I don't think it is because guys don't want extra babes - they do! I once worked in a company where almost all the guys were "mainstream" LDS. Most violated the Word of Wisdom habitually, and most spent hours whining about how badly they wanted to get with this woman or that woman. Their wives probably didn't know. The fidelity to monogamy was feigned. Yes, I think that most men wouldn't want four permanent wives, if only because of all that dedication and responsibility. Guys are lazy. Many want extra chicks, but they only want them for a few days. That's the difference between decent polygamists and lascivious philanderers. One has integrity, the other doesn't.
Perhaps some men resent the polygamy discussion because they need to keep up the pretense to their wives that they think "only about you, dear". Maybe some shudder at the topic because they belong to a church which has drummed into their heads for a century that they can only have those extra women in the hereafter (no comparison with Muslims). Perhaps they are quietly jealous.
Even sadder is the pervasive indoctrination of young LDS women - the insistence that 19th century plural marriage was an anomaly, an aberration; and that 21st century polygamy is disgusting and filthy. When those sweet, deeply-brainwashed sisters get to the other side and learn that plural marriage always has been a requirement for exaltation, will they mutiny entirely from the everlasting gospel and covenant?
Face it folks, the Church looks on polygamy like Superman views green Kryptonite. I want to advance the premise that it is because we are "whistleblowers". When a whistleblower leaks information about a company which dumps toxic ooze into the environment, the company harbors deep hatred for the whistleblower. Maybe longtime employees share the corporate rage, because their well-being is also threatened by the disclosure of uncomfortable truths.
Tens of thousands of missionaries span the globe propagating the Restored Gospel. When inquisitive investigators inquire about polygamy, the canned answer bubbles out - "The Lord gave a revelation to President Wilford Woodruff to terminate the practice." So, we are whistleblowers because the Church knows that this canned response is a lie, and that we adamantly and openly stand by our conviction that, since 1889, no president of the Church has received and written down a verbatim revelation from God.
Annual temple-recommend interviews petulantly admonish every member to steer a thousand miles away from apostates (read - "Fundamentalists"). Why? because we know the real truth - The Church lied - and not only about Woodruff and his "Manifesto" (Woodruff took another wife six years after the Manifesto). The Church had the identity of God plainly trumpeted from the Tabernacle pulpit and memorialized in its hymns. In 1902, in the face of intense public pressure, the identity of the God of the Old Testament was conveniently switched from Michael to Jesus (one is reminded of the Catholic Church's rescission of "Limbo").So that's my take. When you have whistleblowers who can reveal your deceits, you have to go to any lengths to demonize, marginalize, vilify and discredit them. I could accept that I might be off-track, but take a look at where the hatred centers. If you took a poll asking whether polygamists "should be imprisoned and have their children confiscated", the percentage of 'yes' responses would be greater in Utah than in any other state or country. The consummate irony (as one sage soul observed) is that, were Abraham or Jacob or Joseph or Brigham to surface in our Mormon midst today, they would be excommunicated and incarcerated (not to mention Jesus Himself).
I invoke once again "The Emperor's New Clothes". Could thirteen million possibly be wrong?
