I read this New Yorker article today detailing an unconventional familial arrangement, one shared by a professor in philosophy with her graduate student-turned-husband and her ex-husband. I am in awe with how individuals choose to enter a wide range of possibilities for their relationships that aren't the usual straight, monogamous, typical varieties.

More radical, is my recent discovery of the swinging lifestyle, in which couples swap their partners sexually for a night. That discovery shocked me.

My questions:

• To what extent can we normatively evaluate alternate kinds of relationships? Polygamy on the whole is perceived as divergent but not radically abnormal. But this valuation would not extend to incestual love, or pedophilia love. Are there limits to who we have sex with and love? What are the criteria in deciding them?
• What does our surprise, awe, disgust, in reaction to these alternate arrangements tell us about ourselves? Does sexual prudishness indicate a lack of education? Or fear of progression? Or to maintain a stable paradigm in the way we see the world?

Suggestions of further readings (philosophical/fiction) into alternate sexual and family arrangements would be very much appreciated.