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Polyamory doesn't liberate; monogamy doesn't protect

carsonogenic.substack.com

11–20 of 296 posts

Re: Polyamory doesn't liberate; monogamy doesn't protect

#11
post #7

I've observed a number of poly relationships from the outside, as a friend of one or more of the participants. I've also been in a monogamous relationship for >20yr and I've lived on both coasts of the US in that time. Generalizing wildly, "going poly" seems to be driven by one partner's selfishness and the other partner's desire to please. It has resulted in breakup of the original dyad in 100% of cases.

Indeed a wild generalization, but I can agree from many anecdotes that monogamous couples "going poly" is super super hard - much easier to start a relationship in a poly dynamic than attempt to transform one.

Re: Polyamory doesn't liberate; monogamy doesn't protect

#12
post #3

21% of Americans have experimented with consensual non-monogamy at some point in their lives, far more than two decades ago Not only do I not believe that statistic, but the footnote citation seems to be broken. I've never seen a poly relationship make it past 10 years and I've never seen a poly relationship without significant issues that you wouldn't see in a monogamous relationship. Furthermore, there simply isn't…

I believe 21% of americans have at least tried to hook in a third for a threesome fling successfully or nonsuccessfully

Re: Polyamory doesn't liberate; monogamy doesn't protect

#13
There is one issue that I have with this article and most discussions around polyamory. That is mixing in open relationships and poly. There is a massive difference between, you can do whatever sexually you want and dating other people. There is an emotional difference.

Myself, I am in an open relationship but I know that what I consider poly is a line I do not wish to cross. I know that just it is not for me. I don't consider myself poly. (To be very clear, this is not a judgement on being poly. I have several poly friends. I just don't know why we group all of them together)

Mixing these has made having discussions with some people more difficult. So I am not really sure why we are grouping all... non traditional relationship structures into poly.

That all aside. I find whenever this topic comes up to be quite interesting. I don't live in SF but I am a gay man. I know very few gay couples that are not at least "door ajar" as I have heard a few explain it. I have had a few people ask me why I am open, and honestly I don't like that question. To me the better question is, "why not?". And you may have a valid reason, maybe you are a very jealous person, maybe you just don't want too and thats perfectly valid.

But to me this boils down the problem isn't monogamy, being open, poly, or however you want to define your relationship (or lack of one). The problem is the assumption of monogamy. Not ever having that discussion, and honestly having the discussion without jumping to doing something because you think it's the way you are supposed too.

I do find some of the numbers presented here to be interesting, particularly the divide between men and woman. But I honestly can't really speak on that since I don't really have much exposure to this world outside of the LGBT world.

Re: Polyamory doesn't liberate; monogamy doesn't protect

#14
post #3

21% of Americans have experimented with consensual non-monogamy at some point in their lives, far more than two decades ago Not only do I not believe that statistic, but the footnote citation seems to be broken. I've never seen a poly relationship make it past 10 years and I've never seen a poly relationship without significant issues that you wouldn't see in a monogamous relationship. Furthermore, there simply isn't…

I think you're making the claim much bigger than it is. The narrow interpretation of "consensual non-monogamy" does not imply a relationship. Having a threesome with your partner and your best friend already qualifies. Making out with a non-partner while your partner watches might already qualify, depending on how the question is understood.

Re: Polyamory doesn't liberate; monogamy doesn't protect

#15
I don’t think the author is saying this is their opinion but this sentence stood out to me:

Monogamy is coercive.

For a lifestyle that tries to sound “open,” this is an incredibly judgemental view to take on the many people who don’t live your lifestyle.

Some of this attitude reminds me of hearing “nobody cares if you’re not tattooed” in my tooth, from tattooed people. Right before insisting I should get a tattoo to be like them.

To be clear, I don’t care what 2, 3 or 30 consenting adults do in their personal lives. I wonder if the negative view of monogamy is just the immaturity of youth and those people have since grown out of that position?

Re: Polyamory doesn't liberate; monogamy doesn't protect

#16

Pretty good article. I think everyone could do with a little less pathologization of a lot of human behaviour. My wife has suggested in the past that we have another wife so that we can have more children[0]. I'm amenable to the idea but the logistics of this seem hard to me: our finances are fused, our desires are mostly unified, and it took me many years to find someone with whom this was easy to do. A two-party ma…

> 0: It's not that we're old but that we will be old by the time we're done.

Raising children when you're old is so much harder, and you'll be mega-old when they're 20. I really don't see the point?

Re: Polyamory doesn't liberate; monogamy doesn't protect

#18
I am someone who experienced the "longterm partner decided she wanted to be poly" heartbreak. When she told me, I asked her why she would choose to stay with me rather than just be single and date as many men as she wanted. She told me something along the lines of "I love you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, but I don't feel like one person is enough for all the love I have". I wasn't terribly happy with that response, and she broke up with me a week later (while a man who she wanted to be poly with was staying with her). She left me because she wanted to change the parameters of the relationship and I didn't

Afterwards, oddly enough, I wound up in a friendship for a while with a different woman who had just broken up with her fiance for almost the same reason. In her case she had always been open about wanting to be Poly, her fiance had been okay with it, and I guess changed his mind the closer they got towards marriage. She left him because he wanted to change the parameters of the relationship and she didn't.

I wound up talking to the second woman a lot about polyamory and my unhappiness with how my ex had treated me. One night we met for coffee and she basically spent the whole time trashing me. She called me a loser for still being upset about my ex, she told me I was a miserable sad sack of a person and I needed to get over it, etc. Once she was done with that, she proceeded to tell me (in unwelcome and unwanted detail) about a lot of the latest sex parties she had been attending and how excited it made her to be living her fantasies. Then she casually asked if I wanted to go back to her place and screw (which was not our relationship up to that point). I declined, told her I didn't want anything to do with her anymore and left. She spent a couple of weeks asking me what she had done wrong. I mostly ignored her but even when I tried to explain she just argued with me, then eventually she cut me off with a long tirade where she acted like it was her choice not to have anything to do with me anymore, not mine

I'm aware that n=2 is not statistically significant, but those two encounters happening within the span of a few months kind of convinced me that people who are Poly are self-centered, emotionally stunted, and absolutely not suitable for any kind of long term relationship

Yeah a lot of monogamous relationships end these days too, but if this is representative of even a small fraction of poly people, I wonder if you can even call poly a relationship at all, really

Re: Polyamory doesn't liberate; monogamy doesn't protect

#19
post #3

21% of Americans have experimented with consensual non-monogamy at some point in their lives, far more than two decades ago Not only do I not believe that statistic, but the footnote citation seems to be broken. I've never seen a poly relationship make it past 10 years and I've never seen a poly relationship without significant issues that you wouldn't see in a monogamous relationship. Furthermore, there simply isn't…

After some sleuthing I believe the original source for that statistic is [1]. But that’s a study of single adults which is a wildly different population than adults as a whole.

[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2016.1...

Re: Polyamory doesn't liberate; monogamy doesn't protect

#20
post #3

21% of Americans have experimented with consensual non-monogamy at some point in their lives, far more than two decades ago Not only do I not believe that statistic, but the footnote citation seems to be broken. I've never seen a poly relationship make it past 10 years and I've never seen a poly relationship without significant issues that you wouldn't see in a monogamous relationship. Furthermore, there simply isn't…

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