Polyamorous Paradise: A Selection from Nicholas A. Christakis’s Blueprint (2020)

“It’s hard to imagine a society with less interest in what modern Westerners call marriage than the Na. They are a group of mountain farmers near Tibet numbering about thirty to forty thousand. . . . Na households are matrilineal. A woman lives with her mother, sisters, brothers, and maternal uncles. Therefore, unlike what we see in most cultures, it is standard for all members of a household to be consanguineal relations. Unrelated men from outside the family very rarely move into the household. However, men do frequently visit the household to have sex with women there . . . .

People in Na society do not know or care who their own biological fathers are. . . . The Na know that men, and sex, are required for a woman to give birth to a baby, but they believe that the babies are already in the woman, like seeds in the ground, and they are merely ‘watered’ by the men’s semen (they say: ‘If the rain does not fall from the sky, the grass will not grow on the ground’). They feel that it makes no difference who does the watering. . . . women enjoy their sexual activity . . . and have total control over whom they choose to have sex with, since the Na insist on absolute consent of both parties. . . .

There are several types of sexual relationships . . . among the Na. The most common is the practice of nana sese, or a ‘furtive visit,’ where a man will come to a woman’s house after nightfall (and leave before daybreak). He does not eat in his partner’s home and he tries to avoid any contact with members of her household. Many women (as well as men) . . . [have] dozens of partners, sometimes reaching one hundred over the course of a lifetime. . . .

Just as in contemporary hookup culture or online dating services, specific cultural norms govern this activity. Young men will often go out after dark looking for partners they know, often climbing the walls of a woman’s household compound. Sometimes, several men will show up at a woman’s door at the same time, each trying to persuade the woman to pick him for the night. When men are rejected, there are generally no hard feelings because they can ‘always try tomorrow.’ Or they can just try another house. . . .

Overall, sexual jealousy seems rare among the Na, though it is not entirely absent . . . . The Na revere tolerance of multiple liaisons, and jealousy is seen as unnecessary. If a man complains that his partner in an acia relationship is also sleeping with other men, the people in the village will mock his foolishness and even see his jealousy as shameful. ‘Why not just go sleep with someone else?’ they will ask. ‘There are always more girls in the next village.’”—Nicholas A. Christakis, Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society (2020)