An Argument For Concubines Okay, before all you crazy feminists get upset and menstruate all over your computer screens because of that headline, hear me out. Well, get in the kitchen and bake me a pie. Then hear me out. Mistresses are getting popular in China. Some Commie bigwigs spend their days bilking the proletariat and then their nights canoodling with as many as seven mistresses who all live in lavish apartments. Okay, I agree anything in excess is bad. And seven mistresses would be a lot even for me. And I have two penises. But let's get back to the core argument, that being the mistress of modern times or the plain old concubine of yore. Why did it ever fall out of fashion? What are the pros and cons? My brother, who is the Font of All Important Knowledge, doesn't keep a concubine. He doesn't need to because he doesn't have a wife. He is so Zen he goes one step beyond that. He keeps his women in line by inventing a wife. That's right, if a girl goes nonlinear and he needs to make a clean exit, he will "drop the wife bomb." When I heard about this fascinating strategic level assault on any relationship he needed to vacate I said, as you would, "But you don't have a wife." "You don't need a wife," he replied. "You just need the perception of a wife." So obviously he is the guy to consult about concubines. The first thing he told me was that his important "wife bomb" strategy did not work well in reverse. "It is not a good idea to 'drop the concubine bomb' on an actual wife during an argument," he told me. Which seemed to make sense. A good laugh isn't worth 50% of your assets. But we got into the heart of concubine concept in general and he had the following sage wisdom: 1) Most wives are bothered by sex anyway. Wives tend to operate on a higher intellectual plane than husbands so they should be absolved of responsibilities like sex. Plus they get big asses after a few kids and are self-conscious about it so they probably don't want to be naked in front of men. 2) Most wives have full lives. They don't want to be bothered with things like parties and dinners. They've heard all of their husbands' stories already plus they would likely be uncomfortable around all the smaller-bottomed, young concubines escorting the other men in attendance. 3) It's good for the economy, especially in China. Government officials in China don't make much money. Mistresses are quite expensive. So in order to afford a mistress a government official has to embezzle money. All that money lost to fraud and embezzlement has to be replaced, which leads to greater productivity. That's good for business. 4) It's good for the world. No one but ignorant savages in third world countries and college professors who have never had real jobs think Communism can ever work for long. All that fraud leads to dissension, mistrust and the eventual collapse of Communism. Yayyyy Capitalism. Reagan went to the Brandenburg Gate in Germany and drove a stake into the evil heart of Soviet communism with his "tear down this wall" speech. As much as I would chuckle at Bush 43 standing on The Great Wall of China and hearing him say "Tear down this wall", I don't think it's very practical. Since that wall is 3000 miles long. It isn't all balloons and ponies for the "golden canary" industry, even in China. Some provinces have started requiring men to register their mistresses. That sort of takes away the thrill and forbidden mystery of having one. And some wives in China aren't seeing the wisdom as laid out by my brother and have started fighting back, clearly deviating from the cultural norms that one would expect from submissive Chinese women. I blame the fact that they can get MTV on satellite. More about modern Chinese tarts here