211–220 of 296 posts
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The door is not wide open to potential partners, but it’s also not closed —> door ajar.
Thanks for the explanation, it helped, but I still have no clue where does the "ajar" thing come from, letter for letter.
It's a bit of a contrived term and there's not much to read into it. It's like how "hitting a home run" is slang for getting laid, and rounding the bases was an associated metaphor that evolved from it; they only make sense by the association with the original metaphor.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the explanation, it helped, but I still have no clue where does the "ajar" thing come from, letter for letter.
Ajar, to mean, slightly open. So, not a open door (anyone), not a revolving door (everyone), and not a closed door (no one). It's a bit of a contrived term and there's not much to read into it. It's like how "hitting a home run" is slang for getting laid, and rounding the bases was an associated metaphor that evolved from it; they only make sense by the association with the original metaphor.
Thank you!
However, I dove into it, read a lot of books, and decided to give it a try and was dating 3 women at once, while trying to also meet a huge number of other major life responsibilities, and the scheduling alone was a living nightmare. Having a deep and meaningful relationship with one person already takes the maximum amount of my time that I could possibly allocate to romance. Three time constrained and shallow relationships are maybe 1/100th as satisfying as one good one to me - I actually felt more lonely when I was dating 3 women, even though one was only dating me.
I would go on a trip or adventure, and have to keep 3 women updated on my well being and whereabouts. I would accidentally mix up my schedule, and have to rearrange 3 other peoples schedules to fix it- including managing a lot of resulting anger and jealousy. My snarky opinion is that polyamory is primarily for people that appreciate extra stress, busyness, logistics, scheduling, and conflict. I also feel it inevitably hurts people when you are more excited about a new partner than them, and it fundamentally requires a low level of empathy - and love - for your partners to be willing to hurt them in that way.
I think people should be free to do whatever they want, but I am skeptical that polyamory is anything but awful for people that have regular levels of human empathy, or have obligations like a career or children. I read almost every book I could on polyamory, and I felt the authors were almost universally sociopaths- and I could tell they were deeply harming other people in their own stories, and didn't even realize or care. For example, the book "The Ethical Slut" the author literally describes raping people, and is completely oblivious, and thinks they are "helping open them to new experiences."
I really hate "traditional values" on account of their peddlers and the history books full of horrors they have enabled but when literally every successful society and major religion has some semblance of a 1:1 rule even if the exceptions and edge case handling are different you kinda gotta take notice.
More of a one-to-many rule. Only one side is expected to be fully monogamous.
It's long been socially acceptable for men to have mistresses or even multiple separate families, so long as they had the resources to take care of them all. And the social faux pas of merely sleeping with other women is very recent.
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'…
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…
For our ancestors, not being choosy about sex had very serious consequences. (It still might.) It’s “wild” to you that 3 million years of evolution is working as intended?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ownership implies control without the consent of whomever is being controlled. Where you are from sounds horrific. Hopefully it changes for the better soon.
Yeah, it’s actually your perspective that’s the recent innovation. Most of history is closer to what GP described.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Monogamy is one such structure. It seems very tied to the modern idea of the "nuclear family." There are others. Having an extended family all living together is another. Tribes where children are raised communally is another.
Communal living is highly overrated. If you're a young and capable person you'll be shouldered with responsibility and live under the thumb of your elders. Not a dignified existence. I barely tolerate my own parents, I will not tolerate my extended family demanding things from me.