I’m, in turn, fully comfortable with telling you to butt your pretty little head out of both my marriage vows and my feelings on the interconnectedness of sex and marriage.
The internet has taught me that probably more than 90% of people who claim to have polyamorous relationships are 300 lbs+ human spheres with poor hygiene and psychiatric disorders.
In light of this, I agree with Diogenes.
Is this some kind of weird pod exchange of Dopers for Freepers? I’m expecting a screaming Donald Sutherland next.
So if I don’t believe that 60s commune style free love is the normal human condition I’m a Freeper now? EEEEEEEEEE!!!
I admit I had hoped that the typical doper would respond similarly to their feelings on homosexuality or BDSM or any other type of sexual activity – “Huh. It’s not for me, but as long as you’re polite about it and use appropriate situation discretion, it’s your body and your life.” being the ideal.
Awesome.
There is also the fact, proven by a multitude of psychological experiments which I shall not dig out and cite, that groups of three and four are inherently less stable than a couple.
WTF? Really? Wow. Because 100% of the poly people I know come in all shapes, sizes, orientations, ages, religions, mental states, and stages of cleanliness. Kind of like, you know, normal people.
Hey… 
(j/k)
Same here… the things DtC et al have said are quite surprising IMO.
You know, unless someone is screwing me, I really couldn’t give two shits about who they’re screwing. And as for the traditional one man one woman marriage being the gold standard? Heaven help us. That hasn’t really worked out all that well, has it?
Congrats on knowing the other 10%, I guess.
Yea, it’s gone from a “not my cuppa” to a bit of internet sloppiness. Lame physical insults and words like “immature” being whipped around tend not to be the level that the Dope sinks to.
I wanted to comment on this. In my experience, there are quite a few “polyamorous” groupings are M+F+F triads. I expect that there are a number of factors involved:
- Many men are less threatened by adding a woman to the relationship
- More females than males are willing to describe themselves as bisexual
- “Let’s have a threesome! We’ll find a hot bi chick!” isn’t really strictly polyamory, but on several polyamory discussion sites I tend to find a lot of folks who think it is.
My wife and I tend to follow the extended-couples metaphor for polyamory–that is, if I have a girlfriend there’s no expectation that she’ll be romantically involved with that woman as well as with me (and vice versa). We have noticed that in our experience, there is a large majority of single men in polyamory-focused locales who are looking for one-night-stands and causal things and think playing at poly will help them. By contrast, almost all single females in these contexts can be nigh-pathological in their avoidance of casual/one-night things because they’re looking for a longer-term, truly polyamorous thing. This leads to a culture where single men are minimized/shut out to an extent because a large percentage of them are not actually looking for polyamorous relationships, so the typical dating pool tends to consist of single females and couples, with predictable results.
There’s also the fact, proven by a multitude of posts which I won’t bother to drag out and cite, that in addition to being the self-appointed PIT LAUGHINGSTOC^W COP you’re a basement-dwelling wankjob who hasn’t seen pussy in so long he’d probably get confused and throw stones at it.
Insults will be retracted upon cite.
EJ056808 - Effects of Compatibility, Crowding, Group Size, and Leadership Seniority on Stress, Anxiety, Hostility, and Annoyance in Isolated Groups
Good luck getting the text without paying, though.
And I do find it telling that your insults all revolve around sexual prowess and violence. One might think that you have some sexual and self-esteem issues that, of course, have nothing to do with your lifestyle choice.
Look if a couple is into BDSM and do that in the pricacy of their home, what do I care. If they show up to a party I invite them to with her in a leather suit and him with a ball gag then no, that’s not on.
The situation with the gay couple is a little different. I admit, though, I still get squicked by the site of two men being very affectionate with each other. Though I have known a few gay people they have always been descreet in their public displays with their partners (They are older and from a time when descretion was the rule) so I’m still not exactly used to it.
I don’t think I’d ask them to stop because I think it would be wrong but that depends on the level of affection. In my circle of friends most public displays of affection are now limited to a hand hold or peck. We aren’t teenagers any more.
If a straight couple started making out in the middle of a social gathering I’d be just as uncomfortable
This though… sorry but I feel its different. First I get the feeling one party is getting everything they want while the other is going along and has to settle to being second. In any relationship you have one member who feels stronger than the other… what happens in the case where one’s affection is now split?
The other thing is that it smacks of the creepy guy leering saying “hey look what I can do.” What was the point of bringing the third over other than to show them off. After all, the original couple were both friends of the people who invited them over so what would be wrong with them showing up as a couple of friends.
It would feel the same to me as if I invited two formerly married people over and one shows up with their new 20 year old girl friend and starts getting affectionate with her.
Not really, at least as far as Dio is concerned. When it comes to anything sex related, his default position tends to be, “Since I’m not interested in it, anyone who is interested in it is either emotionally stunted, mentally ill, or both.” He’s so judgmental about this sort of thing that Jerry Falwell looks at him and says, “I think that’s going a little too far.” I’m kind of astonished that he’s so pro-gay rights, since in any other area of human sexuality, his standard for propriety is literally no more nuanced than “Like me/Not like me.” I’m not sure how the 'mos got an exception to this policy.
If I read the thread right, that’s almost exactly what the OP clarified was actually going on–hand-holding and “cuddles”, which in the context sounds to me like “putting one’s arm around one’s loved one”.
I personally disagree with your premises here–I don’t feel like my wife or I have any power over the other in any long term sense (as with all things in reality, it’s never perfectly equal and it ebbs and flows).
Again, we disagree, unless it’s just as much “showing off” when a single guy brings his new girlfriend around–there are circumstances where it is (and that’s wrong) and circumstances where “bringing your significant other” is just what naturally happens (and that’s okay, within the bounds of manners (the host knows and is okay with the guest count, no one’s getting significantly more kissy-faced than the group norm, etc).) and there’s a pretty big difference.
Except that in the polyamory case, no one involved (in most cases) is doing it to be hurtful or mean. Intent matters, IMHO.
Actually, to be precise, there were three distinct insults: one claim you were the laughingstock self-appointed Pit Cop, one insult surmising that your residence is subterranean and implying you masturbated, and one insult surmising that women find you highly unappealing–so much so that, should one appear, you’d get confused and try to herd off the “pussy” in the manner one would a stray cat–that I used solely because I wanted to abuse my “misquoting David Sedaris” privileges.
I think you’ve already demonstrated that you have some hang-ups. No need to keep making it even more clear.
Pretty much any objective, scientific analysis of human sexuality will tell you that the monogamous, nuclear family is a societal construct, not something we come to from our own human nature. As for this Pitting, it’s deja vu all over again-- and I mean on this very subject.
I just love this. Person X is disgusted by Y. Person Z is disgusted by people who are disgusted by Y. Both think their opinion is valid. Yet, the same reasoning that makes one valid makes the other valid.
I have a bunch of beliefs that would get me in a lot of trouble on this board. I tend not to share them. I see this board for what it is: a place where certain beliefs are allowed to be different, but others aren’t. (i.e. liberal).
So enjoy arguing that Dio is such a horrible person because he dares challenge the belief that polyamory is normal. All you are doing is judging someone for what they believe–which is the same thing he is doing. Congratulations on calling yourself a bigot.
You just keep telling yourself that, Officer. Maybe it’ll make you feel better. If not, you can always go and pretend you’re in charge of pit content some more.