[HN Gopher] Polyamory doesn't liberate; monogamy doesn't protect
___________________________________________________________________
Polyamory doesn't liberate; monogamy doesn't protect
Author : apsec112
Score : 101 points
Date : 2024-12-19 19:06 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (carsonogenic.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (carsonogenic.substack.com)
| malfist wrote:
| I thought this was a nice article. I myself am in a non-open poly
| relationship and it works quite well for us. It's also pretty
| common in my community (homos) because we all like the same sex
| jimbob45 wrote:
| _21% of Americans have experimented with consensual non-monogamy
| at some point in their lives, far more than two decades ago_
|
| Not only do I not believe that statistic, but the footnote
| citation seems to be broken.
|
| I've never seen a poly relationship make it past 10 years and
| I've never seen a poly relationship without significant issues
| that you wouldn't see in a monogamous relationship. Furthermore,
| there simply isn't enough time in the day for poly to work. You
| sleep for eight hours, work for eight hours, and then have eight
| hours in your day left for everything else. Even if you perfectly
| split your free eight between two people, you're going to quickly
| become a boring person whose entire personality is the fact that
| you're poly, god forbid you have a commute or a kid.
| kbelder wrote:
| Maybe it was only 2% of the population, but they accounted for
| 21% of the relationships.
| beeflet wrote:
| Now we're thinking with portals!
| nordsieck wrote:
| > _21% of Americans have experimented with consensual non-
| monogamy at some point in their lives, far more than two
| decades ago_
|
| > Not only do I not believe that statistic, but the footnote
| citation seems to be broken.
|
| I guess it depends a lot on how the terms are defined. If you
| include parallel dating (during the "non-exclusive" phase of
| dating), I could easily see this as being true.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| I don't think most people are having sex with multiple people
| or even doing this parallel dating business. Parallel dating
| is less common than serial dating, and parallel dating with
| sex is even less common than parallel dating. It sure isn't
| looking like 20% of people to me. I avoid people like that
| too so maybe there is some selection bias.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| A single threesome is enough to put all its participants
| into those 20 per cent, and according to studies, 10 per
| cent of women and 18 per cent of men had a threesome.
|
| There is a majority of the cohort already, and if your
| friends perceive you as judgmental, they won't likely tell
| you that they have had one.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| There's no way 18% of straight men had a threesome. That
| sounds like the kind of thing people would lie about. In
| any case, a single threesome is not "polyamory" and
| certainly not closely related to "parallel dating."
| jandrese wrote:
| > experimented with consensual non-monogamy
|
| I think this might be less of "I now have two families" and
| more of "we brought a third person into the bedroom for a bit
| of spice once in a blue moon".
| KittenInABox wrote:
| I believe 21% of americans have at least tried to hook in a
| third for a threesome fling successfully or nonsuccessfully
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Half of them informed their spouses about it beforehand. One-
| eighth of them did so after the fact.
| tremon wrote:
| I think you're making the claim much bigger than it is. The
| narrow interpretation of "consensual non-monogamy" does not
| imply a relationship. Having a threesome with your partner and
| your best friend already qualifies. Making out with a non-
| partner while your partner watches might already qualify,
| depending on how the question is understood.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > Having a threesome with your partner and your best friend
| already qualifies
|
| I don't think it does qualify any more than having a one
| night stand between two single people implies that they are
| dating
|
| This seems to be ignore that Poly implies a relationship, not
| just sex
| Teever wrote:
| How many threesomes with their partner and their best
| friend would someone have to have before they're
| polyamorous?
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| That's probably up to whatever the couple thinks, and has
| no universally correct answer
|
| It just seems absurd to suggest that a monogamous couple
| who has one single threesome, one time, and then never
| again, is now "non-monogamous" forever
| Teever wrote:
| It's obviously a spectrum.
|
| A related concept is if you suck dick are you gay?
| jandrese wrote:
| But the measurement was "consensual non-monogamy", not
| "polyamory".
| nsluss wrote:
| The quote isn't about "Poly" it's about non-monogamy.
| Having a one night stand with a stranger while
| simultaneously having a partner is not monogamy.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| See, you can say that but if it's treated as a one time
| thing and actually stays a one time thing, then probably
| the two people in the couple aren't going to go around
| calling their relationship "non-monogamous"
| kyletns wrote:
| Doesn't really matter what they call it - that's non-
| monogamy (edit: or cheating)
| CrazyStat wrote:
| After some sleuthing I believe the original source for that
| statistic is [1]. But that's a study of _single_ adults which
| is a wildly different population than adults as a whole.
|
| [1]
| https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2016.1...
| quux wrote:
| Time spent with different partners doesn't necessarily have to
| be equal. For instance a "comet partner" who you only spend a
| couple of days with every few months is one type of common poly
| relationship
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Furthermore, there simply isn't enough time in the day for
| poly to work. You sleep for eight hours, work for eight hours,
| and then have eight hours in your day left for everything else.
|
| Not everyone (or even necessarily _anyone_ in a family) works
| full time, and not everyone who works, full-time or otherwise,
| works in an institution at arm's length from the family, so
| even at the basic premises your argument about constraints
| suffers from false generalization problems. Observing that
| polyamorous family structure is suboptimally suited for a
| dystopian proletarian life in some extreme capitalism
| assumptions is accurate, but note that that the same
| observation has been made by many about _monogamous_
| relationships.
|
| > Even if you perfectly split your free eight between two
| people,
|
| Why are you assuming splitting time? A person can interact with
| more than one other person at a time.
|
| > god forbid you have a commute or a kid.
|
| Seems that in many ways having kids in a poly family would be
| easier than a monogamous nuclear family. The only problem I see
| with commutes is that a poly family unit is going to be forced
| into more complicated commute-optimization trade-offs (OTOH,
| the probability of having viable commute-sharing with at least
| one other partner is also higher, so there's plusses and
| minuses on that front, too.)
| kyletns wrote:
| Good thing you figured out that non-monogamy simply doesn't
| work. Must feel good to finally get to the bottom of that! I'll
| make sure to inform the millions of Americans currently
| practicing it that you figured it out - simple arithmetic!
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| An underappreciated feature of nonmonogamy is that it makes
| ethical conflicts of interest a bit more challenging. This
| article doesn't discuss that explicitly, but does hint at it in
| some of the quotes
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| How so?
| jpm_sd wrote:
| I've observed a number of poly relationships from the outside, as
| a friend of one or more of the participants. I've also been in a
| monogamous relationship for >20yr and I've lived on both coasts
| of the US in that time.
|
| Generalizing wildly, "going poly" seems to be driven by one
| partner's selfishness and the other partner's desire to please.
| It has resulted in breakup of the original dyad in 100% of cases.
| kyletns wrote:
| Indeed a wild generalization, but I can agree from many
| anecdotes that monogamous couples "going poly" is super super
| hard - much easier to start a relationship in a poly dynamic
| than attempt to transform one.
| aguaviva wrote:
| Probably a function of the particlar psychographic you hang out
| with.
|
| Meanwhile one observes the denial of any potential to even
| discuss ENM (along with straight-up cheating) contributing to
| an immeasurable portion of dyad breakups.
|
| Or people staying in the dyad, but with tremendous
| unacknowledged suffering.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Pretty good article. I think everyone could do with a little less
| pathologization of a lot of human behaviour. My wife has
| suggested in the past that we have another wife so that we can
| have more children[0]. I'm amenable to the idea but the logistics
| of this seem hard to me: our finances are fused, our desires are
| mostly unified, and it took me many years to find someone with
| whom this was easy to do. A two-party marriage like mine is
| straightforward for us both. There is a natural Nash equilibrium
| in responsibility splitting. We do so without explicit handling
| and simple nudges one way or the other suffice to recalibrate. I
| imagine long-term polyamorous relationships are easier to handle
| for people who have more explicit procedures in interaction or
| who are more comfortable with the uncertainty.
|
| If there's an equivalent article which focuses more on the
| machinery of long-term polyamorous relationships that would be
| interesting.
|
| 0: It's not that we're old but that we will be old by the time
| we're done.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| > 0: It's not that we're old but that we will be old by the
| time we're done.
|
| Raising children when you're old is so much harder, and you'll
| be mega-old when they're 20. I really don't see the point?
| renewiltord wrote:
| The point is to avoid that precise problem by parallelizing
| the child-having. My wife can only have one child at a time
| and medically recommended spacing is 18 months. The objective
| is to have our children as young as we can given our current
| ages.
| echoangle wrote:
| I hope it's not too personal, ignore if it is: How many
| children are you aiming for?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Given that we have this limit and our age, 3 if her
| health permits. If we could parallelize, one could
| imagine twice that+.
| beachtaxidriver wrote:
| If you don't mind me asking, how many are you starting
| with now?
|
| Because three is a lot. And if you're starting from 0 or
| 1 today, I can't imagine you actually want six.
| renewiltord wrote:
| We'll see where we get. In some sense, the revealed
| preference is that I didn't, considering I prioritized my
| career over finding a partner. But we'll see.
| big-green-man wrote:
| What you're describing is polygamy, and I've considered it for
| myself. It is corrosive if it is adopted as a social
| institution in a culture, but if a free rider here or there
| (such as myself) pulls it off, better for them. I have talked
| to my wife about it, she doesn't like the idea, although she
| does like women and it wouldn't be a just me getting the
| benefit type deal. I think she's probably right, the dynamic
| can get too messy, and I think youre right, it took me my whole
| life to find her, finding another one that's perfect for me _as
| well as_ perfect for her would probably take a decade. Not
| really a reasonable timeline.
|
| Also, she wants the children she raises to be hers, the shared
| responsibility thing doesn't appeal to her, and the potential
| rivalries between women and their respective children just
| aren't conducive to raising healthy people, which is ultimately
| the goal of all of this. Maybe she will change her mind one
| day. Maybe it could be made to work. I'm not dead set on it and
| am happy with the status quo.
| nerdjon wrote:
| There is one issue that I have with this article and most
| discussions around polyamory. That is mixing in open
| relationships and poly. There is a massive difference between,
| you can do whatever sexually you want and dating other people.
| There is an emotional difference.
|
| Myself, I am in an open relationship but I know that what I
| consider poly is a line I do not wish to cross. I know that just
| it is not for me. I don't consider myself poly. (To be very
| clear, this is not a judgement on being poly. I have several poly
| friends. I just don't know why we group all of them together)
|
| Mixing these has made having discussions with some people more
| difficult. So I am not really sure why we are grouping all... non
| traditional relationship structures into poly.
|
| That all aside. I find whenever this topic comes up to be quite
| interesting. I don't live in SF but I am a gay man. I know very
| few gay couples that are not at least "door ajar" as I have heard
| a few explain it. I have had a few people ask me why I am open,
| and honestly I don't like that question. To me the better
| question is, "why not?". And you may have a valid reason, maybe
| you are a very jealous person, maybe you just don't want too and
| thats perfectly valid.
|
| But to me this boils down the problem isn't monogamy, being open,
| poly, or however you want to define your relationship (or lack of
| one). The problem is the assumption of monogamy. Not ever having
| that discussion, and honestly having the discussion without
| jumping to doing something because you think it's the way you are
| supposed too.
|
| I do find some of the numbers presented here to be interesting,
| particularly the divide between men and woman. But I honestly
| can't really speak on that since I don't really have much
| exposure to this world outside of the LGBT world.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| The poly vs open distinction is interesting because
| (anecdotally) I see some variation there between gay and
| lesbian relationships--it seems like gay dudes are more likely
| to be in a door-ajar couple, whereas the _throuples_ I know are
| usually groups of lesbians!
|
| Conversely, I don't see many poly gay dudes or door-ajar
| lesbian couples, and lesbians might be more monogamous on
| average.
| nerdjon wrote:
| > I don't see many poly gay dudes
|
| From my experience. I only know a few poly gay men. I know
| far more gay couples in open relationships that have similar
| lines that I do when it comes to anything beyond that.
|
| I mean, for sure those lines get blurry. Things that you may
| traditionally associate with dating like cuddling on the
| couch at a party (just a party, not anything more) or similar
| things. But, there is still that line.
|
| I do wonder why that seems to be the case. I am reluctant to
| get into stereotypes to explain it...
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| This can't be the whole story, but probably significant
| that gay hookup apps are light-years ahead of lesbian
| hookup apps :P
| ted_bunny wrote:
| Sounds like you haven't heard of UHauling. It's a trope that
| many lesbians are highly relationship oriented and things get
| serious really quickly.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| Oh, I've heard of it... and have even been accused of doing
| it, lol. But I'm not sure it counts as u-hauling if you
| _talk_ about marriage within the first month and then take
| another decade to tie the knot :P
| aziaziazi wrote:
| I didn't, and didn't even know those behaviors. Discovered
| two staple of LGBT humour that are great, hope it doesn't
| sound rambling for those who know it:
|
| Question: What does a lesbian bring on a second date?
| Answer: A U-Haul.
|
| ----
|
| Question: What does a gay man bring on a second date?
| Answer: What second date
| kyletns wrote:
| Def agree that consensual non-monogamy (CNM) != polyamory, and
| there's a loottt of confusion out there around that distinction
| (and in this article and this HN thread, too).
|
| I might be poly for the right people at the right time, but I'm
| not currently. However, I'm definitely CNM for life because all
| I want is to talk it out!
|
| Well, that, and occasionally hook up with other people
| theasisa wrote:
| I think poly is kind of an umbrella term right now for a lot of
| different kinds of "multiple partners" type relationships. I am
| ENM (ethically non-monogamous) but if you're not familiar with
| the term (and most people aren't) saying poly is much easier.
| It is a bit like saying LGBT and including all the things that
| fit under the umbrella but aren't lesbian, gay, bi or trans.
| NautilusWave wrote:
| It's not a very good umbrella term, the term itself implies a
| relationship structure where an individual is in multiple,
| involved intimate relationships. A couple in an open
| relationship where one or both partners engage in dalliances
| doesn't fall under that umbrella.
| e40 wrote:
| What does "door ajar" mean? I have seen several references to
| it but no definition.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| They can pork other people if they want to.
| NautilusWave wrote:
| I imagine it's like an open relationship with more rules
| around when and how one engages in outside activities.
| trogdor wrote:
| The door is not wide open to potential partners, but it's
| also not closed --> door ajar.
| pdimitar wrote:
| Thanks for the explanation, it helped, but I still have no
| clue where does the "ajar" thing come from, letter for
| letter.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Ajar, to mean, slightly open. So, not a open door
| (anyone), not a revolving door (everyone), and not a
| closed door (no one).
|
| It's a bit of a contrived term and there's not much to
| read into it. It's like how "hitting a home run" is slang
| for getting laid, and rounding the bases was an
| associated metaphor that evolved from it; they only make
| sense by the association with the original metaphor.
| pdimitar wrote:
| ...Oh, it's an actual English word, I didn't know and now
| I am embarrassed. Should have checked the dictionary.
|
| Thank you!
| nerdjon wrote:
| The way that my friends have described it.
|
| Neither of them are actively looking, going to events, on
| apps, etc.
|
| But if an opportunity presents itself with a friend or
| whatever they have already established that it's fine.
|
| It's still open, but it seems the difference is seeking it
| out vs it just happening.
| dnissley wrote:
| monogamish
| siva7 wrote:
| They are often times grouped together because the people
| writing this blogs, articles, newspapers were never in a poly
| relation and have no clue about the topic they are writing (but
| of course they have an opinion without the experience and think
| it's ok to sell an opinion or morale piece as more than it is).
| scott_w wrote:
| I don't think the author is saying this is their opinion but this
| sentence stood out to me:
|
| Monogamy is coercive.
|
| For a lifestyle that tries to sound "open," this is an incredibly
| judgemental view to take on the many people who don't live your
| lifestyle.
|
| Some of this attitude reminds me of hearing "nobody cares if
| you're not tattooed" in my tooth, from tattooed people. Right
| before insisting I should get a tattoo to be like them.
|
| To be clear, I don't care what 2, 3 or 30 consenting adults do in
| their personal lives. I wonder if the negative view of monogamy
| is just the immaturity of youth and those people have since grown
| out of that position?
| phoe-krk wrote:
| _> I wonder if the negative view of monogamy is just the
| immaturity of youth and those people have since grown out of
| that position?_
|
| There are powerful entities, including religions and country
| laws, that either make life easier for people pratcicing the
| monogamous relationship style or just outright force that style
| on masses of people. This force spawns resistance, and the
| negative view you mention is an expression of this resistance.
| t-writescode wrote:
| And it's worth adding that the comment "Monogamy is
| coercive." is a reflection of this part:
|
| > There are powerful entities, including religions and
| country laws, that [...] just outright force that style on
| masses of people.
| BitterCritter wrote:
| I think we are conflating two different things. Monogamous
| people and monogamous institutions. Does the author mean
| institutions are coercive or that couples are coercive?
| t-writescode wrote:
| Almost certainly Both!
|
| Systemic, indoctrinated and even toxic monogamy,
| perpetuated by people and society at large.
|
| You've got people and relationships that are so harmed by
| strict heteronormativity and its related monogamy that
| "men and women can't be friends" and "you can't say that
| lady's cute because that's cheating" and pornography is
| adultery.
|
| It's little microaggressions and requirements of
| conformity that systematize and enforce monogamy in
| little ways.
| ajkjk wrote:
| The author of the post was quoting a book as saying that, and
| criticizing the book at the same time, so it sounds like you're
| more or less agreeing with them.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| >To be clear, I don't care what 2, 3 or 30 consenting adults do
| in their personal lives. I wonder if the negative view of
| monogamy is just the immaturity of youth and those people have
| since grown out of that position?
|
| The negative view of monogamy that these people convey is an
| attempt to justify their lifestyle to people who don't like it,
| or to recruit more people to their lifestyle. One could argue
| that both monogamy and nonmonogamy have selfish aspects, but
| monogamy has proven more successful as a strategy for human
| society. Of course polyamorous people would debate that with
| you, but the disadvantages of polyamory are so obvious that it
| isn't easy to justify.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| The disadvantages of polyamory are not obvious to me, as a 67
| year who has been married twice and swore it off after the
| last one ended.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Could you elaborate more on this? In a non-esoteric way.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| Some obvious risks are: higher chances of STDs, higher
| chances of strangers causing trouble for you in your home,
| more difficulties having kids (from paternity issues to
| differences in values like poly people don't often want
| kids), and a higher risk of losing your partner. You would
| probably be better off paying for a prostitute than trying
| to make polyamory work with all its inherent drama and
| complications. You still have to worry about STDs but at
| least you can walk away from any and all other trouble.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| I am someone who experienced the "longterm partner decided she
| wanted to be poly" heartbreak. When she told me, I asked her why
| she would choose to stay with me rather than just be single and
| date as many men as she wanted. She told me something along the
| lines of "I love you, I want to spend the rest of my life with
| you, but I don't feel like one person is enough for all the love
| I have". I wasn't terribly happy with that response, and she
| broke up with me a week later (while a man who she wanted to be
| poly with was staying with her). She left me because she wanted
| to change the parameters of the relationship and I didn't
|
| Afterwards, oddly enough, I wound up in a friendship for a while
| with a different woman who had just broken up with her fiance for
| almost the same reason. In her case she had always been open
| about wanting to be Poly, her fiance had been okay with it, and I
| guess changed his mind the closer they got towards marriage. She
| left him because he wanted to change the parameters of the
| relationship and she didn't.
|
| I wound up talking to the second woman a lot about polyamory and
| my unhappiness with how my ex had treated me. One night we met
| for coffee and she basically spent the whole time trashing me.
| She called me a loser for still being upset about my ex, she told
| me I was a miserable sad sack of a person and I needed to get
| over it, etc. Once she was done with that, she proceeded to tell
| me (in unwelcome and unwanted detail) about a lot of the latest
| sex parties she had been attending and how excited it made her to
| be living her fantasies. Then she casually asked if I wanted to
| go back to her place and screw (which was not our relationship up
| to that point). I declined, told her I didn't want anything to do
| with her anymore and left. She spent a couple of weeks asking me
| what she had done wrong. I mostly ignored her but even when I
| tried to explain she just argued with me, then eventually she cut
| me off with a long tirade where she acted like it was her choice
| not to have anything to do with me anymore, not mine
|
| I'm aware that n=2 is not statistically significant, but those
| two encounters happening within the span of a few months kind of
| convinced me that people who are Poly are self-centered,
| emotionally stunted, and absolutely not suitable for any kind of
| long term relationship
|
| Yeah a lot of monogamous relationships end these days too, but if
| this is representative of even a small fraction of poly people, I
| wonder if you can even call poly a relationship at all, really
| 123yawaworht456 wrote:
| the more I glimpse American culture, the happier I am that I
| was not born there.
|
| >I wasn't terribly happy with that response, and she broke up
| with me a week later
|
| my brother in Christ, you should've broken up with her on the
| spot.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > my brother in Christ, you should've broken up with her on
| the spot
|
| After she told me she wanted to be with me for life? I had
| hoped the poly issue was going to be in the past
|
| I was in my early 20s, I was in love, she was my second
| girlfriend, who happened to be my high school crush, "the one
| that got away" but I got a second shot with her and took it,
| I was living the dream
|
| How that relationship ended screwed me up for a long time.
| I'm better now, and I have a very loving stable partner
| 123yawaworht456 wrote:
| >After she told me she wanted to be with me for life?
|
| well, as you saw, it wasn't really the case, was it? I
| don't mean to rub salt into the wound, but she's been
| fucking that guy long before that conversation with you.
|
| I'm glad to hear that it had all worked out for you in the
| end. never second-guess your decision to reject that
| suggestion.
| sandspar wrote:
| Your problem is that you tried to make a relationship with
| your oneitis. Those never work.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >How that relationship ended screwed me up for a long time
|
| You learned important life lessons young when they were low
| cost. I call that a win.
| silexia wrote:
| Fantastic article, but as a monogamous married father of 4, I
| think the author misses the fundamental point of all
| relationships... And the point of life itself: Reproduction.
|
| The primary drive of every living creature from whales to amoeba
| is to procreate. Having children is WHY we have a sex drive and
| an urge to have relationships in the first place.
|
| Tons of studies show children require stability in the
| relationships in their lives. Poly may work great for people
| without children, but children need the stability of long term
| committed parents who are always there and this is best provided
| by monogamy.
| 9999px wrote:
| Downvotes are mad that you're correct.
| krupan wrote:
| I generally agree with what you are saying, but you need to add
| "and not fighting" to "long term committed parents who are
| always there." Not fighting is so important that sometimes the
| parents need to split up so they can stop fighting. They can
| still be committed parents who are always there for the kids
| while no longer in a relationship with each other and the kids
| will do well.
|
| I really really wish someone had told me that a long time ago,
| and while I'm wishing I wish someone would have told my
| children's grandparents that an even longer time ago.
| em-bee wrote:
| when my parents separated (and then divorced) and we moved, i
| thought it was the best thing that we moved so far away that
| they just could not meet and thus could not fight anymore.
| that was my feeling as a 12 year old. forget shared
| responsibility and kids alternating between both parents. in
| our case that would have been a disaster and the opposite of
| a stable living situation for us children.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| I suspect you're being downvoted based on the "purpose of life
| is reproduction" piece, but I hope people are aware that this
| part about studies showing that in general Poly parenting leads
| to worse outcomes for children is spot on
|
| Poly relationships tend to be complicated, and children are not
| capable of understanding all of the nuance of ethical poly
| relationships, nevermind the many variations of non-ethical
| poly relationships. It tends to lead to people who have really
| screwed up ideas about relationships and attachment issues.
|
| Note that this is not me saying that ethical poly relationships
| are inherently screwed up. What I'm saying is that from the
| outside perspective of an immature child, who will likely then
| go on to mimic what they see modelled without understanding it,
| that child is going to have screwed up ideas about
| relationships
| t-writescode wrote:
| > but children need the stability of long term committed
| parents
|
| You can have long-term, committed throuples, just fine.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| This seems correct, all the happy poly people I know don't have
| kids. The ones that do have kids seem to struggle more (a
| similar level as being a single parent but obviously in
| different ways).
| ajkjk wrote:
| I feel like the daily experience of relationships in 2024
| America is wildly incompatible with the idea that relationships
| are _for_ reproduction.
|
| Our genes may at some level be programmed to conspire to get us
| to reproduce, but we are (for all intents and purposes)
| autonomous and free to do that or not as we wish, and to have
| relationships for whatever reasons we want.
|
| There's a bizarre twist of logic going on when you replace "the
| drive of creatures is (empirically) to reproduce" with
| "therefore we _ought_ to reproduce ". The two are not
| equivalent; you do not have to do what you are "told".
| nradov wrote:
| You might not be as autonomous as you think. Behavior in this
| area is mostly driven by instinct and emotion. People just
| rationalize their actions later.
| ajkjk wrote:
| I'm not saying that I am or am not autonomous at a chemical
| level. I'm saying that the fact that someone is programmed
| to do something has no bearing on whether they ought to do
| it at a moral level. The only reason a person ought to
| "follow their programming" is that they _want_ to. After
| all, if it really is their programming, they will follow it
| automatically. There is no point rationalizing: "I must be
| programmed this way, therefore I have to do it". No, if you
| were programmed to do it, you'd be doing it already.
| big-green-man wrote:
| Well, you're not exactly primally driven to reproduce. You're
| primally driven to engage in some behavior, and experience
| hedonistic pleasure from it, with the side effect of
| reproduction. Reproduction is expensive, so evolution created a
| dirty trick. This is why birth control is so damn popular.
| You're driven to fuck, not to reproduce. I have no idea what
| the experience is for an amoeba, but I would guess it feels
| more like ejaculation than tears of joy to them.
|
| For a lot of people though, the desire for children is there,
| strong, and comes from somewhere else, almost like it comes
| from somewhere deeper like a soul or something. I know that's
| true for me. My goal with my relationship, and well before that
| when I was shopping, was about family for most of my adult
| life. It seems this is out of fashion these days and people
| figure it out late. Hedonistic pleasure is fleeting, creating
| amazing people can go on literally forever if done correctly,
| it is an ambition and achievement unto itself, and is rewarding
| in a way science doesn't yet understand, to be a little
| facetious.
| echoangle wrote:
| > For a lot of people though, the desire for children is
| there, strong, and comes from somewhere else, almost like it
| comes from somewhere deeper like a soul or something.
|
| Isn't that just another part of the evolutionary drive to get
| you to have children? Besides the sex drive? Just like you
| have a natural will to live and an objection to be
| killed/kill yourself?
| big-green-man wrote:
| Well, that feeling of wanting to have kids isn't really
| universal. It's not really primal, like needing to eat or
| something. The desire for sex pretty much is.
|
| Is it evolved? I guess everything is evolved. Some people
| have the desire to abuse their children. That's evolved too
| some how some way, I wouldn't call that an evolutionary
| drive though.
|
| I don't know if female dogs crave sex or crave puppies. If
| they're anything like us, the majority of the time it's the
| former craving that leads to puppies. That's all I know.
| imetatroll wrote:
| Lots of people are going to push back against your statement -
| I personally agree with you. This is all about continuing our
| species and everyone else trying to weave some different tale
| is simply living in la-la land.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| From an evolutionary point of view the point of life may be
| reproduction, but from a personal point of view it most
| certainly is not. Plenty of people have no interest in having
| kids, and what about people who are sterile? Should they just
| give up on life?
|
| Some people prefer to live alone, but everybody has
| relationships of some sort, children or no.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| > Fantastic article, but as a monogamous married father of 4, I
| think the author misses the fundamental point of all
| relationships... And the point of life itself: Reproduction.
|
| Tribes where nonmonogamy is a thing suggest that's not true,
| but it happens to be one combination that works.
|
| > The primary drive of every living creature from whales to
| amoeba is to procreate.
|
| That's not true for humans. I am sorry, but if your primary
| drive as a human is to have children, then I pity you. There's
| a lot more to life than that, and that comes from a person who
| loves children.
| nradov wrote:
| None of those tribes have ever managed to accomplish much. I
| doubt that's a coincidence.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| I think we are dealing with survivorship bias more so than
| anything else. We can look back and speculate about
| society, how it functioned and all that, but every time we
| do we are limited in knowledge and by our own biases.
|
| I chose to reply as I did because of the whole "I doubt
| it's a coincidence".
| nkingsy wrote:
| The word swinger wasn't mentioned once. Probably because the
| swingers are just quietly enjoying their lives under the radar.
| t-writescode wrote:
| I think it might also be because "Swinging" is a word from a
| previous era and some/many of the young LGBTQ+ people are
| against learning from their elders.
|
| Swinging is a very clear example of ENM.
| nkingsy wrote:
| Google seems to think monogamish is the new word for it, but
| that is a really confusing word (I thought it meant you can
| cuddle puddle with your friends).
| e40 wrote:
| ENM?
| trogdor wrote:
| Ethical non-monogamy
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| > some/many of the young LGBTQ+ people are against learning
| from their elders.
|
| Well almost a complete generational cohort of their elders is
| simply missing. They died of aids in the 80s and 90s.
| moralestapia wrote:
| No, they didn't. At least look at the data before making
| such a bigoted statement.
| indrora wrote:
| Yes, we did lose a generational cohort.
|
| There is a reason that the quilt is so large[1].
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/2012/06/27/155868611/pieces-of-
| aids-quil...
| aipatselarom wrote:
| 100k out of 200 million (US)? Out of 5 billion
| (worldwide)?
|
| The flu makes us lose five "generational cohorts" every
| year, then.
| t-writescode wrote:
| Intersectionality.
|
| 100k out of *how many out homosexual individuals during
| that era in the area being studied*?
|
| And it's not just raw numbers, either. It's how many
| lives / families were impacted in this unique way.
|
| To add, it's also 100k that were almost entirely in a
| single demographic that was explicitly and implicitly
| being harmed by those in power during that era.
| indrora wrote:
| > young LGBTQ+ people are against learning from their elders
|
| No, there's a missing generation. As (previously) one of
| those, my generation is now the "elders", and we had to learn
| in a strange, weirdly sheltered way. Our elders were dead or
| hiding. The topics were taboo, the representation garbage,
| and the content online? Often blocked in the place we had
| internet access.
|
| I do a lot of teaching to my younger queer friends. Sometimes
| I have to do a lot of research on a topic before I can give
| an answer.
|
| In addition, Swingers weren't talked about in any part of my
| growing up. It wasn't until as an adult I looked at my
| partner and said "Oh, they're having a key party" at an
| exhibit of a model 50s-era home in the midwest.
| t-writescode wrote:
| Sorry, yes, I wasn't intending to give the impression that
| I was ignoring the many, many that died in the 80s during
| the AIDS epidemic. I was intending to refer to Millenials
| as the elders and Gen Alpha as the "young LGBTQ+".
|
| At least what I see on TikTok has reflected a lot of the
| elder (Millenial) LGBTQ+ people becoming periodically
| frustrated with the younglings for not listening to them as
| they talk about exactly the frustrations / issues the new
| ones are going through or aren't having to go through.
|
| Weirdly, swingers *were* talked about in my family when I
| was young.
| ajkjk wrote:
| I liked this, but I feel like it glosses over a significant
| dynamic that discolors both sides of the mono/poly split, which
| is "people not living the life they want".
|
| Not that it's literally "coercive" -- they're not being _forced_
| to be in that relationship in any real sense. But the dynamic I
| often observe (well, infer from observations) is that a person
| would really _like_ to monogamous or polyamorous (or a different
| kind of polyamorous---just, they want to be in a different
| status) but feels they aren 't allowed to assert what they want
| from their partner(s), and a result is being somewhat "degraded"
| by the status of their relationship. They may even believe they
| are happy with everything, because it's the best thing they can
| feel they can get, but often (I suspect) there's an arrangement
| they would be much happier with, if they could bring themselves
| to insist on it.
|
| After all a person ought to aspire to be physically and
| emotionally secure enough to assert what they need from their
| partners, even if that risks the partner leaving them, and they
| ought to be able to find partnerships in which their partner
| respects them enough to compromise or negotiate if it is
| something they truly need.
|
| But I suspect a lot of people aren't there, and being mono/poly
| is often a "workaround": if you don't believe you can fully
| assert the relationship you want, sometimes you can get half of
| it by becoming monogamous/polyamorous instead even if it's not
| truly your preference. And maybe that lets you avoid the issue,
| sometimes for years. But it's never as as good as being able to
| get what you truly want.
|
| (Occasionally I mention this vibe to people and they react
| negatively---"who are you to question other people's decisions?",
| they say. And at one level they're right, because yes, everyone
| out there is pretty much day-to-day making the best decision they
| can see to make for themselves, so if they're coping with their
| world by being in a certain kind of relationship, it's not really
| our place to doubt them.
|
| But on the other hand, you _can_ sense when someone is not living
| their best life, whether it be living the relationship they want
| or having the job / friends / beliefs / sexuality / gender that
| they want. You can't be sure, but these things do show a bit
| through cracks in the way that people talk and act. So I think
| it's fair to observe this phenomenon and speculate about it, so
| long as you never push anyone to "admit" to it, or to change
| before they're ready.)
| hakunin wrote:
| Only issue is that when you get what you want, you might be
| convincing your partner(s) to settle for something they want
| less. Perhaps the mindset of "best I can get" and finding an
| acceptable compromise is the way to go.
| ajkjk wrote:
| I truly believe that it is possible to be in a relationship
| where both people's "best I can get" is "me and my partner
| are both getting what we want", like you can love someone in
| a way in which your own preferences recalibrate to be
| compatible with theirs.
|
| Not sure if this is a state everyone can reach, or would want
| to, but I'm quite sure it's attainable for lots of people.
|
| (Aside, I have some friends who are bad at asserting
| themselves in the ways I was talking about, but about, like,
| everything. They'll say "I want X", but they'll feel they
| have to provide a good reason for it to be taken seriously,
| e.g. "I want to eat dinner early tonight because it messes up
| my sleep when we eat late".
|
| (You can imagine the kind of relationships (family or friends
| or romantic) they might have had in their lives which trained
| them to act this way...)
|
| So they act like they have to give a sufficiently good reason
| for their preferences to be taken seriously.... which is,
| IMO, the degraded state I'm talking about.
|
| In a respectful relationship, the fact that you want
| something IS a reason to do it; you don't have to provide a
| logically adequate reason to get what you want as well. And
| if two people's desires are incompatible, both will happily
| compromise to find a way to make them compatible again.)
| hakunin wrote:
| I think you don't really know what you want if you don't
| know why you want it. Learning to understand oneself is a
| huge part of one's personal growth. When you don't know the
| "why", it's easy to be mistaken about what you actually
| want, and push for a superficial projection of it, not the
| real underlying thing. (And therefore lose out on
| relationships you didn't know you'd be happy with.) But we
| speak in generalities of course.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| They'll say "I want X", but they'll feel they have
| to provide a good reason for it to be taken seriously,
| e.g. "I want to eat dinner early tonight because it
| messes up my sleep when we eat late".
|
| This is really interesting.
|
| On one level this could be a really bad sign (either about
| the relationship, or just one person's self esteem) where a
| person can't just _want_ something. They have to "justify"
| it.
|
| On the other hand, I don't know if that's necessarily bad?
|
| Like, if we always eat dinner at 7ish and now you want to
| eat at 5pm I feel it's just natural that I'd want to know
| why? Because we probably had reasons for eating at 7pm, and
| maybe _I_ want to kind of weigh them against everything
| else? Because maybe I can 't take my lunch break at work
| until 3pm, so eating dinner at 5pm really sucks for me.
| etc. etc etc etc And if two people's
| desires are incompatible, both will happily
| compromise to find a way to make them compatible
| again
|
| Amen, absolutely. Let's say you can't eat at 7.... but I
| can't eat at 5.
|
| But what is the point of eating together? Is it really the
| act of forking nutrients into our mouths... or is it
| spending time together? Maybe we can just chill out and
| talk at 5pm. You can eat... and I'll just hang out and we
| can talk about our day or watch some netflix or w/e.
|
| I probably have just always picked shitty partners but in
| my experience that kinda happy compromise problem-solving
| attitude seems so rare. kudos to you for that attitude.
| ajkjk wrote:
| I wasn't super happy with that example, it's vaguely
| based on something that happened to me recently but I
| can't quite remember what happened well enough to make it
| sound compelling. But I do notice this phenomenon of
| "justifying one's preferences" in people pretty
| regularly. When it happens, it sounds odd... like it
| stands out as insecure, but they seem to not be aware
| it's odd at all.
| ajkjk wrote:
| I'll add:
|
| I guess the way this usually manifests is not that a
| person gives reasons _at all_ , but rather that they seem
| to give too many reasons. Like offhandedly saying "I feel
| like doing this" is normal. But going on about the
| reasons, making sure they're very clear and crisp and
| agreed upon by everybody is more like the
| aberrant/degraded thing I'm talking about.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I've kind of wondered this over the years myself.
|
| The downsides of being in a rigidly-defined monogamous
| relationship are all kind of obvious, I think. Most people do
| not experience love or attraction as zero-sum games: you can
| have a "crush" or whatever on Person B without diminishing your
| feelings for Person A. So a person in a monogamous relationship
| is going to miss out on some positive physical and emotional
| connections that might have been really enjoyable.
|
| But...
|
| I've known a fair number of people in poly/open/etc
| relationships over the years and they tend to be inherently
| unstable, even moreso than trad monogamy. Like you said, often
| one person wants more exclusivity.
|
| Also... let's be totally honest. One partner is almost always
| going to have more access to sex and love outside the
| relationship. Either they are more attractive, more assertive,
| or simply have more free time, or any other number of reasons.
| So the "openness" never seems to work out in a totally equal
| and/or equitable way.
|
| They also seem to run into the problem of time and energy. In
| the abstract, love and sex are not zero-sum games. But a person
| only has so much energy and so many free hours in a week. So in
| practicality, yeah. It does become a bit zero-sum.
| ted_bunny wrote:
| People focus so much on getting equal sex. If that bothers
| you you'te totally missing the point. Poly people invented
| the word compersion to amend a blind spot in our language,
| and thereby do the same in our emotional vocabulary. At least
| from their point of view. Maybe it's not a part of our
| vocabulary because it's contrary to our biology.
| legostormtroopr wrote:
| "It makes me happy to see my partner happy" is
| Relationships 101. Just because people gave it a word,
| doesn't mean it didn't exist - and I'd claim the opposite,
| poly people had to make a word because its not seen as the
| default in that community.
|
| This is like saying, I invented the word "hiverchill" which
| means "that feeling of cold when it snows". You can't say
| this was a blind spot in our language. We didn't need this
| word, because of course you are cold when it snows.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| "Compersion" is _usually_ more than just "it makes me
| happy to see my partner happy", but "it makes me happy to
| see my partner happy, even when that would (at least
| traditionally) inspire some bad feeling in me."
|
| Compersion isn't the feeling you get when you give your
| partner flowers and they smile, it's the feeling you get
| when your partner tells you a story about how nice their
| date with someone else was. It's a very particular flavor
| of joy-for-partner, that for some people doesn't exist at
| all because it is clouded by jealousy or fear or other
| feelings.
|
| > poly people had to make a word because its not seen as
| the default in that community.
|
| Feeling joy at your partner going on a date with someone
| else is not seen as the default in _any_ community except
| the poly community.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| If someone truly loves their partner, wouldn't they be happy
| that their partner is getting more of what they need? Even if
| that is more sex?
|
| I honestly don't know the answer to this question.
|
| I've heard the optimal form of monogamy is when both partners
| fully give themselves to each other, and 100% seek the
| happiness of their partner. I was taught this in a religion.
| I can't logically understand it though. I can't imagine being
| happy or maintaining my own identity without spending at
| least a portion of my energy on myself.
|
| I haven't been successful in relationships though, so what do
| I know? Is that just a religiously inspired fantasy, or can a
| real relationship work that way?
| ajkjk wrote:
| > If someone truly loves their partner, wouldn't they be
| happy that their partner is getting more of what they need?
| Even if that is more sex?
|
| I feel like this kind of weird idea is due to a fallacy of
| replacing the actual human experience of love with a sort
| of rationalized version that has no boundaries or
| preferences or anything like that. The answer is... no?
| yes? if you want to? You can love someone and still care
| about what they do or don't do, and if it's a healthy
| relationship they'll respect those boundaries, or
| compromise if necessary, and you'll be respecting theirs
| also. It definitely does not mean "everything is
| permitted", unless that's what your personal boundaries are
| ---which means that's what a relationship is _to you_.
|
| The optimal form of monogamy is whatever the two people in
| the relationship want it to be. Sometimes that's 100%
| seeking the happiness of their partner (I think that's a
| delusional fantasy though). Sometimes it's two people
| coexisting and just having each other's back. The whole
| point is that each person finds a relationship that gets
| what _they_ need. Not what some idealized version of a
| person that they aspire to be would need.
|
| And my money's on no, most people do not want a
| relationship where their partner has sex with whoever they
| want, because it is also a fallacy that sex is a physical
| need rather than emotional one. In fact it has a lot to do
| with emotions, safety, power, compassion, etc, and those
| are all things that are (often) tied into a relationship,
| especially as you get older.
| krupan wrote:
| It's wild that we can't differentiate lust and love, committed
| relationship and meaningless sex. That's the main thing I get
| from the confusion in the article and the confusion in the
| comments here about what even defines polyamory. It sounds to me
| like who you have sex with is the main and only thing that
| defines a relationship? Can people that wait to have sex until
| marriage ever be considered polyamorous while unmarried? If a
| married person gets close to a second person but doesn't do
| anything sexual with them are they still being monogamous?
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Polyamory may literally just mean "Many loves" but I think we
| can all agree that we are not in a polyamorous relationship
| with our parents or close friends
|
| The level of partnership doesn't _have_ to be sex, but being
| real sex is the thing that most often differentiates romantic
| partnerships from other close relationships
| t-writescode wrote:
| > but being real sex is the thing that most often
| differentiates romantic partnerships from other close
| relationships
|
| I don't actually agree. I think "willingness and continued
| intention to follow this person and live with them ever
| still, including the sacrifices that come along with it"
| tends to be something that connects more with relationships
| traditionally seen as romantic.
|
| It's something that would separate a very close friendship
| from, for example, a "Queer Platonic Relationship", which
| could very arguably be romantic.
| archagon wrote:
| People devote themselves to their non-romantic loved ones,
| including parents and siblings.
| valval wrote:
| Many would argue that there is no such thing as meaningless
| sex.
|
| I'm of the opinion that arguing for the existence of such thing
| is naive and idiotic.
| portaouflop wrote:
| It depends how you define meaningful and meaningless which is
| highly subjective - so it's neither naive nor idiotic to be
| able to have meaningless sex - maybe it's just not something
| you feel
| coldtea wrote:
| If it's all meaningful, then it has no meaning.
|
| Meaning comes from distinction, the opposite of
| undifferentiated sex.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Meaning, particularly in this context, can also come from
| consequences
| nerdjon wrote:
| I think it depends on what we consider "meaningless".
|
| Is it "meaningless" that I hang out with friends on a Friday
| night? We didn't really accomplish anything except for
| possibly growing our relationships.
|
| I think when myself and many people say we have "meaningless"
| sex it just means that beyond that particular moment, it
| doesn't have any other purpose. (beyond maybe its with a
| friend and it does the same as going out for drinks and just
| grows a relationship).
|
| It was fun in the moment, but thats it. It is the same as
| going out for drinks, playing a game, or any other activity
| that I engage with friends with. Of course it's not truly
| "meaningless" or we wouldn't be doing it since we wouldn't be
| enjoying it. But it doesn't have to go deeper than that.
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| You could make the argument that there is no real meaningless
| sex, because oxytocin is released when having sex and oxytocin
| causes binding.
| portaouflop wrote:
| Then you have to define what is meaning because it's not just
| hormones
| theasisa wrote:
| It can be difficult to differentiate between those, because you
| can have meaningless sex in a committed relationship and
| meaningful sex in a non-committed one. I have sex with several
| of my close friends because the difference between platonic
| love and romantic relationship is not very clear in my mind.
| And I've had relationships that are very close and intimate
| where I haven't had sex with them because while some of them
| have been romantic, they just haven't been physical.
| dingnuts wrote:
| > you can have meaningless sex in a committed relationship
| and meaningful sex in a non-committed one
|
| no, I don't think this is true. The older I get the more I
| think there's real wisdom in being very careful about who you
| have sex with.
|
| It will have meaning, whether you want it to or not, and it
| will be negative meaning like regret if you are not very
| careful.
|
| Sex is extremely dangerous and it is only safe to engage in
| it with someone you know well and trust, and trust isn't to
| be given lightly. You will be at your most vulnerable with
| your partner, both during the act and potentially afterwards
| due to the hormonal effects and emotional effects as well as
| the potential physical consequences. "Safe sex" is a lie.
|
| I don't think in the age of birth control that everyone needs
| to wait until marriage but we have gone very far in the other
| direction and I really wish someone had told me when I was
| younger that I would remember all of my partners in vivid
| detail, especially the ones I wish I could forget.
|
| No, there is really no such thing as meaningless sex.
| subjectsigma wrote:
| For our ancestors, not being choosy about sex had very serious
| consequences. (It still might.) It's "wild" to you that 3
| million years of evolution is working as intended?
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I assume you are talking about our Hunter-gatherer ancestors
| based on the timeframe, but I'm not sure what you mean by
| serious consequences. Could you expand on that a bit?
|
| I suspect monogamy as we know it is a response to the
| invention of agriculture, and we have closer relatives (the
| bonobos) who have sex much more freely than some of our other
| closer relatives.
| subjectsigma wrote:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms11219
|
| EDIT: Whoops I misread the abstract of the article, that
| doesn't really give evidence towards my claim. However STDs
| did exist and I'm assuming people knew about them.
| Pregnancy itself would be a deterrent
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| For our female ancestors, yes. For our male ancestors, less
| so.
| siva7 wrote:
| 3 million? You may have missed some classes in school
| ricksunny wrote:
| >lust and love, committed relationship and meaningless sex
|
| Just to complicate, some more types of love to add into the
| mix: limerence and agape.
| big-green-man wrote:
| I think people who like ideas like polyamory have misconstrued
| notions about what monogamy is, which is a general cultural
| problem in western societies these days.
|
| I don't own my partner and she doesn't own me. I _give myself
| freely_ to her and she does the same. It 's not about
| expectation, but commitment. I promise her she's the only one for
| me, despite my very human desires, and she promises me the same
| thing. This is healthier than the pervasive "ownership" mental
| model, because we both very much are aware that we have human and
| animal desire, and understand that the commitment is freely
| given. We don't get mad at each other for being attracted to
| other people, and feel no jealousy, we would feel _betrayed_ if
| the other broke the commitment, because we were promised
| something by the other.
|
| The idea that monogamy is the default in relationships outside of
| marriage is a very new thing in US culture. There was a time, not
| so long ago, when the point at which monogamy began was marriage,
| or for some, engagement. Needing to define being single in over
| convoluted terms like "polyamory" is a bit ridiculous.
|
| I've always been very casual about these things with partners.
| Some can't handle it, they're jealous by nature or something.
| Usually, being clear "we aren't committed until we talk about
| that and commit" is a pretty easy to digest thing for people,
| even if they default to the opposite usually.
|
| On a less personal note, it's no coincidence I think that the
| most successful cultures in the world were and are monogamous by
| social expectation. Polyamorous social structures are not
| conducive to responsibility with regard to rearing children, and
| are more often than not to leave women in a difficult position.
| As such, women expect commitment from men where there are few
| options to prevent pregnancy. That's not to say anything about
| the spread of disease. Jealousy is still a problem, and leads to
| conflict. Polygamous social structures, the second most
| successful of the reproduction/sex oriented social structures,
| lead to swathes of unmarried men, and you get rejections from the
| tribe, hostile takeovers, warlike cultures designed to dispose of
| the men who will not hope to reproduce. Monogamy is the stable
| arrangement and it shows. Other more exotic complex social
| arrangements tend to be very niche, small tribal groups relegated
| to basically Africa, and don't scale well.
|
| I think if young people want to have fun, do it, be clear, if
| someone doesn't like it that's their decision to not participate.
| But slapping labels on it like it's some revolution in sexual
| dynamics is silly. Be prepared to outgrow your exploration, read
| the allegory of Chesterton's fence to understand why.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| Well said, monogamy is a structure for producing a stable child
| rearing environment -- and by relation a stable society. It is
| entirely consensual where arranged marriages no longer take
| place.
|
| I have no issues how people screw each other but monogamy has a
| purpose, and if your purpose is to raise a stable family your
| odds are best if you pursue monogamy.
| shadowerm wrote:
| You are taking effective birth control completely for
| granted.
|
| It wasn't that long ago that monogamy was the default because
| no one wants to have a baby from a night of netflix and
| chill.
|
| IMO you have the direction of causation backwards. Monogamy
| is not some child rearing optimization strategy. It was a
| social construct that evolved because causual sex at one
| point was incredibly expensive and now it is not because of
| birth control.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| I can't imagine going to my theorerical wife-in-open-
| monogamy-relationship and tell her that the girl I had sex
| with at work's Christmas party gave me std because, despite
| she had her pills, but the rubber fell. It's just not
| mixing up in my head.
|
| Also, if I give myself to my wife as a whole (i.e. I take
| care of her, the home and the children) I do not have time
| really to have another affairs. The rest of the time I'm
| left with I either sacrifice to be with her or have my own
| time like play games or compose music. There are lots of
| things to be done really, and I couldn't imagine
| sacrificing my family and duties to pursue sexual
| satisfaction with other people outside of my family.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Monogamy is not some child rearing optimization strategy.
|
| Can you go into this a little more? Is there evidence
| (either way) that stable 2-parent households are or aren't
| better for kids, or that an alternative is better?
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Monogamy is _one_ such structure. It seems very tied to the
| modern idea of the "nuclear family." There are others.
| Having an extended family all living together is another.
| Tribes where children are raised communally is another.
| dmm wrote:
| > Having an extended family all living together is another.
|
| Collectivism has clear benefits but comes at a steep price:
| the need to establish and enforce group norms. The nuclear
| family seems like a compromise in this space, a revealed
| preference.
|
| I mean, I would probably be happy living like an Orca in a
| matrilineal family group but, then again, I've always
| gotten along with my Mom. What about the people who
| haven't? Or who only started to once they moved out? Those
| people would be faced with living in a disharmonious
| environment or leaving to a world hostile to individuals.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| Communal living is highly overrated. If you're a young and
| capable person you'll be shouldered with responsibility and
| live under the thumb of your elders. Not a dignified
| existence. I barely tolerate my own parents, I will not
| tolerate my extended family demanding things from me.
| portaouflop wrote:
| Where I am from marriage is forever and there is no way to
| dissolve it without burning in eternal fire - it's very much
| about ownership.
|
| Kudos on you to having a modern marriage but marriage in the
| past (and also now) also is about ownership. It's a literal
| contract between two people and you are legally obligated to
| take care of the other person.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Ownership implies control without the consent of whomever is
| being controlled.
|
| Where you are from sounds horrific. Hopefully it changes for
| the better soon.
| indrora wrote:
| This was... the US, Britain, etc for many years and much of
| the middle east and parts of them and Asia today.
|
| Women just aren't in control of their lives and personhood
| in so many ways under even modern marriage law. I believe
| it's still problematic in some US states and I know it's
| problematic in many places that we might even consider
| "civilized" where a woman cannot bring her husband for
| divorce, the husband must bring his wife for divorce. There
| are still places in the "civilized" world where it is
| considered legal for a man to force himself upon his wife
| against her will or enact violence upon her if she does not
| submit.
|
| Beyond that, there is an _assumption_ in some layers of
| society that women will marry and have no autonomy over
| their lives.
|
| A good friend of mine in the early 90s faced extreme issue
| closing the joint account between her and her (recently
| deceased) husband. She was told that she needed her
| husband's "written and notarized approval" to take any
| action against the account, even though she was listed as
| the primary contact on the account _because_ the system
| enforced that only male account holders were allowed to
| make changes. In fact, this system didn 't allow a single
| woman to open a bank account until 1992!
|
| Another friend of mine has been attempting to get a
| hysterectomy voluntarily (every woman on her mother's side
| has developed cervical cancer in the last 4 generations),
| has no interest in ever having a child or getting married
| to a man for that matter, and has faced numerous doctors
| who will not even hear her out because "what if her future
| husband wants kids" just absolutely stalls the
| conversation. She has recently gotten further by having a
| local wiccan coven write some bullshit on paper that it's
| her "religious duty to nature" to have this happen, which
| has at least gotten a few doctors to read and go "I'll have
| to check in on this."
|
| Just this year, American women in the south were reminded
| that their vote is just as secret as their husband's. This
| spurred a wave of men who began calling for the _stripping
| of the rights of women_ because they might vote differently
| than their husbands.
|
| See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Married_Women%27s_P
| roperty_Act... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Married_Women%
| 27s_Property_Act... https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.10
| 07/978-981-19-6978-2_...
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/women-required-to-obey-
| hu...
| https://www.npr.org/2024/11/03/nx-s1-5159978/republicans-
| for... https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-
| blog/women-voting-...
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Yeah, it's actually _your_ perspective that's the recent
| innovation.
|
| Most of history is closer to what GP described.
| ck425 wrote:
| Similar to comments above there's a difference between poly and
| open. I've not tried either but I've multiple good friends who
| are in "monogamish" relationships and it seems to work pretty
| well. For them the non-monogomy is just fun they have with
| others, but ultimately their partnership comes first. Otherwise
| it's very similar to the monogamy you describe but with agreed
| exceptions to sexual exclusivity.
|
| It's not for everyone and it takes a lot communication (and low
| levels of jealousy) but it seems to work well at providing the
| structure and stability of marriage without forcing the full
| sexual exclusivity that some find constricting.
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| Why does their partnership come first? Whats stopping you
| from finding somebody better to make a priority? Isn't that
| the point of being poly is to have the ability to shop
| around?
| znpy wrote:
| > It's not about expectation, but commitment.
|
| I think this is the main point.
|
| People nowadays don't want commitment, and when they have it
| they don't respect it anyway.
|
| I think this attitude will sooner or later change back, when
| the bill will come due. Life is full of challenges and
| hardships, and having somebody you committed to and who's
| committed does help deal with stuff.
|
| I think the raise in popularity of polyamory is largely a proxy
| measure for the raise in selfishness.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| " The major monogamy delusion is obvious. It is simple: the idea
| that you possess your partner"
|
| /facepalm
| znpy wrote:
| I have a strong feeling that like many new things, poliamory is
| currently mostly/only getting get "positive marketing" narrative.
|
| Basically: what's being advertised is mostly the "happy path".
| Everything goes well until it doesn't, what then?
|
| Relationships are hard. There are a number of ways things get
| messy (and/or toxic) with two individuals, somehow things should
| improve with more than two persons ?
| valval wrote:
| I think it's just the latest fad neurodivergent people push on
| each other.
| innerHTML wrote:
| this, tbh. to a large degree.
|
| anecdotally, all those I know who practice poly, and name it
| as such, also say they have asperger's.
| VeejayRampay wrote:
| I wish someone would find a way to shield us from those topics on
| Hacker News, the one place that we can go without being flooded
| with those mundane societal issues and focus on actual technology
| and science
| emptiestplace wrote:
| Great comment, appreciate you taking the time to come in and
| share your thoughts. We've discussed and decided to prioritize
| this change - please check back very soon!
| snapcaster wrote:
| I agree, and the hackernews demographic are the last group i
| want to hear from on things like this
| emptiestplace wrote:
| Despite the technical focus, HN is one of the most diverse
| and thoughtful communities I've ever had the privilege to be
| a part of - and I've been doing this since 300 baud. There
| isn't really anything I _wouldn 't_ want to see discussed
| here. If you find you absolutely cannot disregard things you
| aren't interested in, you might want to try Youtube comments,
| or maybe a technical community on Facebook.
| beachtaxidriver wrote:
| You can downvote it.
|
| Many hackernews readers have pretty diverse interests though,
| and want to hear about both tech and general social issues.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >You can downvote it.
|
| Nope, you can't.
| sgentle wrote:
| This article didn't really hit for me. It feels like I'm just
| reading the author's particular experiences run through a
| gauntlet of theorisation that ultimately does more to obscure
| than clarify the message.
|
| 1. Being a very particular sort of person (I'm going to guess
| specifically Bay Area tech or tech-adjacent rationalist), the
| author is surprised to find that his personal experience of poly
| dating is different to what the statistics say. Is it the
| author's social group? His preferences? A limitation of his
| context? Nope, it's "statistics, culture, and biology". I find
| this to be generally true of rationalist writing: why reflect
| when you can generalise?
|
| 2. "most things conceptualized as identity are silly" is a pretty
| significant axiom to assert halfway down a section on
| definitions, immediately underneath the Classical Greek Forms of
| Love infographic. The article's first conclusion is just this
| same premise restated, leaving me suspicious of whatever
| reasoning occured in between.
|
| 3. It's hard to even find the author's actual perspective through
| all the equivocation. Monogamy and polyamory are both deluded in
| their own ways, they both say they're natural, but really the
| most natural thing is... incel-tier sexual economics? And maybe
| that's bad, or maybe not, so you should do what feels right for
| you. But also it's really about your attachment wounds, so maybe
| just do whatever's easiest. Or maybe just pick one and stick with
| it. But you can (and probably will) change your mind. In
| conclusion, the important thing is to be thoughtful and
| considered in our choices and the effect they have on society.
|
| As far as I can tell, the actual truth of this piece is that the
| author is in a community where polyamory is the norm. He really
| tried to make it work for him but it didn't. He's not poly
| anymore and kinda thinks the whole thing is busted, but doesn't
| want to alienate his community. So he's just wafting a general
| sense of intellectualised discontent into the air and hoping for
| the best. I mean, fine, but I don't think we needed to get to
| Level Seven of The Spiral to do it.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| I really hate "traditional values" on account of their peddlers
| and the history books full of horrors they have enabled but when
| literally every successful society and major religion has some
| semblance of a 1:1 rule even if the exceptions and edge case
| handling are different you kinda gotta take notice.
| butlike wrote:
| Chemistry is monogamous. 1 electron. 1 pairing.
| GranularRecipe wrote:
| In covalent bonds, it's two electrons one pair. Metallic
| bonds are more polyamorous.
| foogazi wrote:
| They get excited but still bound
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| There's a tragedy of the commons when it comes to the question
| of "what do all of the single people do?" Each relationship
| beyond monogamy can be thought of as "taking away" an
| opportunity from the partner you would have paired with had you
| been monogamous. ie a relationship opportunity cost.
|
| Typically, societies with imbalanced relationship ratios, an in
| particular single males, tend to be more unstable. Should poly
| folks design their life around the consequences of disaffected
| young males? No, of course not. Nor should we artificially
| privilege monogamy to ensure social stability for obvious
| reasons of individualality and moral policing. We should study
| the phenomenon and remedy the male psyche to ensure social
| stability and discover, scientifically, the threshold at which
| we can expect it to be a problem.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > major religion has some semblance of a 1:1 rule
|
| More of a one-to-many rule. Only one side is expected to be
| fully monogamous.
|
| It's long been socially acceptable for men to have mistresses
| or even multiple separate families, so long as they had the
| resources to take care of them all. And the social faux pas of
| merely sleeping with other women is very recent.
| UDontKnowJack wrote:
| This is one of the stupidest things I've ever read.
| coldtea wrote:
| Polyamory is a sign of comodification/casualness about
| relationships and sex, in an increasingly sexless and loveless
| period.
|
| Sexless and loveless are both well documented in research and
| polls. People fucking less than past decades, fewer being in
| relationships than than past decades, and more reporting being
| alone and lonely than past decades.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| There is a new documentary coming out called The Village of
| Lovers, https://thevillageoflovers.com/. It is about a 40-year
| intentional polyamorous "free love" community called Tamera in
| Portugal. It is specifically about non-hierarchal polyamory. And
| I watched it and I tend to agree with their approach. It seems
| like the answer to a lot of society's problems honestly.
| saulpw wrote:
| Polyamory is wrong.
|
| It should be multiamory.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| My open/poly relationship was incredibly shallow. My "lover" felt
| more like a friend, and they weren't even that important to me
| because I only knew them for a few months. The relationship
| became fully transactional, and I eventually just left for
| another person I was with to be monogamous. If the idea of a
| relationship is ultimately just friend + sex or a business
| relationship, I can see how it works well for you. But for me it
| was lacking.
| novia wrote:
| This article starts by noting that more women are polyamorous
| than men and then does a "thought experiment" where it completely
| ignores that.
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| The formation of contract cults around relationships is the basis
| of all law. Every sort of state flows from that. Every limitation
| of a society in that department ,every ability grows from this. A
| judge looks like a priest for a reason . The masses call for
| moral constraints in times of crisis because of this. Handle with
| care for culture makes and brraks these things .
| freedomben wrote:
| This quote so resonated with me that I thought it worth a
| specific call out:
|
| > I believe that it is valuable to deeply interrogate nature, not
| because it is intrinsically right, but because it helps us to
| understand what materials we are working with.
|
| Also the author mentions Robert Sapolsky, whose work I absolutely
| adore. If you haven't read any of his books or watched
| interviews/lectures with him, definitely do so! If you want to
| understand human nature, he's a phenomenal resource.
| jaco6 wrote:
| Polyamory is just code for: a group of mostly bisexual women
| orbiting one wealthy and attractive male.
|
| For the man it's good because he would otherwise be married and
| constantly tempted to cheat, as any very high value man is when
| he is married. For the women it's arguably also good because they
| would have to get the high value man to cheat, or they would be
| the wife of the high value man who gets cheated on.
|
| In the future, it will be increasingly normal for high ranking
| men to be polyamorous and have "polyamorous" partners, while
| lower ranking men will continue to be monogamous.
|
| There will be plenty of women who will choose to date only the
| lower ranking men. But I find it hard to believe that many
| powerful men will choose to commit to only one woman and deal
| with the moral and practical difficulties of infidelity that
| powerful men have had to deal with for thousands of years.
| Instead they will just date from the pool of "polyamorous" women,
| that way they don't have to cheat. Women will go through
| "polyamorous phases", where they sleep with a powerful man who is
| sleeping with other polyamorous women. When they get bored of it
| they will switch to being monogamous and not speak of the
| polyamorous phase.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| What the inc-hell?
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Don't worry there's a 50% chance it's just a LLM or
| propaganda bot.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I had an ex that "forced" me to become poly to stay together,
| which in hindsight was really just abuse and cheating rather than
| polyamory, although I didn't realize it at the time. So I'll
| admit I'm a bit jaded, and that colors my opinions of it.
|
| However, I dove into it, read a lot of books, and decided to give
| it a try and was dating 3 women at once, while trying to also
| meet a huge number of other major life responsibilities, and the
| scheduling alone was a living nightmare. Having a deep and
| meaningful relationship with one person already takes the maximum
| amount of my time that I could possibly allocate to romance.
| Three time constrained and shallow relationships are maybe
| 1/100th as satisfying as one good one to me - I actually felt
| more lonely when I was dating 3 women, even though one was only
| dating me.
|
| I would go on a trip or adventure, and have to keep 3 women
| updated on my well being and whereabouts. I would accidentally
| mix up my schedule, and have to rearrange 3 other peoples
| schedules to fix it- including managing a lot of resulting anger
| and jealousy. My snarky opinion is that polyamory is primarily
| for people that appreciate extra stress, busyness, logistics,
| scheduling, and conflict. I also feel it inevitably hurts people
| when you are more excited about a new partner than them, and it
| fundamentally requires a low level of empathy - and love - for
| your partners to be willing to hurt them in that way.
|
| I think people should be free to do whatever they want, but I am
| skeptical that polyamory is anything but awful for people that
| have regular levels of human empathy, or have obligations like a
| career or children. I read almost every book I could on
| polyamory, and I felt the authors were almost universally
| sociopaths- and I could tell they were deeply harming other
| people in their own stories, and didn't even realize or care. For
| example, the book "The Ethical Slut" the author literally
| describes raping people, and is completely oblivious, and thinks
| they are "helping open them to new experiences."
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