Lots of straight couples can’t have children either. So what? What does having children have to do with anything?
That is incorrect. Polygyny is the marriage of a male to multiple wives. Polyandry is the marriage of a female to multiple husbands. Polygamy is the marriage of more than 2 people. When most people say polygamy, they mean polygyny because it’s far and away the form you see the most of when looking at the norms of various societies. But there are societies where polygamous relationships are polyandrous, and I think even a very small handful where there both polyandry and polygyny, though I don’t swear to that last because it’s been many years since I lived with an anthropology major.
As for the rest of this mess…meh. I personally wouldn’t take an extra partner seriously till they’d been around a while, same as I wouldn’t a mono partner. When someone is still in the flavor of the month stage, even Emily Post wouldn’t expect you to give them and the relationship the same consideration and respect you would a more serious and established relationship. That means you don’t have to invite them as a group, among other things. They are, of course, entitled to get offended and decline the invitation…but the general concensus is typically that people who get tore up about you not inviting their brand-new squeeze over are wankers. I don’t see why that should be any different just because the new squeeze is the third or more partner.
And now Diogenes has single handedly obliterated the concept of step parenting.
Predicted Response: “No I didn’t!”
Please, do elaborate.
I am not going to pretend that this is even a serious question. It’s one of the stupidest copouts ever brought up.
So a stupid question gets a stupid answer:
Basic biology. Human coupling is for the purpose of sexual reproduction. Outside of that it serves no purpose, and as such is an arbitrary standard.
There is no reason to insist on mongamy if there is no procreative reason. Otherwise you are simply holding one sentimentality up above another. You are saying that a homosexual coupling is kosher but a trio is somehow sick and wrong. Completely arbitrary without the need to reproduce and raise children.
You adhere to the perversion of multiculturalism, which is really monoculturalism. It cannot stand the idea of multiple cultures. Really multiculturalism refers to the monoculture of atomized cosmopolitanism, where different cultures are relegated to street fairs, whether it be Folsom, or the Puerto Rican day parade. Saying homosexual relationships are just like heterosexual relationships requires homosexual relationships to adhere to a facsimile of hetero-normative culture so that intolerant people can feel better about themselves by pretending that they are the champions of the downtrodden.
But really, what the multiculturalist wants is a cheerful conformity. They want everyone to be the same, in order to be equal. So you claim there are no such thing as gender differences, that homosexual relationships are not fundamentally different from hetero relationships because you cannot imagine love in a non-conventional setting, so homosexuals get put into the box, so that their love may be accepted as part of the overall normative culture.
Now of course you are being confronted with the idea of a loving relationship that includes more people than the standard coupling, and you’re repulsed by the deviance from the program. You point to religious zealotry, and all dysfunctional relationships as your examples of why it’s not kosher. And yet, is it not kosher in essence or is it because of the strain placed upon it by outside pressure to conform to the will of the multicultural cosmopolis?
There is no such thing as a biological “purpose.” The fact that fucking can lead to reproduction is incidental, not purposeful, and many, many millions of people couple without any purpose to reproduce at all.
I don’t “insist” on anything, by the way. I don’t care what people do. Just don’t expect me to automatically take all sexual arrangements seriously as earnest relationships.
ETA when the fuck did I say there was no such thing as gender difference or that I was a “multi-culturalist.” I don’t even know what the fuck that is. Whatever it is, I don’t give two shits about it.
Reproduction is the biological PURPOSE of coupling.
Ok, then I guess we don’t need to take your relationships seriously either, right? I mean, why bother taking anyone seriously at all?
When you said that homosexual and heterosexual couplings are the same you said there is no difference between genders. And it’s a multiculturalist idea that to validate something you call it the same as whatever the normative situation is. Homosexuality is valid, it’s just like heterosexuality! Black people are valid they are just like white people! Jews are valid, they are just like Christians! It’s a certain habituated parsimonious equanimity that belies the underlying assumptions. It’s also completely and totally dismissive of any sort of cultural value that deviates from the normative value.
People are welcome to celebrate their cultures in the kitchen, as long as they wear a tie to their cubicle.
Cite?
There is no such thing as a “biologocal purpose” for ANYTHING. Biology is not goal directed. It has no design or intended end. It’s just a rock rolling down a hill.
I don’t care if you take my marriage seriously or not. What the fuck is it to me?
Sexual orientation is not a gender identification.
I have no idea what any of this means, or what it has to do with me. I don’t even know what you mean by “valid.” Valid in what sense? What would it mean to say that black people are not valid, and why do you object to saying they are. In short, what the fuck are you babbling about?
I don’t give a flying fuck where people celebrate their cultures. Fucking lots of people isn’t a culture, though.
So human beings can reproduce without coupling?
I guess it doesn’t matter.
Umm…yes it is. My wife is a woman (gender identity), I am a man (gender identity).
I don’t object to saying black people are valid. My point is that your entire sense of validity is based around conformity. Homosexuals are valid because you can see them conforming to a certain standard, that of coupling, which is completely arbitrary.
Well as it was pointed out to you monogamy is the exception not the rule in human cultures. Monogamy isn’t a culture either. It’s one aspect of culture, just as polyamory is another aspect of culture.
Who cares if human beings reproduce at all? It is not necessary for humans to reproduce. Biology doesn’t care and has no purpose for sex. People couple for whatever reason they each individually ascribe to it.
Which is a separate thing fro sexual orientation.
Again, I have no idea what you mean by “validity,” nor do I give a rat’s ass about conformity. I don’t judge polyamory because it’s non-conformist, but because it’s lame. Just because something is non-conformist doesn’t mean it isn’t stupid.
As I said upthread, the option to have more than one sex partners has historically only applied to men. Polygamous paradigms are not mutually reciprocal, organic relatiosnhips where everybody is in love with everybody else. It’s just a guy with a bunch of subservient wives.
I never said monagamy was a culture. So we agree. How many people you fuck is not a culture.
You thought wrong.
Ummm… how else do species that reproduce sexually reproduce? Mommy and Daddy loving each other very much and the stork arriving isn’t actually how reproduction occurs. That whole menses cycle, egg and sperm thing is how sexual reproduction occurs. It’s not actually an incidental side-effect.
Quite simple. There are societies where polygamy is highly practised (almost always polygyny) and societies which are more monogamous. One can compare rates of violence and treatment of women in both societies and see if they are equal. Rates of high polygyny (which is what most of them are) arise out of economic conditions which allow certain males to control the wealth. The more polygyny there is, the more certain males have power. When you have a set, small group that has power and large number of males who don’t have access to women, violence arises. Why do you think so many people are worried about the large number of Chinese men who can’t find mates. When females become scarce, instead of the rights of women rising, the reserve occurs and women are treated more and more like chattle. Even today there are problems in rural parts of China where women are being kidnapped and sold into marriages and kept as slaves by men in monogamous marriages.
Again, in the vast majority of cultures that practiced polygyny, most individuals were married monogamously. Our species has traits which suggest a trend towards monogamy - females going through puberty before menarche, the male preference towards younger females (which increases the more polygynous the society is), the reduced sexual dimorphism, the levels of oxytocin that are released during sex and the evidence which suggests we are influenced by vasopressin.
It’s also worth noting that no one here talking about polygamous relationships is talking about fidelity. Monogamy doesn’t mean fidelity (unless we mean sexual monogamy which is a whole 'nother ball-game)!
Simply false. We are primates with complex social structures. Sex is about more than reproduction.
John Mace’s cite was from wikipedia, but he left off the very next line: According to the Ethnographic Atlas Codebook, of the 1231 societies noted, 186 were monogamous. 453 had occasional polygyny, 588 had more frequent polygyny, and 4 had polyandry.[2] At the same time, even within societies which allow polygyny, the actual practice of polygyny occurs relatively rarely.
The pure number approach doesn’t also explain WHY said marriages occur. If you look at the societies and economics, then the patterns become clearer. The number of societies doesn’t reflect the number of individuals themselves.
More information can be found here which shows where polygamy has occurred and also notes
I’m not saying that people that practice polyamorous marriages are linked to these types of marriages. I only wish to counter the notion that monogamy hasn’t been the ‘norm’. This doesn’t mean that what is outside the majority is a-normal or non-healthy. Homosexuality is rare compared to heterosexuality, yet it’s perfectly normal.
Judging by marriage isn’t necessarily a meaningful statistic, kimera. Many many societies have had implicit acceptance of adultery (mostly on the part of the men) and the Romans had orgy as a hobby and part of festivities. That people are naturally non-monogamous is almost certainly true. But, it’s generally to a small enough extent that most are happy to only have a romantic interest in a single partner. I don’t see it as implausible that if there’s a sliding scale of all other various forms of sexuality that there wouldn’t be a sliding scale on this as well.
It would also be hard to prove that the 50% divorce rate isn’t somewhat linked to the desire to move on to someone new.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Part two of Dio The Troll’s famous impersonation of Fred Phelps.
Mr The Cynic: how do you think Fred Phelps would respond to a question about gay adoption not being legal in many states?
YES! He’s played the “Gay people are immoral because they fuck people outside of marriage. It’s illegal for them to marry?! :eek: Then they better not fuck! Ditto adoption. Only married couples should adopt. Why…gay people can’t legally marry? Then they can’t adopt!” gambit. A true classic Phelpsism, ladies and gentlemen.
Let’s give him a big round of applause.
How do you know I didn’t?
I agree. So stop saying it by implication. (Prediction: Troll-boy will now shout “cite!” despite the implication being right there on the screen. )
Because I don’t believe that in that one thread where your “wife” came in to tell you were being an asshole (because you realized you were about to be piled on) that any such thing happened. I doubt that your “wife” in that thread was anything more than an excuse to bail given that you realized that your trolling had gone too far.
By the way…do you still believe that black people are better at music and sports because their brains are different than white people’s brains?
Or that black people didn’t have a written language until white people taught them?
Yes it is an incidental side effect. Everything in biology is incidental. Reproduction is a by-product of sex, but not because biology cares or has an intended “purpose.” Animals do not share genetic material and reproduce because they have to, but because it feels good. The more likely it is to feel good, the more likely they are to reproduce, and the more they reproduce, the more likely it is for reproduction to feel good to those offspring. It feeds back and forth and becomes more efficient, but it’s still just incidental cause and effect, not purpose. There is no such thing as a biological purpose. That’s religious thinking, not scientific.
This. I lost a lot of respect for quite a few people that I really liked before this thread.
You know most of you sound like a bunch of old maids tut-tutting in your rocking chairs, right? Geez…it’s not enough to simply dislike the practice of polyamory or even open relationships, you have to insist that a triad choose to cut out one of their members to come to your party. Diogenes won’t have them in his house.
What did they ever freaking do to you people? You act like deciding not to conform to the societally normal dyad system is some kind of great moral failing. Bullshit. Monogamy is great if it’s the relationship form you’ve chosen, but I’m not going to refuse to invite a couple to my party, despite their slavish conformity to the stultifying norm…
I didn’t say anything about marriage, moron. I said outside the family.
Did you also report everybody in this thread who agrees with me?
You’re the one saying it, not me. I’ve consistently called the comparison bullshit, which it is. So cite me, scumbag.
I have no memory of what you’re referring to, but who gives a shit what you believe? It’s pretty easy to call somebody a liar about something they have no way of proving. I’ve also never trolled, but if you think I am, report me.
These are incredibly dishonest characterizations of both of those posts (which you know because you isolated the posts from their contexts in the thread). You are lying about what I said. You are the troll here.
Stop feeding the troll, folks.