# Monogamy is for idiots **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 12, 2010, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375 "2010-07-12T09:16:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![DragonAsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DragonAsh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DragonAsh)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/101 "2010-07-15T08:00:46Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > You aren’t the typical young adult male. “Young” (i.e., immature) being the key word there. I’d like to think that most guys mature a bit after the age of 18 or so. ---
**Author:** ![DragonAsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DragonAsh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DragonAsh)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/102 "2010-07-15T08:03:37Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > Looks like it’s gonna be a busy day for you–[better get crack-a-lackin’ on this!](http://christiandomesticdiscipline.com/home.html)😃 :eek::eek: Words fail me…and I’m not even going to ask how you stumbled across that site 😉 but are we assuming that both partners are into this? How often is it the wife doing the beating? Are there ground rules for the spanking? How hard, how many slaps? Can you use instruments besides your hand? ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/103 "2010-07-15T17:19:00Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > Looks like it’s gonna be a busy day for you–[better get crack-a-lackin’ on this!](http://christiandomesticdiscipline.com/home.html)😃 “the husband as the head of the household, and the wife as his helpmeet.” Looks like someone could use a proofer-mate. (Also, I originally read the word as “helmet.”) > [@BigT](#): > > It’s also the statement that says that polyamory is more honest than monogamy. Was that statement made as a universal? Or did he say that polyamory was more honest _for him_, and then other people started claiming that it was supposed to apply to everyone? I’m not gonna go dig through the other thread to find it, so please cite your claim. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/104 "2010-07-15T17:27:09Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > “the husband as the head of the household, and the wife as his helpmeet.” > > Looks like someone could use a proofer-mate. (Also, I originally read the word as “helmet.”) Helpmeet is the original term, if that’s what you’re referring to. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/105 "2010-07-15T17:36:29Z")
> [@DragonAsh](#): > > :eek::eek: > > Words fail me…and I’m not even going to ask how you stumbled across that site 😉 but are we assuming that both partners are into this? How often is it the wife doing the beating? Are there ground rules for the spanking? How hard, how many slaps? Can you use instruments besides your hand? On a quick perusal: 1. Yes, the site is emphatic about this. 2. Never, the site is emphatic about this too - they take a certain fundamentalist attitude to the different roles of male and female. If you’re into being switches, they recommend you look elsewhere, and good fortune attend you. 3. Yes, they have “play spanking”, “maintenance spanking” and “punishment spanking”, the last of which is seen as something to be avoided, and they take pains (heh…) to distance it from domestic violence, which is rightly seen as abhorrent 4. , 5) How long is a piece of string? ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/106 "2010-07-15T18:35:54Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Helpmeet is the original term, if that’s what you’re referring to. Seriously? I assumed it was a typo for “helpmate.” What the fuck is a “helpmeet”? > [@The\_Weird\_One](#): > > (That, and the fact that the authors think all relationships should follow their model.) Do they, though? I was actually pretty impressed by the way it was structured, at least on the front page–“this is what we believe; we ask that you only post here if you believe the same things; but if you don’t, there are many other resources for you, which we encourage you to seek out” was more or less the impression I got. I think they’re dead fucking wrong about a lot of things, but I’ll defend their right to live as they want so long as it’s consensual and they don’t try to force it on me, too. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/107 "2010-07-15T18:42:55Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Seriously? I assumed it was a typo for “helpmate.” What the fuck is a “helpmeet”? A helpmate. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/108 "2010-07-15T18:50:09Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Seriously? I assumed it was a typo for “helpmate.” What the fuck is a “helpmeet”? It’s actually kind of a neat word. It was a mistake based on a translation that said that God made a “help meet” or maybe a “helpe meet” for Adam. And then people started thinking it meant a “helpe-meet” for Adam. Helpemeet. Helpmeet. Whee! But “meet” just meant “fitting.” So, it just means a helper who is fitting. Eve was meet for Adam (not meat!) 😃 Later, people started changing it to “helpmate” probably because it just kinda looked like it should be helpmate. Anyway, that’s what I remembered, and I looked it up and am not crazy! Um. Not crazy for remembering it that way, at least. The things you learn when you read novels set in the middle ages, and the internet! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/109 "2010-07-15T19:08:04Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > The things you learn when you read novels set in the middle ages, and the internet! 😃 Foolish **jsgoddess** : there \*was \*no internet in the middle ages. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/110 "2010-07-15T19:12:45Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Foolish **jsgoddess** : there \*was \*no internet in the middle ages. Only because the messenger pigeons were too slow… ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/111 "2010-07-15T19:30:03Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Only because the messenger pigeons were too slow… They sent specially-trained flocks of messenger pigeons, each carrying part of the message. Though they might take different routes to their destination, by the time they arrived, they would carefully sort themselves so that the segments of the message would be read in the order that they were sent in. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/112 "2010-07-15T19:34:49Z")
These were actually the progenitors of the birds used for PigeonRank. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Weird\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@The\_Weird\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Weird_One)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/113 "2010-07-15T20:06:43Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Do they, though? I was actually pretty impressed by the way it was structured, at least on the front page–“this is what we believe; we ask that you only post here if you believe the same things; but if you don’t, there are many other resources for you, which we encourage you to seek out” was more or less the impression I got. Well, they’re not obnoxiously evangelical about it, but they still think that God says (all) women should be submissive to their husbands, and that the high divorce rate is the fault of the damn’d feminists with their devil’s talk of gender equality. I think that’s enough to say that they believe everyone _should_ follow their One True Way, even if they’re being nice about it. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/114 "2010-07-15T20:39:51Z")
> [@The\_Weird\_One](#): > > Well, they’re not obnoxiously evangelical about it, but they still think that God says (all) women should be submissive to their husbands, and that the high divorce rate is the fault of the damn’d feminists with their devil’s talk of gender equality. I think that’s enough to say that they believe everyone _should_ follow their One True Way, even if they’re being nice about it. I don’t care if they think I \*should \*follow their One True Way. I think everyone should follow \*my \*One True Way–after all, it’s mine, so it \*must \*be right. 😃 The only thing that concerns me is if they try to \*make \*me follow theirs, and I see that nowhere on their agenda. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Weird\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@The\_Weird\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Weird_One)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/115 "2010-07-15T21:31:11Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > I don’t care if they think I \*should \*follow their One True Way. I think everyone should follow \*my \*One True Way–after all, it’s mine, so it \*must \*be right. 😃 The only thing that concerns me is if they try to \*make \*me follow theirs, and I see that nowhere on their agenda. Oh, I’m not concerned about them at all, and although I may look at them a bit askance for believing that _all_ women should be submissive, I’m hardly outraged about it. It’s just a notable difference between their site and what I’ve seen on BDSM sites that support similar relationships, where there’s usually a strong emphasis on “This is a lifestyle that _we_ have chosen, but it’s not for everyone.” ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/116 "2010-07-15T21:45:13Z")
That’s because BDSM is based in personal preferences, while this site is as least ostensibly based on a religious text. It’s logical that the former wouldn’t want everyone to be like them while the latter would. ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/117 "2010-07-15T22:37:36Z")
One may nitpick away at this but I have a problem with using the term _polyamorous_ to refer to the OP. _Hedonistic_ I could see. _Polyamorous_ implies that some form of love is involved (there’s the nit-picky part) and also suggests that love and sex are not mutually exclusive. Yet I can think of a number of people I love whom I’d never dream of having sex with. Indescriminate use of _polyamorous_ is a careless way to label strictly sexual relationships. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/118 "2010-07-15T22:39:14Z")
Sorry about the very late response, in a potential fit of irony I was on vacation with my wife for our anniversary. > [@DragonAsh](#): > > a) **Zeriel** , you say you’re married and that you have a ‘primary’ relationship. That to me sounds a lot closer to swinging than poly: You have a primary relationship that you’ve clearly committed to; any other relationships are secondary, and it’s clear that the other women understand where they have to accept second-class status. The only difference between that and a women that dates a married man who hasn’t told his wife is whether the wife knows or not. Yes, and no. Lemme lay a bit more definitions–and admittedly, this may be idiosyncratic to the poly message board that I frequent, so that’s your disclaimer right there, I know of an online community of a few hundred people who work this way: a “primary relationship” is someone you share finances and living space with. You can have more than one, if you have a stable triad or quad that shares a house (interestingly, stable triads of either polarity (MMF or FFM) seem to be the most common poly relationship in the long term). A “secondary relationship” has some form of commitment to emotional intimacy but no implied or overt sharing of housing or finances. A “tertiary relationship” is pretty analogous to an “open marriage” sort of thing–you’re dating, but that’s that, with no implied emotional intimacy beyond friendship. The other thing is this–there’s nothing that expressly prohibits moving between levels. Anyone who would be a second primary relationship for me would have to have been in a “secondary” status for quite some time–only natural, given that I was dating my wife for two years before we even got engaged. > [@](#): > > In this situation, if for whatever reason your wife wanted the other relationship(s) to stop, I’m assuming you would stop, right? Absolutely, and I typically allow secondary partners the same courtesy (since they’re people who are around for years, in the ideal case). > [@](#): > > If that is the case for all poly relationships, well I’d have very little to complain about. Technically you’re cheating on your wife, but telling her and getting her to consent to it (I’m assuming she does the same), the other women know about it, and more importantly everyone knows everyone else knows about it. Consenting adults, blah blah blah. Not my cup of tea, I still think it mostly comes down to wanting sexual partners with (fewer) strings attached, and I think most relationships like this are a recipe for disaster….but if it works for you, great. > > But is this really poly, or is it merely ‘Open marriage’ = commited relationship + friends with benefits on the side. It’s not what most poly relationships are like based on what I’ve seen / heard. I find that it’s really hard to find “poly relationships” in the wild, there’s a lot of disapproval out there about them. The ones I come across when I’m not specifically looking inside the little online poly community I frequent are more likely to be as you describe. > [@](#): > > e) In two threads and over dozens and dozens of posts, I have yet to see anyone even try to answer some of the basic questions I’ve had about how poly relationships are supposed to work: What happens if two (or more) women get pregnant at the same time? Are the women automatically happy with their children only having part-time fathers? What about financial responsibilities? What if two or more partners suddenly depend on the guy (or the women, it could happen either way) for significant emotional or financial support? What about as people get older and need more care? What about sudden severe illness? This is one of the reason the community I’m in differentiates between primary and secondary and tertiary relationships as a rule of thumb–it’s the level of commitment and support you’re prepared to offer. For obvious reasons, I’d think, most poly folk I know are far more scrupulous about birth control (multiple methods are the rule) and such. As for the care and support thing, I don’t think it’s that entirely too big a deal–even in normal monogamous life, there’s no guarantee your dad and you dad-in-law won’t both get prostate cancer at the same time (to pull a random example). Most people are capable of dealing with multiple crises effectively, I think. > [@](#): > > Even in cases like **Zeriel** , where there appears to be a pecking order of sorts, these questions don’t just go away - I mean, Zeriel, what if one of your other women gets pregnant? What is your wife’s view on this? Ultimately the rule is the same as in any other kind of sexual relationship–you don’t have sex with someone without accepting the risk (whatever it is) that pregnancy will happen. We go out of our way, as above, with multiple contraceptive methods, and given that she’s prepared to accept the consequences if the stars align infavorably. It works the same from her end, and that’s roughly how we would have dealt with it had she become impregnated… we’re both poly, after all, although she made a personal choice while we’re trying for a baby ourselves to not seek out new sexual relationships while her birth control was not active–again, something a mono person might do as well. At least part of the timing of us having children was that she had no ongoing other relationships at the moment, for that matter. While we’re on that subject, I know a poly quad with four kids. You might be able to guess which two parents produced each of them, but it’d be impolite to do so out loud, and they’re being raised as siblings. > [@](#): > > These kinds of situations occur in real life in adult relationships, and they happen all the time. Commitment in a relationship means being willing to be there for that person when they need you to be there, not just when it’s convenient for you. Unless you’re fabulously rich with massive amounts of free time, I simply do not see how anyone can possibly be in a real relationship with the same level of commitment to multiple partners. The math just doesn’t work. I note most people who are successful in poly relationships tend to be low-maintenance. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that it correlated highly. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/119 "2010-07-15T22:44:46Z")
> [@Tethered\_Kite](#): > > One may nitpick away at this but I have a problem with using the term _polyamorous_ to refer to the OP. _Hedonistic_ I could see. > > _Polyamorous_ implies that some form of love is involved (there’s the nit-picky part) and also suggests that love and sex are not mutually exclusive. Yet I can think of a number of people I love whom I’d never dream of having sex with. > > Indescriminate use of _polyamorous_ is a careless way to label strictly sexual relationships. I would completely concur with you, and agree that “polyamorous” requires that there be a loving, intimate relationship that goes beyond sex (And doesn’t, strictly, have to include sex at all) vs. the open/swinger “hedonistic” thing, which I’m personally not really into (even if I was in college, but wasn’t everyone?). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375/120 "2010-07-15T23:48:29Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > They sent specially-trained flocks of messenger pigeons, each carrying part of the message. Though they might take different routes to their destination, by the time they arrived, they would carefully sort themselves so that the segments of the message would be read in the order that they were sent in. To be sure, the number representing their order was written in illuminated ink, which is where the IP (Illuminated Pigeon) address comes from. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monogamy-is-for-idiots/546375.md?page=7)