The polyamory and BDSM subcultures prove that nerds can create new social rules that improve sex.
Hmm, I don't know that I would consider those rules overall to be clearly superior for everyone, although they do reasonably well for me. Rather, I value the existence of different subcultures with different norms, so that people can choose those that suit their predilections and needs.
(More politically: A "liberal" society composed of overlapping subcultures with different norms, in a context of individual rights and social support, seems to be almost certain to meet more people's needs than a "totalizing" society with a single set of norms.)
There are certain of those social rules that seem to be pretty clear improvements to me, though — chiefly the increased care on the subject of consent. That's an improvement in a vanilla-monogamous-heteronormative subculture as well as a kink-poly-genderqueer one.
(More politically: A "liberal" society composed of overlapping subcultures with different norms, in a context of individual rights and social support, seems to be almost certain to meet more people's needs than a "totalizing" society with a single set of norms.)
This works best if none of the "subcultures with different norms" creates huge negative externatilies for the rest of the society. Otherwise, some people get angry. -- And then we need to go meta and create some global rules that either prevent the former from creati...
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