You’re a moron.
I don’t understand the argument that, if humans were left on their own, they wouldn’t have formed monogamy as a norm.
Because it’s what happened! Humans were not cooerced by some outside force–we decided over the millenia that monogamy was the better choice.
If I’ve seen anything, it’s that women generally strongly want monoamory, while men tend to like it less. Many act as if they’d prefer to have as many sex partners as possible, while women seem to be more likely to want there to be a relationship first. But, the thing is, since women essentially control reproduction, their desires won out. If a man wants a chance to continue the line, he has to do what women want. Those who don’t comply (or don’t want kids) are dealt with by natural selection.
“We”? Some cultures have chosen to prohibit polygamy. Most have not.
So? The point is that some people naturally opposed it. And I happen to be in that group. Arguing that it isn’t natural is stupid. Unless you actually think someone outside the human race interfered, then all results of our culture* are natural.
*If you want to be pedantic and say that there are many cultures, you can use something like “the human superculture.”
You said that “we” have decided. Define “we” and tell us why this “we” is the definitive answer. There is nothing pedantic about it. You might as well say that “we” have decided that the Abrahamic religions are the right ones.
And of the ones that allow it, the vast number of married people are in a monogamous marriage.
And only men are allowed to have multiple partners, and the women do not typically have relationships with each other. Trying to identify the keeping of multiple wives in a harem as an example of organic polyamory is is not exactly convincing.
What if it’s all men? What if there is no female objectification involved? Does gay polyamory have the same connotations to you that straight polyamory does?
I would still say it was probably immature if they were unable to settle into a closed and stable paradigm of some sort. Female objectification doesn’t enter into it for me, at least not in the kind of scenario proposed in the original thread. To address that scenario specifically, I would have the same response to an established couple bringing a new male partner as a female one.
I’m still trying to pin down “immature”, as you’re using it. Is anything other than a monogamous couple “immature”? Does how the people in the multiple relationship treat each other have any effect on the maturity of the relationship as you see it? Or does the basic fact that these people aren’t satisfied with traditional monogamy make them immature to you?
Well, duh… Do the math.
So what? Life isn’t fair.
Well, duh … read my words carefully.
It’s instability, lack of ability to commit, evasion of emotional intimacy and the confusion (and rationalization) of sexual relationships with love relationships that makes them immature.
I think if there are more than two partners (or really just two partners, I guess), then I think the relatiionship has to first be closed to begin achieving maturity. If it’s three, let it stay three. If it’s four let it stay four. As long as there is roaming, and seeking of new partners, then that indicates a lack of satisfaction and a shallowness of bonding with the partners that already exist.
I think the paradigm also has to be tested over some significant period of time. I’m not going to take it seriously if someone tries to tell me that they have the same depth of relationship with a person they’ve been banging for a month that I have with the person I’ve been with for 20 years.
I think you’re wrong but I’m not going to convince you otherwise, so I’m dropping this whole thing.
What does fairness have to do with it? The point is that those examples of polygamy you’re talking about are even more forced and inorganic than the traditional monogamy you decry as “unnatural.”
Since “natural” is an unhelpful term, I would venture a hypothesis that the most common, organically rising type of human sexual relationship is serial monogamy. It’s not really disputable (I don’t think) that humans tend to fall in love with one person at a time, and bond in pairs far more often than in triads or quads or whatever.
What may be inorganic is for these bondings to be lifelong, especially in an era where humans have much longer lifespans than they ever have before, but organic, life long, monogamous bonding does occur, and I think that the more individuals who are added to these paradigms, the more unstable, and unlikely to be lifelong they will become.
A person who expresses a belief that a recently formed triad or quad is a sure thing with a chance at long term success is expressing an unrealistic and immature outlook, in my opinion. Asking me to humor that kind of expectation is going to inspire skepticism, to say the least. It’s not that I see them as evil or immoral, I see them as silly and delusional.
What would happen “organically” is that high status males would tend to have multiple wives and the lower status the males are, the more likely they would have only one wife. I wouldn’t call those high status males immature. They’d simply be taking advantage of the opportunity presented to them, like any other great ape.
My fundamental problem with this attitude is that it’s like saying the same thing about a new monogamous couple–I can agree that asking someone to take a specific new relationship seriously in the early stages is a bit of a joke, but you go far further than that.
In my own experience, I have been (and am) married once and dated (as in “gone steady” for a period of not less than two months) at least 14-15 people in late high school, college, and beyond. Does that mean that expressing that a newly formed (and how are we defining this?) duo has “a chance at long term success” is silly or delusional because my experience says that it has maybe a 7% chance of long-term success? What makes poly relationships any different from monogamous ones in this regard?
Using personal anecdotes when arguing with self-righteous assholes is generally ill advised.
Enjoy,
Steven
Arguing with self-righteous assholes is generally ill advised.
You are right. I base this on personal experience.
Regards,
Shodan