POLYGAMY

Brigham Young, Joseph Smith's successor as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had a tremendous number of wives.

People ask me all the time for dating tips and advice, and I definitely have some current favorites. Whether you’re back on the dating scene after a divorce/difficult breakup/death of a spouse; whether you were plain old dumped and are afraid to have your heart broken again; are a single parent; are intimidated by online dating; wouldn’t know where to start or even what to say if you saw someone you liked; or are simply starting over, try these twelve tips on for size.

If cheating itself isn't bad enough, now science confirms that cheaters, on top of being assholes, are also less likely to wrap it up before having sex with someone who isn't their partner. Gross! Let's just pour some (green, oozing) salt on that open wound, shall we?

In comparison, the word "polyamory" was searched on Google 110,000 times worldwide. That's a whopping .030% looking for polygamous information online in one month. Are these stats an indicator of what kinds of relationships people are looking for? Or are they just numbers?

They're baaaack! "Sister Wives" has returned at last, with Season #3 appropriately premiering on Mother's Day, and you know what that means ... more of everybody's favorite Polygamist with a Peter Pan Complex, Kody Brown!

Misinformation and confusion about the Mormon faith are not in short demand. This is due, in part, to Mitt Romney's campaign for the presidency, in which his faith has surfaced as an issue and raised Mormonism's profile in the media. Meanwhile, TV shows like Big Love and Sister Wives portray Mormons as polygamists, though the LDS church outlawed plural marriages in 1890. Almost all of the stereotypes floating around in regard to Mormonism serve to portray its church members as Other. So what does Mormon marriage really look like?

The recent Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood debacle was a high-profile example of how women's health can fall prey to politics. Considering this is an election year, we can expect reproductive rights rhetoric to heat up on both sides.

Here comes a new baby for the reality television polygamist family featured on TLC's show, Sister Wives. Father Kody Brown and his fourth wife, Robyn, welcomed a son named Solomon early Wednesday morning.

Within some circles of belief, marrying a handful of ladies is commonplace. We're talking about circles containing people with mildly different sensibilities than those of your run-of-the-mill Judeo-Christian American. One Indian man has 39 wives, a boatload of kids and grandkids, and is doing it all for Jesus.

This is a big subject but I have a few ideas I’d like to share from my workshops and from my studies of cultural anthropology.

If God commanded it, then we would find a way to obey it. The important thing is that we would communicate, and we would work it out together as a couple, with decisions mutually agreed upon. That’s necessary for any kind of marriage. Polygamy as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints used to practice it was never about sexual gratification. It was about family; survival, parents for children, and raising children to learn what we believe are correct and ethical principles. If it were reinstated, it would be about family again.

Nine great Autumn dates. When your old lady has herpes. Dance floor tumescence. Facebook and cheating. Do we all marry our parents? The Duke sex list scandal. More on the Duke sex list scandal. The Indiana University sex survey says we like some ate-up stuff. What guys don't like in bed. Who should give a rehearsal dinner toast. Is prison for polygamy on the horizon for Sister Wives? And changing your dude.

Chances are, if your husband were having sex with another women, you'd refer to her as his mistress, the other woman, "that minx," or by a term we can't publish here. You certainly wouldn't call her a friend, let alone a sister. Leave it to TLC to find four women who are not only married to the same guy, but who are so buddy-buddy that they call each other sisters. If you're having a hard time imagining four women sharing one man (and a slew of his offspring), you can observe their marriage for yourself on TLC's seven-part reality series, Sister Wives.

Eleven bad first date locales. Ten ways to reignite your passion. Seven lousy pickup moves. Using The Secret... to get laid. Do guys deny masturbating? Do nice guys finish last? Is the first date kiss going the way of the dodo? Are people more likely to watch porn when their candidate wins or loses? Yep, dudes and chicks are still plenty different. Hook up your newest "personal massager" to the Wii (for real). A woman wants four husband. And 31 days to a better sex life.

Stop me if you've heard this one: Men who cheat are misogynist pigs who wish they could just club women over the head and drag them back to their lair to have their way with them. Totally over-blowing it, right? Not so black-and-white, right? Sometimes there are circumstances, right? You can't expect powerful, charming and rich men to just turn it off, right? Whatever your stance on male infidelity, know this: men who cheat aren't the sharpest tools in the shed (though some of them are tools in general).

A Malaysian politician is in hot water after taking a second wife. While it wasn't against the law for him to engage in polygamy, he just had to run it by his first wife first. Her consent was required to inform the Sharia court that the second was OK. And a college professor in China is facing three and a half years in jail on grounds of "group licentiousness." Essentially, the educator was having orgies and group sex is bad for business in the People's Republic of China. It doesn't seem like privacy is much of a concern there, but how would you feel if your next-door neighbor was getting into those kind of shenanigans?