I recently received an impromptu, in-person lecture along these lines:
“I think that monogamous relationships are just ways of controlling other people and we should be able to have sex with whoever we want - why shouldn’t we?”
It was much more long-winded than that, but that’s basically what they were saying.
Dear People Who Espouse the Above View,
You and your partners can do whatever you want together, with each other’s consent, and I don’t care. This includes sleeping with people who are not your partners. This doesn’t mean that I relate to your position or that I think it will make you happier in the long run or that I don’t think you’re shallow, but I wouldn’t want adultery to be made illegal or anything like that.
But, you see, most people actually like being in a serious, monogamous relationship. We do. Really. We’re willing to not sleep with other people (can you grasp that? No?) and we don’t want our partners to sleep with other people either (what control freaks we are!).
We like the intimacy of it. We like the idea of sharing your life in an extraordinarily intimate way with one other person. Two hearts beating as one, so to speak. You might claim that you can have the same emotional connection with multiple people, but I don’t buy it. Why? Part of it, I admit, is that I think you’re too obsessed with promiscuity to really bond emotionally with anybody at all. But the main reason is that your relationships fall apart really, really, really fast. Really fast.
So you can stop acting as though we monogamous people - we people who are actually willing to refrain from having multiple sexual partners at once - are holding something back or want to dominate our partners. We’re just more willing to engage in the back-and-forth of a serious, committed relationship. That’s all.
I was going to say this is not going to go over well here, there are some poly Dopers and even though I’m the last thing from poly I do think it is entirely possible to have a serious relationship with multiple people at once. And yes, it was a stupid post.
I couldn’t do it, but I don’t care if other people do.
Fine with me as long as you don’t spend 80% of your emotional energies bemoaning the possibility that your SO is “cheating” or did “cheat”, and detailing the retaliations you’ve enacted or plan to enact, all the while crying about the loss of the wonderful relationship that your SO “ruined”.
I got nothing against monogamous folks. I do think a lot of folks have been socially browbeaten into thinking monogramous couple-bonding is the only mature/appropriate/rational/acceptable behavior and that embracing it is fully mandatory, and I see them as victims of that when their nonmonogamous behavior (or that of their partners) causes conflict with the monog expectations.
My advice to monogamous folks is “If that’s the way you are, fine, be monogamous. And if you love your partner, LOVE your partner and don’t treat YOUR monogamy as a gift or a payment to your partner in return for which your partner OWES you reciprocity. Love is about forgiving and not being suspicious. Just be monogamous and let your partner be who, what, and how your partner is and don’t do the jealousy/possessiveness thing.”
Why, you terribly closed mided bigot you!! How dare you, *dare *you, fail to accept, no… *embrace *and unquestionably *agree *with a concept of “relationship” other than your own!! Why… you are just a hateful, intollerant asshole!! How dare you <sniff> deny these people who love each other (something you probably don’t understand!!) their <sniff, sniff> *right *to happiness!!
Just as some folks can love more than one person, sometimes a thread can belong in more than one forum. If you can’t be in the forum you love, honey, love the forum you’re in.
Moved from The BBQ Pit to Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share.
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Gfactor**
Pit Moderator
Oh that’s just silly. I don’t sleep around because she doesn’t want me to. I would love nothing more than to galavant around town sowing my wild oats as I please. Problem is, it’d piss her off. So it is a gift to her. She definitely feels the same way. Can you explain why that’s wrong?
I’m poly, and while I don’t agree with your implication that monogomous relationships are more committed than poly ones, I totally agree that whoever lectured you was a douche. I’ve had people start spouting the same stuff to me when they find out I’m poly, and are suprised I don’t agree.
Are there monogomous couples out there who are only monogomous out of jealousy or a need to control? Sure. Just like there are some people out there who are only poly because they want to fuck around a lot. But the majority of monogomous or poly people are that way because that’s what makes them happy. More power to 'em, whatever their choice.
Honesty in a relationship has nothing to do wioth how many partners one has.
You can cheat with one other person; you can cheat with more than one person; you can be faithful to one person; you can be faithful to more than one person.
Please stop confusing polyamory with open relationships.
They are not the same thing.
Really, really, they are not the same thing.
I could never, ever, ever love more than one person at the same time. To me love is very much a thing that I share intimately with one partner. If I were polyamorous I could have this feeling for more than one person at once. I cannot. I am not poly. I do, however, prefer to be in relationships that do not require sexual exclusivity (as long as both of us are being safe at all times).
The real question of ‘can I be polyamorous’ is not ‘can I have sex with whoever I want while remaining in a committed relationship with one person?’ The question is solely ‘can I be in a committed relationship with more than one person?’
Even poly people can practice sexual exclusivity, by only having sex with the people they love. There is a difference.
I suppose that some polyamorous relationships can work, because I’ve heard of them. I’ve never actually seen one in real life.
I suppose the closest one I’ve actually seen working is an old friend of mine who married a poly man. I personally think that relationship “works” because she never sees him. They work different shifts and they may spend a night together a week. She has never taken a lover, I think she just likes the idea that she could. However, I don’t think it actually works (hence the quotation marks above) because they both admit to being jealous of each other, and she weeps about it and I am certain uses it against him. But they’re married and in a semi-long term relationship.
That’s a long prelude…I don’t deny that it may work for some people. But I am right there with you about hating being preached at about it. No one I have ever had a relationship with has ever admitted wanted to share me in any way, and I wouldn’t want to share my partner. NO that doesn’t mean I’m controlling, or my partner is controlling. That’s just the way we structure our relationship. If the relationship weren’t like that we wouldn’t be in it.
I’ve cut off friendships because someone lectured me or my partner about this very issue.
Have you ever read The Ethical Slut? Interesting book.
At some point in there, the author points out that every time an open or poly marriage or relationship falls apart, people take it as evidence that non-monogamous relationships don’t work.
But when a typical marriage or relationship falls apart, nobody seems to take it as an indictment of monogamy.
I’m all for people enjoying whatever lifestyle works best for them. I have a very close friend who has always been involved in open relationships and is currently in a long-standing open marriage (where polyamory is involved), and she and her primary partner seem very happy with the arrangement.
Since, however, my marriage has recently been bent nearly to the point of breaking due to a badly botched attempt at making it an open marriage, it’s a bit of a sore point for me at the moment. And I know now for certain that I am a hard core monogamist myself.
All I hope for is that the two or more people who find themselves together in a relationship are of a like mind, whatever mindset that involves.
Hmm. Maybe it isn’t. If you give that gift freely and without resentment. And if you forgive her if she does have sex with someone else (“slip” instead of “cheat” maybe?).
I dunno. Ultimately it’s your life. I’m going to continue to think you’re “not doing it right” if your sexual exclusivity arrangements generate a lot of sturm and drang and tears and flying plates, and I’m going to continue to think “you need to get a grip on something besides each other’s erogenies”… but it’s still your life.
Lucky you - it seems that for some reason a lot of poly people feel the need to tell all and sundry all about their sex lives and relationships. And no, I don’t mean that in the same way people say “I just wish those gay people wouldn’t flaunt it,” I mean in the way that going to the store for ice cream somehow always turns into a discussion about how they’re polyamorous.
I don’t suggest joining the SCA, if you’d like to stay ignorant.
I think the problem comes in with polyamory–which, for better or worse, is the minority position in the area and time where I live–being the minority position. There’s a lot of crap put on people who are polyamorous, and I think that the natural response is to get a little defensive, and to maybe even go on the offense.
That being said. . .it’s irritating, because it–like people insisting monogamy is the only option–is extremely judgemental. I don’t want to be in a long-term open relationship, nor do I want to be in a long-term polyamorous relationship (barring some unforseen circumstance). It would not meet my emotional needs. To me, it would feel incomplete.
It’s all well and good to say, “well, if you’re monogamous, then be monogamous, but don’t expect the other person to do it.” If part of meeting my emotional needs is monogamy, then monogamy is an expected part of a relationship with me. If someone isn’t going to be happy in a monogamous relationship, they don’t have to have one. But they also don’t need to be dating me. It’d be the same if I wanted to be in a relationship with someone who was Catholic, or someone who’s into long conversations. I have no obligation to date people whose life and/or emotional needs are incompatible with my own; nor do they.
The problem comes in when one side or another claims selfishness. Well, yes; any relationship is going to have selfishness. If we didn’t like being in relationships, and we didn’t get anything out of them, we wouldn’t do it. But I don’t think either position is inherently more selfish than the other.
And, FWIW, this comes from someone whose ex-husband, whom I married when he was a straight, monogamous man, is now a bisexual, polyamorous woman. Did the straight/poly thing hurt the relationship? Hell yes. Was it because one position was inherently better than the other? No. They were just incompatible with each other.
Yeah, I’ve seen a little of this and it’s obnoxious. I resent it. I’ve struggled to get over my doubts that polyamorous relationships can really work, but for some people, they seem to. I’m not one of them, not interested in trying. Life goes on. I suspect most of the people who give speeches like the above are just tired of being judged, but the attitude doesn’t help.
