101–110 of 296 posts
I think people who like ideas like polyamory have misconstrued notions about what monogamy is, which is a general cultural problem in western societies these days. I don't own my partner and she doesn't own me. I give myself freely to her and she does the same. It's not about expectation, but commitment. I promise her she's the only one for me, despite my very human desires, and she promises me the same thing. This i…
It's wild that we can't differentiate lust and love, committed relationship and meaningless sex. That's the main thing I get from the confusion in the article and the confusion in the comments here about what even defines polyamory. It sounds to me like who you have sex with is the main and only thing that defines a relationship? Can people that wait to have sex until marriage ever be considered polyamorous while unm…
I’m of the opinion that arguing for the existence of such thing is naive and idiotic.
I think people who like ideas like polyamory have misconstrued notions about what monogamy is, which is a general cultural problem in western societies these days. I don't own my partner and she doesn't own me. I give myself freely to her and she does the same. It's not about expectation, but commitment. I promise her she's the only one for me, despite my very human desires, and she promises me the same thing. This i…
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I have a strong feeling that like many new things, poliamory is currently mostly/only getting get “positive marketing” narrative. Basically: what’s being advertised is mostly the “happy path”. Everything goes well until it doesn’t, what then? Relationships are hard. There are a number of ways things get messy (and/or toxic) with two individuals, somehow things should improve with more than two persons ?
1. Being a very particular sort of person (I'm going to guess specifically Bay Area tech or tech-adjacent rationalist), the author is surprised to find that his personal experience of poly dating is different to what the statistics say. Is it the author's social group? His preferences? A limitation of his context? Nope, it's "statistics, culture, and biology". I find this to be generally true of rationalist writing: why reflect when you can generalise?
2. "most things conceptualized as identity are silly" is a pretty significant axiom to assert halfway down a section on definitions, immediately underneath the Classical Greek Forms of Love infographic. The article's first conclusion is just this same premise restated, leaving me suspicious of whatever reasoning occured in between.
3. It's hard to even find the author's actual perspective through all the equivocation. Monogamy and polyamory are both deluded in their own ways, they both say they're natural, but really the most natural thing is... incel-tier sexual economics? And maybe that's bad, or maybe not, so you should do what feels right for you. But also it's really about your attachment wounds, so maybe just do whatever's easiest. Or maybe just pick one and stick with it. But you can (and probably will) change your mind. In conclusion, the important thing is to be thoughtful and considered in our choices and the effect they have on society.
As far as I can tell, the actual truth of this piece is that the author is in a community where polyamory is the norm. He really tried to make it work for him but it didn't. He's not poly anymore and kinda thinks the whole thing is busted, but doesn't want to alienate his community. So he's just wafting a general sense of intellectualised discontent into the air and hoping for the best. I mean, fine, but I don't think we needed to get to Level Seven of The Spiral to do it.
The word swinger wasn't mentioned once. Probably because the swingers are just quietly enjoying their lives under the radar.
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 wit…
the more I glimpse American culture, the happier I am that I was not born there. >I wasn't terribly happy with that response, and she broke up with me a week later my brother in Christ, you should've broken up with her on the spot.
It's wild that we can't differentiate lust and love, committed relationship and meaningless sex. That's the main thing I get from the confusion in the article and the confusion in the comments here about what even defines polyamory. It sounds to me like who you have sex with is the main and only thing that defines a relationship? Can people that wait to have sex until marriage ever be considered polyamorous while unm…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Ezekiel 23:20
Fantastic article, but as a monogamous married father of 4, I think the author misses the fundamental point of all relationships... And the point of life itself: Reproduction. The primary drive of every living creature from whales to amoeba is to procreate. Having children is WHY we have a sex drive and an urge to have relationships in the first place. Tons of studies show children require stability in the relationsh…