Polyamory, for the win?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

See, I don’t see where this is necessary. If you make a solemn oath to someone that you will not do something (which many marriage vows involve), I don’t see why they are required to forgive you if you do it anyway. It’s an option, certainly, but it’s by no means required. It has nothing to do with monogamy specifically, but with whether you want to forgive someone who breaks important promises. Lying is a huge deal for most relationships.

Personally, I have pretty much no desire to sleep with anyone but my husband, so it’s a moot point for me. I also have no problem with people who are polyamorous. I do understand where the OP is coming from, though, because I’ve encountered people who like to mention how much “more mature” a poly relationship is than a monogamous one. I don’t think they’re worse, but I’ve yet to see evidence that they’re better either.

22

Yes, really. Two people that I know of. I don’t like being told that I don’t know my own mind and that I’m selfish and crap like that. One of the guys that lectured me had a primary relationship with a 17 year old girl that he had talked into running away from her parents’ house at the age of 15, and he also made her do all the chores and basically do everything he said. Thankfully she left him when she was 20 and went directly into monogamy and never looked back. He was a real slimeball who hit on me and then lectured me when I turned him down cold.

Funny, he was really charismatic and had about four “secondary” girlfriends who all lived in other states. I’ve never understood the appeal.

23

The way I see it there is ethical polyamory, and “just plain” polyamory. My impression is that by the time you go through negotiating the ethics of polyamory to make sure everyone was on the same page, it would be way more tedious than monogamy.

24

Now that I’m in a better mood, I’d like to clarify why the first comment is me saying my article was dumb.

My article was dumb because I assumed that those who embrace the notion of polyamory can’t hold steady relationships. I realized that I was saying this without empirical support and I don’t like making statements like that without empirical support. However, I will hold to the following ideas:

  • Lots of people who embrace open relationships or polyamory are quite moralistic about it. They view anyone who has a problem with their partner cheating on them as a control freak.

  • Polyamorists really just want to have lots of sex with lots of different people. That is a really, really, really, really, really high priority for them.

  • This is a complex point, but I do think that polyamorists or those who are in open relationships are less likely to have a very strong emotional bond to another person.

Edit: Electric Warrior said that polyamory is different from the practice of open relationships. While this is true, I don’t think the basic attitudes behind them are that different, and I think that he/she exaggerates the differences in their usage.

25

I think you’re conflating polyamory with swinging or something.

26

In my experience there is not very much separating the two, and in fact they kind of blend into each other.

27

This is essentially my response as well.

28

See, I don’t see where this is necessary. If you make a solemn oath to someone that you will not do something (which many marriage vows involve), I don’t see why they are required to forgive you if you do it anyway. It’s an option, certainly, but it’s by no means required.
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I can’t come up with a really good metaphor to put this into context, but in at least some ways it’s kind of like if there were a nice couple that you knew who were making a mutual promise to never smile at anyone but each other. They say it’s a mutual promise (so you’ve got no cause to berate one for demanding it of the other), they say the reason that, months later, one is so furious with the other is not so much “otherperson SMILED at someone” but rather the violation of trust and the breaking of a promise… well, OK, you think to yourself, I do think trust and the keeping of promises made IS important…

But you really really want to bang their heads together and say “Snap out of it! People smile at each other! Just don’t MAKE such a stupid asinine promise and then neither of you will be a promise breaker. Don’t EXPECT it of each other and go forth and smile at whoever you like, and, and, oh fuckit would you two just kiss and get over yourselves already?”

But it’s only partly like that. I do not think sex is intrinsically as “lightweight” as smiling, or shaking someone’s hand, so the analogy is flawed in that way. The activity itself is more meaningful and potentially more emotionally charged, with more repercussions. Meanwhile, it’s not just this one couple with this one weird idea to make such a silly-ass promise, but instead this one couple you know and care about doing it while surrounded by a society and culture that makes NOT making such a promise feel about as socially acceptable as going to work with no clothes on. So the analogy is flawed there also, there’s a strong urge to get folks you care about to see that they are being ‘herded’ by social expectations to do something that, in all likelihood, they haven’t seriously considered, in the sense that they haven’t seriously considered any alternative to it (other than perhaps staying unattached to anyone).

It’s the combo of, A, “have you ever seriously considered NOT imposing this expectation / demanding this promise of each other? you haven’t, have you? your answers so far make it pretty obvious you’re on autopilot, you’re doing this because it’s what people do when they have a boyfriend/girlfriend”, and B, “you haven’t looked before you leap, have you? do you see how much pain and misery arises from demanding a sacrifice from the one you purport to love (or expecting it from the other as reciprocity after you make such a promise, which amounts to the same thing)? do you see how many people get hurt, all the way out to murderous rages and suicide attempts, all of it perhaps wiped off the map if this is neither promised nor expected? DO YOU THINK ALL THOSE PEOPLE ARE JUST SHITS, LOSERS, UNLOVING PEOPLE, or can you realize they are good people who loved each other but that sexual exclusivity can be a rather large burden? just as you two don’t HAVE to put out your right eyes as a sign of your love and willingness to make sacrifices for each other, you don’t have to DO THIS, either, are you SURE you want to?”

As I said, it’s your life. You don’t need to care much about my opinion about how you’re living it. Just think about it maybe a tiny little bit, will you?

29

The problem is that you’re viewing these promises people make as relatively arbitrary cultural fixations. They’re not.

Suppose you meet a couple, and they don’t abide by a rule that everyone else does: to talk with each other humanely. There is hardly a point in their lives together when they actually speak civilly to each other. And they don’t feel bad about it at all - they’ve been married for six years.

What are you going to conclude about this couple? Have they caught on to something other people haven’t - that you needn’t expect your partner to be nice to you? Aren’t we “restricting” our partners by expecting them to not call us “arrogant pompous bastard” or “slimy bitch whore” when we get home from work? Maybe we should just free ourselves of this unnecessary cultural restraint, you might think.

I am, of course, kidding. You wouldn’t think this. What you’d think is that you’ve met two very psychologically obscure people - people that just aren’t bothered by vicious verbal onslaught from their spouse.

The rest of society is not missing anything here. They don’t insult each other because they’re not the kind of people that can be in a relationship where insults are a minute-by-minute regularity. They do not need to be emancipated from the bondage of non-insult-relationships. There is no problem of them not having realized this option was open to them or having been indoctrinated by society into thinking that it’s the only option.

It’s the same with monogamy for the great majority of human beings. Monogamy is not some obscure stipulation most people bring to relationships, it’s a standard prerequisite for it being called a relationship in the first place.

For me, saying that I expect my partner to not cheat on me is completely banal and unnecessary. It’s like saying that I expect my partner to be responsible with our collective finances or for her to refrain from poking me with sharp ceramic figurines.

I don’t need to be emancipated from the cultural expectation of verbal decency, and I don’t need to be emancipated from our expectation of fidelity either.

30

I’ve never actually said this to a proselytizing polyamourous person, but my mental response to anyone who starts in with the “Monogamous people are SELFISH because they want to keep their lovers to themselves!” business is “Polyamourous people are SELFISH, not to mention GREEDY, because they can’t be content with one lover, they insist on having more!”

I don’t really think that polyamourous people are necessarily selfish and greedy, but I feel this sarcastic argument of mine is at least as good as the serious one used by proselytizing polyamourous people against monogamy.

31

Have you ever considered that people can’t snap their fingers and change what makes them happy in a relationship? You haven’t, have you? Your answers make it pretty obvious you’re condescending and judgmental, and you just can’t stand to think that someone else might not subscribe to your world view, even though they may have thought it over far longer than you think.

32

I don’t think that is true. Possibly it is. But mostly I’m serious — certainly in my head and I like to think also in my underlying attitude — I just want folks to think about it. If after doing so they conclude “heck no, I would still experience at least as much if not considerably more emotional misery if I tried to live WITHOUT the exclusivity promises”, I’ll take their word for it that they know themselves and what’s best for themselves.

33

AHunter3, I know you’ve already stated that your analogy was flawed in some ways, but I wanted to point out that I didn’t see the word “reflex” in there, either. A smile is a reflex. Sex – and I’m speaking generally here – is not.

Everyone is allowed to have desires and to avoid the thought police. But just because you want something doesn’t make it the right thing to do. And if you’re in a relationship where you’ve vowed not to have sex with other people, but you do it anyway, it’s not fair to just dismiss it as “slipping,” in my opinion. If being monogamous isn’t right for you, then that’s fine. But get out of the relationship where you promised to be monogamous if following that particular desire is more important to you than the promise. Be fair to everyone, including yourself.

34

I’m not really seeing how monogamy means she wouldn’t end up with a douchebag again.

35

Oh, horseshit. That’s like saying that if you want to save your money up, that’s fine, do whatever. But don’t expect your partner not to spend every penny the two of you have, just let him be who, what, and how he is–otherwise you’re a selfish bitch who doesn’t really love him. There are some areas where basic differences in attitude just aren’t compatible with mutual happiness, especially without any work toward a compromise. Different attitudes toward money, having children or pets, monogamy…you can’t just say, “Oh, you do your thing and I’ll do my thing” and expect both partners to be happy. People don’t work like that.

We all have things we need from our partners and things we simply won’t put up with from them. All of us. Nobody accuses you of being controlling and selfish or not really loving someone if you won’t date a smoker, or a drinker, or a workaholic, or a slacker, or a cat hoarder, or someone with massively different ideas about spending/saving money or having kids. It’s understood that a prospective partner is perfectly free to be and do any or all of those things–it’s just that by the same token, you are free not to be with that person.

Similarly, my husband is free to fuck anybody he pleases–it’s just that if he choses to do so, I’ll choose not to be with him. It’s what Dan Savage calls the price of admission to being with someone, and we all have our price.

36

Could not agree more.

37

Money is zero-sum. What you spend you no longer have. Sex has some zero-sum considerations (if your lover has 100 other lovers who have equal claim and are equally desirous of a good bedtime snack, you may not see much erogenous activity), but it’s not ultimately zero-sum.

Most people (in my experience) go through phases when they are way interested in sex and other phases when they scarcely have time to acknowledge the other people in their lives because they’re all wrapped up in a project or creative endeavor. And above and beyond that go through phases when they are interested in YOU and when, in contrast, they kind of aren’t. Doesn’t mean they won’t cycle back. All this I have personally observed in the context of a 1-on-1 monog rel, by the way.

Depending on your definition of workaholic I might give you grief about “you won’t date a workaholic”. If you’re one of those people who can’t tolerate your SO ever having an obsession that does not involve you, I’d totally say “back off and get over it”. One of my favorite and IMO most romantic of songs is “Next to You” by Carole Etzler

Ain’t it beautiful? Beverly Bremers wrote almost those exact words into a beautiful song.

38

Look, some people just aren’t capable of monogamy. Or another way to put it is that they just aren’t going to be monogamous, regardless of what promises they made and what other people’s expectations are. And Ahunter3’s point is that these people shouldn’t promise to be monogamous. If monogamy isn’t for you, you shouldn’t lie to someone that it is, and you especially shouldn’t lie to yourself.

And the only way to really commit to monogamy is to honestly ask yourself if monogamy is what you really want. If it isn’t, then why are you doing it?

I see plenty of people entering marriages seemingly without thinking things through. They marry people they aren’t compatible with, and everyone else can see that it can’t possibly work, yet they do it anyway. Why? Maybe instead of operating on autopilot and instinct they could think through what they really want out of life, and then took the steps needed to achieve what they want. If they want monogamy and a white house and a picket fence and 2.5 children, then they should take the steps necessary to achieve that rather than marrying someone who doesn’t share those goals and will inevitably flake on them, just when flaking will cause the most heartbreak. And if they know they won’t be monogamous then they should be grown up enough to not make promises they won’t keep. And if that means their partner won’t go along, then that’s really a good thing, not a bad thing.

39

Time is zero sum. Time you spend cultivating another romantic relationship is time you aren’t devoting to the one that’s supposed to be your top priority, if you’re in a marriage under the conditions by which most people think of it. Monogamy is a risk-reward situation that may require effort, but which many people choose. Some of them even think about it first! Polyamory is also a risk-reward situation, and there are also risks associated with it. STDs are things you can’t take back, for example. Everybody chooses what they want and what they’re willing to pay for it, and a lot of people consider monogamy to be easily worth it.

The fact that most people don’t choose the option that you do does not make your option wrong, but the fact that a lot of people make promises they can’t keep doesn’t make monogamy wrong for everyone; lots of people remain faithful with no problems. It just means people who can’t do it shouldn’t try, or should dissolve the relationship before they sleep with someone else. It’s not that hard. It’s people wanting the benefits of monogamy without holding up their end of the social contract that are the problem.
However, acting like people who are monogamous are only that way because they haven’t thought about it long enough is as condescending as it is inaccurate.

40

At least she wasn’t with someone who used her for sex and free housekeeping while banging other girls left and right.