Heina Dadabhoy has written a good article about the Preachy Polyamorist trope: Why Are Those Polyamorists So Damn Preachy?, which is enhanced by some of their earlier observations in When the Monogamous Bait Poly Smugness. I recommend reading both. I pretty much agree. And their latest has inspired me to write my own thoughts down, which expand on theirs, but also at points diverge from theirs.
Before I proceed, though, a trigger warning: I’m going to get all preachy about polyamory. In fact, I’m going to be a counter-example to Dadabhoy’s otherwise valid generalization, and become one of those “rather smug-seeming polyamorous people” who might leave you “feeling judged.” If you want to stop your ears against that, depart now. You were warned.
I would also suggest, that you first read my response to Christians against polyamory, “Christians Freaking Out Over Freedom: Polyamory Edition,” if you haven’t already. Because it summarizes what poly is and many of my views on why it should be the prevalent norm and won’t destroy the world.
The One Caveat
In their earlier article, Dadabhoy caveats that “much is made of the smug polyamorists who declare themselves to be more skilled at communicating, better at relationships, and overall more evolved than their monogamous counterparts,” and they agree with that criticism at least, since poly folk can suck at relationships, too, and “being poly is no guarantee against any kind of hurt or pain.”
I agree poly folk can suck, and poly is no guarantee. But I disagree if we turn this into a generalization. Because I do in fact find monogamy more commonly harmful to relationships than polyamory. For example, I see polyamory most commonly improving communication and honesty between partners (rarely the reverse; though I do say rarely, not never), while I see monogamy most commonly impels things the other way (rarely the reverse; and likewise).
For instance.
To defend the monogamy narrative and protect their partner’s bubble of insecurities and possessiveness, one can rarely be fully honest. Because one is almost always punished by their partner for telling the truth about their sexual and romantic desires—even in general, but especially toward other people. This inevitably “trains” you to just shut up and keep it to yourself. I have seen this dynamic over and over and over and over again. So much so, that it appears a common one in monogamous relationships. Not so in poly ones.
There is not one good thing about this. Yet how can one break free of that awful effect of the monogamy dynamic if your partner can’t get over their hostility to knowing you love or want to have sex with other people? And not just that you do, but also why, and how—and all the things that deeply reflect who you really are, and what you really think and feel and wish for. Most typically, they just don’t. Nor do you. Because why do what you are always punished for? Don’t rock the boat. Maintain the easy ruts to roll in. And in result the two of you barely know the real you or them, and almost certainly never will.
Yet if they can get over their hostility—and thus escape their insecurities, and abandon their possessiveness, and love rather than fear your autonomy—then they wouldn’t have much reason left to remain monogamous. And indeed, that is a common narrative I have observed: many a monogamous couple I know went through that route…and ended up poly. Rarely do you find monogamous couples who have gotten over their fears and insecurities and can honestly talk and know about all that (and I mean all of it) not just without punishment, but with respect and admiration. Because once they get there, they start to ask why they are even bothering being monogamous at all. And soon they stop. Hello polyamory.
This is just one example, mind you. I have been observing a number of respects in which I don’t think monogamy is healthy to a relationship. Even as a historian I well know now it’s an old sexist institution that was invented by men to subjugate women (and then religion got ahold of it to oppress everyone), and now that its original function is no longer cool, in just the last half century or so people have been trying to reappropriate it and figure out how to use it in some sort of egalitarian way, but more and more (with but few exceptions) this looks like forcing a square peg to fit in a round hole.
As statistics for infidelity show, people for whom monogamy actually works are not as abundant as usually assumed. And those numbers are certainly a gross undercount, since most people lack the opportunities or are adequately cowed by sexual policing as not to cheat, even though they would if they had permission and opportunity. And I suspect (though without adequate studies being done I can’t yet know) the people for whom monogamy can legitimately be said to be a good model for them are predominantly asexual or low libido or something equivalent, provided they bond with same.
Because we first have to exclude people who are still burdened with insecurities that they should be working to escape, or a possessiveness over people that they shouldn’t cultivate. Because those are not good or desirable states to be in regardless of whether you would be monogamous or not. If monogamy, for example, is a means by which you seek financial security, or a low cost homemaking service, at the expense of someone else’s autonomy, that is not admirable. That is dysfunctional. You should be looking for a more ethical way to get your material needs met. (Insofar as you are allowed to. I am well aware there are oppressive cultures and subcultures that don’t even give you the option. But that culture is then a problem, not a model for emulation.)
A Dangerous Thought Experiment
So though polyamory is not a panacea and does not fix everything nor guarantee anything, I don’t think it’s on a par with monogamy either. Monogamy doesn’t work more often than most people are willing to admit. It probably should not even be the norm, but simply one minority option among many. And evidence for this is a simple thought experiment that I suspect most monogamists would be terrified to enact for real:
Imagine the entire world removed all barriers to polyamory. No cultural shaming or punishing or wheedling will ensue. No guilt has been imbued in anyone. Imagine then everyone telling their monogamous partners (and honestly meaning what they say) that they will neither punish them nor abandon them if they explore other relationships on the side, that they will still love them and respect and admire them and be there for them—as long as, let’s say, their partner gives them only the majority of them and their time and resources. If this happened, how many people do you think would abandon monogamy? Answer honestly.
You may start to realize how much monogamy is reinforced by cultural policing and other suspect socio-psychological reinforcement mechanisms. It starts to look more like sexism, homophobia, or racism: everyone thinks its normal and natural and the best and proper way for things to be; until they start to realize it’s not. If you are trapped on the wrong side of that belief divide, how will you know that you are? Countless millions of sexists, homophobes, and racists don’t know they are. They think they are right, and everyone else is wrong. How do you know monogamy isn’t just one more obsolete way of thinking just as unjustified as those other Western traditions? How do you know your certainty that it is right for you, is not the same thing as the certainty of sexists and homophobes and racists that their sexism or homophobia or racism is right?
The way monogamy so pervasively fails, and encourages dysfunction, maybe should be a clue. If you look at the infidelity rate alone, you might want to ask if perhaps monogamy is causing a considerable disproportion of unhappiness. It seems that more and more people are embracing polyamory and happier at it. Not immune to sadness or breakups or bad outcomes. But differentially happier all the same, compared to their former or prospective monogamous selves (after all, were that not the case, poly would not be a thing, nor growing).
Inductive logic would suggest, therefore, that far more people would likewise improve their lives, if only they (a) knew this was even an option and (b) were allowed to pursue it (rather than punished even for considering it, by their culture, family, and peers). The fact of the matter is, millions don’t know it’s an option, and millions aren’t encouraged to explore it, but their autonomy is oppressed instead, actively and passively. Why should anyone consider that a good thing? It looks like a fucked up thing to me.
And it is for this reason that I think poly activism is a positive human good. Not because everyone should be poly. But because a whole lot more people probably should. And the world should fully embrace them with the same respect, and not be making their lives harder.
One pro-poly article Dadabhoy links to (somewhat as disapprovingly on this one point as I do, so perhaps Dadabhoy would at least somewhat agree with me?) concludes:
[I]t’s tiresome for anyone to make their sexuality the sum of their identity, and to foist constant conversations about those sexual and romantic inclinations on everyone else. I hope you and your partner are blissful with your non-monogamy, and that you enjoy that heady joy for all it’s worth. But don’t turn into the sex equivalent of veganism and proselytize about your superior lifestyle at every opportunity. It’s fine for other people to be happily monogamous, just as it’s fine for you not to be. [From: “How To Make Your Relationship Non-Monogamous“]
I can only agree insofar as yes, hyperbolically, doing that all the time would be annoying and counter-productive. So would constantly always talking about feminism or the evils of religion. But does that mean we shouldn’t be talking about feminism a lot? No. Or the evils of religion? No. Does it mean when people get annoyed by how much they have to hear about feminism or the evils of religion (or any other effort to call attention to injustice and harm so as to combat it), we should acquiesce and stop talking about it? No. We don’t have to talk about it all the time. We don’t have to dial it up too far. We don’t have to assume we know what’s best for every specific individual. But we don’t shut up about it either.
And here is where I get to an expansion of Dadhabhoy’s point more than a divergence from it…
This Is Just Like Theists Saying Atheists Are Too Preachy
The analogy works all the way down the line. In accord with Dadabhoy’s point that monogamists complain about polyamorist preachiness far too much to have a legitimate gripe, there are at least six respects in particular where such complainers are in the wrong, and they are the same six respects theists are in the wrong when complaining about atheist preachiness…
- 1. Atheists will be called “too preachy” merely for mentioning that they exist.
Remember when atheist groups tested the claim that atheist organization billboards should not be allowed anywhere because they are “too offensive” in their rhetoric, and discovered that, nope, it was the mere mention that atheists exist that was offensive? To the point that it was suggested we fund a billboard that said “Puppies Are Cute,” showed a bunch of puppies, and merely had the logo and URL for American Atheists in small print on it? Yep. That.
“Can’t you just be atheists in private? Do you have to advertise?”
This is not a legitimate complaint. If our mere existence threatens you, you have the problem. That’s something you need to sort out. You don’t get to police our existence and our basic right to the freedom of speech and assembly just because it reminds you of something uncomfortable. How do we find like minded people or make more atheists, if we don’t get to even tell anyone that it’s an option, and that they aren’t alone? Objecting to just saying we exist is policing thought and oppressing community.
Monogamists sometimes behave a bit like theists in this respect: They are threatened by the mere fact that we exist, and in result, want us to stop mentioning that we exist. Sorry, no. If this is how you feel, you need to spend a goodly measure of self-examination to figure out why the mere fact that we exist bothers you. Just saying we exist is not being “too preachy.” It’s not even being preachy. Just as it isn’t for atheists.
- 2. Atheists will be called “too preachy” when a theist gets all preachy about god or atheism to someone they know is an atheist, and all the atheist does is respond.
When theists knowingly say ignorant and false things to an atheist about atheism or theology or the Bible, basic fairness entails the atheist gets to respond, by correcting their facts and ignorance and explaining the real reasons they are an atheist, and what that really means for their values and how they live their life. Because the theist started it. They don’t get to shut down fair play just because having their ignorance or errors exposed is embarrassing.
If you don’t want to be embarrassed by your ignorance or fallacious reasoning, learn not to be ignorant or fallacious, or stop preaching about what you don’t know. Don’t blame someone you provoked for responding to your provocation. The undesired outcome of fair play in that scenario is your fault, not theirs.
Monogamists sometimes behave a bit like theists in this respect: They will get all preachy about monogamy or non-monogamy, right to a polyamorist, obliging the polyamorist to correct their fallacious reasoning and ignorance, same as an atheist being challenged by a theist. And just like the atheist in the same scenario, you don’t get to call us too preachy, when you were the one preaching—to us—and we correct you.
If you bring up the subject, the subject gets discussed.
- 3. Atheists will be called “too preachy” when they write a book or an article, or a rant on an atheist forum, and the theist goes out of their way to read it.
This is the most preposterous case. If you don’t want to hear what atheists have to say, don’t enter their spaces and read their books, articles, and rants. Leave the audience of their talk or panel and go chill elsewhere. We aren’t knocking on your door or forcing this stuff on you. You can just not go there, and not read it, or not listen to it. Meanwhile, atheists get to write and speak about their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and values. Same as theists.
Monogamists sometimes behave a bit like theists in this respect: They go find a polyamorist article or book or comment or rant, and then accuse them of being too preachy…merely for having written or spoken about their own lives and discoveries and values, in their own space, or their own book, or their own designated talk or panel. Sorry, no. You can just not go there, and not read it. You can leave the audience of their talk or panel and go chill elsewhere. Polyamorists get to write and speak about their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and values. Same as monogamists.
- 4. Atheists will be called “too preachy” when theists stumble across their mocking, or making fun of, or expressing exasperation with theists and their awful reasoning and inability to get basic facts right.
This is an extension of the former. If you don’t want to listen to our humor or venting, don’t expose yourself to it.
But there is a bigger issue here: Theists do indeed defend their beliefs with awful logic and dubious facts. And their beliefs do in fact cause them to do stupid or harmful things in the world. Which gets exasperating for the rest of us. For our own sanity, we have to vent about this. Hence making fun of it, and discovering lots of people get the joke and why it’s funny, is how we stay sane, and keep up morale, and grow community…and socially shame bad thinking into its well warranted decline.
Of course the things we joke or rant about won’t be true of all theists. But they will be true of enough of them to warrant their becoming an object of satires and rants. And if you think that’s too preachy, you can either stop listening to us and avoid this stuff, or you can stop ruining the world with your horrible thinking and injuriously godly behavior. Then we won’t make fun of you anymore.
(Or we never were, if you weren’t the one doing those things. I should also add, that not all ridicule is wise or accurate or logical, and fully warrants being criticized; here, however, and below, I’m talking about humor that punches up, and lands accurately.)
The same dynamic sometimes exists between monogamy and polyamory: Many monogamists do indeed defend monogamy with awful logic and dubious facts (polyamorists can suck at facts and logic, too, but that’s another subject). And sometimes their beliefs do in fact cause them to do stupid or harmful things, to their own relationships, and others’ (I gave one example above, I give another below, and to which we can add anti-poly prejudice, and poly shaming, and policing everyone to reinforce monogamy and limit others from discovering or exploring alternatives). Which gets exasperating for the rest of us. For our own sanity, we have to vent about this. Hence making fun of it, and discovering lots of people get the joke and why it’s funny, is how we stay sane, and keep up morale, and grow community…and socially shame bad thinking into its well warranted decline.
Of course the things we joke or rant about won’t be true of all monogamists. But they will be true of enough of them to warrant their becoming an object of satires and rants. And if you think that’s too preachy, you can either stop listening to us and avoid this stuff, or you can stop ruining the world with your bad thinking and injurious behavior. Then we won’t make fun of you anymore. (Or we never were, if you weren’t the one doing those things. Likewise, again, the other caveat above.)
For example, I know too many women who can’t be out as polyamorous because they will be ruthlessly slut shamed, and no longer respected or taken seriously as bosses or leaders. Guess what? That only exists because of monogamy culture. Only in a monogamy culture could slut shaming even exist as a thing. It is, to be sure, a product of the intersection of sexism and monogamy culture. But monogamy is actually a traditionally sexist institution in the first place. It was originally invented by men to control women. In a poly culture, women having many partners would be normal. Slut shaming them wouldn’t make any sense. If you tried it, everyone would look at you strangely and say, “So?” Only in a monogamy culture does this not happen. Likewise the idea of devaluing a woman’s status as an employer or leader because she has multiple sex partners. That simply wouldn’t make any sense in a pro-poly culture. It only makes sense in a pro-monogamy culture. (Or a sexist polygamous culture, which being unequal, is not polyamorous.)
So there is a reason poly folk sometimes get sick of monogamy culture and will rant about it or make fun of it. It’s actively harming them. It’s causing behaviors in the world that hobble people’s autonomy and happiness. And if you think that’s too preachy, you might want to rethink which side of history you are on.
- 5. Atheists will be called “too preachy” when in fact they are legitimately preaching.
Finally, sometimes, you do need to preach. It’s called activism.
When you remind theists that atheists exist and are not evil and have good reasons for their beliefs and values, that is a legitimate use of something akin to culture jamming to fight against the false narratives theists are spreading, and to burst the bubble of their privilege, prejudice, and unexamined assumptions. If you wear an atheist t-shirt in public, for example, or let drop in conversation that you are an atheist—or attending an atheist event, or reading an atheist book, or any little thing—and it starts a conversation with someone, maybe a theist who has prejudices against atheists, or someone who is doubting but doesn’t know an atheist community exists, or someone not sure of the issue, and you get to tell them stuff—like what life is like as an atheist, what atheists believe and value, how they find each other, what their organizations are doing—you are helping to make the world a better place. This is what the Out Campaign is all about.
In the same exact way and for the same exact reason, as an activist working to make the world a better place, I “culture jam” monogamy by letting it be known that I’m poly.
For example, I don’t say “my girlfriend” when I’m mentioning something she did or said or wrote or helped me with, or whatever the context warranting mentioning her. I say “one of my girlfriends.” This has frequently caused a double-take. “What do you mean ‘one of my girlfriends!?'” (I literally get asked that a lot). Well, guess what? I just burst your bubble of privilege, prejudice, and unexamined assumptions. Depending on how engaged you remain in discussing the answer, I then get to explain what polyamory is, what it’s core values are, or why I think it’s a human good.
More often than not, the reaction is unexpectedly positive. “Wait. That’s actually a thing? Holy crap! Why doesn’t everybody do that!? That would solve so many problems!” is almost verbatim what one person said to one of my girlfriends when she honestly answered the “do you have a boyfriend” question at work. I’ve started many an interesting conversation myself that way, which I can visibly see changing the way the person asking me thinks about the world, and about polyamory. (They are never an instant convert, but then neither is a theist instantly made an atheist at first contact either.)
When I get a negative reaction (which actually isn’t so common), I can tell you, every time so far, it’s because of the prejudices and fears of a monogamist who is made uncomfortable merely by the fact that we exist and dare say so. Like the theist, who is horrified that atheists exist, and are allowed to announce the fact. Because if poly is allowed to be a thing, and their partners (actual or prospective) ever find out, maybe they won’t be able to keep them or possess them anymore. And then what will they do!?
I fear that this may really be the heart of what causes monogamists to get annoyed at polyamorists. And when it isn’t that, it’s, “Look, I’m trapped by monogamy. Stop reminding me of what I can’t have.” Which only concedes the frequent social injustice of monogamy.
- 6. The real issue is that monogamists, like theists, might actually be wrong.
Unlike theism, which is a belief about a fact, monogamy is a choice about how it will be most comfortable for you to live. But the same can be said of homophobia, for example. You might believe being gay is bad, and gays make you uncomfortable; and the thought that you might be gay, even more so. But you might be wrong. All your rationalizations for why it’s surely bad, might be factually bogus or logically fallacious. You might in fact feel much better without those feelings and beliefs. You might in fact feel much better admitting you are gay and embracing it. Yet you can still feel convinced in your heart that your hostile view is natural and normal and can’t possibly be wrong. That’s why we have so many closeted gays who become some of the most virulent anti-gay activists—or the most miserable people, who go around insisting they are the happiest ever.
How do you know this isn’t happening with monogamy? How do you know your assumption that monogamy is really best for you is correct, and not just something you’ve been enculturated to believe? How do you know all your reasons for thinking that way aren’t factually false or logically fallacious?
The way non-monogamy is punished in society (e.g. the slut shaming I mentioned above), the way it is policed, the way our dominant culture impresses and forces on you the belief that monogamy should be the norm, might all be fucking you up the same way a homophobic culture does to homophobes.
If you broke it all down and analyzed it, you might realize that, perhaps, your clinging to monogamy is really just a byproduct of an insecurity you should instead be working to overcome, or an envy you should be allowing yourself to more proactively satisfy, or a possessiveness you should recognize is a terrible defect of character you ought to be actively getting rid of.
“What are you really afraid of?” is the question you need to ask and take seriously. As seriously as you would wish a homophobe to. Or a sexist. Or a racist. Or anyone who has a firm belief on the wrong side of history. Because though there are surely a small number of people for whom monogamy would be ideal even in a wholly liberated culture, the laws of probability entail, that that is actually unlikely to be you.
I’ll never be polyamorous, but only because no one will sleep with me.
You might be surprised. But that’s beyond the scope of my knowledge.
The more abstract question is, would you be genuinely okay having a relationship with someone who was poly? Or would you demand exclusive rights to them? And if the latter, I suggest exploring why, and whether that’s really something to admire, or an attitude to get away from.
I like your phrase “demand exclusive rights to them.” I think part of the essence of monogamy is a “possession” mentality.
Often, yes. But not always, and not always just that. Insecurity is probably the bigger block. Envy another, lesser block. Another is, sometimes, flesh taboo (usually a sexist thing among men: the belief that a woman being sexually touched by another man supernaturally taints her flesh forever in such a way that is for some reason disgusting). There may be other factors. But along with possession mentality, if we got rid of all these, few reasons would remain to be monogamous (and some of those remaining reasons would be good reasons…they just won’t then be true for most people).
I consider myself “poly-capable”. I’ve been in an open relationship before, and would have no concerns about being in one again, but at the same time, I’m not actively seeking one out, nor do I forsee myself feeling restricted by the prospect of a monogamous relationship.
That would be in the “something equivalent” category.
But more importantly, full acceptance of a poly partner is already a rejection of monogamy culture. Monogamy then just becomes a choice, based on simply not wanting any other partners, and not on any external compulsion to conform or else.
That’s what I see the future of monogamy to be.
“Poly as hell and feeling swell” is a much better slogan than “Die monogamous scum”.
Especially when the latter is a sign worn by someone cosplaying an Imperial Death Star officer. Oh wait, that might be funny…
Man will think a woman is poisoned if she’s ever been touched? Not what playboy polls say. Guys want a woman who is experienced.
One flesh? Each possesses the other like a body possesses a kidney. Men and women crave to be “the most significant other” in their loved one’s life.
In theory people believe all kinds of bologna.
“This is just one example, mind you. I have been observing a number of respects in which I don’t think monogamy is healthy to a relationship. Even as a historian I well know now it’s an old sexist institution that was invented by men to subjugate women (and then religion got ahold of it to oppress everyone)”
LOL. Created by men to subjugate women? I thought men are animals who want to screw everything wearing a skirt? Which is it? Maybe it is women who want to subjugate their men.
Maybe something so beautiful awaits those who honor the value of total commitment to another, it surpasses all the excitement and pleasure gleaned from quickies.
Uh, you do realize monogamy used to only be enforced on women, right? The idea of expecting men to be monogamous was a product of the Christian Church. Which in history is thousands of years too late to take credit for inventing monogamy as a cultural institution. (Before that, even within Judaism, BTW, men could have multiple wives and sexual handmaidens, even sex slaves; the idea of “one man, one wife” is pagan, and that was again to control women by spreading them and their dowries around; men’s sexuality, even once married, was policed only to the extent of limiting their extracurricular sex to slaves, foreigners, and members of the lower class.)
And even since then, men get a lot of leeway. They can be serial monogamists without taint to their social standing; they can cheat and fellow men will actually help them, and not care all that much when they get caught (they can even gain social standing among fellow men), whereas the impact on a woman’s social standing when she gets caught cheating is far greater. Etc. Remnants of the old (and original) attitudes. As society has become more egalitarian, women have tried claiming the rights still socially approved for men, hence have started, for example, using divorce and social punishment to put men under the same restraints as men are placing on the women, which is fair play, but obviously dysfunctional; those restraints should never have existed in the first place, for either gender.
Meanwhile, I don’t think you know what a quickie is (monogamous people can have quickies with each other), or what polyamory is (it frequently entails long term and even lifelong relationships—not just one-night-stands, which is what I think you meant to say).
“If you broke it all down and analyzed it, you might realize that, perhaps, your clinging to monogamy is really just a byproduct of an insecurity you should instead be working to overcome, or an envy you should be allowing yourself to more proactively satisfy, or a possessiveness you should recognize is a terrible defect of character you ought to be actively getting rid of.”
– “broke it all down and analyzed it”. Replacing psychological phenomena with linguistic abstract concepts of them, and playing with abstractions instead of observing psychological events.
– “should instead be working to overcome”, “should be allowing yourself”, “should recognize”, “terrible defect of character”, “ought to be actively”. The dissection of abstract concepts dominated by morality principles that are pre-supposed. The study by observation of psychological phenomena (behaviors, effective choices of a large quantity of samples in a given population) is replaced by imposition of moral norms the source of which is not identified by simply assumed by the narrator.
This kind of linguistic “breaking down” and “analyzing” is an abstract exercise not practiced by professional experts of experimental psychology like Daniel Kahneman, for instance, who has been active in the field for more than 60 years (since around l955), connecting with more than 500 experts in experimental psychology, and who would dismiss all those literary generalizations as expressions of an implicit set of moral or ideological principles favored by novelists, playwrights, and journalistic pundits, all simplifying psychological events and injecting an artificial clarity for the benefit of masses of ordinary readers.
Huh?
This sounds like gibberish.
Can you cite these experimental psych studies you speak of?
The ones you claim contradict these observations of human behavior?
Your point is well taken. The word choices do put forth the same moral judgement generalizations that you would expect from a preacher.
Monogamy is the least complicated of sexual arrangements, and that is why it will remain popular even as more people embrace poly and other “alternative” lifestyles.
I actually don’t think a lot of non-poly people give much thought to polyamory, as most just see it as promiscuity. Most folks just don’t analyze things that much.
But this doesn’t make any more sense, either.
Ask anyone who says they are monogamous because it’s simpler:
Do you have more than one friend?
Is friendship therefore more complicated for you, so much so it would be easier to dump all your friends and just have one?
Do you have more than one parent or sibling or child?
Is family therefore more complicated for you, so much so it would be easier to renounce all your family members except one?
Is going bowling with your friends while also being married too complicated for you, so much so you should renounce all activities you spend with anyone other than your spouse, and then only ever have one friend, one family member, and one sole person you ever do anything with, and that shall be your spouse? Then life will be simple again and not so complicated?
Once you start thinking such logic like this through, it very rapidly stops making sense.
I am not opposed to non-monogamy and have told my husband that if monogamy were a show-stopper for him, I’d be open to discussing alternatives because I love him a lot more than I care about monogamy, but much like my feelings on having children, I have zero desire for non-monogamy. I hated dating back when I was single and the thought of getting back out there makes me feel exhausted and stressed out. I always joke that if the marriage doesn’t work out, I’m going spinster.
And while I’m pretty good at handling rejection of all kinds (practice makes perfect!) I still hate being the person to have to reject someone else and as sad as this sounds, when you are in an open relationships, there’s no avoiding the fact that you are turning someone down because you aren’t interested in them instead of being able to skate by on the “sorry, I’m already in a relationship” line. That’s a garbage reason not to be in an open relationship but it fills me with enough anxiety to be totally and completely worth it for me.
But I am 100% in support of non-monogamy and I would love for our laws to be broadened to allow any number of consenting adults to be considered married if that were important for them. I’m 100% for people being free to have sex with as many other consenting adults as they like without judgement. I am for legalizing sex work and making it a safe profession for those who do it and for those who use sex worker’s services. And I think normalizing open relationships, poly relationships, sex work and casual sex would make all relationships stronger. I just happen to be someone who is totally content right now in my boring ol’ monogamous marriage.
Social anxiety can be a problem in a lot of ways, not just this one. I know several people like that. So I sympathize.
I also know people in the same boat who are poly. Their spouse helps them build a polycule.
And in some cases, for those who really want to do this (i.e. they are not low libido or anything equivalent), they approach it like everything else they want to do more but for their anxiety (like get the job they want, or the promotion they want, or work better with clients and customers, or have more friends, or enjoy social events more frequently, or any number of other things), they get a good therapist to help them. But that’s only worth it if what the anxiety is keeping you from is for that reason making you unhappy. If you are content without something, then it might just not be something you have any significant desire for, and I think that’s fine (as long as, I suppose, you either lock into a relationship with someone the same, or give them their freedom and aren’t bothered by their reasonable exercise of it).
I’m in an open relationship, but at the same time I’m not actively seeking out other partners, nor do I foresee myself engaging in romantic and/or erotic activity with any specific person other than my one partner.
But for me it’s not quite about a feeling of confinement/restriction in monogamous relationships that makes me refuse them when offered even though I’m very unlikely to actually have m/any other romantic/erotic/sexual partners. In fact, in my adulthood I’ve twice gone a bit over 24 months without any sex at all, not even with myself.
So, no, the odds are pretty terrible I’m going to macking it up with some hottie-on-the-side. In fact, many people that consciously structure their relationships’s rules and expectations as monogamous are more likely to mack it up with some hottie-on-the-side than I.
But here’s the thing: those “restraints” and “confinements” of monogamy? I don’t inherently mind them, but I find the views upon which they are predicated to be intolerable. If one constructed one’s limits on romantic/erotic/sexual relationships based on body fluids and with whom you will or won’t share them, that’s fine. There’s no bad moral implication to that.
However, when the limits are constructed on those relationships based upon the types of unacknowledged insecurities or upon common tropes that are the typical foundation for such limits, one finds that falling in love or developing a crush almost always become feared things, things treated as “bad”. When “falling in love” becomes immoral, I want no part of your morality.
There are wonderful ways of constructing monogamy. One could self-consciously base such limits on insecurities, e.g.
See, now THAT’s a jealousy-based monogamy that I can support. Someone is self aware and actively trying to make sure that any partnership that develops is set up to succeed, not set up to fail. The person isn’t dictating specific behaviors, but realizes only a monogamous relationship will provide the emotional environment in which that person can feel happy and healthy. Further, the person is willing to negotiate and not dictate the natures and extents of specific boundaries.
If you do monogamy like this, yeehah! More power to you. The vast majority of monogamists, however, do not. Typically I only find in self-described polyamorists such awareness of one’s own psychological and emotional responses to the contours of a relationship structure. Doing monogamy this way does not even require that the issue be jealousy. Perhaps you’re a young lawyer at a big firm working 90 hours a week and commuting another 15. A partner might ask for monogamy out of a desire to have significantly engaged partnerships, partnerships that at least 10 or 20 hours a week of time together and actually awake.
Not believing you can work&commute for 105 hours in the 168 hours of a week and have 10 or 20 hours of waking time left for each of at least 2 partners is actually a reasonable belief. Choosing to only have relationships with deeper emotional ties developed over a significant amount of invested time is a choice that doesn’t reflect badly on that person. (Frankly, feeling jealousy shouldn’t reflect badly on the person either, but as a society we do a bad job of separating, “I feel jealousy” from “I control and hurt other people, despite lack of consent to either or both behaviors”.)
Since, sadly, this type of awareness and negotiation is rare, when we feel bad in association with some anxiety/ fear/ insecurity/ or jealousy, and when we notice that our bad feelings followed a behavior of a monogamous partner that paid too much (of the wrong/right kind of) attention or felt too much (of the wrong/right kind of) emotion to someone else OR paid too little (of the right/wrong kind of) attention or felt too little (of the wrong/right kind of) emotion to us, we in this society tend to label this attention or emotion (or attention/emotion deficit) “bad” even when the behavior would be viewed as “good” in absolutely any other context.
“Hey, I just had this teacher who was lecturing on about this incredibly interesting stuff and, oh, my, the intelligence and insight and moral awesomeness got to me and I totally got hot just listening to the lecture. I had 2 orgasms without anyone touching me, and because it was the content and the manner of its presentation that was so hot, I remember it all super-clearly and went on to ace the final. Is that cool or what?”
Yes. Yes that is cool. Awesome teacher you have there. Except, for the monogamous among us, merely enjoying the experience – even without any attempt to pay more or different attention to the teacher than one might wish any student would pay to any teacher – can be enough to set off majorly awful emotional repercussions for the monogamous partner who doesn’t wish for you to experience orgasm based on any stimulation the partner doesn’t both offer and control.
I hate this aspect of the culture of monogamy, and refuse to participate within it. This aspect of monogamy culture is at war with joy and with love and with our own damn bodies over which our conscious control is quite limited.
While the earlier example is based on joy, love is very frequently targeted by monogamy culture. Feel yourself falling in love with a wonderful person when you already have a monogamous partner, and even if you tell your partner, even if you have no sex, even if you consciously minimize any behaviors or interactions that might foster more of that love, and even if you don’t seek out more time with that new love than was already part of your interactions before the love, this is still considered a breach of monogamy by very many persons.
Mind you, very few people handle this situation as well as in this hypothetical, but that’s in very large part due to the fact that as a society we don’t talk about such situations, and indeed when we do discuss them tend to label them a categorical ethical breach once one feels any love, regardless of any choices made or any behavior. When told that all options are equally immoral, it’s not surprising that most people won’t take the time and care to minimize any moral breach. If you don’t see any qualitative or quantitative differences, all choices equally maximize and minimize such breaches, so who cares what you do? And when your instincts tell you that, no, some choices/behaviors might actually hurt your partner more, you just aren’t practiced at making choices in this ethical area.
So monogamy, which can be practiced quite well (and certainly sometimes is practiced quite well), in most romantic/erotic/sexual relationships is handled quite poorly. (I feel statistically confident in this assertion – not least – because when we’re handling things badly from inexperience or just from being a jerk, we go through larger numbers of partners in shorter-length relationships.)
While not systematically, empirically gathered, I have a lot of personal experience that people want monogamy are very likely to treat love as if it’s a bad thing, as if there’s such a thing as too much love, e.g.: “What? You love me and someone else? That’s two loves. More than one love is bad. More love causes pain and distress, less love causes security and happiness. So I hate this love that you’re feeling. Get rid of it now.”
But as I have frequently said, I know of no social problem that would be easier to solve if only humans loved each other less. I will not participate in a relationship unless I’m clear on the boundaries AND clear that the boundaries are not drawn in a given way because that will minimize joy or love shared with people other than the persons negotiating this particular relationship. Doing otherwise would violate my ethics.
This is a really handy comment. It develops a lot of points I glossed over or didn’t address. Thank you.
OK, so if you’re going to get preachy, I assume that means you’re ready for the counterarguments. As you said, “If you bring up the subject, the subject gets discussed.”
I don’t consider myself any type of champion for monogamy — I know some fine poly folks, and perhaps if things had gone differently for me in the distant past, I might have joined them. But I feel obligated to jump in when a noted academic and skilled debater spends approximately 4300 words defending a proposition, and never once brings up the single biggest counterargument. You’re talking as if all the defenders of monogamy were a bunch of insecure, insanely jealous, slut-shaming, sex-negative prudes, and never once acknowledging the main reason that monogamy has been such a popular and successful strategy in both human and other species.
So to return to your thought experiment – if there weren’t any slut shaming or other cultural policing that enforced monogamy, then I think you’d be absolutely right — about people in their teens and twenties. There’d be all kinds of polygamous relationships going on, people would move easily between partners, one-night and longer stands would be common, and everybody would have a great time. Sounds like fun! And doubtless there would be many folks who would be enjoying themselves so much that they’d continue doing the same thing for their entire lives.
But there would also be a fairly substantial group who would reach their thirties and say, okay, it’s time to leave the smorgasboard and settle down with a single partner. (Or perhaps, in your example, a small, compact group.) Why? The word that never showed up in your screed: Children.
The simple fact is, maintaining relationships takes emotional energy. The more relationships, the more energy. But having kids sucks up a huge amount of energy too. Having children with a full-time partner was utterly exhausting, at least for me; there’s no way I could imagine having kept up dating and exploring new people at the same time, and also fulfilling my obligations to my kids. I don’t want to dis all the awesome single parents and children of single parents out there, but I think that most of them would say that they would have been better off with somebody else around full time.
In our modern culture, having a kid represents a 20+ year commitment. Many humans figure, if they’re going to make that kind of commitment to a human they haven’t met yet, then they might as well make a similar commitment to the human whose gametes the new human shares with them. (Obviously, there are lots of room for exceptions here with gay couples, surrogates, etc.) But I think we all have the gut feeling that a kid will be better off with at least two people who are full-time committed to its welfare. If nothing else, at least that way there’s a backup in case of a death.
I’m sure there will be anecdotes of poly communities who have turned out great kids. I wouldn’t have a problem if some kind of commune or group marriage model a la Heinlein’s “Moon is a Harsh Mistress” got to become common – probably the more full-time, committed parents the better.
But it does seem to me that the poly lifestyle as it’s most often practiced in our culture – various people doing different activities with different partners for varying periods of time – while it may be great for parents, doesn’t seem like it’s conducive to kids growing up with a sense of stability. Kids need to know that, if they invest emotional affection towards someone, then that person is more or less committed to being around as long as the kid needs them; there is considerable research to back this up.
I’ve got one more side note here – I’m a big believer in the idea of cultural evolution: that if a meme shows up frequently in a variety of different cultures, that probably means it used to give its host culture some survival benefit. That actually helps combat certain ideas; if we understand that so many cultures have traditionally tried to control and police womens’ sexuality in order to boost their birthrate, then it becomes easier to fight these outmoded ideas now that high population growth is a net negative rather than a net positive. The same thing is true when we’re fighting religion: there’s a reason almost every successful culture developed some version of it, but most of the competitive benefits it originally gave to cultures (social cohesiveness, willingness to die in battle, priests able to reinforce central authority, ability to create empires out of varying ethnicities) no longer apply in the modern world.
Historically, I would argue that cultures who practiced monogamy tended to predominate over cultures that didn’t because monogamously-raised children were more likely to survive and thrive. And I question whether that’s truly something that has changed today.
Finally, I will add that this is an area that probably needs more study. My understanding of the current state of research is that family stability is more important for children’s success than number of parents, so as I said above, an extremely stable poly relationship (maybe four or five people sharing a home) would probably be fine. And if poly childraising becomes common enough for reliable studies to prove that there isn’t any detriment to kids brought up in various other poly situations, then I will cheerfully withdraw my case.
Hmm.
I appreciate what you said, but I think the reason that Carrier didn’t bring up kids (or counterarguments generally) is that Carrier wasn’t arguing for polyamory.
It seems to me Carrier was arguing for the more limited propositions that (1) Polyamory activism is rational and, (2) in a world where we are under informed about polyamory and about relationship-negotiation generally, Polyamory activism serves a useful and good role in society. Also/Therefore (3) the “preachy” criticism of Polyamory activists is off base.
Poly doesn’t have to be the best choice for a majority of people for polyamory activism to play a good role in our current culture.
Carrier, of course, may very well tell me that my interpretation of this post’s emphasis and/or point(s) is incorrect, but if I’m not wrong, I think that explains very well why Carrier wouldn’t feel any need to bring up the counterarguments. After all, Carrier nowhere asserts that counterarguments are bad and counterarguers are bad/preachy merely because they are opposed to Carrier’s assessments of the arguments and the conclusions to which they lead.
That’s all true.
The only mod I’d make is that I am also arguing for polyamory, in the sense of, more of it. But not in the sense of it being for everyone.
At most I am saying that any “counter-arguments” one likely deploys to what I said are statistically more likely to be factually incorrect or fallacious rationalizations. Just as with the “counter-arguments” theists snap out against anything correct an atheist says. So you might want to think them through more, and endeavor to get more informed first.
The one difference is that, of course, unlike theism, which is just false, one can have valid arguments for themselves to be monogamous—which then entails they should responsibly find someone who is also monogamous for valid reasons and not all too common specious ones. So my points also serve as a warning to even those few people for whom monogamy is best for them: you also have a responsibility to ensure you are not trapping someone who probably should not be monogamous, and since that’s most people (and therefore, people who don’t realize this), that’s no small responsibility. Thus, you should also be concerned about specious rationalizations, the ingrained yet baseless assumptions of monogamy culture, and other ways people are convinced they should be monogamous when they shouldn’t be.
No i kind of disagree with the ” poly not being for most people part ” since it’s extremely common for people to desire more than one romantic and sexual partner over a long period of time and the reason people doesn’t act on it is mainly because of the monogamy…And also if a lifestyle let’s say is unworkable for a significant percentage of people or most then it cannot be stated as a normative preference and it makes a strong case for a structure that works for the individuals in this case monogamy…
That’s the common argument we today here : non monogamy is not immoral but monogamy is the best structure for an overwhelming majority and non monogamy is dismissed as workable for a small minoritiy”
(Just an editorial question: are the scare quotes ending that comment supposed to start before “non monogamy is not immoral”?)
No, that’s not my argument. That’s simply what we tend to see today, at least from most therapists and monogamy-oriented thinkers: non-monogamy is ethical but often dismissed as unworkable for most people. That’s a common view from some research I have done along with some personal conversations…
Is that a “yes”? (I mean to correct your typo of where the quote begins, not question your argument.)
Yes, I mean ” non-monogamy…
I’d like your thoughts on this:
Do you think that if non-monogamy is unworkable for most people—or even for a significant percentage (say 20–30%)—that this justifies treating monogamy as the default for most relationships? Doesn’t it then justify prioritizing monogamy, despite its flaws, on the grounds that the alternatives are not workable for most?
My view is that a relationship model should be workable for most—or at least a significant percentage of people—before it is presented as a normative option within the general population. Otherwise I think it makes a case for normative approach to monogamy like today’s clinicians does…
( I am asking a hypothetical question not saying non monogamy is unworkable)
I think taking monogamy as a default is toxic. It should be the exception and nonmonogamy the default. And it should never be the result of diktat or pressure but simply personal choice (and not a “fake” personal choice that is actually the product of giving in to social pressure).
But changing this will require probably centuries of cultural development, similar to the Christian deconstruction movement, which has to be intentional, i.e. you can’t “force” anyone to deconstruct their Christianity. They have to already want to do that and have the energy and drive to actually do it, which has to last over time, because the process takes years for an individual to only get 90% of the way there, and would require at least three generations to disseminate as normal even after a predominant culture normed it.
The problem is not with the intellectual reality of monogamy vs. nonmonogamy or even the differential evidence, even though that’s what everyone “argues” with because it is the most visible thing to promote or oppose; the problem, rather, is the emotive-cultural architecture underneath all that, which is ingrained through childhood and not visible to most people awash in it (very much like sexism and its effects like pipelining “gender roles,” and internalization). Most prominently, this means recognizing that jealousy is a social construct and not “natural” (it is abused into people throughout childhood and early adulthood) and that can be extremely hard to recognize, much less “fix” (since an emotional construct, like sexism for example, takes years of dedicated effort to dismantle).
So, it is intellectually and rationally undeniably true that monogamy culture is toxic and we’d all be better off without it. But that does not translate into, “Oh, we can just drop it now and move on.” Any more than it being intellectually and rationally undeniably true that sexism and rape culture are toxic makes it just like flipping a switch to get rid of those things either. At least with sexism and rape culture we by now have a plurality norming their deconstruction.
But we aren’t even there yet with polyamory, for example. Indeed, poly is going through its own toxic stage (just like gay marriage had to do, when it had to “straightwash” gay marriages to look exactly like hetero marriages to be accepted, when really it should never have had to do that—but that doesn’t take away the fact that, alas, it did have to do that, it was functionally the only way to norm gay marriage in a homophobic culture). This is the point made in the relationship anarchy paper you cited.
That illustrates the fact that in terms of timeline, we are with nonmonogamy now in 2026 where we were with sexism in 1926. So we can expect at least fifty years yet before we can be pushing nonmonogamy with the same popular effort as feminism in 1976, and at least fifty more years before it’s “the norm under pushback” like today, and probably another fifty years before the pushback is looked on as fringe and weird in the same way everyone looks at the Amish or the Raelians now
That doesn’t mean we should shut up. In fact to move this ball even that fast requires talking about it (publishing, commenting, etc.). We have to start moving the Overton Window. Rather, what it means is we have to maintain a realistic perspective on how successful we’ll be at this early stage and how far from ready our culture is to norm this.
I agree with the points you raised, but I don’t see how they answered my question. I was asking a conditional question:
If, as many people claim, non-monogamy is unworkable for an overwhelming majority of people, doesn’t that justify monogamy being the social norm—despite its flaws—and argue against presenting non-monogamy as a viable option?
I would appreciate a blog post from you that explores the ethical problems of monogamous agreements and explains why monogamy itself might be ethically wrong.
One of my concerns is that we often support social norms and moral frameworks that discourage certain practices when they are harmful. For example, we have developed social norms and moral standards that treat gender inequality as morally problematic. Similarly, we should be in favor of social norms and moral reasoning that discourage monogamous agreements because it’s unethical and harmful. I don’t see any problem with that .
No. It justifies tolerating the existing toxic norm whole presenting non-monogamy as a better option we should move toward.
In other words, that an immorality remains normed—for example, the industrial of abuse of animals in the food supply—does not warrant “not arguing” for progress away from that immorality to a more humane husbandry. Obviously we should do the latter. And not, for example, declare war on animal abuse and bomb farmers or something.
Similarly, the abuse of humans in the fruit and vegetable industry is currently normed and yet clearly immoral. But we cannot “boycott” fruit and vegetables. Even if we wanted to (as there is no way to replace the food supply for the population so as to make that possible) because those people still need to make a living (not buying fruit and vegetables would be treating those workers worse by depriving them of even the means to live).
So we can admit our cultural norms are immoral while tolerating them, as long as we argue for change by proving the current norm toxic and wrong, and getting more people aware of that. There is no way “it’s the norm” can ever justify shrugging and entirely acquiescing to the immoral norm.
That’s already been done better than I could. I am already calling people’s attention to this fact and the literature. Your additions are helpful (and I plan to add them to my Ape section making the same point). But there isn’t much more to do that will be of use here. The issue really is that we need more people doing this. Not the same person doing it over and over.
I’ve done my bit. I’m out as poly, prominently, and have several articles with further reading recommendations.
Now, go forth and draw more people’s attention to this, first to accelerate the reach of what I have already written, and second in the hopes of convincing more people to do what I am doing.
Nor do I. That’s why I keep doing that.
And yet, that’s not what the facts show. Most people entering poly have been older, until recent times. Go to a poly event anywhere, and it skews strongly above that demographic. The only reason poly is now spreading among the younger (and poly events are watching this growth even now) is that the younger generation has access to the internet, and college communities have been communicating the option exists.
I’m not sure you’re paying attention. Even poly folk in their teens and twenties are having much more mature poly relationships than you are describing. In fact, the core values of poly, when followed, as I noted they ought to be, entail it (e.g. honesty, communication, respect, caring).
(Also, polygamous is the wrong word. That’s one man, many wives. Polyamory is egalitarian, and is not a reference to marital systems.)
The reverse is happening. Married couples are settling down and realizing monogamy is dumb. And they are becoming poly. And like I said, until recently, that was the most common narrative. And in fact, this is common with parents. Many polyamorous people are parents. Some are single parents. Some are married and raising children with their spouse. Some are in household polycules that share child rearing duties more broadly than just with two people.
The latter is certainly a more effective arrangement, BTW. It even used to be the norm, not with polyamory but with the extended household model, but in practice it’s the same in terms of labor divisibility—the idea of two parent households is a recent development in human history, and arguably a bad one, as it was based on the strength and upward mobility of the middle class half a century ago that has long since vanished, and was also based on the Middle Class Myth cultivated in the 50s, which even then was not the common reality (e.g. the poor did not live that way, but more commonly retained extended households, which are now derided as the behavior of “foreigners” and “immigrants,” while even the idea of people living with their parents is derided, bizarrely, as that had been common for thousands of years).
But regardless, I know polycules where three or four or five people, sometimes more than two of them parents, live together or near each other and share childcare and child raising duties more broadly among them. They actually in result have more freedom and free time.
For the science so far of children in poly households (including stats, case studies, and professional observations), see Chapter 7 of Polyamory in the 21st Century by Deborah Anapol, and Chapter 17 of Understanding Non-Monogamies by Elisabeth Sheff (which latter covers the results of a large longitudinal study of polyamorous parents and their children).
For more immediate reading on poly parenting see this, and this, and this, and this, for starters. The complaints that ever arise are identical to those in monogamous and single parent households, and have the same causes, so controlling for common factors, there is no differential downside to poly parenting, and a notable potential upside.
And the data apply to all arrangements, not just live-in polycules. Because there are many more configurations available.
For example, I am dating at least two single moms and two married moms. One of the single moms is a solo polyamorist: she does not want a man involved with her life at home, has a good job, and does swell taking care of her son alone, with the help of friends, e.g. other parents who share exchange arrangements. She loves this life and wants no other, and she and her son do fine. I know several other women like her. Another of the single moms has a live-in boyfriend but is not interested in any strong tie (like marriage); they share some childrearing duties, but she again also relies on a network of friends, and they on her, to share duties to gain some vacation hours away from it all. Her and her two sons get on fine. One of the married moms is in a household polycule that includes at least two women with their own children, they all live together, and the parents share one bed, and share full parental duties all around. They all actually get on superbly well. Another of the married moms has a traditional two parent household, married to a loving husband, of course both poly. They and their daughter also get on fine. And I’m not even describing all the arrangements I’ve been involved with.
Read Dadabhoy’s Bait article, linked in the very first paragraph of mine.
There is something hinky about complaining about how much “work” your relationships are. Why is that? Because millions of polyamorous people don’t notice it being any harder. And hardly anyone says they can’t have more than one friend because “friendship takes emotional energy” or that they can only ever have one parent, sibling, or child, because “family takes emotional energy.” So why does adding sex somehow exhaust people’s emotional reserves? Could it be that you are actually doing something wrong?
I remarked on this in detail already in my previous article about the Christian reaction, linked in the third paragraph of my article above. You should be questioning why you have so little emotional energy to spend on having friends, or why your friends are so taxing on it. Certainly, there is a limit (you can’t be friends with everyone, and there is a point where you can only maintain so many close friendships at once), but it would be recognized by everyone as bizarre if that limit were literally one (“You only have time in the whole of your life to have one friend??”).
Given the large number of poly parents I know personally and from studies and networked accounts, this is evidently not a valid complaint.
To the contrary, polyamory actually helps you with this. It can help in two ways, depending on the kind of arrangements you develop: (1) it can actually give you access to more child rearing resources (e.g. greater labor divisibility), just as ordinary friendships and extended families can do, too; and (2) it can give you a relief valve for stress (this especially: many a poly parent needs poly to get out of the house and live a more romantic life, with a larger diversity of people, alleviating the boredom and nerves-getting of living with just only one person all the time—a problem that does not just exist with monogamy, but can manifest among any people who get stuck together too much for too long, whether family members or friends or roommates or coworkers).
Maybe you need more parenting friends. Or maybe indeed you need to take the kids once and awhile, and let your spouse go on a date. You and your partner could alternate once or twice a week getting out to be with other people and relieve the stress of being cooped up with the same people and the same stressors all the time. Millions of poly parents succeed at this. Well. You might have something to learn from them—even if you stay monogamous (e.g. finding other parents to have reciprocating care agreements with so you aren’t in prison with the same inmates 24-7-365).
Full time? Wait, are you promoting gender hierarchy, where one person is forced to give up their career and just stay at home in the kitchen and nursery all day? I hope I don’t have to explain why that is an unrealistic model for all but a few (e.g. people who actually like that life and want it, not because they were told they were supposed to). And it certainly does not commonly work in the real world, as divorce statistics show.
What people are better off with is a more extended network to distribute labor across. That can exist on monogamy (parenting friends you reciprocate with) and polyamory (parenting friends you reciprocate with as well as parenting lovers you reciprocate with). Or of course more money (there is a thing called a nanny). But not everyone is that fortunate. Friends, however, are far more affordable, since they can be earned with decency and respect.
Again, it sounds like you are advocating a model whereby parents are imprisoned with their children and can never have any time to themselves or any time away. If that’s what you are advocating, maybe we should just stop having kids and die out. Because if all we get is misery, existing becomes pointless. Or maybe, more sensibly, we shouldn’t be saying such silly dehumanizing things about parents and actually let them have a life, and help them have it. Hence, labor reciprocation networks, easier access to childcare (already a need to allow parents to pursue professions, passions, and careers), etc.
But also, note you admitted “at least.” So really, you are arguing for polyamory, in particular parental polycules. If two people are having it so rough as you imagine, shouldn’t we then admit we need three or four? Hello polyamory.
You mean like a 50% monogamy divorce rate? Evidently, stability is not achieved by monogamy.
Meanwhile, polyamory is actually more likely to be stable (since it eliminates several main reasons for divorce, including sexual infidelity and poor communication and the stressors of being stuck with one person and never getting away). One study I link to above found no differences in terms of kids feeling instability, because kids don’t distinguish between losing a parent and losing a family friend, so even monogamous relationships, which exchange friends as often as polycules do (or no more often, however you look at it), look to them identically to polyamorous ones.
A far better predictor of stability is the economic independence of all partners. Which is indeed a whole other social justice issue. But it has little to do with who you are having sex with.
There is no evidence of this. To the contrary, the extended family has been the norm until very recently (and polycules replicate that), not the binary household. Who you have sex with has never been connected to child flourishing in any way, apart from the products of cultural prejudice. Which makes prejudice the problem, not sexual freedom.
The same claims were made about sexism: that we need it because women are better child rearers and they should just accept the subordinate stay-at-home homemaker role because that’s better for child flourishing. In practice, that has not proved to be true (again, look at the divorce and infidelity rates), nor is it factually sound. Women want and deserve the same freedoms and rights and privileges as men. We must adjust our social system to allow that, and not stick with the sexist system that prevented it for men’s benefit.
And in fact, things have already changed, too much to use the past as a model.
We now live in a world where most of a child’s raising is done by schools and the internet. That was not true a generation ago (for the internet) or about a century ago (for universal schooling). We now live in a world with near gender equality, so women are no longer trapped to be baby factories and nannies. That was not true half a century ago. We now live in a world where we have robots doing most of our work (e.g. washing machines, automobiles, computers). That was not true a century ago. We now live in a world where a household does not need to manufacture its own food. That was not true a century and a half ago.
Everything about our environment has changed, a lot of it in just the last generation. So “we should keep the cultural institutions of the Middle Ages” is bollocks as an argument—even before you get to the fact that you are defending the fucking Middle Ages. Before that, polyamory was the legal norm for men (and only women were denied the right to it). And had been so for all of history until then. Then the Middle Ages fucked everything up (by restricting freedom further, rather than expanding and supporting it for all). And we’ve been struggling to fix everything it screwed up ever since.
We had to recreate democracy and human rights, we had to create women’s suffrage and the abolition of slavery, we had to reinvent science. Then we created what also never existed before: a fully industrialized society. By which point we were still following barbaric Victorian era ethics about sexuality, which were Medieval in origin, and obviously massively dysfunctional (e.g. the policing of everyone’s sexuality, gay men, straight women, and beyond, was pervasively ruinous to human happiness; marriage was still about labor-and-sex slavery, or social elevation, and not love; and so on). It’s not admirable. It was toxic. It did not help us. It fucked us up.
Indeed, this was an age built on the backs of slaves, abused child workers, and subjugated women. Let’s not say its cultural values were awesome simply because it was economically and militarily successful. Because that is an argument for slavery, child labor sweat shops, and a return to the subjugation and disenfranchisement of women.
First, that’s already a widespread thing (such polycules exist and are multiplying). Second, even insofar as a poly arrangement is fluid, it is no more fluid than family friends networks, and the evidence shows children don’t see a difference, so in practice, there isn’t one. Who you are having sex with is either invisible to children or of no consequence to them. It is therefore irrelevant. Third, most poly parents date outside the general realm of their kids’ lives, just as most of their friendships are conducted outside it, too. Most kids barely know their parents’ friends and barely spend any time with them and for that reason don’t regard their presence or persistence as important. That’s already universally the case in monogamy culture. So even at worst, polyamory (if living its core values) actually produces no visible change to children’s lives.
For example, with the mothers I date: one dates me completely apart from her household (so her daughter barely knows I exist; just that sometimes mom needs to get away and dad stays home, and sometimes dad needs to get away and mom stays home, just as will happen in monogamous couples who do the same thing for their very sanity); another keeps her son’s environment explicitly anchored to her and shared custody of his dad, and everyone else is just a large network of friends who sometimes come and go (many of whom are not sexual partners, and he wouldn’t know nor likely would care who among them was), thus this is identical to millions of shared custody single parent families with friends (thus, whether they are also monogamous or not has no effect at all on child flourishing; it is, again, an effectively invisible distinction); another mom has a strong live-in polycule that all the kids love and depend on, and any dating that goes on outside that is as irrelevant to them as who any of their other friends are; and so on.
So, no, there isn’t any logical or evidential case to be made that monogamy is better for kids. The failure rate of monogamy and its visible dysfunctionality both argue the contrary. Whereas polyamory either makes no direct difference, or even directly improves conditions (e.g. by increasing the number of available parents), or improves conditions indirectly (e.g. stress relief of parents translates to better parenting and happier kids). There is no evidence to the contrary, certainly nothing that shows anything about polyamory differs in any way from monogamy.
I think the benefits of social monogamy is obvious and that’s not a niche view instead mainstream argument from antropologists and evolutionary biologists…So I think we cannot just dismiss that…
I wasn’t sure what you meant by “social monogamy” but it sounds like you mean “legal” monogamy (per your other comment).
But you’d have to identify what anthropologists and evo-biologists talk about just that (as distinct from sexual monogamy) and what evidence they present regarding it.
Since legal monogamy is an arbitrary economic contract it is not straightforwardly clear why it would be good. If we limited business contracts to just one party, our entire economy would collapse and never recover. Obviously extended families are better for raising children than nuclear families. Group homes, roommates, large families under one roof, all work fine. And so on.
So what exactly would be the benefit of outlawing having more than one friend, co-parent, rommate, business partner, etc.? And what scientist has ever made that argument?
One man one woman being the primary mating arrangement
Read the weirdest people by Joseph Heinrich
And the puzzle of monogamy by him…
I will send pdf of the bookthrough your email id you want
I always welcome book pdf’s in email!
Though Heinrich sounds like he conflates nonmonogamy with harem hoarding, which seems like a science fail. Let me know your thoughts about that.
I already explained that in my previous comment you approved… which was about even if ” social monogamy is optimal model for society that only go far as to justify one on one family unit rather than strict exclusivity we think of monogamy as today”
But as per Poly Family there is no evidence of that, either. Extended family and village parenting is the norm in the ethnographic record (single unit families are far less common). Even land and property inheritance has not tracked paired marriage (as the more typical practice is communal inheritance, or selective, e.g. firstborn gets everything, every other unit nothing). And inheriting a family name also has no universal trend (clan name rather than father’s or mother’s, mother’s name rather than father’s, and so on, are also common). And cohabiting (long houses and clan or extended family residences are common).
So what’s left to be limited to a pair? Only one thing. Sex. And that isn’t common either. The ethnographic record is awash with diverse sexual relations, and does not “norm” sexual monogamy. And even those groups that do norm it, fail to practice it (cheating is so routine to prove there can be no biology behind the norm). Monogamy is always unnatural and forced, and always creates more problems than it solves. Indeed it is usually found in sexist property-owning cultures, and exists because of the declaration of wombs as property, i.e. it is a product of de facto female slavery. Everything else is a mythology built to police and maintain that system of slavery, to even colonize the minds of women and recruit them into defending it.
Again, consider the Mosuo. That’s “socially monogamous” (one woman living with and raising kids with one man) but has nothing to do with sex (that man is her relative not her sexual partner) but that has nothing to do with sex (they are both openly and licitly sexually nonmonogamous). And isn’t how every other human culture does it. So the Mosuo system is no more biological than our system, which means neither of our systems is biological. Which means human biology does not code at all for sexual monogamy. That is entirely a cultural artifact.
https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2011.0290
Extended family is different from a mating arrangement 👆
Yes strict sexual exclusivity is unnatural…but it’s natural as far to most of time people have sex within their primary partner and an overwhelming majority of the offspring are hired from it…
That’s my point.
Social monogamy either is just a redundant repetition of sexual monogamy, or doesn’t refer to sexual monogamy and thus isn’t relevant to anything here.
I imagine you mean to somehow divorce romantic love from sex, but that’s already realized in the form of intimate friendships, kinship bonds, and so on, which are never anywhere mono. So that can’t be what “social monogamy” is either, as then there is no such thing, anywhere.
Read the link
I did. You seem to have missed that your link is to the article I cited. I cited it first. Because its data confirm my point.
You seem to not know this. Which I can’t account for, other than by supposing you don’t understand what I am saying and still mistake me as saying something else.
On the purported benefits of monogamy
You raise concerns about the decline of monogamy, emphasizing its alleged benefits and the potential negative consequences such a decline may have for individuals and society. In this context, however, non-monogamy should not be treated as synonymous with polygyny, nor as a single, homogeneous relationship model. Contemporary consensual non-monogamous arrangements are highly diverse and, in some cases, distribute relational and sexual opportunities rather than concentrating them among a small minority. As a result, the social harms typically associated with polygyny cannot be straightforwardly applied to all forms of non-monogamy.
Before evaluating the broader function of monogamy, it is necessary to clarify which version of monogamy is under discussion. Historically, most large-scale civilizations—including Greco-Roman, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese societies—recognized monogamous marriage as the normative marital structure. At the same time, many of these societies maintained socially accepted outlets for non-monogamous behavior, such as concubinage, informal polygyny, prostitution, slavery, and related arrangements. These parallel systems allowed societies to publicly uphold monogamy while managing the pressures created by strict exclusivity.
For this reason, the contemporary Western understanding of monogamy—exclusive marriage combined with symmetrical sexual and emotional exclusivity—should not be assumed as the default meaning of the term. This model is historically unusual and emerged from a specific synthesis of two traditions: the Greco-Roman legal framework of one-to-one marriage and the later Christian moral framework emphasizing sexual purity, exclusive fidelity, and the moralization of desire. It is this synthesis, rather than monogamy in the abstract, that shaped modern Western sexual norms. No other major civilization institutionalized monogamy in this precisely moralized form.
From an analytical standpoint, it is therefore useful to distinguish between social or legal monogamy (exclusive marriage as a civic institution) and Christian moral monogamy (sexual and emotional exclusivity as a moral virtue). Much of the empirical evidence you cite—such as reduced male competition, increased paternal investment, and lower reproductive inequality—supports the value of marital monogamy as a demographic and social equilibrium. However, these findings do not automatically justify the uniquely Christian model of lifelong sexual exclusivity that later came to dominate Western conceptions of monogamy.
Even if evidence suggests that family units function best as partnerships between two adults, this supports social or marital monogamy rather than strict moral exclusivity. A relationship that is largely monogamous while allowing for limited openness or flexibility would not necessarily undermine the functional benefits attributed to monogamous marriage. Indeed, many societies outside the Christian West, as well as numerous small-scale societies—including Inuit and Polynesian cultures—have historically operated in precisely this manner.
For these reasons, while arguments for monogamy as a social institution may be compelling, they do not, by themselves, justify strict lifelong exclusivity as the only legitimate or optimal relational model. Such exclusivity exceeds the demonstrated social benefits of monogamous marriage and reflects a historically unusual, religiously grounded requirement that warrants additional justification. Once these distinctions are made, the empirical and ethical discussion becomes significantly clearer and more nuanced.
Monogamy (just like cis heteronormativity) is a social construct. Once it’s deconstructed what remains at base are persons, each with a set of interpersonal connections (one to many). Absent the externally imposed cultural strictures that today favor monogamy, the one to many nature of polyamory would seem more natural and more consistent with other types of interpersonal relationships.
What am I afraid of?
That I will lose the one person who has proven they will be there for me in rich or poor, and health or sickness. And the reason for putting our relationship in the balance was because there are other attractive people in the world. I’m also afraid that I will wind up picking my child up every other weekend in my midlife-crisis-convertible and we spend the next 48 hours acting like I’m still acting as the father he needs me to be. Not to mention the new step-father who decided he could be everything my wife needs in a partner and they raise my darling boy.
I’m afraid of that. And the prospect of having many girlfriends while I’m still sexually desirable to strangers doesn’t tempt me to risk this family I’ve built.
Why would you lose them?
You would only lose them in a monogamy culture. Because only a monogamy culture requires them to choose only one of the people they love or want to have sex with.
Polyamory eliminates that choice, and thus eliminates any need of someone to leave you to have others. Just as you let them have friends, parents, siblings of their own, you would just let them have other loves of their own. (And that’s at the most distant. Often polycules become fully mutual friendships, including the metamours.) The one is no more dangerous to you than the other. And if you are actually telling your spouse they can no longer have any friends or spend any time with their parents or siblings because you fear losing them, then you hopefully will see that’s horrible, and a flaw in yourself you would need to fix, not justify. Sex does not make this controlling behavior less horrible. That our culture blinds you to the fact that this is no different than that, is the bigger problem we need to combat.
If your fear, however, is that they will leave you because they no longer love you, then you should want them to leave. Because keeping them trapped is selfish and cruel, and serves no defensible purpose. And this is true even if both of you remain monogamous. Keeping someone trapped who doesn’t want to be with you is wrong. Period.
It sounds like you are talking about cheating, not polyamory. Cheating might destroy your family. Polyamory won’t likely do so. To the contrary, it will more likely strengthen your family, by making you both happier parents, or even increasing your labor pool for child rearing. (See my comment in this thread about poly parenting.)
“…only a monogamy culture requires them to choose only one of the people they love or want to have sex with. ”
Only a polyamory culture encourages them to explore whether they should try to find happiness with someone else.
It may be that many polycules develop into satisfying mutual friendships, including metamours. It may be that many of them develop into new pair bonds. If there are data to examine on what scenarios tend to play out, that would surely be helpful if we want to update our priors using something more than thought experiments.
“Maybe something so beautiful awaits those who honor the value of total commitment to another, it surpasses all the excitement and pleasure gleaned from quickies.”
“Meanwhile, I don’t think you know what a quickie is (monogamous people can have quickies with each other), or what polyamory is (it frequently entails long term and even lifelong relationships—not just one-night-stands, which is what I think you meant to say).” rc
Who was talking about monogamy? And, what’s wrong with quickies? Those who honor the value of total commitment to another can’t have quickies, by definition. Polyamory is a quickie no matter how long it takes.
“It sounds like you are talking about cheating, not polyamory.” rc
Once married, allowing yourself to be drawn into another intimate relationship is cheating regardless old, new or in-between testaments.
Uh, no. Permission is not cheating. Contracts are renegotiated all the time. What are you, a Christian?
Secondly, a “quickie” is any rapidly resolved sex. You can have a quickie monogamously with your own spouse. You seem not to know what that word means.
Finally, I don’t see what the sense is in honoring or valuing total commitment to one person. If you actually did that, then by definition you would have to renounce all friendships and disavow every family member (parents, children, and siblings). Otherwise your commitment is divided, not total. And yet people divide their commitments to friends and family all the time. That’s normal and healthy, and indeed necessary to pretty much every human being’s happiness. What you imagine as “total commitment,” renouncing all commitments, friendships, kinships, and bonds with everyone else, sounds more like a disturbing mental illness more befitting the central antagonist of a horror film.
At worst. At best, you mean only total sexual commitment. Which is one step from monkery, and precisely what most people, men and women, don’t really want. So you shouldn’t be trying to force them into it—with any kind of social pressure.
@urkidding
First: No. You have that dramatically, dramatically wrong. Even for biblical fundamentalists, fucking your brother’s wife after your brother dies in order to give your brother’s wife a child in cases where your brother didn’t leave any surviving children. Doesn’t everyone agree with that? That’s basic sexual morality 101 right there. The bible says it & I believe it.
Second: No. If you are a widower, you can remarry. Basic sexual morality right there. Everyone knows it, even those who aren’t Judeo-Christians.
Third: No. If you fuck your wife many times without any children resulting, you can fuck your slave instead. How else can you obey the commandment to be fruitful and multiply if men don’t keep female slaves for sexual purposes just in case it’s hard for one’s wife to conceive? DUH. Who wouldn’t agree to that you bizarro-world sexual ethicist, you?
Fourth: No. You can always take another wife or 699. I’m pretty sure each of those other 699 wives counted as “another intimate relationship”… to say nothing of the 300 concubines. I mean, it’s possible to have a sexless marriage, but the ONLY purpose for a concubinage relationship is sex.
Fifth: Nuns have always been considered by Christians to be “married to Christ”, but nuns are permitted to leave this first marriage any time they want to have a new intimate relationship or for any other reason. The number of times Jesus has been divorced is fucking staggering. And yet, he keeps taking new wives.
Sixth: If humans are meant to aspire to the good behavior of God, then surely visiting a man’s wife while he’s out and knocking her up is okay. It might not be cheating for the man if he hasn’t been married yet (since for you cheating doesn’t exist until the first marriage), but it sure as hell is cheating under your definition for the wife in this situation.
Come on now, why oh why are you not only so resolutely opposed to the sexual ethics of the bible, but actually completely ignorant of them???
Is it because you secretly hate god because he doesn’t let you sin except he does except there are big consequences except there aren’t as long as you say the magic “You’re my daddy” words? Is that it?
I’m cool with polyamory, and have been willing and offered to have SOs in an open relationship. I’m not sure how extensive it would be if polyamory lost all its taboos, though. I know I wouldn’t be polyamorous, personally, because I have a hard time maintaining more than a few friendships at a time and when I tried casual sex, even though it was a fine experience and nothing actually negative happened, I immediately regretted it because it just felt wrong to do things like that with only a casual connection (we were friends who hung out occasionally, so not even total strangers). How much of this is due to culture is, of course, hard to say. Certainly, in cultures with different norms, most people adhere to those norms. Take for instance that one Chinese tribe that hasn’t had marriage for thousands of years and children are raised by their mothers, maternal uncles, and grandparents and treat their fathers as just another member of the village. I’m sure as many people there would be uncomfortable with our system as those in our culture would be with theirs. Similarly, if polyamory were the norm, it would probably seem as odd to as many people as monogamy. Still, it’s probably best to advocate for any kind of relationship that works for people so long as it involves consent from everyone involved.
You know that people are heterosexual before they ever actually have sex, right?
One can be polyamorous without ever actually falling in love with more than one person at a time by being open to those experiences. I’m polyamorous 24 hours a day, but I’m actually only having skin to skin contact with with erogenous zones of multiple people at once less than half that time.
I get that on a practical level things have never worked out for your before. However, what do you gain by making an advance declaration that you have closed yourself to the possibility of certain intimacies?
Are any of those things that you gain things you would NOT gain in a society that loses its culture of compulsory monogamy?
…As an additional comment, polyamory doesn’t necessarily involve an openness to sex with more than one person. It involves sex OR love OR romance with more than one person. With that misunderstanding, you also seem to be of the impression that any sex that one might have would have to be with a single primary partner or else “casual”. But one could have 2 primary partners – or 4. One can be resolutely poly and resolutely opposed to “casual” sex. One can even be resolutely opposed to other people having casual sex and still be resolutely poly. An openness to future possibilities of sex given the right conditions and the right person(s) does not require that “the right conditions” be expansive. They could be quite narrow. And you could be quite a theocratic asshat about what the right conditions might be. I am, of course, not saying that you are a theocratic asshat. Rather, I’m trying to remind you that religious people exist whose only acceptable form of polyamory is polygamy. While stating that the only acceptable form of polyamory is polygamy is a kind of awful, controlling asshattery that is inimical to the communities that the vast majority of self-identified polyamorous people would like to create, as a strictly factual question so long as the polygamy requires the (genuine! I hesitate to add, since some people still delude themselves into believing that “coerced consent” is no oxymoron) consent of all involved, that polygamy is a form of polyamory.
THAT is how far polyamory extends – multiple marriages in which sex outside of marriage is forbidden.
I know of people that have no “sex” (quotes because I mean “sex as most people would understand it” not “sex as the participants in the particular behavior understand that behavior”) with people other than with a single primary partner and develop no loving or romantic relationships other than with a single primary partner, but go to BDSM play parties where they might be flogged or restrained-and-tickled or one of quite a number of other possibilities. With some people I don’t know any more than this, but a couple of people I know well enough to know that they specifically go to play parties which incorporate rules that the play party behavior is not referenced outside the play party itself or its sequels. In other words, they meet random people to whom they have no connection at all, get whipped and beaten and forced to write bad checks, then leave and have no further contact with the person who so delightfully whipped them (or was whipped by them, whatever).
For many, this also is a form of polyamory – either because the bad-check writing constitutes sex, or because it constitutes romance, or both – even though there are quite a few people who have a hard time seeing this as anything but a monogamous relationship.
If you love football and your partner hates it and you go to the pub to watch football with random strangers – never with your partner – and really revel in this football watching with those random strangers. You strike up conversations. You shout together during the good pits. You cry together or console each other during the bad bits. Then you leave and never seek each other out again – although you might end up at the same sports bar again someday, you’re not trying to arrange that.
How is that polyamory?
Well, the answer, of course, is that it’s not. But it’s very very similar behavior to the activity described in the BDSM party example. The only thing that changed is that in one case an erotic thrill or charge is presumed to be present and in another case an erotic thrill or charge is not so presumed.
And yet, you might unexpectedly get an erotic charge watching a football game – or reliably get one. And still the monogamous community wouldn’t define this going-to-the-sports-pub as polyamorous behavior.
I think the self-identified polyamorous community has a much better handle on what’s going on in different relationships and why certain relationships or behaviors are more preferable or ethical than certain other relationships or behaviors.
You really seem like you’re still operating on the monogamous community’s assumptions about relationships and behaviors-in-the-context-of-certain-relationships.
This isn’t an insult, but I think you’re not actually ready to understand RC’s points if you’re still falling into the assumptions that polyamory is about sex and that polyamory is about an openness to “casual sex” rather than an openness to future sex on terms identified by oneself or one’s partner and then freely accepted. Stringent terms are as poly as easy-to-meet terms. Moreover, some terms will be more limiting than others. “Don’t fuck your other partners in my bed” is a pretty easy condition to meet. However, if you’re 6’7″ and only attracted to people taller than you, that self-imposed condition is going to be very hard to meet.
Maybe read up on the basics of what poly isn’t a bit before you become too certain that the information, practices, and philosophy being generated by poly people aren’t appropriate for or applicable to your life.
“You should be looking for a more ethical way to get your material needs met.” poly
Why?
“The way monogamy so pervasively fails, and encourages dysfunction, maybe should be a clue…” poly
Monogamy fails? How?
“Now as I sit for hours in the Raleigh-Durham airport awaiting my flight home,” rc
Which home?
And as the mechanics work on the aircraft you will take, the forklift operator responds to hand signals alone to position the engine. It has to be accomplished perfectly or damage could result. The maintenance work on your jet, American Airlines Flight 191, did not go smoothly. Aircraft mechanics started to disconnect the engine and pylon, but there was a shift change halfway through. When work resumed, the pylon was jammed on the wing and the forklift had to be re-positioned, causing stress to the pylon. The accident investigation concluded that the design of the pylon and adjacent surfaces made the parts difficult to service and PRONE TO DAMAGE BY THE MAINTENANCE CREWS. 273 people were crushed, burned, pulverized and dismembered in an instant in space-time. How many expected to cease to exist in less than half an hour as they waited in the airport for their flight home? To whom did they cry out?
They had precious little time. Just moments after take-off, as the DC-10 rotated, the left engine peeled back over the wing, tearing the hydraulic fuel lines, What would you want to say and to whom with mere seconds left?
Okay, now I’m starting to think you are a troll.
Or insane.
Just out of curiosity, can you outline legitimate arguments which would reasonably validate someone’s decision to be monogamous for one’s self alone? What would an acceptable case for personal monogamy look like? In our own lives, how can we tell if our decision to be monogamous is reasonable or not?
I already proposed two, and allowed a catch-all category for others. What they all have in common is uncoerced personal disinterest in sex with more people. And crucially, it’s not enough to say “monogamy is what I want for myself”; you also have to say, “I will not coerce or expect anyone else to want the same thing I do.” There is no rational argument for not doing the latter. And any rational argument that establishes the former, is going to not apply to most people you know (whatever they may presently think). Hence the last line of my essay.
But even in respect to the former declaration, one must distinguish monogamy as what you “want” in the ideal sense, from monogamy “in practice,” e.g. as simply what you only have time for. If you are just out of time, for example, then you would allow your partner freedom, and would exercise your own if you had the time. If you have no problem with that, then you are actually poly, and just happen to be dating/sleeping with one person (not everyone who is poly is always with someone).
Did you read my comment above on jealousy-based monogamy?
RC already spoke favorably about that comment. Even if not my specific example of an ethical jealousy-based monogamy, the comment was short and general and included no particular reservations, so it couldn’t have strayed too far from what RC liked about the comment generally.
Try wrestling with that one and see where it gets you.
“If your fear, however, is that they will leave you because they no longer love you, then you should want them to leave. Because keeping them trapped is selfish and cruel, and serves no defensible purpose. And this is true even if both of you remain monogamous. Keeping someone trapped who doesn’t want to be with you is wrong. Period.” rc
how can you “trap” someone? anyone can leave anytime, no? many leave without going anywhere. just because you fear someone may leave you, doesn’t require someone’s departure, surely. fears come and go. feelings come and go. love has little to do with feelings. if your poly fears you may go, you should leave him, just like that?
things, including new relationships, get old. everything gets old, in time, for me anyway. I have various fears at different times, don’t you? LOVE lasts. total commitment is the key. total devotion to an other through thick/thin/enjoyable feelings/unpleasant feelings, that is love
As noted before, I think you are either a troll or insane, so I am not sure there is any point in continuing to discuss this with you.
But in short, people coerce others into monogamy through emotional blackmail, dependency manipulation, social punishment, and other forces.
Secondly, the idea that love is total commitment is mythical nonsense that has nothing to do with anything we have determined to be scientifically true about feeling and enjoying love. Hence we love many friends and family members without a problem. In fact, human happiness generally depends on our doing so.
Thirdly, having someone’s back “through thick/thin/enjoyable feelings/unpleasant feelings” does not require monogamy. Hence, at least I dearly hope, you have no trouble having several of your friends’ and family members’ backs “through thick/thin/enjoyable feelings/unpleasant feelings.” If you do have trouble with that, to the point of having to abandon all your friends and family and throwing them all under the bus, then you desperately need to see a therapist, because there is something unwell going on there.
Finally, the issue was one person being too afraid to let their partner be non-monogamous because they fear they will leave them. But if their partner doesn’t love them, they should want them to leave them, and not want to keep them; thus there is no reason to allow your fear to prevent you giving your partner their freedom: because either you shouldn’t want them to stay anyway, or they won’t leave and will just happily be non-monogamous.
Thus, the fear is either unfounded, or not a valid reason to avoid letting someone go who should go.
“But in short, people coerce others into monogamy through emotional blackmail, dependency manipulation, social punishment, and other forces.” rc
not without my consent
“Secondly, the idea that love is total commitment is mythical nonsense that has nothing to do with anything we have determined to be scientifically true about feeling and enjoying love.”
proof? what is love?
“Thirdly, having someone’s back “through thick/thin/enjoyable feelings/unpleasant feelings” does not require monogamy.” rc
didn’t say it did. never mentioned having someone’s back, either
So, ignoring the point, begging the question, and moving the goal posts. Got it.
“The one difference is that, of course, unlike theism, which is just false…” rc
But, you cannot prove that statement is true, or can you?
“..a prisoner sealed in a jail, surrounded by huge prison walls. In a classical Newtonian world, escape is impossible. But in the strange world of the quantum theory, you don’t know precisely where the prisoner is at any point or his velocity. If the prisoner bangs against the prison walls often enough, you can calculate the chances that one day he will pass right through them, in direct violation of common sense and Newtonian mechanics. There is a finite, calculable probability that he will be found outside the gates of the prison walls.”
PARALLEL WORLDS
A JOURNEY THROUGH CREATION, HIGHER DIMENSIONS, AND THE FUTURE OF THE COSMOS
many theories are wonderful, just impractical
Okay, one more red flag in the “insane” column. Noted.
Michio Kaku wrote “Parallel Worlds”
January 24, 1947 (age 68)
San Jose, California, United States
Residence New York City, New York, U.S.
Nationality American
Fields Theoretical physics
Institutions City University of New York
New York University
Institute for Advanced Study
Alma mater Harvard University (A.B., 1968)
University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D., 1972)
Doctoral advisor
According to this guy, a person, leaning against a solid wall, will eventually pass through it. Fact. It seems a bit fantastic and irrelevant, but so do some of your conclusions about relationships.
Read “SLAA” a masterpiece on sex, love and relationship addiction written by a guy with vast experience in the field of “love” with a host of women.
To thine own self be true…
(I’m just approving these comments so people can see how off the rails you are getting.)
Polyamory = one or more naive individuals being duped by one or more sexual predators into believing they love you when they only care about fucking you. 50% fools, 50% hypocrites and criminals. Leave polyamory to bonobos and other lesser primates; it fits poo-flinging monkeys the best.
Hm. A pro-prudery EvoPsych troll I suspect.
When everyone wants it and likes it and gets on swimmingly at it, who is being duped?
This sounds like a rationalization to me. Just like a creationist denying all the evidence for evolution exists. Or an MRA denying any woman’s report of being raped is true.
So you are either knowingly full of shit, or deeply lacking in adequate self-examination.
But be that as it may.
I have first hand direct knowledge to the contrary of your bizarre notions: I myself love multiple people; and have sex with even more lovers than that, and even them I care about as friends. These are genuine emotions and genuine beliefs. Not reported to me. They are in me. I am experiencing them. So I know first hand what this is really like and really about.
And when I find so many others who report the same exact feelings and experiences, just as I use that data to confirm other minds exist and experience the world in similar ways as I do, it likewise confirms other people also love me, or care about me as friends (and that means everyone who does, whether having sex with me or not—indeed, by your reasoning, even your own mother doesn’t love you and just dupes you into thinking so because it’s convenient—which is making you sound a bit like a sociopath).
As to what crimes you are imagining this has anything to do with, I have no idea. Are you a Saudi prince? Because otherwise, even full-on adultery is not a crime in any forward thinking Western democracy.
Alright, last comment was plain old trolling, and a lame attempt at that. I really don’t believe any of it. That said, I do think that in this post you moved past reasonable preachiness and into Creationist-level drivel, complete with demonization of your “opponents” and questioning their motives without other good reason than feeling superior to them. That’s completely unnecessary; if you cannot defend an idea without resorting to hyperbole, you’re not much useful as a communicator.
Point to an example of what you consider “demonization” of my “opponents.”
Point to an example of me “questioning their motives” without a good reason stated.
Point to an example of hyperbole in my article.
We know you don’t honestly want answers to any of these questions, because you’ve already said in your second comment that you’re lying in this conversation. It could be that you are truthful in your second comment that you lied in your first. It could also be that your first comment does represent your true beliefs and your statement in your second comment
is a lie.
A troll leaves the first comment – it might not represent the troll’s beliefs, but the troll has his reasons to write what he writes: he actually wants a response to his trolling.
But to leave the second comment and state that
you’ve managed to make clear that you don’t want a response to your first statement AND that you’re quite obviously a liar AND that the definition of someone “not much use as a communicator” includes anyone “resorting to hyperbole” which, given your admitted trolling, prominently and notably includes you.
If there was a way to make more clear that you are a dishonest participant with nothing of value to contribute to a particular conversation, I honestly don’t know what it would be.
I wish we could be open about our polyamory, but my wife is a public school teacher and the risk is just too great.
Thanks for speaking out and sharing this, as always.
Thanks for sharing that.
This is a very common situation, and is precisely part of why I see this as an important social justice issue.
One should not have to hide this. And one certainly should not be socially punished for it.
I have Asperger’s, and I sometimes find myself wondering what binds friends, much less lovers, so I can’t really comment on the issue of insecurity, but it does seem to me that there are strong biological reasons for jealousy-though perhaps at a much lower level without massive cultural reinforcement. Still, given our experience with absolute prohibition in other areas, I’d expect that if polyamory were a viable option (even if exercised by only a small minority) it’d significantly reduce the amount of cheating in committed monogamous relationships.
good point. to eliminate the craving to be with others, just make it mandatory and forbid exclusivity. the lust to know a number of people will fade away in a hurry and a revolt demanding the right to marry and live until death with just one person will sweep the land.
i wonder if jfk had known at 11:30 am CST on 11/22/1963, that he had one hour left to live, what he would have said and done? there he was. the most powerful man on earth. he was intelligent, a true leader, articulate, wealthy, charisma oozing out of his pores, ambitious, the author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book, adored by millions, with a talented, devoted, beautiful wife and two great kids, and he had known many, many women; some said he was so honest with them he was irresistible .
What would he have done with an hour’s foreknowledge of his brutal murder, that would shock the world, perpetrated in broad daylight in full public view?
Assuming, of course, that he would be unable to alter the outcome, how would he have wished to spend that last 60 minutes in this life? Under those circumstances, i imagine he would have viewed what was really important to him entirely differently than he did normally. entirely. Because, when his time on this beautiful blue ball ran out, he had virtually everything many of us think we would like to have, and that he appeared to want. He didn’t have a clear conscience and an honest relationship with his wife and children based on mutual respect and commitment. So, in the final analysis, he died with nothing.
truth is weird. what is true under certain circumstances may seem ridiculous in other situations. when the man in the long black coat knocks, will i living in truth, my truth, before i depart? god i hope so.
Crickets are chirpin’, the water is high
There’s a soft cotton dress on the line hangin’ dry
Window wide open, African trees
Bent over backwards from a hurricane breeze
Not a word of goodbye, not even a note
She gone with the man
In the long black coat
Somebody seen him hanging around
At the old dance hall on the outskirts of town
He looked into her eyes when she stopped him to ask
If he wanted to dance, he had a face like a mask
Somebody said from the Bible he’d quote
There was dust on the man
In the long black coat
Preacher was a talkin’, there’s a sermon he gave
He said every man’s conscience is vile and depraved
You cannot depend on it to be your guide
When it’s you who must keep it satisfied
It ain’t easy to swallow, it sticks in the throat
She gave her heart to the man
In the long black coat
There are no mistakes in life some people say
It is true sometimes you can see it that way
But people don’t live or die, people just float
She went with the man
In the long black coat
There’s smoke on the water, it’s been there since June
Tree trunks uprooted, ‘neath the high crescent moon
Feel the pulse and vibration and the rumbling force
Somebody is out there beating a dead horse
She never said nothing, there was nothing she wrote
She gone with the man
In the long black coat
1989 bob dylan
“Finally, the issue was one person being too afraid to let their partner be non-monogamous because they fear they will leave them. But if their partner doesn’t love them, they should want them to leave them, and not want to keep them; thus there is no reason to allow your fear to prevent you giving your partner their freedom: because either you shouldn’t want them to stay anyway, or they won’t leave and will just happily be non-monogamous.” rc
You didn’t say the partner didn’t love them anymore, but, as I said, feelings of love come and go. Feelings are just that, feelings, not love or commitment. Feelings change. Commitment lasts through a barrage of circumstances and an assault of personal challenges. Your love for another always means he/she is free to love whomever. Love can’t be forced. Love always seeks the best for the loved one. How can you prevent another from loving someone? Being always free to choose and choosing commitment is freedom.
I think, when we are about to die, (everyone dies, no escape, not a single exception) it becomes more urgent and easier to focus on the things we value most. Imminent death has a way of clarifying what we’re proud of and what we wish we had done differently. A friend of mine booked a flight several weeks in advance to visit me in 1979. Her flight departed from O’Hare within hours of the American Airlines DC-10 that went down without warning.
The point is this. Start at the end. Consider how you want to spend your life with the end in view. What are the most important goals you hope to achieve? What will your legacy be? How do you want others to remember you? Do you strive to be of service to others, helping people to realize their full potential?
Try reading at least 25 of the last statements from those about to be executed.
“I appreciate everybody for their love and support. You all keep strong, thank you for showing me love and teaching me how to love. Forgive me…a’ll forgive me…”
It is easy for me to forget I really only have but a brief moment on this beautiful blue orb. If I keep that in mind, I make better decisions.
I live on a big blue ball
I never do dream I would fall
But even the day that I do
I’ll jump off and smile back at you
We don’t even know where we are
But they say that we’re circling a star
Well, I’ll take their word, I don’t know
But I’m dizzy so maybe that’s so.
I’m riding a big blue ball
And never do dream I would fall
But even the high may lay low
So when I do fall I’ll be glad to go…
EXECUTIONER’S SONG
Jesse Winchester
In 1977, Winchester was pardoned by then-President Jimmy Carter, for his defection to Canada to avoid the Vietnam War, and was finally able to tour America, although he wouldn’t move back to the States for another quarter century.
(More tinfoil hat.)
Just to be clear. You write, “it’s not enough to say ‘monogamy is what I want for myself’; you also have to say, ‘I will not coerce or expect anyone else to want the same thing I do.’ There is no rational argument for not doing the latter.”
Regarding the “coerce and expect” condition, are you simply talking about tolerating other lifestyles as a general matter, or are you saying that it is always irrational for a monogamous person to prefer only romantic partners who are also monogamous? I don’t see how you could justify the second of these interpretations, but at the very least you seem to be implying it. If I would be less happy with a poly parter than I would be with a non-poly partner, why would it be irrational for me to seek out only non-poly partners, clearly tell them at the outset the kind of relationship I am interested in, and then expect them to remain faithful for as long as they remain in a relationship with me? People have all kinds of idiosyncracies when it comes to the personal arrangements they find most fulfilling. What makes one person happy might have a different effect on another. As you wrote in your “coming out” post, when you realized that you would be more fulfilled by a poly lifestyle, your wife found herself unable to accomodate that preference and you both decided to go your separate ways. I see nothing wrong with this, on either side: the two of you wanted different things and moved on to live lives consistent with what you each want. However, in this thread it seems that you are not granting any rational legitimacy to the people who prefer monogamy in their own relationships (from both partners). Am I misreading you, or do you really believe that the monogamist preference is always irrational? Would you really say your wife’s preference had no rational basis? If not, why not?
(By the way, I only bring up your own relationship because you said in your other post that you are very open about your personal life and comfortable discussing it, so long as doing so does not compromise anybody else’s privacy expectations. I do not mean to be disrespectful or to personalize the argument unnecessarily).
Prefer, no. Expect their partners to always be, yes.
Because of monogamy culture, too many people have conformed to monogamy than are actually suited to it, so it becomes especially hard for someone who wants a life partner who truly shares their disinterest in other partners, to make sure they actually do, and aren’t just convincing themselves they do because they think they are supposed to. (And that’s assuming you have already made sure you aren’t such a person, and thus that you yourself really are disinterested in having more partners. You are right to bring up my case, as my case involved both dilemmas.)
It’s bad enough that failed diligence in this respect guarantees a high rate of failure for your partnering (over a third of all marriages end in divorce, and more monogamous relationships exist than marriages; when you look at how many people monogamously pair and stay that way, it’s not a high percentage). It’s worse if by setting up that dynamic you keep them trapped into a relationship they think they are supposed to “make work” for years on end, because they don’t realize the actual causes of their dissatisfaction, or feel culturally and socially coerced not to think about it.
Of course, usually both parties are oblivious to this (due to monogamy culture, the actual problem), and thus neither at fault. But once you know this is a risk you are undertaking, it’s hard to escape the responsibility of being more diligent about it, now that you know you must be—and what the hurdles are. For example, you can’t just ask someone if they will one day be interested in non-monogamy. As just noted, most people have been falsely convinced by their upbringing and peer pressure to believe that they aren’t, or that they can give it up for the sake of what is culturally and socially expected, which should be a red flag that maybe you are trapping someone who really shouldn’t do this. It’s like a culture in which everyone is taught that being gay is bad. You can’t just ask them if they are gay and count on their answer being correct (even if they answer with what they believe is the truth).
The same problem can arise on both sides, of someone so desperate to be with a particular person, that they will convince themselves they have to “change” to conform to that person’s needs and expectations. In reality, one should change for their own good, not just to secure a mate; because if it’s only for the latter, it is unlikely to be conducive to happiness. This includes people who can’t be poly, convincing themselves to be, so as to be with a poly partner they want; as well as people who really shouldn’t be monogamous, convincing themselves to be, so as to be with a monogamous partner they want. And in terms of base rates, right now, the latter group is going to consist of far more people. Thus, a far greater danger. The more so as our culture right now supports and encourages them, and not the other group.
So the problem is not that it is irrational for anyone to want a monogamous partner. As I said multiple times, for some people, that may be be perfectly rational. The problem is that our culture and society right now are making it extremely hard for you to know who actually will be happy that way, as even they will claim and even believe they are, and be wrong. Just like someone who is gay and in denial, because the cultural and social negatives are such that they just can’t be gay, they just can’t. But alas, they may well be.
So what we should all want is to get rid of this culture. So that no one is pressured or enculturated to assume they are supposed to be monogamous. Then the risk of finding someone who says they are but they really aren’t will drop considerably. But until then, if you want a partner who really is, then you have the hard responsibility of figuring out how to find out the truth of them that even they might not know, because they’ve been told they can only be a good or proper person if they are that way.
Shouldn’t we critique agreements that are based on exclusivity itself?
Because it is extremely common for people to desire non-monogamous,
later discover that they are no longer interested in monogamy.
A strict agreement built around something as non-monolithic and changeable as sexual desire is inherently problematic, just as we would never make lifelong agreements about hunger or other fluctuating needs.
Moreover, unlike non-monogamous arrangements, strict monogamy allows little to no flexibility; instead, it expects people to desire and practice the same relationship structure for an entire lifetime.
Many more
For all of these reasons, shouldn’t the existence of monogamous agreements as unethical?
I am inclined to think so. This is one of the horizon examples I gave of something our society is probably still morally wrong about (and has yet to progress from) in Will AI Be Our Moses? and BTA Part 2.
But, like systemic racism (which, in result of society morally rejecting explicit racism, subsumed effective racism under excuse-driven or hidden mechanisms for effecting it that can always be denied: e.g. Fryer, Winling-Michney, and so on), systemic monogamism is hard to critique to anyone not already convinced it deserves to be.
For example, everyone agrees “forced monogamy” (as in, the state or families outright compelling marriage) is wrong. They will say that you have the freedom to be nonmonogamous and it’s just your bad luck no one else wants to be so you have to “suck it up” if you want a relationship. It can be like moving mountains to get them to see that that very perspective is itself coercive. Hence all the monogamy apologetics (like: jealousy is natural and not a cultural construct people have been abused into; “but what about STDs”; “who has the time?”; etc.).
It’s similar to people saying we abolished slavery so why are we complaining about wage slavery, “it’s not the same thing.” Except when it functionally is. In the U.S. our system contains a lot of de facto slavery and thus the U.S. system is itself immoral. But because proving that requires too many steps of reasoning for most people to follow, most people don’t understand why it’s true.
This is why we have progressed to this point: we’ve eliminated all the obvious immoralities of prior moral systems (like explicit slavery or coerced marriage or Jim Crow and the like); and what progress remains requires going beyond what is explicitly obvious about our choices and beliefs.
Yes, I agree, but I was asking whether expecting a completely monogamous partner and making a monogamous agreement itself is wrong—not just in the current situation where a bias toward monogamy exists, but even in a hypothetical society that has removed all biases against non-monogamous relationships.
Such a strict lifelong monogamy would require that two people—often meeting very young—will find a perfectly compatible partner early on and then remain sexually exclusive for their entire lives
That would require a natural orientation, which there is no reason to think exists. We know from evidence that about 98% of people admit having inclinations toward others, and the use of masturbation or porn is about people having sex in their heads with others without technically breaking a monogamous agreement.Eric Anderson’s study found that 86% of the men cheated—the highest infidelity rate found yet—when he intentionally selected men who were attractive and had frequent opportunities.
All of this raises the question of whether such a person naturally exists at all. So expecting a strictly monogamous person itself is ridiculous in most cases.
Also, another thing that raises questions is whether expecting that a partner will exactly meet all one’s needs, match one’s own monogamous agreement, and then turning something as highly unstable as sexual desire into a strict agreement is itself questionable. We all recognize that people are different, so expecting difference within relationships makes sense. This prevents coercing one’s own preferences onto each other and allows acceptance that partners may have different tastes.
Being poly destroys a monogamous relationship; being monogamous does not destroy a poly relationship. Also, for such a relationship to work, it would require lifelong monogamous consent, with the other person expecting a monogamous-only partner. That kind of consent does not work, as it gives no room for flexibility.
All of this raises highly problematic concerns even from a practical standpoint alone ..
I think it’s fine to be monogamous person for themselves but asking for partner to do the same is unethical
Which I have shared a new link about ole martin on relationship anarchy explored this
That’s what I affirmed. As I said, I suspect that’s so (“I think it’s fine to be monogamous person for themselves but asking for partner to do the same is unethical” is exactly where I am, and have been, as shown in the links, for years). It’s just hard (at this cultural moment) to get people to see why we’re right about that.
To that end, your points add to mine.
Except I am not sure what you mean by “being poly destroys a monogamous relationship; being monogamous does not destroy a poly relationship,” as I know numerous poly relationships destroyed by a partner going monogamous. The rest of that paragraph I comprehend and agree with.
Not in this culture,We could make almost accurate predictions about whether people will be monogamous as defined today—getting married early and remaining sexually exclusive for a lifetime by desire, even with plenty of opportunity and no stigma—by looking at non-monogamous cultures, cross-cultural patterns, human desires, and biology. There is little reason to think this form of lifelong monogamy will be naturally desired. There are, however, reasons to think that a good percentage of people may be naturally almost monogamous, even though they may desire others over decades of coupledom, which is not compatible with the monogamous ideal.
Anderson’s infidelity statistics are unique as an experiment in showing what percentage of people will engage in such behavior when consequences, lack of choice, and stigma are removed. Eighty-six percent engaged in sexual infidelity; if we count other forms of non-monogamy in his study, that number would be closer to one hundred percent 😂
If a person agrees to be in a monogamous relationship, they cannot exercise polyamorous desires. On the other hand, if the relationship agreement is polyamorous, not having another partner for a long time or choosing to be monogamous for a period does not affect the validity of the polyamorous relationship. (I haven’t found a single poly person breaking up with their other partner because they chose not to have other partners; I see monogamists doing that a lot.)
Polyamory allows flexibility, which makes a case for why relationships, sex, and romance that are highly changeable or influenced by many circumstances (for example, when one partner has low desire, anxiety, or other personal challenges) should be polyamorous by agreement. This also makes a case for why everyone should be in a polyamorous relationship by agreement, even if they practice monogamy.
A strict relationship agreement that does not allow flexibility in sex and romance is always harmful, which is what a strict monogamous agreement is. Polyamorous people, however, are generally flexible; simply because they are poly by agreement does not mean they are actively trying to have other partners. They may adopt monogamy for themselves for some time, and that flexibility remains within the polyamorous framework.
So, monogamy can be practiced within a polyamorous relationship, but polyamory cannot be practiced within monogamy.
You could have just led with that. I see from this that the sentence I didn’t understand was simply incorrectly written. Rewritten this way, it’s obviously correct. As is the rest.
You got what I mean so…
Have you noticed the conservative, monogamy-centered attitudes and biases of Sam Harris, Peter Boghossian, and other leading mainstream promoters of atheism and humanism? They tend to oppose non-monogamy and emphasize concerns about instability and jealousy—claims that lack strong empirical evidence and have been addressed in a post by Terri Conley, as you discussed previously.?
Oh, definitely.
This isn’t the only centrist position they take. These guys are generally center-right. Which I mean by a common developed-nature metric, e.g. compared to Japan or Europe; American politics is so bizarre its conservativism is off the rails altogether, so what counts as “center right” here is what is actually just right wing in Euro or Japan, and these guys tend not to be that right-wing. But they are definitely not broadly left-wing (Hitchens was, but he died before he could pick a lane or weigh in on more recent turns of events).
I think people fall for the availability bias here, mistaking “these guys made the most money and thus became the most famous therefore they’re the most representative” of atheism today, but the stats show otherwise. Most atheists are well to the left of them. It’s just that 10% of atheists is still millions of people, enough to sell a lot of books and leverage their privilege into economic lock-in as “the face” of a movement (center-right is also where most of the donor money is, so Dawkins gets “big donor” money and Tarico and Malpass and I are ignored), especially when adding the masking effect (most people who bought their books or donated to their missions did not know how right-skewed they are).
For a good discussion of how the “liberal vs. conservative” dichotomy misses the role of near-right leftism, see this video about the politics of J.K. Rowling and New Labor: Harry Potter. You might also find Crossley’s books interesting (though on the cultural politics of Jesus studies, he discusses the right-wing trend in “moneyed” atheism like Harris and Dawkins): Jesus in an Age of Neoliberalism and Jesus in an Age of Terror.
By contrast, poly-promoting atheists (like Greta Christina) don’t get the bucks and thus don’t become the face of atheism, while poly-friendly atheists (like Matt Dillahunty) avoid the subject to preserve spoons for their prioritized causes instead.
Things are a little weird right now because of covid creating a shock that “bumped” sociocultural progress backwards a bit (the “Gen Z” swing more right is confined mostly to the generation in high school those two years). So we are not yet back in a normal progress curve. But by 2030 I expect atheism will be more associated with left-wing YouTube phenoms, not “Harris” or “Boghossian,” and distinguished from right-wing atheism rather than lumped in with it (like Sargon and TJ Kirk).
He’s okay with even something that people have some problems accepting like prostitution incest etc…But have a beef with polyamory…
If you have watched his interview with geifery miller on the poly it’s obvious that of his monogamy bias from tone and presentation…
https://youtu.be/JPiD5KujW_Y?si=yvcgIXmybmC-6Plj
Anyway I have sent a message with the studies debunking many concerns he raised but didn’t got a reply…
Addiction is special. It constantly tells us we don’t have it. I once heard a guy explain how his addiction spoke to him. he was penniless, wearing filthy worn out rags, unshaven, smelly, in ill health, with no friends, no job, no prospects for a job, whose family had left him, all because he drank alcohol excessively, say to himself as he approached a treatment facility on foot in the pouring rain without an umbrella, he really didn’t think he needed any help.
withdraw from every known behavior that includes sex, the prospect of sex, or the hope for the prospect of sex with any and everyone. even if you are married. stop all activity that is in any way based upon culling sexual satisfaction, release, pleasure and cease pursuing every relationship, crush, infatuation, where sex may become part of the dynamic. stop all of it. find support. find other activities. talk to others. breathe-that may be all you can do and that is plenty. you are working extremely hard not to act out–a full time job! and read SLAA or related material. see what happens
What is described is the beginning of freedom for the person addicted to sex, love, relationships, etc. It is a brutal process. Brutal. These addicts discover they don’t have this addiction. They are the addiction. It is cellular. And the withdrawal process doesn’t take a day or two, in most cases. One of the most frightening pieces of coming to grips with its reality is that no one knows exactly how long the agony of withdrawing from this monster will take. It is an individual matter. One of the most rewarding surprises we experience as withdrawal finally begins to ease up, Is a new life. A new life free from the tentacled grasp of an addiction that was destroying us germinates and a true sense of oneself emerges. Hard to describe, but be assured, those who have faced this hideous beast (i.e. our addicted selves) head-on and surrendered to their powerlessness by refraining from acting out one second at a time will tell you it is well worth the effort.
A new “us” began to develop. A sense of our own self-worth apart from others started to spring up within the depths of who we really always wanted to be, but were foiled in our attempts for reasons we could never quite understand.
This sounds like tinfoil hat to me.
From a fake account at that.
What do you make of this? (Comment from http://www.westerndefence.org/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=3226&hilit=What+about+the+man%27s+responsibility)
“Yessica: There are great swathes of the manosphere devoted to explaining this, and I will try to summarise those ideas as best I can here.
The slut/stud distinction is rooted in the following. Firstly, there needs to be an acknowledgement that men and women are different. Women do have to live with the consequences of their actions and men don’t. A woman has to choose her mate carefully because she has to devote nine months to carrying her child, then several more years to raising it. She bears an enormous cost in doing so. Men, on the other hand can have literally hundreds of children for relatively low cost. Biologically, to a large extent, women “succeed” in the mating game by pursuing quality, whilst men “succeed” by pursuing quantity.
Secondly, even on qualitative issues, there is a difference between what men and women are valued for as mates. Women are valued by men for fertility, a large proxy of which is beauty. There are very clear beauty markers that serve as proxies for fertility and which decline with age. One such example is the lustre of hair. Another is skin quality. This is because women have a fairly short fertility window that ends at menopause. There is no such thing as a menopausal male (though fertility does decline somewhat with men with age and there are also increased risks of genetic defects in children with really old fathers). Men at fifty can still have children. Women, generally, cannot.
Men, generally speaking then, are judged by different standards, namely their abilities as resource providers and their status within the group because this can often confer lesser males paying some form of tribute (either in terms of physical resources or as support personnel in acquiring such resources) to dominant males. Male CEOs are vastly more attractive to women than female CEOs are to men (in fact, female CEOs may well turn men off). Women, in so much as they are valued for behaviours are valued in the degree to which they are nurturers of their offspring and/or support the ability of their mates to be/continue to be good resource providers. This used to be called feminine behaviour, though an ideological war has been waged upon it by various left wing cretins (most notably feminists) for the past half century. The point of all of this is that women’s sexual market value (attractiveness as mates) basically is ever in decline, whereas for males, it can still be very strong well into, and beyond, middle age. Indeed, males probably really come into their own in their thirties (or even forties), whereas the thirties are a cliff for a woman. Conversely, the twenties can be difficult for a lot of men because they haven’t acquired either resources, the skills to acquire resources, or status, whereas women will be much more successful in their twenties because of their beauty. This is probably why a lot more women than men dread turning thirty. In East Asia, women are washed up at thirty. No one will marry them. Indeed, in Japan, it’s even worse.
That said, there are some proxies used as male attractiveness, but they are still not as strong as those for women. There are certain “masculine” features (e.g. strong jawline, long/large fingers, etc.) that are representative of higher testosterone levels, which could be taken as somewhat of a predictor of being dominant/successful. Incidentally, on that topic, before reading about all of this, no matter how much the media always tried to sell actresses such as Jennifer Aniston or Sarah Jessica Parker as attractive, I just never saw it. In fact, their strong “man jaws” were a huge turn off for me (not to mention their generally masculine behaviour). In fact, do a Google Images search for “Jennifer Aniston man face” or “Sarah Jessica Parker man hands” — yikes! Trinity in the Matrix was one of the most egregious examples of this “women pretending to be men pretending to be women is hot” memes out there, so I guess I noticed this at least fourteen years ago, way before the manosphere. There is an underlying biological reason (strong testosterone levels, i.e. they are actually more “male” than a lot of women). On the other hand, there is a reason a lot of men really like Zooey Deschanel. Not only does she look feminine (check her jawline or hands), she dresses in such a way, and she has made “controversial” statements in support of such behaviour.
Back on topic, “game” is somewhat of a “hack” to all of this in that a man could basically “fake it”. Game is to men what makeup is to women.
Now, to finally get to the point regarding all of this and societies. Long-lasting, sustainable societies realised that these biological issues are an absolute nightmare for a society and need to be restricted in some sense. Otherwise, what you end up with is a kind of pareto principle where certain men reap a disproportionate share of the pie. Women, biologically, will tend to end up as part of a harem, be it a soft harem (e.g. modern “playas”/PUAs) or a hard harem (e.g. polygamous marriages, such as in the Middle East), or there is cuckoldry. There is a reason that most successful societies enshrine monogamy, chastity, fidelity, etc. Without those traits, there is a large section of men who have no stake in the society because they will never get a woman. Those men are very, very dangerous en masse, and unless a society flushes them out regularly with wars or has some other draconian ways of dealing with them, they can create great civil disturbances (witness China, India, the Middle East, etc. when this issue really hits in coming decades) or the society just struggles generally to operate at full capacity against outside threats.
There are a number of subsidiary factors involved, but a large part of the problem amongst the lower class right now can be explained by two things. The first is the above (that there is probably a sizable section of the male populace not getting women and children). The other is that the incentives are all wrong. The traditional moral factors that would have set up monogamous, chaste, faithful citizens have been abandoned and actively punished. Further to this, the consequences of these actions, for both men and women, have been passed on to other members of society (who provide taxes for the welfare state) who do still believe in the old morality. That is simply unsustainable because such people will either be outbred to the point that they won’t be able to provide enough tax or they will revolt in some way (including overthrowing the new morality and returning to the old morality, seceding, expatriating, avoiding paying tax, etc.).
Traditional societies generally no more rewarded, encouraged or admired men being “studs” than they did women being “sluts”, though there was more leeway in the upper classes (though it was still generally kept behind closed doors so that the hypocrisy wouldn’t be seen, and thus emulated by lower classes, leading to the breakdown of society).
Modern Western societies (and increasingly some other modern societies) are at best neutral toward promiscuous and irresponsible behaviour by either sex, and sometimes actively condone and promote such things. Such societies are unsustainable and will either have a revolution to more traditional mores, they will collapse, or they will be supplanted by other societies that have a better handle on all of this. The West is in for some rocky times in the next few decades. Whether it emerges out the other side or goes into extinction, in the long term, there won’t be liberalism, including in the sexual marketplace.”
That’s full on sexist, pseudoscientific, anti-humanist bullshit.
For example:
Biologically false. Lots of women don’t. Not only are lots of women sterile, and more sterilized, the rest have a fancy new technology available called birth control. Incidentally, this fact, refutes the entire thesis of that comment, all the way down to the last paragraph. If you have a grand philosophy of life and it is refuted by a tiny piece of plastic, you are clearly the dullest crayon in the box.
But I should also note that this is legally false. Men are equally on the hook under the law. Thus what nature made unfair, democracy made fair. Welcome to humanity fixing nature’s evils.
Even the EvoPsych angle is bullshit. There is no scientific evidence supporting the supposition that women are substantially biologically different in their interest in sexual partners or financial security from men. When cultural barriers are removed, they always behave the same (equally promiscuous; equally interested or disinterested in financial security). This is even supported by studies of other mammals: female mammals are commonly just as promiscuous as the males.
The nonsense about beauty standards is partly true (we have evolved a gendered difference in preference for mate appearance), but problematized by the bell curve (variation produces wide ranges of preferences in men and women, so one cannot generalize). And I don’t see what relevance this even has to any point being made. I know lots of women who are gorgeous in their forties and lots of men who just went to pot; and in my experience anyone who isn’t an immature child finds the same qualities attractive in women as this douchebro claims women find attractive in men (power and success are always hot—unless you are an insecure sexist jerk, and thus threatened by a woman’s power and success).
And as if to make fun of himself, citing cultural differences (Asia, Japan) refutes this douchebro’s claim that it’s about biology. Refuting themselves is almost a defining attribute of the douchelectual. They also don’t seem to have an accurate understanding of those foreign cultures, and on top of that are stereotyping them, evidently not realizing he is talking about a statistical minority within those cultures. But we shouldn’t be surprised, since racism is also a common attribute of the douchelectual.
His assuming his own attraction standards are universal, is yet another common defect of the douchelectual. A general narcissistic assumption that everyone is just like them, which false assumption they build entire worldviews on. Which gets us back to the dull crayon. Disregarding ample evidence of enormous variation in those standards among actual people, and abundant evidence of cultural variation in attractiveness standards as well (historically as well as geographically and even within subcultures), is also a common defect of the douchelectual, because they are all fanatical believers in the
religionpseudoscience calledastrologyEvoPsych, and so constantly forget to control for culture as a causal factor. (Except when refuting themselves.)Kiljoy and the person they are quoting are also–no surprise–ignoring the fact that not everyone is heterosexual. The chance of an accidental pregnancy from anything I do with my girlfriend is precisely zero.
Note: Most of this comment is based on the impression I get of what you’re saying, and is not meant to reflect all ideas of polyamory everywhere.
Let me start with some housekeeping:
If that’s the case, then it’s wrong to contrast it with monogamy. What you should be using is monoamory, as that then includes people who want one lifetime, committed, exclusive partner but who don’t want to get married, eliminates the issues around marriage from the picture, and most importantly focuses the discussion on what it has to be focused on, which is the love aspect.
Which, then, leads to my first comment: what sort of love do you think that you can have that is shared among multiple people yet is equivalent to the dedicated, lifetime, “soulmate” type of love that monoamory advocates for? You talk a lot about polyamory being about love, but when you talk about what you have it sounds very much like you’re talking more about sex than about love. Above, you list four women that you are in “relationships” with, and imply that those do not make up the extent of your relationships, and yet simply looking at that number it’s hard to see how dedicated a love you could have. What is the difference between those relationships and “friends with benefits”? Heck, given the number, how can they be anything more than “casual friends with benefits”? That’s CERTAINLY not the sort of love that monoamory advocates for. You can’t simply stick love in there when we already accept that there are multiple kinds of love — for friends, for family, and so on — and that one can act on them. You need to tie it to the sort of love that we get in monoamorous relationships to claim that that can be shared out among multiple persons AND that you can still have it with polyamory.
This is actually important, because if it comes down to sex the monoamorist can reply that the deep, lifetime commitment of monoamory is still massively desirable and the ideal sort of relationship, but that the idea that that commitment is tied to sexual exclusivity might be outdated. Maybe, then, committed monoamorist relationships can indeed include some variety of sexual partners. In short, maybe cheating isn’t having sex with a partner outside of the relationship, but is having sex with a partner outside of that relationship without the knowledge of the other partner. This, then, given the relationships you seem to be pursuing most of the time — admittedly, that’s reading a bit in to what you say; you may have other relationships that are not mainly or primarily sexual — that would seem to satisfy most of your objections while still preserving monoamory. After all, the jealousy you talk about isn’t just about having sex with other partners — or if it is, it’s a biological jealousy — but is instead a jealousy based on the idea that having sex with other people than your partner is cheating and a betrayal, or risks them falling in love with them instead. If we take away that fear, then that jealousy should fade as well, fixing monoamory.
(Note: It is generally considered that sex can and is used to build and maintain intimacy. Monoamory posits that one’s deepest intimacy should be saved for one’s committed partner, and if having sex with other people interferes with that then that would still be something they’d reject. But then they’d have a reason for that, and we would still have to argue over what love the polyamorists are advocating for and what they might have to give up).
One of the big concerns about polyamory as you describe it is that you seem to attach it very much to arranging relationships to maximize your own personal happiness, and then assuming that everyone else is doing the same thing. This is what you need to get to the sorts of “freedom” arguments that you need to make. The problem is that this changes the “love” we’re talking about from the selfless one of monoamory, where you’re supposed to make your happiness dependent on the happiness of your partner, to the more selfish one where the relationship is defined entirely by how much they contribute to your own happiness. While few if any think that a monoamorous relationship is good if one partner is made miserable in order to make the other partner happy, the idea is that each partner should be willing to give up things that make them happy because the happiness of the other partner is more important to them; in short, they are made happy, to a large extent, by making the OTHER partner happy. As you describe polyamory, that isn’t the case; it strikes me as each relationship being assessed precisely on how happy it makes the person, without much concern for the other person beyond what is necessary to maintain the relationship. Not only is this not the sort of relationship/love that monoamory advocates, it also runs the risk of creating a situation where the power in the negotiated relationships massively falls on the person who cares LESS about the other person, whose happiness is LESS dependent on that person.
The idea is this: the person with the most power in any negotiation is the person who is willing to walk away if they don’t get what they want the earliest. Thus, the person with the stronger demands and who doesn’t actually NEED the negotiation to work has the most power. Thus, in any sort of romantic or love relationship, the power goes to the person who loves the other person LESS, as they are more willing to ditch the relationship if they don’t get the compromises they want. This means that caring more about a person is actually more likely to lead someone to compromise when they don’t want to, while still arguing that it makes them “happier” in the long run, but this is pretty much the definition of an exploitative relationship. Sure, this can happen in monoamory as well, but at least there there are standards for what must be given at a minimum for the relationship to actually be one, so people can judge whether the standards are being met or not, even from outside of the relationship. That’s NOT the case for polyamory, because every relationship, technically, is different.
Note that talking about respect for others doesn’t work here, because that respect has to include letting the other person decide what they want, and I’m not talking about explicit and conscious exploitation, but unconscious exploitation: you end up exploiting them because you give them JUST enough to stay but keep demanding things from them on the basis of “I’ll walk away if I can’t get this”. And you can’t eliminate that “threat” because ending relationships that no longer promote your happiness seems to be the main motivation for, at least, YOUR style of polyamory; it’s not a threat if it’s simply the truth.
Well written… 80 percentage of the things felt like how I would write my own argument on the topic…
I suggest reading the monogamy gap by eric anderson which critically examined compulsory monogamy as a social institution.. you may find it very informative and it supports most of the points you made
Thank you. I have not read that so I cannot vouch for it but for readers interested:
Eric Anderson, The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love, and the Reality of Cheating (Sexuality, Identity, and Society) is a real academic study published by Oxford University Press by a genuinely renowned sociologist specializing in human relationships.
I found only one good review (amidst usually trashy and biased reviews): by philosopher Nick Harding (who takes a “both-and” position).
mostly negative reviews by monogamists… the book is one of the most important works challenging mononormativity. Anderson’s work is frequently cited and recommended in academic scholarship on non-monogamy.
You should also read Harry Chalmers, Justin L. Clardy, and R. A. Briggs. All of them raise similar critiques regarding the ethical permissibility of monogamous arrangements, using points closely aligned with those you mentioned.
If you give me your email i will send pdf all of it or I will give links here
Indeed, the reviews are mostly biased (many even homophobic) and don’t actually engage with its arguments or evidence, rendering those reviews useless. I only found the one review any good, as cited. Though there was an academic review behind a paywall I couldn’t vet.
As for Harry Chalmers, Justin L. Clardy, and R. A. Briggs, please cite relevant books or studies by them. They write on a lot, so you’d have to narrow down what they wrote that pertains here. Readers will benefit.
I am not good at explaining:
https://philpapers.org/rec/CHAIMM-2
https://philpapers.org/rec/CHAMU
https://noeticpathways.substack.com/p/monogamy-moorean-shifting-and-commonsense
https://philpapers.org/rec/BRISNB
https://philpapers.org/rec/CLAMNA-2
Excellent. Thank you.
Note with the new commenting system you can give titles and hyperlink them if you wanted, like thus:
Chalmers, “Is Monogamy Morally Permissible?”
Chalmers, “Monogamy Unredeemed”
Chalmers, “Monogamy, Moorean Shifting, and Commonsense Morality”
Briggs, “Should Non‐Monogamy Be Consensual?”
Clardy, “Monogamies, Non-Monogamies, and the Moral Impermissibility of Intimacy Confining Constraints”
Great linklist. I appreciate your taking the time to get these in here.
If Anderson’s book is not credible, then most of the arguments you raised against monogamy would also not be credible, since your points and his are almost 90 percent the same. He also explains your specific situation in a monogamous marriage using hegemonic theory and cognitive dissonance theory.
That’s a multiply fallacious argument.
If they are 90% the same, 10% might carry. So it cannot follow that if there is anything unreliable in his book that there is nothing correctly concluded in my article. That is literally logically impossible. So you aren’t thinking clearly here.
And that he applies known theories does not mean his applications or data are correct. And that’s what you meant citing him for: supposedly he reinforces my arguments with this more sophisticated material; but if he fails, that doesn’t mean my article is wrong. It just means he botched the effort to prove it.
And you are committing the fallacy fallacy: that an argument is fallacious does not entail its conclusion is false. What I would be vouching for is not his conclusions but his arguments to those conclusions, which could all be fallacious and still the conclusions be correct.
Above all, the real problem with bad books is not that they are full of useless arguments (that sometimes happens, but it’s the rare worst case), but that they are littered randomly with good and bad arguments, and non-experts won’t be able to tell which is which, rendering the book useless even if its conclusion is correct.
I am not saying his book suffers any of these defects. I am saying I have not checked so as to know. But its status (as a quality peer reviewed study, by a qualified expert and specialist) suggests the balance of probability is that he didn’t botch this. But without checking, I can’t ensure to my readers that the more probable thing happened here. That would require a competent critic’s detailed review.
I agree that a particular statement can be both true and false depending on the reasoning behind it. When I said that your arguments and his are the same, I meant this almost literally: his reasons for specific claims closely mirror yours.
For one example, would be: in several of your articles you argue that monogamous relationships often lead to sexual boredom. His research similarly found that many men enter relationships expecting fulfilling sex, but over time experience boredom within monogamy. They then attempt to manage this through pornography, and later some engage in cheating—an outcome.
I understand that. It doesn’t change any of my enumerated points.
“Just because” he argues x does not mean he does so well or reliably, and his doing so unwell or unreliably would not entail x is false.
If we can find a 1:1 correlation where he argues something in each case better or as well as I do, then we have disproved the thesis that he didn’t. But that requires actually doing that, which I haven’t yet. So I can’t vouch for the book. I can just recommend it as probably worth a look.
Maybe I didn’t write well ( English is not my first language) …Ok we don’t have to cling on to that…
You check it yourself 👍
Why haven’t you replied to verbose stoic just above my comment that would be helpful
As that was ten years ago I don’t recall. At a glance they don’t really say anything not already refuted in the article they are commenting on. But more likely I just didn’t notice the comment (that was before I had a better comment management system working). Your reply is worthwhile.
One link I forgot to give:
The Ethics of Relationship Anarchy
Thank you. That’s a valuable analysis.
Something else to add that just dropped: “Countering the Monogamy-Superiority Myth: A Meta-Analysis of the Differences in Relationship Satisfaction and Sexual Satisfaction as a Function of Relationship Orientation”
I highly recommend giving it a try—I think it’s an unmissable work on this topic. If you find it useful, you could write an article offering a detailed explanation of monogamy based on the book.
For buying – https://www.amazon.com/Monogamy-Gap-Cheating-Sexuality-Identity/dp/0199777926
the author has allowed people to download the book as a PDF – https://annas-archive.org/md5/9441e223fb6d19be6b9317bdd0ace318
Go to the link – select slow download first option then wait for 20 seconds then download it
Thanks!
So did you find the book informative or it didn’t made a strong case ..?
I’ve only skimmed it to confirm its prima facie merits. I can’t evaluate it in depth because that would take days of research.
But you added it to your many post as a reference without reading it first to confirm that it was a good one?
I confirmed it’s good enough to consult. That’s all readers need to know.
They already know that does not mean I endorse literally every sentence in it. That can only be claimed if I actually review it. And even then I’d likely repeat the fact that I don’t necessarily endorse literally every sentence in it.
If possible, could you review it? How much do you usually charge to review a book? I read that someone paid you to review a book before, and I’d be willing to pay as well—even though I’m from another country, I hope payment wouldn’t be an issue. I think this book is very important and articulates ideas that are necessary for challenging mononormativity.
I’ve read the book in full, and honestly, I feel that your work and the author’s overlap a lot. I didn’t find much disagreement, at least based on everything I’ve followed from your work on this topic. So I’m curious—are you expecting to find points you disagree with in the book, or have you already noticed any disagreements from what you’ve read so far?
I would have to be paid to. Otherwise, all my time is locked up on projects now for years. I’m behind on twenty deadlines almost all the time. So I have to triage what I do. This doesn’t naturally win any forced ranking on that.
How much money for review?
You didn’t answer second one
1) At-sight review (just read the book and comment, without fact-checking it all) for a 250-page book is $250; a full fact-check of all essential (not incidental) claims (i.e. actual research), $550. And in either case I won’t be able to say whether everything in the book is true, only what I did check and how well.
2) I didn’t see any errors at a glance. But a glance isn’t even an at-sight review, much less a researched fact-check. And I have decades of experience with monographs, so I know the priors are not stellar that everything in any given monograph will check out. So I cannot simply assume it will.
I remember Sam Harris bigoted quote while reading this 😂
That’s I think here. It’s funny because it actually is a Freudian slip.
Most poly literature fronts discussion of love and cooperation over sex. So Harris had to have gone out of his way to only read the stuff answering questions about sex. So his own obsession with sex caused his failure to engage with the bulk of actual poly literature and advocacy and thus misreport it as all about sex and thus project his obsession on everyone else.
Yeah there’s some evidence people with conservative mindset on sexuality is often obsessed with sex including things considered unusual and try to find it in everywhere and he seems to one of those Christian pastor who has some secret kink or obsession he hates that he likes it …