Fair enough. I will not rule out the possibility that everyone I know is just weird like that.
While any exclusivity discussion between myself and whoever takes place usually after the third date, it would be – and was-- well before any proposal.
I suppose my sticking point is the word "promise. " If that is to mean “promise forever, unless something seriously bad happens,” then I would say that the proposal is the “promise,” and the public affirmation would be at the wedding. But I “promised” to be exclusive way earlier than the proposal. Not the “forever” bit, but I still considered it a promise. If we hadn’t been exclusive for quite some time before the ring appeared, it probably wouldn’t have ever appeared, or been accepted.
I guess it depends on what is meant by promise.
I have to say, if I came home and I walked in on my beloved having sex with someone else, I would be kind of annoyed that he hadn’t warned me he was bringing someone home (mostly because IS THE HOUSE CLEAN?), and I would be somewhat taken aback that he would have sex where I could stumble over him (as opposed to in his own room, where I usually knock before I enter), but I don’t think I’d be upset for more than a minute or two. After all, I know he has sex with two other women pretty often (and another woman once in a blue moon), so actually stumbling over him doing so wouldn’t be that weird. Just a little embarrassing for all concerned, maybe. I don’t happen to think that sexual jealousy is an indicator of how much I love him. I want him to be happy, after all, and he was born to be polyamorous.
That’s something else I wonder about. I sometimes see polyamory treated similarly to a sexual orientation, i.e. some people are born that way and other people aren’t.
If popular depictions of males are accurate, one would assume all males are born poly.
Of course popular depictions of things are often inaccurate.
But do we know, for a fact, that most (or any) men, if presented with a very appealing and willing prospective sex partner, with the enthusiastic consent of their own SO, wouldn’t want to have sex with that third party?
Poly but territorial, maybe? I feel that the central question, for many men I’ve known - including myself, probably - becomes “Do I want to have this woman exclusively to myself badly enough to forego trying to bed every other woman on the planet?”
But would they be as enthusiastic about their SO having sex with a third party?
I do think that poly is closer to a sexual orientation, than say, your choice of sports team. I base this mainly on myself, of course. Even before I knew that polyamory was a thing, I was very perplexed by monogamy, and didn’t understand why I should be so mad at my boyfriend for being with another person when he wasn’t with me. I was mad because he lied, but the sex part of it wasn’t really my concern. I mean, if I was at work, why did it matter if he was going to the movies with his guy friends or sticking his penis in a woman? I wasn’t using it. I spent a few miserable years trying to train myself to be jealous like everyone said I should be before I discovered that my feelings had a name and a whole subset of people who shared them.
I can only imagine that kids who discover the word “gay” explains their feelings had much the same experience of relief and joy.
On the other hand, I’ve also watched a lot of people crash and burn when they decide they want to be poly, but they just aren’t and they make a huge mess of it. So that also makes me think it’s “wiring” at some level.
Many men (and women!) *want *to have sex with a third party, even *without *the enthusiastic consent of their SO. I know of no one who seriously thinks being in a relationship prevents you from ever wanting sex with someone else. So I think your question misses the point. We are often tempted with things that we know go against our longterm interests.
Is it feasible for most men (and women) to maintain strong and secure intimate relationships with one person while also openly having relationships with others? To me, that’s the real question. Polygamy has been around for centuries, but I don’t think these relationships are universally regarded as strong and healthy since the wives are expected to just suck up whatever jealously they might feel and submit to the wishes of the patriarch. And polygamy isn’t a two-way street either.
No, I don’t think it misses the point, since the point was to address the treatment of polyamory as though it were an orientation, and orientation is about what a person fundamentally wants, behind whatever behaviors they may actually display. My question was designed to test that approach.
That’s a good point, which may clarify the term for me actually. Are you suggesting poly isn’t just about one’s own desires w.r.t. who to have sex with, but instead has to do with the kinds of relationships one fundamentally would prefer to be in? In other words, it’s not just about who (general) you want to have sex with, but what you care about w.r.t. who your partners (and you) have sex with, is that what you’re saying?
I can make sense of treating that as something like an orientation. I strongly suspect this is more culturally determined than most people think, but thousands of years of the history of ideas concerning sexuality (at least in cultures I’m familiar with) plus the strong opinions of several Dopers would tend to point the other way so my suspicions have little weight here. 
Whoah this is exactly dead on like my own attitude.
(BTW in case anyone’s wondering, no I’m not here talking to you guys about things I don’t also talk freely with my wife about.)
For whatever reason it’s not so big a deal to me, just sort of an amused “huh so there’s a word for it” rather than big relief or anything. But that’s just me, I can totally see how it would hit people as more significant, especially if they’ve been told their attitude is deeply deficient in some way.
With respect to the sustainability of polyamorous relationships, I wonder how much sexual jealous is at the crux of it, though? Like I mentioned earlier, the thought of my fiancé being with someone else doesn’t affect me emotionally at all. For example, I don’t think it would be difficult for me to forgive him if he confessed to sleeping with another woman in a wild fit of passion. When people talk about rather being in the dark about something like this, I have never related to i
But being polyamorous implies more than just having sex with someone else, right? It means carrying out relationships with multiple people. This requires a level of emotional multitasking that I think would be difficult for most people to perform well, unless they were matched with someone 1) doesn’t require much emotional intimacy or 2) has a ready supply of others who can fill in the gaps. This combination is probably hard to count on indefinitely, because life is so dynamic. We get old, we get sick, we gain weight, we get busy…and these changes can affect our emotional needs and our ability to readily meet those needs. So someone who might be “wired” to be poly might stick to a mono life because it simplifies things greatly.
I think so, yes. If you feel okay having sexual/romantic relationships with other people, but not okay with your partner(s) having sexual/romantic relationships with other people, OR if you’re okay with your partner(s) having sexual/romantic relationships with other people but you don’t have them yourself (yes, it happens) and those divisions fall on gender lines, then you’re polygynous or polyandrist but not polyamorous in my book. Of course, mine isn’t the only book, and there are certainly people in the polyamory community who have what I would consider polygynous or polyandrous relationships.
I’m not sure about “fundamentally prefer to be in,” though. That’s where I get fuzzy. Would I fundamentally prefer to be in a poly relationship? Well, no. I would fundamentally prefer to be in a relationship with my husband. If he wanted poly, that would be fine with me, but he doesn’t, and that’s fine with me, too. The person to me is more important than the relationship type. But I think the same thing is true of bisexuals. They may enjoy relationships with both men and women, but that doesn’t mean they have to have one of each. It means that if the person is right, they can be with either, and be happy in it.
So maybe I’m, like, poly-lite. A 3 on the Poly-Kinsey Scale that I just made up. I could go either way. A 1 would be a complete lifelong monogamist (very rare), a 2 a serial monogamist (most common), a 4 has mostly poly relationships with the occasional dabbling in monogamy, and a 5 is AHunter3, who will not ever give or accept promises of exclusivity.
Depends on who you ask. I’ve never figured out how to have purely recreational sex. I’m not into swinging or sex with strangers. So yes, for me, poly is about having relationships, not just sex. But some of those relationships were ongoing and some were short, and some were intermittent (like at a particular annual festival where I’d see a lover every year, but we wouldn’t really keep in close contact the rest of the year). Most were friends who I found an unexpected connection with, pursued it, and then that fizzled and we went back to being friends. The relationships often lasted longer than the sex.
Other people include swinging in with polyamory, but I don’t. For me, that misses the important suffix -amory. Polyamory isn’t about “many-sex partners” it’s about “many-loves.” You don’t even have to be in an “open” relationship to be polyamorous - many poly people are in closed triads or quads (or more)…many loves, but not open to new applicants.
Sure. But I think someone who continued to find it difficult to perform that multitasking well after the initial period of adjustment we all seem to go through…well, maybe just might not be poly. That’s okay. We’re not better or more evolved, just different. You don’t have to be in the club to be cool.
Or that, too.
Here’s a litmus test: are you made happy by the thought of your partner with another person? Not just can you tolerate it, but does it give you *pleasure *to know that they’re giving and receiving love with someone else? If yes, you may be poly. If not, tread carefully. Make sure you’re being honest with everyone, starting with yourself.
But it doesn’t test it very well. I might want to eat a tray of donuts and not suffer any consequences for it. But I abstain from doing so because, intellectually, I know there will be consequences to giving into this temptation that I’d rather not deal with. (Like feeling sick.)
If my SO were fine with me having sex with others, I might want to have sex with others but still choose not to do so. Because my actions could carry consequences that I rather not deal with. (Like falling in love with someone else and committing emotional infidelity.)
Bolding mine. The question I asked was about what the man in question would want not about what they would do. See:
Again, bolding not in original.
Anyway, note that since I posed the question, it has become clear that it was posed under a misapprehension of the meaning of the claim that poly is like an orientation, so it’s a moot point.
I don’t seem to have the jealousy gene. I remember having to figure out what people meant by it, never having experienced it myself. Perhaps I’ve never been in the situation, though. The closest was a woman I was infatuated with who ended up moving in with a guy in an apartment right next to mine. We’d all hang out together and play bridge, and I really liked the guy. After a year or three my infatuation faded, and I had a blast at their wedding.
For folks who are responding to the betrayal of trust and breaking of agreements, I understand that completely. But I suspect Frylock is more interested in the emotional jealousy aspect. Of course, the two get closely intertwined in some cases, but not in others.
No, just very common, which is not the same thing as universal. It’s a pretty common mistake to confuse the two, but a mistake nonetheless.
I suspect I’m polyamorous by nature, but it wasn’t a sacrifice to marry my fiercely monogamous wife. 28 years later and I’m still committed.
Speaking of commitment, who cares whether a commitment was made in a moment (or year) of heightened emotional state? A commitment is a commitment. What I really wouldn’t want is to live a life without having the power of making a commitment and sticking by it. I gladly gave up chasing a bunch of momentary passing desires to have the benefit of sharing my whole life with the one I love, as long as we both shall live.
Absolutely correct, but only if the relationship is exclusive. Cheating has only one definition: breaking agreements (whether explicit or implicit, but be careful that your implicit matches your SO’s!) If stepping out is allowed, then it’s by definition not cheating. If looking with lust isn’t allowed, then that’s cheating.
I don’t understand why you think that lack of jealousy equals devoid of empathy. Or are you just making a comparison, that anyone without the emotion of jealousy is just as socially impaired as a person without empathy?
If so, we’ll just have to disagree about that. IMHO, empathy (or at least, an intellectual equivalent even if it’s not emotional) is extremely important. I don’t see jealousy serving a similarly positive social function. I suspect jealousy is an emotion crafted by evolution to improve the chances of passing on ones genes.
I’d say “So, WHO ARE YOU and what have you done with my wife?” (Actually, that’s my response to the first hypothetical, too. I’d wonder whether I’d wandered into a Twilight Zone episode, since that’s so contrary to her nature.)
I can’t say I blame you, but wow, that’s sad. I’d hate to share the rest of my life with someone who was lying to me about something that’s obviously very important to her.
I think that’s how the term is most commonly used, but some also use it referring to casual sex.
Also, I think that the term usually implies mutuality. Someone who wants to play the field while demanding their partner be faithful is really just a self-centered pig. Of course, this kind of pigginess is very common, but I don’t think anyone proudly wears a label for it. (I used to think that the type of men were crazy, who regularly cheated but then went ballistic on finding out that their SO cheated. Then I learned the evolutionary argument for it, and I can see how it would be typical, though still deplorable.)