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Polyamory doesn't liberate; monogamy doesn't protect

carsonogenic.substack.com

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

#231

Post by zeroCalories »

asdasdsddd wrote: post #220
zeroCalories wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's highly underrated by young people who don't like the idea of living with their parents. Ultimately, the cost of this is shouldered by day care fees, parental leave, social security checks we cut to old people, and less efficient living spaces; problems which were ok in an era of gdp and population growth, but in the era of stagnation? We'll see.

Those are all true and fair points, but they illustrate that most people value freedom and autonomy at a very high dollar amount.

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

#233

Post by stkdump »

While reading the definitions I was imagining this flat male comic with gender jokes "monosaturated, am I right?" When I came to the quotes I was kind of relieved to see women representing this experience.

I think evolutionary speaking, it is neither that humans are by nature strictly monogamous nor polyamorous. I think what people are confused about is that evolution often benefits from conflicts of interest between individuals. It also can both benefit from societal norms and from deviations from them. It can benefit from honesty and from deception. It can benefit from people doing their best to figure out and live by what their personal nature is and by people trying to overcome their nature to become something they think is better than that.

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

#234

Post by lazide »

znpy wrote: post #193
big-green-man wrote: post #72

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 not about expectation, but commitment. I think this is the main point. People nowadays don't want commitment, and when they have it they don't respect it anyway. I think this attitude will sooner or later change back, when the bill will come due. Life is full of challenges and hardships, and having somebody you committed to and who's committed does help deal with stuff. I think the raise in popularity of polya…

Everyone likes to party, no one likes to clean up afterwards.

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

#235

Post by lazide »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #42
xkcd-sucks wrote: post #4

An underappreciated feature of nonmonogamy is that it makes ethical conflicts of interest a bit more challenging. This article doesn't discuss that explicitly, but does hint at it in some of the quotes

How so?

It’s hard enough when there are clear roles/responsibilities/expectations. Divorces (which assume monogamy) are notorious for getting incredibly ugly.

Look at how few people can even agree what open/enm/poly even means in this discussion.

Then add more parties with more emotions and more abilities to act out…. More degrees of freedom means harder to predict.

And then also add in that Society is going to have an even harder time holding anyone accountable for anything in these kinds of situations - he said/she said is hard enough, what about when it’s he said/she said/he said/she said/they said?

Just give up and throw everyone in jail? Or no one?

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

#236

Post by kilpikaarna »

daymanstep wrote: post #222
coldtea wrote: post #144

Polyamory is a sign of comodification/casualness about relationships and sex, in an increasingly sexless and loveless period. Sexless and loveless are both well documented in research and polls. People fucking less than past decades, fewer being in relationships than than past decades, and more reporting being alone and lonely than past decades.

It is a sign of increasing inequality / hypergamy as the most desirable 1% of men have multiple partners while the rest have none. In other words human society is reverting to the way it always has been since the dawn of the agricultural age 12,000 years ago. There was never any reason to believe that the monogamous system of the 1950s West was a permanent stable arrangement and indeed we are seeing its death in our…

Ehh, maybe it's just how the poly scene is shaped around here, but in my experience the men are usually very far from any real or imagined "most desirable 1%". For poly women the gamut is wider, but not that much. Heavy tendency towards the ASD spectrum in both.

Your "1%" will just go to clubs or on Tinder and hook up with other conventionally attractive people, without having to deal with some weirdo subculture.

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

#237

Post by bhouston »

Do polyamorous people have more or less children compared to non-polyamorous people? This is a way to judge the viability of this way of life long term rather than just as a fad. For it to be sustainable it needs to be both more than the groups around it and above replacement. If it is neither it is a fad.

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

#238

Post by filoeleven »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #226
wakawaka28 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some obvious risks are: higher chances of STDs, higher chances of strangers causing trouble for you in your home, more difficulties having kids (from paternity issues to differences in values like poly people don't often want kids), and a higher risk of losing your partner. You would probably be better off paying for a prostitute than trying to make polyamory work with all its inherent drama and complications. You st…

STDs aren't a mystery, we know how to avoid them. I actually invited more strangers into my home back when I was monogamous, honestly, but I'm not sure what that has to do with polyamory. Monogamous people lose their partners all the time, have you seen the divorce rates? None of what you are suggesting matches my experience.

Not to mention that safer sex practices are much more normalized in ENM circles. Getting tested before engaging with someone new (or on the reg if new partners are a more frequent thing), using protection, being open with partners about what you're up to are all great for preventing exposure to STDs.

Being monogamous with a cheating partner is...not so great at it. Their tolerance for risky behavior is obviously high, and they're already showing a lack of care for any consequences by stepping out. Yes, I know, "my partner would never be unfaithful," and I hope that's the case for everyone reading this. But it's a common enough occurrence that we all know someone who it's happened to.

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

#239

Post by imetatroll »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #164
nradov wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those tribes have ever managed to accomplish much. I doubt that's a coincidence.

I think we are dealing with survivorship bias more so than anything else. We can look back and speculate about society, how it functioned and all that, but every time we do we are limited in knowledge and by our own biases. I chose to reply as I did because of the whole “I doubt it’s a coincidence”.

So which country is it that fits your model and you can point to as an example?

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

#240

Post by nprateem »

jpm_sd wrote: 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.

On dating sites 100% of the girls I've seen with poly/open relationship on their profiles are butt ugly.

Guys have been banging other girls on the side since forever, but now apparently a new word is needed and everyone needs to know about it. Just go and bang someone else and don't go on about it to your actual gf ffs.

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