sought autonomy.
• [29:55 → 31:54]
  Social Shifts from the 1950s Onward
• The 1950s marked a unique, optimistic post-war era with high marriage rates and traditional gender roles.
• Dissatisfaction among men working “for others” and women confined to housework led to the sexual revolution and feminism in the 1960s, contributing to a surge in divorce rates.
• Today’s lower divorce rates may be more due to economic constraints than contentment, with many turning to affairs instead.
• [31:54 → 35:30]
  Polyamory Versus Cheating
• Polyamory involves full disclosure and shared knowledge among all partners.
• Cheating involves secrecy and compartmentalization to avoid conflicts.
• High-profile political scandals (e.g., Gary Hart, John Edwards) illustrate consequences of secret affairs.
• Contrast with figures like Richard Reardan, who openly acknowledged his mistress with spouse’s consent, avoiding scandal.
• Jesse Jackson fathered a child out of wedlock but consistently recognized and supported the child, differing from cover-ups.
• Transparency in relationships reduces stress and conflict.
• [35:30 → 38:42]
  Parenting and Polyamory
• Dr. Wolfe recounts a young mother practicing polyamory while raising a child, emphasizing that a stress-free, loving environment without secrecy supports healthy child development.
• Many children on Maui grow up in single-mother or non-traditional family structures, often supported by extended community networks.
• Intentional communities with strong feminine culture and supportive masculine roles (e.g., foster fathers, big brothers) create nurturing environments.
• Children from these communities often develop broader, more inclusive worldviews.
• [38:42 → 42:49]
  Generational and Cultural Observations
• Dr. Wolfe has observed multiple generations of students and community members over 24 years in Maui.
• She references ongoing research and surveys on sexual culture, including one focused on Baby Boomers (born 1946–1964).
• Generational labels (Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y) reflect distinct cultural and social conditions affecting sexual and relational norms.
• Baby Boomers grew up in post-war prosperity with high birth rates and focus on family.
• Gen X, born during the late 1960s and 1970s, are fewer and more traditional compared to the Baby Boomers’ countercultural influences.
• Cultural shifts include changing attitudes toward motherhood, work, and self-realization.
• [42:49 → 44:00]
  Closing Thoughts and Advice
• Dr. Wolfe emphasizes that notions of relationship, marriage, and partnership are rapidly evolving.
• She advises openness, flexibility, and willingness to adapt to new relational paradigms.
• The dialogue celebrates cultural diversity, changing gender roles, and expanding definitions of love and family.
• The host and guest express mutual appreciation and look forward to future conversations.

1. 1. 1. Key Insights Summary

Definitions

References to Cultural Examples

• Mormon fundamentalists practicing polygamy
• Ashley Madison website and its role in extramarital affairs
• Biblical patriarchs as historical polygamists
• Political figures (Gary Hart, John Edwards, Richard Reardan, Jesse Jackson) illustrating public and private handling of infidelity
• Films illustrating negotiated non-monogamy (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Same Time Next Year)

1. 1. 1. Final Advice

• Relationships are evolving rapidly; flexibility and openness are essential to navigate new social dynamics.
• Transparency reduces relational stress and supports healthier partnerships.
• Embrace diverse family and relational structures as part of a changing cultural landscape.

00:22

Aloha welcome to another Mama present often times people say to me where do you find your guests well yesterday got an email from a friend Gary Schubach Dr Gary Schubach works here in the area of guess Define sexology he’s a a doctor that gets involved with people in different issues they have and he sent me an email that talked about someone coming to the island was an associate and friend of his this is Leanna Wolfee hi thanks for inviting me I was intrigued when he described you as a sexual

00:59

anthropologist um do you know Gary a lot of years then I’ve known him quite a few years yeah and um a sexual answer I would never describe him as that Bas well no I the the reason I’m what I am and he’s what who he is is that I have a graduate degree in anthropology and I became a sexologist um later and so I have a doctorate in sexology and I teach anthropology and do sexological research and much of my research is informed with an anthropological perspective and I also like Gary do see clients and often

01:41

address similar kinds of things that he does but at the same time I also have a lot of facility in talking to people about things that involve culture and cross-cultural um situations well that’s what intrigued me last night when the subject of his email or as he was talking was the difference between polygamy and cheaters and that Dr Leanna Wolfe was coming and like I said are the history of that and I thought let’s see let me see if I can describe it and then I’ll let you help find soon is that

02:15

right sure polygamy is um people that are married or in strong direct relationship with more than one partner well polygamy um by definition is a multiple person marriage and there’s two kinds of polygamy around the world there’s polygyny which is a husband with multiple wives and then there’s polyandry which is a wife with multiple husbands and I also do research on something called polyamory which is a western version of that where we don’t in most western parts of the world formally allow multiple person marriages

02:56

but we certainly have people who have reason to have consensual multiple partner relationships I see and generally those it imply sex generally it does okay and it can also as I saw last night it can mean children and a different upbringing than sure yeah and I mean certainly all across the world I would say around 85% of the cultures in the world allow polygamy and so children are of course being raised in multiple adult households 85% of the cultures World cultures in the world allow polygamy and how would

03:39

you say it’s practiced in most of those cultures some of those cultures or how much well when it comes down to population it’s about a third of the world’s population is actually in living in a culture where this is practiced cuz the reason why we have the 85% number is that many of those cultures are very small and so um as for the Western World which makes up much of the world population we typically don’t allow polygamy in Muslim countries it’s allowed under Islam a man can have up to

04:18

four wives no but the polyandry version does not happen polyandry is very very rare polyandry is with a wife with multiple husbands and we see that in about 5% of cultures wow okay that’s quite different that’s a and and when you think about it it all comes down to economics because the reason why um multiple males would share a wife is because they’re brothers and they have a family farm that they want to keep intact like the new tobat and as a result they don’t if they were to each marry a separate woman

04:53

they’d have to subdivide their farm and then it would be less prosperous and on the other end of it in terms of of um money and um resources the man who can afford multiple wives does so as a means of expressing Prestige and status in our country we don’t legally allow men to have multiple wives so they could practice serial monogamy and get divorced and remarried and continually marry younger hotter women like Donald Trump does and just revolving door CL yeah but um in a country like Africa a man might

05:37

start with one wife in his um early 20s once he has some property and then once he acquires more property he can afford more wives and ultimately afford to take care of all the children that would be produced so historically throughout the world it’s been have there been an American his is there a track in America that well America is a really unique context because America is probably the first really big experiment in monogamy cuz before all of this um in Europe what would happen in the Middle Ages um and

06:19

later men who were the inheritors of the family name and the family property were the ones and the family business were the ones who were able to marry and the younger brothers were sent to convents or were just like left to be troubadours and they couldn’t there was no resources for them to marry but in America because Indian rights weren’t respected we all kinds of European men came to America were given land and thus whether they were a firstborn or any born they could um have a farm and have their own

06:57

wives wow I see so really to me it’s interesting how anthropology and sociology and all this formed together that’s that we were talking about my degree social science is interdisciplinary how much it really is a a whole bunch of different factors um here in America have you seen um I don’t know what was to call polygamy I the Mormonism for example think yeah there are um uh there’s a discret sect of Mormons called the um fundamentalist um members of the Church of Latter-day Saints who do um follow

07:43

what they recognize as scripture and practice polygamy and at the this moment there may be um 50 to 60,000 of them who do so but most members of the Mormon Church are not polygamist when in 1890 when Utah joined the union one of the agreements is that they would stop practicing Po and by and large they do but there are pockets of practitioners of polygamy and some of them live in towns around Utah in Idaho in um northern Arizona well that’s interesting because I um happened to meet a a young lady who

08:25

was there last night in fact who was married and part of [ __ ] faith and then um left and had a whole big story yeah and she had a really interesting story largely um she had really developed a at one level an appetite for Community by being raised in a large family with um many mothers her biological mother and all the other co-wives that her mother had and really found that to be in many ways really practical and useful but in terms of being a woman and to only be able to have share her husband with um and see

09:08

him infrequently and not have all the um erotic expression she might choose it became unpalatable for her and in many of the the um in patriarchal polygamous cultures they wouldn’t dream of a woman having sexual appetite and wanting to realize it and so that’s one of the really unique things about polyamory it which is you know the our informal Western version of multiple partners where we have large as large a number of women as men who are involved and who are themselves have multiple

09:48

partners the internet new on the scene but now I guess it’s two decades more and more things I mean my mailbox has I don’t know three to five a day different kind trying to ChristianMingle mingle Jewish you name it they’re out there uh there’s a site Ashley Madison even who does a uh a site you were mentioning last night that you done a little study Yeah Ashley Madison invited me to um bage the large subscriber base put up a survey they a site that enables married people to find other marri sheet

10:28

with so married and married that’s what they do right and um and they’re thinking behind this in terms and and obviously there’s many people who agree with him who have joined up in one fashion or another is is that both people would have as much to lose and thus they wouldn’t try to um bring down each other’s marriages cuz you know if you’re a married person and you start having an affair with a single person that single person might um at some point want to destroy your marriage and get and get

10:59

you to marry them I if both people have much at stake in terms of not wanting to rock the boat at home wanting to keep things in tap wanting to keep their children wanting to keep their property really not wanting the financial challenges of a divorce now you know we met talked about Donald Trump he can afford to most people can’t and so this way they’re at some level getting The Best of Both Worlds they’re getting to keep their marriages and they’re less frustrated and so that because they are finding um sexual

11:34

expression outside of their marriage something just raced into my head that Som that remember there was a movie with Alan Alder and Elliot Gould and oh Al Ellen Burston there were a couple of there was Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice okay and then there was a same time next year right every remember same time next year yeah right and um I thought to myself those were subjects that were s subject right and same time next year both honored the relationship she had and also gave her a little space to

12:15

be um somebody else so that was polyamory well not really that was uh that was cheating it was a private arrangement I mean it was in the movie didn’t make it look like it was a bad thing to doing it was maybe a spiritual and erotic enhancement for the people who saw each other once every year and and basically they respected what else was going on each other’s lives and good example of of responsibly done yeah okay and you know and most people who would be getting on M Ashley Madison want to do it responsibly in the way

12:58

that they don’t want to rock any boats no boat rocket yeah okay um you know it’s such a big subject and you know when you think about human brain chemistry most people are probably happiest when they have a mix of things going on in their brains they’re both settled and secure in their home relationship and they’re excited about something and this something you know could be new projects or could be a new lover I’m sure the internet pornography is probably surrogate and I want to say a

13:35

surrogate for replacement of a partner physically and enhancement to someone’s appreciation probably more at the level of lust because they’re not really having an interactive experience so they wouldn’t typically be falling in love with each other but they would um nonetheless be um as we might say getting off well interesting how you last night described different kind I would say different kinds of Love or stages I’m not sure lust and then attraction and then attachment and attraction is um the phase that we write

14:10

all our love songs and movies about so this is where you can’t get enough of them where you want to see them forever and ever and ever where um you and they um need to write off into the sunset together and never never lose each other and how long does that phase last well we you know if somebody’s seeing each other all the time it could burn out fairly quick if they have adult responsibilities it might last a year and a half and then what and then we typically cycle into attachment if we

14:41

stay in the relationship because there’s you know usually a turnaround where people then look at each other and say who are you and do I what what are we doing together and do we have anything in common now that the um Now The Thrill Is Gone and some people ultimately decide they don’t other people um you know re create the relationship in such a way that it’s a really meaningful relationship but it’s not going to have the sparkle of a new relationship and some people have um an appetite for the

15:16

brain chemistry that’s part of a new relationship that brain chemistry is typically dopamine and you can get a dopamine Rush from all kinds of things from shooting hard drugs from um falling in love with somebody new and you can do a combination I would think that if one enhanced one’s old relationship right and you’re going to got the new the sort of mix bouquet and help the old relationship build and that is what people many people Endeavor to do and sometimes the reasons couples fight is

15:48

so that they can make up and then when they make up they ex get excited again about a new person and a new a newly created thing I see that’s an interesting fast in this christiandom I say that only because of the dominant religion being Christian which talks about monogamy let’s say the churches talk about it I don’t know cuz I haven’t really done a healthy Research into the Bible the Bible reference anything like that well actually what’s really interesting is if you look back to the

16:20

4th Century um the Christian Church uh in Europe actually the Catholic Church um made a declaration that divorce would be banned that adoption would be banned that taking second wives would be banned and what was behind all of this was not a moral thing but an economic thing I’m just waiting a second here we’re sitting along Baldwin Avenue we might have been up in Haiku but we’re here in lower MAA at Rainbow Park which is a beautiful spot in there it is it is so I’m sorry back to your story

17:03

okay curth Century in um Old Europe Catholic Church um creating all kinds of decrees about what people could no longer do they could no longer adopt they could no longer keep concubines they could no longer take second wives they could no longer divorce and remarry what was behind all this preventing families from creating male erors cuz if heirs were created those heirs would inherit the family wealth the church wanted people’s money and so if they created all these things and people actually went along with them they could

17:42

when a uh uh head of a family passed on his his family’s wealth being that women didn’t inherit would go to the church and so the church became the largest landholder in all of Europe this had nothing to do with morality it had to do with making the church Rich so back to the Bible for a moment Abraham Isaac and J they were all polygamists they were all polygamist right that was the norm and that’s been the norm for humans to and you know when you even look at X and Y chromosome distribution in our species

18:19

there is much less variation in the Y chromosome than the ex chromosome there were fewer fathers of our species than there were mothers because many of them men had multiple wives has it been somehow created socially through law or has it been created how did this we end up in this monogamy well this whole thing that you’re talking about that people would have land and so they’d be able to afford to have a wife and so that was a new so this was a new thing in America because there was this Wide

18:49

Open Country Indian Land rights as I said before were not recognized and thus all kinds of European men came to America and could have their own home instead they could have their own farm and thus they could afford to each have their own famili rather could afford to have multiple wives how no I mean the multiple wife thing um was something that Richmond did I see so many men didn’t have the ability financially to have a wife at all even here here where did it get that was it legislated in no well basically it was

19:28

just an opportunity here because men were migrating from Europe these might have you know were the firstborn of a family inherited all the family wealth and he could have a wife and a family his younger brothers could not they were off on their own they might get thrown into convents they might um just wander around and be troubadors and write poetry and have affairs with women but they um could not marry because they had no wealth and here it was completely different because it was all this Farmland that um

20:05

European men be came here and could take and thus each of them could have his own wife first time in history we ever saw anything like this prior it was always polygyny well polygyny again I’m I’m going to try to separate out cuz the next thing came to my mind it seems to be male choice right the man will have multiple wives not honoring in any way that the woman might have sexual appetite but also an interest in creating her own life it really was a different Society yeah well actually if you look at the

20:44

history of marriage it was it’s been a cycle where there have been times where Women’s sexuality has been seen as very potent and that women needed to be controlled through things like chastity belts and um genital um mutilations and other times um in much of Elizabeth in England women were seen as very um sexy and having a higher sex drive than men and it was only in the Victorian times that women were seen as having very little sex drive and that man a man married to a woman would only

21:28

have sex with her to have children but otherwise he’d be with prostitutes because he his own wife was too delicate for that you know another thing you mentioned I thought was interesting was how uh you identified an orthodox religious group as having used prostitutes where other categories of people didn’t have yeah well basically we had this really interesting um set of questions on our survey we had done a survey that had a really innocuous title which is called The Sex and relationship

22:01

happy this and um so we under that we could ask a variety of different questions how many people did you think you had in your study about 7,000 okay and um one of the things we um asked about was um whether they the respondents felt that they um were having more the same or less or sex than other people other couples right and the men by and large said that other men were having more okay and then and one of the things I was looking at in terms of the sample of people who responded was that these were

22:51

people who um when we ask them well what are you going to do about it if this is the case um and most of the men said they would just let it go and focus on other things but somewhere around 17 or so% of the men said they would go um have an affair or if they were polyamorous they would go find a secret lover and I was comparing this to um and you know and then when it came down to would they pay a prostitute for oral sex and in some communities this is very common like as I was mentioning Orthodox

23:38

Jews working class Hispanics they wouldn’t think of um getting emotionally involved in somebody for sex they simply want a particular sex act they pay um somebody um in their Community who is a known um prostitute and they get their needs satisfied but this group we were looking at they’re really interested in relationship they’re interested in um if they’re a man having um their genitals honor they want to feel like they’re with somebody who cares and so the thought of paying somebody to act like

24:19

they care or go through the motions of a caring act didn’t feel right to them they um wanted to do it with some who was attracted to them who they felt attracted to and it was mostly sexual orientation I mean if someone was having a bad relationship do they often think that sex is going to be the Cure you get into that kind of a thing yeah well what what we were finding with these these people is at least 40% of the men on the Ashley medicine site said that they were let me think they were happy in

25:05

their home relationships they were in love with their wives they were having regular sex with them there was really no problem why were they on the site they were on the site just checking out what else was out there where the women on the site completely different story the women were on the site because they were unhappy at home they wanted more than they could get sexually from their husbands they were no long their H there was you know probably deep relationship issues and they nonetheless had reasons to stay in their marriages

25:39

maybe they were financial reasons maybe they were children that they didn’t want to um separate from their father and maybe there was a family home that because of the recession they couldn’t afford to sell whatever the reason was but you never really isolated the men for I’m just asking for example there’s women having challenge in their relationship sex maybe financially we don’t really exactly know right but men men that were having challenge in their relationship I’m wondering if

26:06

they uh reached out in that same way it’s an well no it’s it’s different that’s the site as I could see it attracts women who have already had affairs and want more affairs and want to have it in a you know pretty much no strings attached kind of way they don’t unlike polyamorous people they don’t want to get super involved they’re looking for men that um would like um more sex and the men um are often reporting that their marriages are in good shape and they just want a wider

26:43

variety of sexual expression than they’re getting at home does po polyamory where someone has multiple partners might that be an area where more men I’m I’m looking at the different kinds of things so that seems like a site where a woman can find many willing Partners if she’s willing but a man is a different kind of a relationship with wom usually you know they say the man wears the pants in the family I think it’s not the case not So Much Anymore and so things are really shifting because we’re coming into an

27:15

economic time where in many CA cases women are better educated than men women um make are earning more income than men at this moment about 40% of married couples the women in America the women earn more than the husbands wow and it’s moving more and more towards more prosperous women and so the whole nature of relationship is really shifting must be interesting for you over these years oh yeah it’s been a a very dramatic quick shift we’ve been living through this shift yeah back in 1993 I wrote a

27:51

book called women who may never marry and at that point what had spirited on on some of these thoughts was working in the inner city in Los Angeles and the black community and there I was well aware of many more women in college than men and many of the women really taking managing their lives independently having children as they saw fit raising their children as I thought that men were absolutely optional and then I started noting that more and more of the um mainstream women of other ethnicities

28:38

were moving in that direction as well and what was happening is the women were starting to challenge or question how much they wanted to be controlled by men and how much they wanted anyone breathing down their neck how and as they were becoming more financially independent the thought of marriage as um a way to get things paid for wasn’t going to work out for them and we started migrating into more and more of the notion of partnership marriages and then we also saw more and more women finding in their in their supposed

29:18

process of looking for a mate they continually found things wrong with them and I remember somebody once calling it like the pointy shoe syndrome where his shoes were twop pointed or whatever it was it was just the most innocuous things they were finding wrong because underneath they were really questioning whether they wanted to be in a full-time day in day out partnership with somebody who um seemed in their mind to be controlling I’m I don’t know if I’m just wandering wildly on subjects but uh

29:55

divorce that was suddenly it I remember when they said most Americans don’t get divorced it was taboo when I was growing up in the 50s it was like a different subject remember and then things they shifted sh and we had a big shift in um the 70s and what BR brought on that shift was women getting into the workplace and so they could see a way to live independently of an unsatisfying marriage and and on top of that you had um feminism telling women to believe in themselves and causing more and more

30:36

women to get a higher education were these not subjects that were ever dressed before was this a somewhat unique time in the I guess sexual anthropology probably what was the most unique thing was the ‘ 50s when lots of people were getting married postwar marriages High um optimism after the war senses of prosperity where a a single man’s income could fund a heeh and then and then from that sprung sprung some very dissatisfied men who all they did was work for the um livelihood of others and really never

31:16

actualized themselves we had women who felt trapped themselves in housework and in not getting to be all else that they wanted to be and and so basically the ‘ 50s exploded into the 60s and we had um sexual Revolution we had feminism and then that um led to what you’re referring to is a very high divorce rate wave and the reasons that people aren’t getting divorced in such numbers today as they can’t afford to that’s an interesting perspective yeah um and that’s why they’re cheating

31:54

instead because do you see a rise in polyam being well you see a rise in polyamory right now a slight rise polyamory is really really challenging for most people because it involves disclosure and involves having an appetite for wanting to hear and share what’s going on with other lovers so the difference between polyamor and cheating cheating is cheaters partition everything so a cheater has his lover here and you know his wife there his business here things don’t mess each other up he hopes you

32:35

know and then you know ever so often it explodes like with um who was the presidential candidate who had the affair uh it depends which one Gary Hart or that was way back that was way he and when Gary Hart did it he his bid for the presidency just blew up he was out of the campaign it was over right and then there was the guy recently who we all remember as John Edwards John Edwards he did he tried to do this whole major cover up which just made him look like a very manipulative liar to the extent

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that I think even part of the cover up was getting his campaign manager to claim that he was the father of his Lover’s child and um and this was all under the backdrop of his wife dying of cancer and so you know basically made him look like mud so you know and one of the people that’s really interesting in terms of being a a a political figure who um never lied let me guess Clinton well I was going to say either bill or Hillary no well Bill Clinton lied too okay no but the one who didn’t

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is um somebody named Richard reardan he um used to be the governor of Colorado and then later he be moved to Los Angeles and became the superintendent of public public schools for a while but while he was in Colorado the Press um noted that or claimed that they discovered that he was having an affair and he says she’s my mistress my wife knows about it we have an open relationship we all enjoy each other and the story disappeared well really yeah that was it it was just like he wasn’t lying there was nothing to be said there

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was no controversy was all known well that’s a that’s refreshing yeah and you know and then Jesse Jackson is kind of a funny story too because during the time that he was offering Bill Clinton Council for um you know having this adulterous affair while President Jesse Jackson was fathering a child but what’s different about Jesse Jackson is is that he always recognized the child always recognized the um woman who he had the child with has always supported the child and so that story

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also has in gotten a lot of attention because he never um denied anything well that’s interesting also what gets reported and what isn’t and and it would just as easily be reported and maybe to his benefit and to the family’s benefit to acknowledge it more and make it more for sure I mean and that sort of the thinking behind polyamory is that there should be no secrets and the more you own exactly who you are are and what you’re doing and who’s in your life the less stress there

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is for everyone and I remember last night there was a young woman who had just had a baby and basically she um wants to was wondering well how could she be polyamorous and raise a child cuz she well she has an you know a father of the child this man is very has other connections and he’s not going to be with her full time and so they’re certainly not going to do anything that at all looks like traditional monogamy and she does have other men in her life and she’s wondering well um how do you

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manage this with a child and you know all I would think is on it and if the child sees that there’s no stress and that there’s plenty of love and that the mother isn’t disappearing over falling head over heels for somebody else and no longer being the mother then there should be no problem here on Maui we have a lot of young ladies who have children and fathers aren’t around right for whatever reason right a similar kind of a thing where in community here and now we have lots of MH both intentional

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and I guess you’d say social communities that are supportive uh without specific fathers being around M um how does that play into communities here in America I don’t know because I believe this is your first time here right so but here we have a a really very loving feminine culture uh I don’t know some of you we have masculine but we have a fair very inviting inclusive allowing kind of a culture is that the kind of thing that becomes a community well that sounds like a a good basis for a community of

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what where you have strong feminine and that it would really kind of give a community it um grounding and the masculine I mean men that are clearly even un involved with the females get involved in a supportive of the young boys and girls so that they all feel they become like Foster fathers or or um they become like big brothers and Foster fathers combo yeah we have a very warm and loving so do you have children that you’ve raised in that way do I no I do not no but in having lived in Mali are

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there are there children that have fostered yeah um I have um been around I had a partner who didn’t have children she was already out without children but um you can’t imagine I’m over 30 but I am but um what I found here is that many of the babies that I saw that have grown up in intentional loving yet single mother communities here have very healthy positive supported strong individuals growing up that have um a more Global and understanding perspective than more traditionally um raised yeah people I

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don’t know how one studies that but I can study it from observation only here on Maui you I’ve been here now 24 years right so I’ve seen babies becoming an adults when I was teaching High School in9 3 I was running for mayor 94 and these little kids later in my life I someone comes you were Mr Schwarz my teacher there’s this big nice yeah right I know it’s happened to me many times because i’ probably at this point I’ve had 6, students wow yeah cuz I’ve been teaching a very long time teach

39:17

College wow well you know I could go on and talk about different things let me first be sure to you have a website I imagine what a web address called Dr lean Wolfee.com d r l e a n n a Wolfee W that’s a good one and uh oh that’s a good one and um do you have your books mentioned there and I have a lot of Articles and links there I wrote a real interesting essay on thoughts about the end of the world that’s linked to the front of the site there’s a couple surveys we’re working on if you take it

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go on the set we’re doing a survey on the sexual culture of Baby Boomers and if you’re happened to be born between 1964 and 1946 there’s um an opportunity for you to take that survey and contribute to our research that was an interesting way you put it you started with more recent than when ancient when you said 64 I said well I’m not in that isn’t that interesting and then you said than there I am H there you are yeah so there’s what makes us baby boomers after the war huh after the war there was a big rise

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in birth rate 64 on think what was that the Beatles that bringing the music back why was that the end cuz that’s when those people grew into adult no no um this is all people that were born we’ll start the other way from between 1946 and 64 that was like a generation I see and then there was another generation after that so then they labeled them X and Y X and then Gen Y and then you know so we have different generation names that sociologists pin on this trying to describe you know the conditions and the

41:00

unique um challenges and cultures of each of these times and so the Baby Boomers had you know particular things because it was such a swell of births and the country was so focused on um post-war child raising and then you know the Gen X children were a a much smaller cohort typically raised uh or created by people who um were having children you know in the um late 60s and early 7s and these were people who were probably not the hippies and not the feminists the was who were more traditional people who were having their

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children at that time and so there were much fewer people born in the Gen X generation because their parents were um sort of putting one foot in front of the other were all the Baby Boomers were that were you know sort of sparked on to be feminists and counterculture people I remember there was a time in Berkeley I guess it was in the um 1970s where you would never see a stroller on Telegraph ever you’ve see very few from women were you know focusing on self-realization and being mothers we have such an interesting

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culture interesting society and sex is a big part of it and anthropology I just found that very interesting I’ve enjoyed this time with you I’m so glad you have I really think that our audience will get a lot of appreciation of what you’re doing great is there ways on your website I’m sure to get in touch with you phone number and everything else yeah there we hope that you’ll come back here thank you and um I invite you when we do our next show or whenever we’ll do shows because we’re going to be in the

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studio here in La all kinds of places and uh you would be a wonderful and welcome guest and uh there’s so much we could have talked about in So Many directions if you wanted to say anything to an audience out there of millions of people or hundreds what what’s an important thing that you would like to really share with them that um our Notions of relationship and of marriage and of partnership are really changing and that what we used to do is playing out in different ways than it than perhaps it

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ever has before so you know my advice to anyone who’s pursuing relationship or in the midst of a relationship which is probably all of you is to be open-minded be flexible um and realize that what used to be may be very different that’s an exciting thing to realize we all see that in so many aspects of our life thank you very very much very aome it’s been a pleasure having you thank you people of Mali people of the world Dr Leanna Wolfeee and I’m Jason Schwarz thank you for joining us we’ll see you again

44:00

aloha aloha okay great