The rise of non-monogamy has been a highly discussed topic over the last decade. It’s generally been coded as a left/liberal phenomenon – a groovy alternative lifestyle associated with Portland polycules, self-described “kinksters”, people with dyed green hair and septum piercings, fans of boygenius and Steven Universe. But during this same period, as Louis Theroux’s new Netflix documentary, Inside the Manosphere, shows, right-wing men have been cooking up their own, kind of evil version of the alternative relationship model: one-sided monogamy.

Out of the four key figures profiled in the documentary, two of them – Myron Gaines and Justin Waller – enjoy an arrangement where they can sleep with whoever they like and their partner cannot. While this doesn’t apply to content creator Harrison Sullivan, who is single, he embodies a similar contradiction: he disdains women who do sex work, but happily uploads a video of himself getting his dick sucked to a paywalled Telegram channel; he disapproves of female promiscuity, but spends his own evenings chatting up women on the streets of Marbella.

Obviously, these contradictions are as old as time, and “men gain respect for sleeping around while women get called ‘sluts’” is such a blatant injustice that most 12 year olds figure it out for themselves. Women have always been more harshly punished for infidelity (a theme explored in quite a few classics of Western literature), polygamy is neither a new nor extinct practice, and “one-sided monogamy” was effectively the norm for men in ancient Rome and Greece. But watching the documentary last night, it still struck me how untraditional this vision of masculinity is. It is libidinal, hedonistic, and unmoored from most (though not at all) traditional conservative values, particularly in the US, where conservatism is so bound up with Christianity. These people are committing all seven deadly sins within a half hour of streaming.

An avid Trump supporter, Justin Waller prides himself on playing the traditional role of provider, but refuses to marry his long-term partner and the father of his children (for financial reasons, it’s implied). Myron Gaines, similarly, ends a long-term relationship with his girlfriend – a heartbreakingly sweet character – because she wants to start a family and he does not. Ironically, these men have benefited a great deal from the social liberalism they despise, which has freed them from boring, cumbersome ideals like honour, duty and restraint.

Thirty years ago, behaving like they do would have made you a social pariah at the local Republican club (men cheated on their wives, sure, but social etiquette demanded a little more discretion). Today they can do whatever they want, indulge all of their basest impulses, and for the most part only receive criticism from feminists and liberals, who they can cheerfully dismiss as shrieking harridans and soy boy cucks. It’s a good deal for them, even if their lives appear soul-crushingly vapid and empty, a kind of spiritual hell. For women, it seems, it’s the worst of both worlds: all the domination of traditional patriarchal relationships, with none of the responsibility or commitment (even if this was an ideal which men very often failed to live up to).

Not everyone on the modern right is on board with this more licentious, even Nietzschean form of masculinity and the alternative sexual lifestyles that come with it. While happy to endorse the philandering alleged rapist Donald Trump, some conservative men still take seriously the idea that men should be dutiful fathers and husbands. Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs, a 2023 book by Republican Senator Josh Hawley, for example, shares the manosphere’s assumption that men are under attack, but argues that the solution is a reassertion of traditional masculine values. Hawley rails against liberal ‘wokeness’, but also influencers like Andrew Tate, who he describes as “the king of toxic masculinity”, and the corrosive effects of pornography, promiscuity, consumerism and social media. 

Of these two competing visions of modern masculinity, it’s not surprising that more young men are drawn towards the one that tells them they can do whatever they want, and that their only obligations in life are to go to the gym and make money. But as Theroux’s documentary shows, these two visions are very easily reconciled. The subordination of women is a unifying principle, and as someone like Sullivan sees it, there doesn’t need to be any relation between your professed values and the way you act. You can offset the contradiction between railing against pornography and promoting it for financial gain, for example, as long as you’re willing to acknowledge your own cynicism.

Over the last few years, there has emerged a left-wing critique of non-monogamy, which – put simply – argues that it’s a symptom of neoliberal capitalism and its demands for flexibility and choice. I’m not sure that’s always true, but it does seem like a fitting way to think about right-wing non-monogamy. It’s about misogyny, of course – but it’s also an expression of a culture that preaches self-discipline while being driven by rapacious consumption and bottomless greed.