Tobias: You know, Lindsay, as a therapist, I have advised... a number of couples to explore an open relationship where the couple remains emotionally committed but free to explore extramarital encounters.
Lindsay: Well, did it work for those people?
Tobias: No, it never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but... but it might work for us.
Everyone loves the ancestral environment until I suggest that I think it would be in keeping with our ancestral environment if I smashed their head in with a rock for being smaller and weaker than me and having something I want
I’d move it further upstream - it’s insane that anyone treats evolutionary psychology as a rigorous science. It’s a series of theoretical propositions that are largely untestable and unfalsifiable.
Yet another example of how easy it is to fool well-off, educated people with scientism and rhetoric.
It should be noted that Sex at Dawn was torn to shreds by academics for thoroughly misrepresenting evolutionary psychology, anthropology, history, primatology, etc. and for failing to even UNDERSTAND biological evolution at a fundamental level. I have read the book, and its entire argument sounds exactly like the kind of strawman that a person would make up in order to satirize evolutionary psychology.
The biggest problem with the book (aside from the fact that it flat-out LIES about almost every culture it cites) is that its thesis about "partible paternity" and 'communal, polyamorous childrearing' does not make sense. It hinges on a complete lack of an understanding of how genetic selection works.
To explain: Human reproduction is inherently discriminatory because children take a very long time and a significant amount of effort to raise—the parents MUST stay together long enough to ensure that their children grow up into healthy, functioning adults who can then raise children of their own.
For this reason, mate-guarding is strongly selected for in humans—a man who spends his entire life raising other men's children is not ensuring that his own children survive—his "indiscriminate love" and "unconditionally altruistic genes" will cause him to become a doormat for parents with more "selfish genes" - parents who focus only on raising their own children; without repaying the favor. Thus, the former's children will not survive and the "unconditionally altruistic genes" will be trampled over and die out. The "selfish genes" will be selected for.
Likewise, because human children are so difficult to raise, a woman who does not have the undivided support of a single biological father is ultimately going to have fewer surviving and reproductively successful children of her own—her genes will fail to spread. Women with devoted husbands and fathers, meanwhile, will have more surviving children who will then go onto have children of their own.
Because of these biological forces, universal and indiscriminate sexual desire and unconditional altruism cannot be selected for, and a truly "free love" civilization—i.e., universal polyamory—will never be possible, let alone reproductively sustainable.
The fact is: Love is inherently unfair, because the human capacity for attention will always be finite.
Only God is capable of giving every single person on Earth his full, undivided love and attention. We mortal humans have no choice but to RATION our love and attention. And in doing so, we get preferential treatment and thus: inequality.
Someone in the world is and will always be doomed to be neglected or ostracized and ultimately forgotten, no matter what we do.
Certainly, we shouldn't be using it as a guide for present-day moral guidance. I think it has the capacity to be more scientific, but I do agree that people tend to use it more as a cudgel to buttress unrelated political beliefs.
Two of those things are not like the others. Psychology and Sociology can apply the scientific method. Evo psych has no way to test its claims. Gender Studies actively rejects science. History is wiggly. In the end it depends on how trustworthy your sources are.
Astrophysics has no way to test its claims, either. Nor geology, nor paleontology, nor...
A lot of people get hung up on experimentalism, thinking that if you can't perform proper experiments with controls, it's not science, but that's just not true. Experiments are not an essential feature of the scientific method.
The essential features of the scientific method are hypothesizing, prediction and testing. It's very nice when you can construct a controlled experiment to test the predictions generated by your hypothesis, but it's not necessary. In contexts where you can't experiment you just have to use the harder method of predicting then trying to systematically identify observations that invalidate your predictions.
This is how a lot of science has to work, finding "natural experiments", and analyzing them. In the case of evolutionary psychology this involves hypthothesizing about what must have been, then looking for evidence that falsifies the hypothesis. Yes, this is really, really hard. Evidence is thin on the ground, and there will often be a desire to draw stronger conclusions than are really justified by the evidence. But that doesn't mean it's impossible, nor that there aren't brilliant people inventing incredibly clever ways to test hypotheses, nor that they aren't making actual progress.
Umm. Astrophysics, Geology, and Paleontology all have concrete ways to test their hypothesis. Evo Psyche is just in its own category. They have to make some pretty broad assumptions before they even begin the process. David Buss, one of the leading researchers, even admitted that Evo Psych should be used as a *heuristic* to explore gaps in social psych research.
I notice a lot of overlap between the people asserting that polyamory is good because it's "natural" and the people who scoff at the idea that human bodies evolved to eat meat.
Our bodies *did* evolve to eat meat. That doesn't mean that eating meat is morally correct or justifiable.
Alastair Roberts of The Anchored Argosy substack pointed out many years ago (on Twitter) that modern polyamorists often try to justify their lifestyle by making up bold, pseudo-historical claims about “manic pixie dream societies that can save us from our cisheteronormative imposition of monogamy.”
That perfectly summarizes the false narrative that Sex at Dawn peddles. In fact, the book was torn to shreds by academics for completely misrepresenting almost ALL of the research that it draws from and for making no biological sense (check out the “Reception” section on Sex at Dawn’s Wikipedia page if you’re interested).
Alastair Roberts referred to this type of theory - that ancestral humans were polyamorous sexual communists - as a sort-of “Fall narrative”:
“When encountering [these types of] accounts, it is important to bear in mind how tied up they are with progressive liberal Fall narratives:
i.e. ‘before everything all went wrong, we lived in egalitarian societies, in spiritual harmony with mother nature, eating a 'natural' diet, enjoying the sort of free sexuality that bonded us closer to each other, and living without war. [But] then agriculture came along and with it an oppositional relationship to nature, [as well as] patriarchy, monotheism, monogamy, gluten, sugar, and dairy, and warfare. And we've got to get back to the garden.’
Pay attention and the aporiae in the arguments will alert you to the fundamentally religious narratives that inform the visions of liberal progressives.”
In short: Sex at Dawn is to polyamorists what the Book of Genesis is to Young-Earth Creationists.
Not only that, but they're wrong about polyamory being the norm in our ancestral environment. Most women did NOT have multiple partners, and were in fact jealously owned by a male partner. Men being ok with sharing their mate with other men would be obviously a huge evolutionary disadvantage.
Most men had only one woman, while a very few, powerful, influential men had harems because they had the means, resources, and manpower to keep, feed, and protect those harems. If they didn't, their harem would starve or get taken by force. No amount of physical strength can protect you from multiple armed men coming for your harem.
Exactly. Not only does Sex at Dawn LIE about almost every ‘partible paternity’ culture it cites, but the whole concept of “polyamorous, communal childrearing” makes no biological sense.
Simply put: organisms who don’t care WHOSE children they’re raising do not spread their genes; organisms that DO care about raising THEIR OWN children DO pass on their genes.
Human children take a very long time and a significant amount of effort to raise, which means that both parents need to stay together long enough to ensure that their children grow up into healthy, functioning adults. If the parents DON’T ensure that their children grow up into functioning adults, the children will not find mates and/or will fail to successfully raise healthy children of their own - their genes will consequently die out.
For example: a man who is indiscriminately altruistic and spends his entire life raising OTHER men’s children IS NOT ENSURING THAT HIS OWN CHILDREN SURVIVE.
His unconditional, non-kin altruism will cause him to become a doormat for parents who don’t return the favor - parents with “selfish genes” who appreciate him for helping to raise their kids, but do NOT bother to help raise HIS OWN kids (assuming he has any). This means that his children will not survive and reproduce, and so his "unconditionally altruistic genes" will not get passed on/selected for. The unconditionally altruistic genes will just get out-competed by parents with more "selfish genes".
Likewise, because human children are so difficult to raise, a woman who does not have the undivided support of a single biological father is ultimately going to have fewer surviving and reproductively successful children of her own—her genes will also fail to spread as far as genes belonging to women with devoted husbands and fathers.
Because of these biological forces, human reproduction is and will always be discriminatory. Universal and indiscriminate sexual desire and unconditional altruism cannot be selected for, and a truly "free love" civilization—i.e., universal polyamory—will never be possible, let alone reproductively sustainable. Love is unfair. To “love” someone is to STRONGLY PREFER them over somebody else, and what that inevitably means is that somebody in the world is going to feel undesired and consequently fail to reproduce. Sorry polyamorists!, but ‘being selected for’ is NOT a human right.
Right. They did that. But we’re forgetting men frequently murdered women and their sexual rivals back then. But then again, it seems like we can go back to that state now, under the vaguely impressive neologism.
I actually went through about half of David Buss's evolutionary psychology intro book. He talks about both men and women engaging in long-term mating and short-term mating. The reasons for both parties to engage in short-term mating (more offspring for men, provisioning and getting a better biological father through cuckolding for women) don't sound very flattering.
I read "Sex at Dawn" when an acquaintance gave me a copy, it's a must-read, he said. The book was entertaining in places but ultimately drivel. And why was he interested in it? Oh, he was tired of his overweight girlfriend and wanted to get with a hot young thing, but didn't want to give up her rich dad paying for a sweet apartment. There's your poly knight.
An endorsement saying "The single most important book on human sexuality since Kinsey..." is not so much a red flag as a May-Day parade with a brass band.
One of the obnoxious things about the polyamory movement is its attempt to graft onto LGBTQIA2SLMNOP++ (an already crowded field).
I once hate watched an Instagram video between two progressive influencers talking about how polyamorous couples don’t feel “safe” to be out in public, how they are unable to share about their partners with others. They were using similar language to how you would describe gay couples in the Deep South.
As a gay person who grew up in West Texas, I find it deeply offensive to talk about polyamory this way. Only recently did gay people get the right to marry and many of us are still searching for a monogamous spouse. These people already have that but want more and are acting like their experience is akin to what gay couples experience.
"Two progressive influencers talking about how polyamorous couples don’t feel “safe” to be out in public".
If you ask me, polyamory is an inherently parasitic lifestyle - it simply cannot be destigmatized without also destabilizing the mating/marriage markets and consequently sabotaging the reproductive/genetic success of other people's families.
I honestly couldn't care less if a polyamorous person feels "unsafe" or stigmatized. People whose behavior ends up ruining the lives of those around them don't deserve to feel happy or be accepted by other people.
There's a huge amount of overlap, though. A lot of the stuff came out of gay and lesbian communities; the original Ethical Slut was written by a pair of lesbians. And as I'm sure you've noticed from what you say, non-monogamy (whatever you want to call it) is quite common among gay men. (Sorry you have to deal with that.)
I agree it's not the same--nobody's beating up polyamorists outside bars. I'm old enough to remember the AIDS crisis and literal gay-bashing (as in, beating up men to the point of physical injury or death because they were homosexual) being socially accepted.
That's when feeling unsafe actually meant people felt unsafe from actual physical attacks. I bet there are certain areas where gay people might still think twice about holding hands in public (although I hope very few).
At work, a colleague was asking me if I felt safe traveling through certain states in the country because of some of the legislation that had been passed recently and I laughed because all of the states are so much more gay friendly than what I actually lived for a good portion of my life (in California!!!).
There is a great podcast called Reflectorhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reflector/id1743666262 which is right now exploring the LGBT movement and the queer movement and how much conflict there is between them. Polyamory is definitely part of the queer movement which has somehow managed to center itself in social justice concerns even though its main concerns seem to be about policing language & valorizing selfish behavior.
You're arguing from anecdote here, if someone doesn't share your intuitions or experiences there's nothing for them to engage with, and I think that's a flaw in an article that aims to affect norms and behavior.
Aella tells the opposite story, also drawing from her intuitions and anecdotes, but she buttresses them with data that suggests (among other things) the success rate of the monogamous-turned-polygamous couple is drastically lower than the always-polygamous couple who was allergic to monogamy from the jump, and doesn't this explain your experiences? I don't think you've done enough research to be convincing to anyone that doesn't already share your intuitions.
My peers mostly do share my intuitions on this topic, but don’t think it’s socially acceptable to voice them in mixed company. This kind of article acts as a permission structure to allow people in this camp to begin endorsing in public the things they already privately believe.
Right, that makes sense. My model of the polygamy-monogamy divide is that the polygamy idea is an infohazard for most people, who are monogamous by inclination, but a lifesaving antidote for a minority who are polygamous by inclination. I do think a broad stigma against polygamy is good for most people, but I'm in support of the little enclaves in the bay area where the polygamously-inclined can frolic amongst themselves. I think it can work for weird people but it won't work for you if you're even halfway normal, it's like taking someone else's medication.
It’s not like people’s proclivities towards polyamory are some pre-social wholly biological thing tho — like surely the more it’s tolerated, normalized, or even celebrated in the bay the more people who would have otherwise not drifted into it will — with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and the culture they influence.
The polycule rationalists working at MIRI or OpenAI and beating it to some Lesswrong post are the same people who drive cultural interest in effective altruism and other valley-pilled ways to launder their antisocial tendencies.
Right, people are not just born one or the other. Virtually everyone is "naturally" a sexual hypocrite who would like freedoms and liberties for themselves, and also total security and low risk of loss for those who are most important to them. What the culture tells you is okay or acceptable can easily push one way or the other...towards leaning into your pleasure and risk and novelty seeking side on one hand, or towards safety and stability on the other.
"Virtually everyone is "naturally" a sexual hypocrite who would like freedoms and liberties for themselves, and also total security and low risk of loss for those who are most important to them."
In a word: Parasitism.
The success of a civilization depends on the degree to which it successfully crushes parasites.
I don't know if everyone is 'naturally' like that, I only started messing around with it after I realized marriage was a bad risk in my particular unusual case (awkward and semi-rich). Before that I actually wanted monogamy and was willing to play by the rules.
The valley-types are certainly very weird but I think they're on the whole a force for good, if you can even paint them with that broad a brush. And in fact with their weirdness they're actually helping Kitten's case -- nothing is a better advertisement for monogamous normalcy than the sexual entanglements of Sam Bankman Fried.
Its still strange from the outside, seeing so many arguments about this that are "it worked great for the people I know" or "it was a disaster for the people I know", including *from the same social circles*. Those people should really get together and discuss some concrete examples. I maybe couldnt tell whos right, reading at a distance, but Im not seeing that conversation happen at all.
This is true, however bad cheating is of course. It is like how random, opportunistic crime is bad but not as bad as state sanctioned violence, organized, and willed in cold blood.
There's actually a variant called DADT (don't-ask-don't-tell) which tends to be looked down upon by Official Polyamorists but is more or less what you're describing.
Whether this is one of the cases where the ideology makes it worse or just a matter of this limiting the amount going on is another question.
It makes stability possible. Think of all those ancient aristocrats who married for dynastic reasons, with a tacit agreement to look the other way over dalliances. The side pieces knew exactly what was up as well. There would be no question of breaking up the marriage. But there might be compensatory jewels!
Not the same. Polyamory says you must be honest and clear with all of your partners that the others exist and you do it with their permission of blessing. Successful cheating is, no permission, but you keep the marriage and don’t bring the extra around. If the other spouse knows or suspects, they do not give their blessing. They pretend not to know.
Oh, I was a 3 and fooled around with plenty of 1s, 2s, and 3s (mostly single themselves and doing the same thing). It's sometimes fun at the bottom even if you have to do it with ugly people like yourself.
Of course this was well past the point where I had given up on having kids, that level of instability is not fair to subject a child to.
In my experience the typical started-poly couple do think of themselves as a couple, just with a rotating cast of extras on the side. But sure, if you grant that these are not "relationships" in the same sense as monogamous ones, I agree. Problem is people want to have their cake and eat it too.
What's the difference between "starting poly" and just dating casually? This still sounds like an attempt to launder a damaging concept into something respectable.
Even though I think poly is not going to work for most married couples (jealousy, conflict, a poly partner replacing spouse, etc.), I will concede one difference from "casual dating": you have to tell the partner that you are in a sexual relationship with X people. So that way they can make an informed decision as to whether they want to get involved in a polycule.
It can involve cohabitation, it can involve deep romantic emotions while still being poly. Why is it damaging? I think the damage comes from opening up mono, because it is fairly sure not both people want it. But if both people are already poly and start poly, what kind of damage can happen? Where is it written that monogamy is the only emotionally correct thing? Damage happens when the previous expectation was mono, as in the case of West. If it was never expected?
It does not have to be casual, one still have deep emotions without demanding exclusivity.
It is simply just non-jealousy, non-ownership, the depth of emotion does not necessarily depend on exclusivity.
How do you start poly? You can only really start as singles or monogamous couples. Two singles might agree to "start" poly but it's unlikely that they mean it as the woman is likely just hedging her bets and the guy will say yes to anything in the moment just to get laid
Not sure I get your question - poly people, just like monogamous people, sometimes experience periods where they're single. "we will never be exclusive romantically or sexually" is a pretty important bright line to communicate early on if it's important.
Poly is an outlook, not just a relationship status
The outlook of I fuck who I want when I want isn’t the same outlook you have when you want to build a stable life and bring up children. It doesn’t need a fancy label like polyamory. It’s called fucking around. So you don’t want to grow up and invest time and effort into the next generation? Fine. I don’t care if you do or don’t, just don’t bring kids into your lifestyle.
'I fuck who I want when I want' is not really poly either, you should at least understand what you're criticizing before you criticize it
I doubt you bothered to read it, but for example the ethical slut actually has a fair amount to say about setting boundaries here, it's not a total free for all
I’ve read the ethical slut, years back. Found it wholly unconvincing , but the least bad scenario for the hopelessly non monogamous. Tbh, part of the problem is the inherently impulsive, sensational seeking character of the promiscuous/cheater/“poly” individual makes ethical arguments irrelevant because they are too hard for the person who needs them to follow. If they could manage ethical slut rules, they could manage monogamy.
1) @Carlos explicitly said "polyamorous relationships".
2) "Early on" is doing a lot of lifting for you here - If the communication was at any time after the formation of the relationship then it is an exclusive relationship opening up (since that is surely the assumption if nothing is said otherwise) and if it was discussed at the start then see my comment about hedging/getting laid.
3) If a realtionship is formed between 2 single people who have been in previous poly relationships then a) how did those relationships start [recurse] and b) they have necessarily failed ie. they were not "fine" in their previous poly relationship
I've read plenty of anecdotes from people who were polyamorous from the jump and found that their relationships contained far more drama and conflict than those of their monogamous peers. It's hardly surprising: more people = more opportunities for drama and conflict.
I was thinking similarly, there seems to be a big difference between relationships where everyone's poly initially and ones that start monogamous and open up later.
In the latter case, its hard to see why you would pursue poly if you were happy with your partner, so it makes sense to me that those relationships would fall apart pretty quickly
Absolutely, I always avoided them. On the whole more women want to open up than men, because women more often feel sexually unsatisfied or emotionally neglected in an LTR as men, and every time I was invited into something like this, I saw just so many minefields that I ran away. And none of those relationships lasted.
Hah, probably a wise decision! Also, I don't think this really undermines or cuts against Kitten's broader point, which is that polyamory doesn't work well for most people
My partner and I came into our relationship with no expectations of monogamy, and 3 years later, we're still going strong. We communicate well together, and we've met some of each others other partners. The only expectations we have for each other is to use protection and have fun! If the other partner is ok with me giving details, I will give my anchor partner details because he genuinely loves hearing them. It looks different for everyone.
Funny real conversation I had with a very attractive 32 year old broke single Mom:
“I mean, seriously…what kind of vibes am I giving off? Three times I have been asked to move in with another couple to be in a bi poly relationship. Three times!! And let me tell you. It was a disaster each time.”
Which cracked me up.
The last time she moved in with a couple. He worked at home. His bi wife had her own business and worked away from home. My friend did housework, cooked and got their child and her child off to school etc. one day the business driven wife came home mid day, both kids at school etc. And the husband and my friend were doing it. On the kitchen table I seem to recall. The wife went mental. They were aghast. What did she think would happen? They had an open sharing non mono arrangement. They assumed she would have assumed if the desire arose the two at home would be having sex. She was not aware and for her the 3rd person in was her sex toy, including him, not his excluding her. She got the boot. The wife made 3-4x what the husband made. That was a significant factor.
That's quite true. The poly people are actually against this too, they call it 'unicorn hunting' and consider it unethical for the reasons you cite (though they also point out the third person can't form real relationships but doesn't have any rights in the existing one). As you can see, they've worked out some of the problems with the lifestyle, though not all.
One thing I don't get though. How did the wife making the money factor into it? She was afraid of being assessed alimony in a split, or she 'wore the pants' so to speak and wanted it?
I just read about it. Chat GPT. That was exactly the situation that was created. The wife wanted a bisexual nanny toy. The husband was ‘well golly, sure.’ The nanny was luscious and sexual and broke. She couldn’t afford rent and was desperate. She had zero power except sexual power. Her homemaking and cooking was a trade for free food and rent. But her power was her sexuality. A very crazy unstable situation.
Best defense of monogamy I've heard in a long time. You make it work because your life depends on it. No religious or mystical justification necessary.
Your children’s lives depend on it. Children want nothing more than to know their parents care for each other and will take care of them. Everything else is secondary.
Yes! Glad you asked, and sorry to snark. There's just a rich literature here, and I'm eager to share it.
1/ Philosophers Harry Chalmers and Kyle York had an interesting back and forth a few years ago on this. Ellie Anderson covers it well on her Substack here: https://substack.com/home/post/p-181444506. Chalmers' challenge — which is pretty neat — is for the defender of monogamy to supply some criterion that would justify the restriction on sexual partner's that wouldn't over-generate into a restriction on friendships. Since we generally aren't monogamists about friendship, those reasons shouldn't uniquely favor monogamy about sexual partnership.
2/ Roger Scruton also wrote a fairly standard conservative defense in his '86 book on sexual desire that grounds monogamous norms in an account of the nature of the erotic as something essentially dyadic. A lot of non-religious people find this notion intuitive (and have experienced it), but some people also think it's a bit mystical and can't relate. I personally think you can get the exclusively dyadic commitment out of the reproductive act itself, and that norms around monogamy are grounded in the structure of reproduction itself — an act that (setting aside DP scenarios) — can at most occur between two people at a time.
3/ Then there are the sociologists and anthropologists like Henrich et. al. who give descriptive accounts of monogamy's beneficial social and political functions. Start with "The Puzzle of Monogamous Marriage" but there are dozens and dozens of papers and books in this area. These aren't strictly speaking normative accounts or "defenses" but you could easily reference it to conclude that monogamy leads to better social outcomes for communities.
There's enough here that I should probably just put together a sample grad seminar syllabus on the topic. Unless someone's already done this?
Great post, as always. "Non-ethical non-monogamy" is the new "that failed country wasn't truly communist". Here's the thing: even if you grant them their No True Scotsman excuse, it's still an indictment. If the people who pursue your ideology routinely fall off the path into predicable failure modes then that's a failure of the ideology. It doesn't matter if they were sincere in their belief or intentionally exploitative of it. Either the ideology is too unreliable to be useful or it's too easily exploited by bad actors. Either way it's bad to listen to the people who follow it.
Agreed. Polyamory and Communism both stem from the same utopian fantasy of creating a purely altruistic society in which "everyone loves and supports each other equally and unconditionally."
Both are biologically impossible for the following reason:
Human reproduction is inherently discriminatory because children take a very long time and a significant amount of effort to raise—the parents MUST stay together long enough to ensure that their children grow up into healthy, functioning adults who can then raise children of their own.
For this reason, mate-guarding is strongly selected for in humans—a man who spends his entire life raising other men's children is not ensuring that his own children survive—his "indiscriminate love" and "unconditionally altruistic genes" will cause him to become a doormat for parents with more "selfish genes" - parents who focus only on raising their own children; without repaying the favor. Thus, the former's children will not survive and the "unconditionally altruistic genes" will be trampled over and die out. The "selfish genes" will be selected for.
Likewise, because human children are so difficult to raise, a woman who does not have the undivided support of a single biological father is ultimately going to have fewer surviving and reproductively successful children of her own—her genes will fail to spread. Women with devoted husbands and fathers, meanwhile, will have more surviving children who will then go onto have children of their own.
Because of these biological forces, universal and indiscriminate sexual desire and unconditional altruism cannot be selected for, and a truly "free love" civilization—i.e., universal polyamory—will never be possible, let alone reproductively sustainable.
In fact, in EVERY SINGLE SOCIETY which Sex at Dawn cites as being 'polyamorous,' mate-guarding practices such as jealousy, pair-bonding, punishments for infidelity and paternity-related infanticide are all commonplace. The book flat-out fucking LIES about the societies it uses to supports its arguments.
The fact is: Love is inherently unfair, because the human attention span will always be limited. To "love" someone is to "strongly prefer" somebody (over somebody else). This is anathema to polyamory and communism, but it is the world that we are destined to live in until the end of time.
Only God is capable of giving every single person on Earth his full, undivided love and attention. We mortal humans have no choice but to RATION our love and attention. And in doing so, we get preferential treatment and thus: inequality. Someone in the world is and will always be doomed to get ignored/neglected, no matter what we do. The communist/polyamorous fantasy of a society in which everyone loves each other equally and unconditionally will never become reality.
"What’s missing from all these conversations about fidelity is a simple question: what is the purpose of monogamy in marriage, and why was it considered the Western ideal for thousands of years, even as we acknowledged that we frequently failed to live up to it? For that matter, what is marriage for?"
I think the reasons for monogamous marriage are to promote sexual equality (all males having roughly equal access to sex), prevent STDs, and ensure paternal certainty. Those are the real reasons and structure for monogamy. Fancy ideas like belonging to your spouse are philosophical fluff that you're adding as superstructure, and I doubt they were conceived by patriarchs and slave raiders thousands of years ago when they were trying to sort out which man gets which bride.
*Broad tolerance of the lifestyle provides normative cover for men like West’s husband to demand some action on the side from their reluctant wives and girlfriends under the auspices of enlightened progressive values.*
Laurie Penny's solution is to ban straight men from polyamory. A practical solution, but one I'm not sure I can defend philosophically.
Never mind that both Laurie Penny and Aham Oluo identify as non-binary. Apparently this title gets revoked and you go back to being a man if you behave badly enough.
It's not clear why bi men would be any better--seems more like the standard lefty ideology that CisHet Men Are The Worst. Gay men aren't going to break any women's hearts.
In practice I can tell you they tend to look askance at straight men in those circles anyway, which is why so many call themselves 'nonbinary'. In 5 years they'll be saying straight men have too much privilege and not allow them in as Penny suggests. Of course then you'll have pairs of straight men pretending to be boyfriends.
Spouses turn on a dime whenever someone in their circle gets divorced. Husbands raise their eyebrow when their wife wants to hang out with a newly divorced woman, assuming she's having floozy bar crawls. Wives want to get rid of his newly divorced best friend, assuming he's frequenting strip clubs and going on one-night stands.
To be frank, that's often the case, and many of the newly divorced are more than happy to drag someone into their new lifestyle. Polyamorous relationships are this hazard times ten. Gotta cut them off.
He’s probably immune to the poly social contagion. I am too. What I’m not immune to, is the violence impulse against poly people themselves. I have the intense urge to physically punish such degenerates in a publicly humiliating way. Polyamory must be stopped at all costs.
I've actually thought about this, and it's the reason it works for those people. (I was one for a while and yes, I am wimpy and unattractive.)
Since they're ugly, they have few suitors from outside the poly community, which limits the opportunities for casual encounters. The guys aren't too masculine, so violent conflicts are rare (Kryptogal has some stories about what happens when this isn't the case).
Arrested Development said it best:
Tobias: You know, Lindsay, as a therapist, I have advised... a number of couples to explore an open relationship where the couple remains emotionally committed but free to explore extramarital encounters.
Lindsay: Well, did it work for those people?
Tobias: No, it never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but... but it might work for us.
Haha, I've seen that quote so many times and never knew it was about polyamory! Gotta read the ancient texts.
Thank God you went first with the Arrested Development reference. I applaud you, sir.
It's insane that anyone would take the argument that polyamory is good because that's how we lived in the ancestral environment seriously.
Common features of the ancestral environment: hookworms, intertribal warfare, infant mortality, rape.
Uncommon features of the ancestral environment: complicated spreadsheets where you resolve with your metamour who gets to bone Josh on Thursdays.
Everyone loves the ancestral environment until I suggest that I think it would be in keeping with our ancestral environment if I smashed their head in with a rock for being smaller and weaker than me and having something I want
I’d move it further upstream - it’s insane that anyone treats evolutionary psychology as a rigorous science. It’s a series of theoretical propositions that are largely untestable and unfalsifiable.
Yet another example of how easy it is to fool well-off, educated people with scientism and rhetoric.
It should be noted that Sex at Dawn was torn to shreds by academics for thoroughly misrepresenting evolutionary psychology, anthropology, history, primatology, etc. and for failing to even UNDERSTAND biological evolution at a fundamental level. I have read the book, and its entire argument sounds exactly like the kind of strawman that a person would make up in order to satirize evolutionary psychology.
The biggest problem with the book (aside from the fact that it flat-out LIES about almost every culture it cites) is that its thesis about "partible paternity" and 'communal, polyamorous childrearing' does not make sense. It hinges on a complete lack of an understanding of how genetic selection works.
To explain: Human reproduction is inherently discriminatory because children take a very long time and a significant amount of effort to raise—the parents MUST stay together long enough to ensure that their children grow up into healthy, functioning adults who can then raise children of their own.
For this reason, mate-guarding is strongly selected for in humans—a man who spends his entire life raising other men's children is not ensuring that his own children survive—his "indiscriminate love" and "unconditionally altruistic genes" will cause him to become a doormat for parents with more "selfish genes" - parents who focus only on raising their own children; without repaying the favor. Thus, the former's children will not survive and the "unconditionally altruistic genes" will be trampled over and die out. The "selfish genes" will be selected for.
Likewise, because human children are so difficult to raise, a woman who does not have the undivided support of a single biological father is ultimately going to have fewer surviving and reproductively successful children of her own—her genes will fail to spread. Women with devoted husbands and fathers, meanwhile, will have more surviving children who will then go onto have children of their own.
Because of these biological forces, universal and indiscriminate sexual desire and unconditional altruism cannot be selected for, and a truly "free love" civilization—i.e., universal polyamory—will never be possible, let alone reproductively sustainable.
The fact is: Love is inherently unfair, because the human capacity for attention will always be finite.
Only God is capable of giving every single person on Earth his full, undivided love and attention. We mortal humans have no choice but to RATION our love and attention. And in doing so, we get preferential treatment and thus: inequality.
Someone in the world is and will always be doomed to be neglected or ostracized and ultimately forgotten, no matter what we do.
In many ways, it’s “just so stories” gussied up with scientific sounding names.
Evolutionary psychology is bro science and 90% storytelling. It is not empirically or methodologically rigorous.
Certainly, we shouldn't be using it as a guide for present-day moral guidance. I think it has the capacity to be more scientific, but I do agree that people tend to use it more as a cudgel to buttress unrelated political beliefs.
Evo psych isn’t any worse than sociology, psychology, gender studies etc. or these days maybe even history. These aren’t hard sciences either.
Two of those things are not like the others. Psychology and Sociology can apply the scientific method. Evo psych has no way to test its claims. Gender Studies actively rejects science. History is wiggly. In the end it depends on how trustworthy your sources are.
Evo psych has a ton of testable hypotheses. Cinderella effect is a strong finding and well replicated for instance
Astrophysics has no way to test its claims, either. Nor geology, nor paleontology, nor...
A lot of people get hung up on experimentalism, thinking that if you can't perform proper experiments with controls, it's not science, but that's just not true. Experiments are not an essential feature of the scientific method.
The essential features of the scientific method are hypothesizing, prediction and testing. It's very nice when you can construct a controlled experiment to test the predictions generated by your hypothesis, but it's not necessary. In contexts where you can't experiment you just have to use the harder method of predicting then trying to systematically identify observations that invalidate your predictions.
This is how a lot of science has to work, finding "natural experiments", and analyzing them. In the case of evolutionary psychology this involves hypthothesizing about what must have been, then looking for evidence that falsifies the hypothesis. Yes, this is really, really hard. Evidence is thin on the ground, and there will often be a desire to draw stronger conclusions than are really justified by the evidence. But that doesn't mean it's impossible, nor that there aren't brilliant people inventing incredibly clever ways to test hypotheses, nor that they aren't making actual progress.
Umm. Astrophysics, Geology, and Paleontology all have concrete ways to test their hypothesis. Evo Psyche is just in its own category. They have to make some pretty broad assumptions before they even begin the process. David Buss, one of the leading researchers, even admitted that Evo Psych should be used as a *heuristic* to explore gaps in social psych research.
Thank you for taking the time to explain this. It’s frustrating that so many people with little education in evo psych dismiss it as “unscientific.”
What do you mean? There IS evolutionary psychology research based on data and statistical methodology that's been published.
I notice a lot of overlap between the people asserting that polyamory is good because it's "natural" and the people who scoff at the idea that human bodies evolved to eat meat.
Our bodies *did* evolve to eat meat. That doesn't mean that eating meat is morally correct or justifiable.
Alastair Roberts of The Anchored Argosy substack pointed out many years ago (on Twitter) that modern polyamorists often try to justify their lifestyle by making up bold, pseudo-historical claims about “manic pixie dream societies that can save us from our cisheteronormative imposition of monogamy.”
That perfectly summarizes the false narrative that Sex at Dawn peddles. In fact, the book was torn to shreds by academics for completely misrepresenting almost ALL of the research that it draws from and for making no biological sense (check out the “Reception” section on Sex at Dawn’s Wikipedia page if you’re interested).
Alastair Roberts referred to this type of theory - that ancestral humans were polyamorous sexual communists - as a sort-of “Fall narrative”:
“When encountering [these types of] accounts, it is important to bear in mind how tied up they are with progressive liberal Fall narratives:
i.e. ‘before everything all went wrong, we lived in egalitarian societies, in spiritual harmony with mother nature, eating a 'natural' diet, enjoying the sort of free sexuality that bonded us closer to each other, and living without war. [But] then agriculture came along and with it an oppositional relationship to nature, [as well as] patriarchy, monotheism, monogamy, gluten, sugar, and dairy, and warfare. And we've got to get back to the garden.’
Pay attention and the aporiae in the arguments will alert you to the fundamentally religious narratives that inform the visions of liberal progressives.”
In short: Sex at Dawn is to polyamorists what the Book of Genesis is to Young-Earth Creationists.
Hookworms and polyamory are pretty bad but there are good arguments in favour of the other three.
Not only that, but they're wrong about polyamory being the norm in our ancestral environment. Most women did NOT have multiple partners, and were in fact jealously owned by a male partner. Men being ok with sharing their mate with other men would be obviously a huge evolutionary disadvantage.
Most men had only one woman, while a very few, powerful, influential men had harems because they had the means, resources, and manpower to keep, feed, and protect those harems. If they didn't, their harem would starve or get taken by force. No amount of physical strength can protect you from multiple armed men coming for your harem.
Exactly. Not only does Sex at Dawn LIE about almost every ‘partible paternity’ culture it cites, but the whole concept of “polyamorous, communal childrearing” makes no biological sense.
Simply put: organisms who don’t care WHOSE children they’re raising do not spread their genes; organisms that DO care about raising THEIR OWN children DO pass on their genes.
Human children take a very long time and a significant amount of effort to raise, which means that both parents need to stay together long enough to ensure that their children grow up into healthy, functioning adults. If the parents DON’T ensure that their children grow up into functioning adults, the children will not find mates and/or will fail to successfully raise healthy children of their own - their genes will consequently die out.
For example: a man who is indiscriminately altruistic and spends his entire life raising OTHER men’s children IS NOT ENSURING THAT HIS OWN CHILDREN SURVIVE.
His unconditional, non-kin altruism will cause him to become a doormat for parents who don’t return the favor - parents with “selfish genes” who appreciate him for helping to raise their kids, but do NOT bother to help raise HIS OWN kids (assuming he has any). This means that his children will not survive and reproduce, and so his "unconditionally altruistic genes" will not get passed on/selected for. The unconditionally altruistic genes will just get out-competed by parents with more "selfish genes".
Likewise, because human children are so difficult to raise, a woman who does not have the undivided support of a single biological father is ultimately going to have fewer surviving and reproductively successful children of her own—her genes will also fail to spread as far as genes belonging to women with devoted husbands and fathers.
Because of these biological forces, human reproduction is and will always be discriminatory. Universal and indiscriminate sexual desire and unconditional altruism cannot be selected for, and a truly "free love" civilization—i.e., universal polyamory—will never be possible, let alone reproductively sustainable. Love is unfair. To “love” someone is to STRONGLY PREFER them over somebody else, and what that inevitably means is that somebody in the world is going to feel undesired and consequently fail to reproduce. Sorry polyamorists!, but ‘being selected for’ is NOT a human right.
Right. They did that. But we’re forgetting men frequently murdered women and their sexual rivals back then. But then again, it seems like we can go back to that state now, under the vaguely impressive neologism.
I actually went through about half of David Buss's evolutionary psychology intro book. He talks about both men and women engaging in long-term mating and short-term mating. The reasons for both parties to engage in short-term mating (more offspring for men, provisioning and getting a better biological father through cuckolding for women) don't sound very flattering.
I read "Sex at Dawn" when an acquaintance gave me a copy, it's a must-read, he said. The book was entertaining in places but ultimately drivel. And why was he interested in it? Oh, he was tired of his overweight girlfriend and wanted to get with a hot young thing, but didn't want to give up her rich dad paying for a sweet apartment. There's your poly knight.
An endorsement saying "The single most important book on human sexuality since Kinsey..." is not so much a red flag as a May-Day parade with a brass band.
Kinsey did the bulk of his research based on the sex lives of convicts. Then passed it off as normal sexuality…..
'The single most important work on economics since marx...'
One of the obnoxious things about the polyamory movement is its attempt to graft onto LGBTQIA2SLMNOP++ (an already crowded field).
I once hate watched an Instagram video between two progressive influencers talking about how polyamorous couples don’t feel “safe” to be out in public, how they are unable to share about their partners with others. They were using similar language to how you would describe gay couples in the Deep South.
As a gay person who grew up in West Texas, I find it deeply offensive to talk about polyamory this way. Only recently did gay people get the right to marry and many of us are still searching for a monogamous spouse. These people already have that but want more and are acting like their experience is akin to what gay couples experience.
"Two progressive influencers talking about how polyamorous couples don’t feel “safe” to be out in public".
If you ask me, polyamory is an inherently parasitic lifestyle - it simply cannot be destigmatized without also destabilizing the mating/marriage markets and consequently sabotaging the reproductive/genetic success of other people's families.
I honestly couldn't care less if a polyamorous person feels "unsafe" or stigmatized. People whose behavior ends up ruining the lives of those around them don't deserve to feel happy or be accepted by other people.
There's a huge amount of overlap, though. A lot of the stuff came out of gay and lesbian communities; the original Ethical Slut was written by a pair of lesbians. And as I'm sure you've noticed from what you say, non-monogamy (whatever you want to call it) is quite common among gay men. (Sorry you have to deal with that.)
I agree it's not the same--nobody's beating up polyamorists outside bars. I'm old enough to remember the AIDS crisis and literal gay-bashing (as in, beating up men to the point of physical injury or death because they were homosexual) being socially accepted.
That's when feeling unsafe actually meant people felt unsafe from actual physical attacks. I bet there are certain areas where gay people might still think twice about holding hands in public (although I hope very few).
At work, a colleague was asking me if I felt safe traveling through certain states in the country because of some of the legislation that had been passed recently and I laughed because all of the states are so much more gay friendly than what I actually lived for a good portion of my life (in California!!!).
There is a great podcast called Reflectorhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reflector/id1743666262 which is right now exploring the LGBT movement and the queer movement and how much conflict there is between them. Polyamory is definitely part of the queer movement which has somehow managed to center itself in social justice concerns even though its main concerns seem to be about policing language & valorizing selfish behavior.
👏 💯 It’s stolen valor.
Stop being a homosexual. Sodomy is much worse than any kind of polyamory.
I've never seen someone decide to give sucking dick a try because one of their friends started
You're arguing from anecdote here, if someone doesn't share your intuitions or experiences there's nothing for them to engage with, and I think that's a flaw in an article that aims to affect norms and behavior.
Aella tells the opposite story, also drawing from her intuitions and anecdotes, but she buttresses them with data that suggests (among other things) the success rate of the monogamous-turned-polygamous couple is drastically lower than the always-polygamous couple who was allergic to monogamy from the jump, and doesn't this explain your experiences? I don't think you've done enough research to be convincing to anyone that doesn't already share your intuitions.
My peers mostly do share my intuitions on this topic, but don’t think it’s socially acceptable to voice them in mixed company. This kind of article acts as a permission structure to allow people in this camp to begin endorsing in public the things they already privately believe.
Right, that makes sense. My model of the polygamy-monogamy divide is that the polygamy idea is an infohazard for most people, who are monogamous by inclination, but a lifesaving antidote for a minority who are polygamous by inclination. I do think a broad stigma against polygamy is good for most people, but I'm in support of the little enclaves in the bay area where the polygamously-inclined can frolic amongst themselves. I think it can work for weird people but it won't work for you if you're even halfway normal, it's like taking someone else's medication.
San Francisco’s function as memetic quarantine zone is underrated imo, but we really need a wall and border control to be sure.
It’s not like people’s proclivities towards polyamory are some pre-social wholly biological thing tho — like surely the more it’s tolerated, normalized, or even celebrated in the bay the more people who would have otherwise not drifted into it will — with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and the culture they influence.
The polycule rationalists working at MIRI or OpenAI and beating it to some Lesswrong post are the same people who drive cultural interest in effective altruism and other valley-pilled ways to launder their antisocial tendencies.
Right, people are not just born one or the other. Virtually everyone is "naturally" a sexual hypocrite who would like freedoms and liberties for themselves, and also total security and low risk of loss for those who are most important to them. What the culture tells you is okay or acceptable can easily push one way or the other...towards leaning into your pleasure and risk and novelty seeking side on one hand, or towards safety and stability on the other.
"Virtually everyone is "naturally" a sexual hypocrite who would like freedoms and liberties for themselves, and also total security and low risk of loss for those who are most important to them."
In a word: Parasitism.
The success of a civilization depends on the degree to which it successfully crushes parasites.
I don't know if everyone is 'naturally' like that, I only started messing around with it after I realized marriage was a bad risk in my particular unusual case (awkward and semi-rich). Before that I actually wanted monogamy and was willing to play by the rules.
I agree except im inclined to think certain autists truly lack certain urges or feelings such as jealousy and can therefore make poly "work"
The valley-types are certainly very weird but I think they're on the whole a force for good, if you can even paint them with that broad a brush. And in fact with their weirdness they're actually helping Kitten's case -- nothing is a better advertisement for monogamous normalcy than the sexual entanglements of Sam Bankman Fried.
Its still strange from the outside, seeing so many arguments about this that are "it worked great for the people I know" or "it was a disaster for the people I know", including *from the same social circles*. Those people should really get together and discuss some concrete examples. I maybe couldnt tell whos right, reading at a distance, but Im not seeing that conversation happen at all.
successful cheating, engaged in by a person mindful of the feelings of their partner, seems infinitely preferable to polyamory
This is true, however bad cheating is of course. It is like how random, opportunistic crime is bad but not as bad as state sanctioned violence, organized, and willed in cold blood.
There's actually a variant called DADT (don't-ask-don't-tell) which tends to be looked down upon by Official Polyamorists but is more or less what you're describing.
Whether this is one of the cases where the ideology makes it worse or just a matter of this limiting the amount going on is another question.
It makes stability possible. Think of all those ancient aristocrats who married for dynastic reasons, with a tacit agreement to look the other way over dalliances. The side pieces knew exactly what was up as well. There would be no question of breaking up the marriage. But there might be compensatory jewels!
Makes sense. Right, one of the reasons for short-term mating for women Buss's textbook gave was provisioning, i.e. jewels and fancy dresses.
Of course, those were aristocrats...a lot of things don't scale.
I hate to agree but seems true. And if you cheat, never ever tell
Not the same. Polyamory says you must be honest and clear with all of your partners that the others exist and you do it with their permission of blessing. Successful cheating is, no permission, but you keep the marriage and don’t bring the extra around. If the other spouse knows or suspects, they do not give their blessing. They pretend not to know.
Probably in practice works better as a DADT situation--they know but the cheater(s) don't bring it up with the other party.
What I noticed during that period was the mean polyamorous relationship being two 5s dating a 7 who was looking for an 8.
I’ll read the rest later. I was just surprised that it wasn’t just some weird quirk of my own social circle.
Oh, I was a 3 and fooled around with plenty of 1s, 2s, and 3s (mostly single themselves and doing the same thing). It's sometimes fun at the bottom even if you have to do it with ugly people like yourself.
Of course this was well past the point where I had given up on having kids, that level of instability is not fair to subject a child to.
"which is that polyamorous relationships are by their nature prone to drama, conflict, and violent failure"
Only if they start as mono, and then open up. If they start poly, they are fine. The basic frame of mind is "we are not a couple".
In my experience the typical started-poly couple do think of themselves as a couple, just with a rotating cast of extras on the side. But sure, if you grant that these are not "relationships" in the same sense as monogamous ones, I agree. Problem is people want to have their cake and eat it too.
What's the difference between "starting poly" and just dating casually? This still sounds like an attempt to launder a damaging concept into something respectable.
“Poly relationships” are literally just marketing speak for being a fuckboy / whore, its not a real relationship
Even though I think poly is not going to work for most married couples (jealousy, conflict, a poly partner replacing spouse, etc.), I will concede one difference from "casual dating": you have to tell the partner that you are in a sexual relationship with X people. So that way they can make an informed decision as to whether they want to get involved in a polycule.
It can involve cohabitation, it can involve deep romantic emotions while still being poly. Why is it damaging? I think the damage comes from opening up mono, because it is fairly sure not both people want it. But if both people are already poly and start poly, what kind of damage can happen? Where is it written that monogamy is the only emotionally correct thing? Damage happens when the previous expectation was mono, as in the case of West. If it was never expected?
It does not have to be casual, one still have deep emotions without demanding exclusivity.
It is simply just non-jealousy, non-ownership, the depth of emotion does not necessarily depend on exclusivity.
How do you start poly? You can only really start as singles or monogamous couples. Two singles might agree to "start" poly but it's unlikely that they mean it as the woman is likely just hedging her bets and the guy will say yes to anything in the moment just to get laid
Not sure I get your question - poly people, just like monogamous people, sometimes experience periods where they're single. "we will never be exclusive romantically or sexually" is a pretty important bright line to communicate early on if it's important.
Poly is an outlook, not just a relationship status
The outlook of I fuck who I want when I want isn’t the same outlook you have when you want to build a stable life and bring up children. It doesn’t need a fancy label like polyamory. It’s called fucking around. So you don’t want to grow up and invest time and effort into the next generation? Fine. I don’t care if you do or don’t, just don’t bring kids into your lifestyle.
'I fuck who I want when I want' is not really poly either, you should at least understand what you're criticizing before you criticize it
I doubt you bothered to read it, but for example the ethical slut actually has a fair amount to say about setting boundaries here, it's not a total free for all
I’ve read the ethical slut, years back. Found it wholly unconvincing , but the least bad scenario for the hopelessly non monogamous. Tbh, part of the problem is the inherently impulsive, sensational seeking character of the promiscuous/cheater/“poly” individual makes ethical arguments irrelevant because they are too hard for the person who needs them to follow. If they could manage ethical slut rules, they could manage monogamy.
1) @Carlos explicitly said "polyamorous relationships".
2) "Early on" is doing a lot of lifting for you here - If the communication was at any time after the formation of the relationship then it is an exclusive relationship opening up (since that is surely the assumption if nothing is said otherwise) and if it was discussed at the start then see my comment about hedging/getting laid.
3) If a realtionship is formed between 2 single people who have been in previous poly relationships then a) how did those relationships start [recurse] and b) they have necessarily failed ie. they were not "fine" in their previous poly relationship
https://www.adorableandharmless.com/p/it-wont-work-for-you/comment/234095530?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=99s44 << I think Carlos himself explains the point in the first paragraph of this comment, lol
But I think at a meta level your questions are making the same points I interpreted Carlos and Kitten as making:
(1) if you take a monogamous mindset into a poly relationship, you're gonna have a bad time
(2) most people have a monogamous mindset, even if they try to convince themselves to the contrary
For example one of my women poly partners used to be married to a woman. So she is very bisexual and that is one reason why.
I've read plenty of anecdotes from people who were polyamorous from the jump and found that their relationships contained far more drama and conflict than those of their monogamous peers. It's hardly surprising: more people = more opportunities for drama and conflict.
I was thinking similarly, there seems to be a big difference between relationships where everyone's poly initially and ones that start monogamous and open up later.
In the latter case, its hard to see why you would pursue poly if you were happy with your partner, so it makes sense to me that those relationships would fall apart pretty quickly
Absolutely, I always avoided them. On the whole more women want to open up than men, because women more often feel sexually unsatisfied or emotionally neglected in an LTR as men, and every time I was invited into something like this, I saw just so many minefields that I ran away. And none of those relationships lasted.
Hah, probably a wise decision! Also, I don't think this really undermines or cuts against Kitten's broader point, which is that polyamory doesn't work well for most people
My partner and I came into our relationship with no expectations of monogamy, and 3 years later, we're still going strong. We communicate well together, and we've met some of each others other partners. The only expectations we have for each other is to use protection and have fun! If the other partner is ok with me giving details, I will give my anchor partner details because he genuinely loves hearing them. It looks different for everyone.
Funny real conversation I had with a very attractive 32 year old broke single Mom:
“I mean, seriously…what kind of vibes am I giving off? Three times I have been asked to move in with another couple to be in a bi poly relationship. Three times!! And let me tell you. It was a disaster each time.”
Which cracked me up.
The last time she moved in with a couple. He worked at home. His bi wife had her own business and worked away from home. My friend did housework, cooked and got their child and her child off to school etc. one day the business driven wife came home mid day, both kids at school etc. And the husband and my friend were doing it. On the kitchen table I seem to recall. The wife went mental. They were aghast. What did she think would happen? They had an open sharing non mono arrangement. They assumed she would have assumed if the desire arose the two at home would be having sex. She was not aware and for her the 3rd person in was her sex toy, including him, not his excluding her. She got the boot. The wife made 3-4x what the husband made. That was a significant factor.
So they were reading the vibes correctly
Yeah. I had to explain that to her. Man…she was sexy though.
That's quite true. The poly people are actually against this too, they call it 'unicorn hunting' and consider it unethical for the reasons you cite (though they also point out the third person can't form real relationships but doesn't have any rights in the existing one). As you can see, they've worked out some of the problems with the lifestyle, though not all.
One thing I don't get though. How did the wife making the money factor into it? She was afraid of being assessed alimony in a split, or she 'wore the pants' so to speak and wanted it?
Man had to choose and chose the wife with the money. Not hard
Was overthinking it. Thanks.
The second. I think she was a battle-ax. In a non financial world the husband would have gone with the nanny.
What does the term ‘Unicorn Hunting’ mean? Strange term. Seeking the Impossible?
I just read about it. Chat GPT. That was exactly the situation that was created. The wife wanted a bisexual nanny toy. The husband was ‘well golly, sure.’ The nanny was luscious and sexual and broke. She couldn’t afford rent and was desperate. She had zero power except sexual power. Her homemaking and cooking was a trade for free food and rent. But her power was her sexuality. A very crazy unstable situation.
Weak man. Narcissistic wife. Desperate and mildly manipulative 3rd person. Everyone was thinking about their own needs first and only.
Here's the essay everyone links to for reference.
https://www.unicorns-r-us.com/
That article lays out the impossibility of it quite well. Buti leaves out a really important point.
Which is?
Best defense of monogamy I've heard in a long time. You make it work because your life depends on it. No religious or mystical justification necessary.
Your children’s lives depend on it. Children want nothing more than to know their parents care for each other and will take care of them. Everything else is secondary.
JFC if this is the best defense you’ve read you gotta do some more reading
Any recommendations?
Yes! Glad you asked, and sorry to snark. There's just a rich literature here, and I'm eager to share it.
1/ Philosophers Harry Chalmers and Kyle York had an interesting back and forth a few years ago on this. Ellie Anderson covers it well on her Substack here: https://substack.com/home/post/p-181444506. Chalmers' challenge — which is pretty neat — is for the defender of monogamy to supply some criterion that would justify the restriction on sexual partner's that wouldn't over-generate into a restriction on friendships. Since we generally aren't monogamists about friendship, those reasons shouldn't uniquely favor monogamy about sexual partnership.
2/ Roger Scruton also wrote a fairly standard conservative defense in his '86 book on sexual desire that grounds monogamous norms in an account of the nature of the erotic as something essentially dyadic. A lot of non-religious people find this notion intuitive (and have experienced it), but some people also think it's a bit mystical and can't relate. I personally think you can get the exclusively dyadic commitment out of the reproductive act itself, and that norms around monogamy are grounded in the structure of reproduction itself — an act that (setting aside DP scenarios) — can at most occur between two people at a time.
3/ Then there are the sociologists and anthropologists like Henrich et. al. who give descriptive accounts of monogamy's beneficial social and political functions. Start with "The Puzzle of Monogamous Marriage" but there are dozens and dozens of papers and books in this area. These aren't strictly speaking normative accounts or "defenses" but you could easily reference it to conclude that monogamy leads to better social outcomes for communities.
There's enough here that I should probably just put together a sample grad seminar syllabus on the topic. Unless someone's already done this?
Great post, as always. "Non-ethical non-monogamy" is the new "that failed country wasn't truly communist". Here's the thing: even if you grant them their No True Scotsman excuse, it's still an indictment. If the people who pursue your ideology routinely fall off the path into predicable failure modes then that's a failure of the ideology. It doesn't matter if they were sincere in their belief or intentionally exploitative of it. Either the ideology is too unreliable to be useful or it's too easily exploited by bad actors. Either way it's bad to listen to the people who follow it.
Agreed. Polyamory and Communism both stem from the same utopian fantasy of creating a purely altruistic society in which "everyone loves and supports each other equally and unconditionally."
Both are biologically impossible for the following reason:
Human reproduction is inherently discriminatory because children take a very long time and a significant amount of effort to raise—the parents MUST stay together long enough to ensure that their children grow up into healthy, functioning adults who can then raise children of their own.
For this reason, mate-guarding is strongly selected for in humans—a man who spends his entire life raising other men's children is not ensuring that his own children survive—his "indiscriminate love" and "unconditionally altruistic genes" will cause him to become a doormat for parents with more "selfish genes" - parents who focus only on raising their own children; without repaying the favor. Thus, the former's children will not survive and the "unconditionally altruistic genes" will be trampled over and die out. The "selfish genes" will be selected for.
Likewise, because human children are so difficult to raise, a woman who does not have the undivided support of a single biological father is ultimately going to have fewer surviving and reproductively successful children of her own—her genes will fail to spread. Women with devoted husbands and fathers, meanwhile, will have more surviving children who will then go onto have children of their own.
Because of these biological forces, universal and indiscriminate sexual desire and unconditional altruism cannot be selected for, and a truly "free love" civilization—i.e., universal polyamory—will never be possible, let alone reproductively sustainable.
In fact, in EVERY SINGLE SOCIETY which Sex at Dawn cites as being 'polyamorous,' mate-guarding practices such as jealousy, pair-bonding, punishments for infidelity and paternity-related infanticide are all commonplace. The book flat-out fucking LIES about the societies it uses to supports its arguments.
The fact is: Love is inherently unfair, because the human attention span will always be limited. To "love" someone is to "strongly prefer" somebody (over somebody else). This is anathema to polyamory and communism, but it is the world that we are destined to live in until the end of time.
Only God is capable of giving every single person on Earth his full, undivided love and attention. We mortal humans have no choice but to RATION our love and attention. And in doing so, we get preferential treatment and thus: inequality. Someone in the world is and will always be doomed to get ignored/neglected, no matter what we do. The communist/polyamorous fantasy of a society in which everyone loves each other equally and unconditionally will never become reality.
"What’s missing from all these conversations about fidelity is a simple question: what is the purpose of monogamy in marriage, and why was it considered the Western ideal for thousands of years, even as we acknowledged that we frequently failed to live up to it? For that matter, what is marriage for?"
I think the reasons for monogamous marriage are to promote sexual equality (all males having roughly equal access to sex), prevent STDs, and ensure paternal certainty. Those are the real reasons and structure for monogamy. Fancy ideas like belonging to your spouse are philosophical fluff that you're adding as superstructure, and I doubt they were conceived by patriarchs and slave raiders thousands of years ago when they were trying to sort out which man gets which bride.
Women and children need monogamy but men also benefit.
*Broad tolerance of the lifestyle provides normative cover for men like West’s husband to demand some action on the side from their reluctant wives and girlfriends under the auspices of enlightened progressive values.*
Laurie Penny's solution is to ban straight men from polyamory. A practical solution, but one I'm not sure I can defend philosophically.
Never mind that both Laurie Penny and Aham Oluo identify as non-binary. Apparently this title gets revoked and you go back to being a man if you behave badly enough.
That's the problem with self-granted titles. They can be revoked by anyone at any time because we never agreed to them in the first place.
It's not clear why bi men would be any better--seems more like the standard lefty ideology that CisHet Men Are The Worst. Gay men aren't going to break any women's hearts.
In practice I can tell you they tend to look askance at straight men in those circles anyway, which is why so many call themselves 'nonbinary'. In 5 years they'll be saying straight men have too much privilege and not allow them in as Penny suggests. Of course then you'll have pairs of straight men pretending to be boyfriends.
“Pairs of straight men pretending to be boyfriends”
Lmfao this should be a comedy movie, but then I realized it already was
There is no practical solution. Men are much much more likely to want variety
Spouses turn on a dime whenever someone in their circle gets divorced. Husbands raise their eyebrow when their wife wants to hang out with a newly divorced woman, assuming she's having floozy bar crawls. Wives want to get rid of his newly divorced best friend, assuming he's frequenting strip clubs and going on one-night stands.
To be frank, that's often the case, and many of the newly divorced are more than happy to drag someone into their new lifestyle. Polyamorous relationships are this hazard times ten. Gotta cut them off.
Am I naive for thinking newly divorced people are just doing the same stuff together with friends, just higher frequency because they are single ?
Yeah, it's likely the same stuff but definitely an itch to get back out there and have fun to stick it to their "a**hole husband"/"b*tch wife".
Social contagion is a thing, and youre not immune. It has nothing to do with insecurity.
He’s probably immune to the poly social contagion. I am too. What I’m not immune to, is the violence impulse against poly people themselves. I have the intense urge to physically punish such degenerates in a publicly humiliating way. Polyamory must be stopped at all costs.
Social contagion is surely a thing, but there are always some people who are immune.
The best argument against poly or any alt sex (like swingers) is...
...just fucking look at those communities. A sea of mostly ugly degenerate people.
I've actually thought about this, and it's the reason it works for those people. (I was one for a while and yes, I am wimpy and unattractive.)
Since they're ugly, they have few suitors from outside the poly community, which limits the opportunities for casual encounters. The guys aren't too masculine, so violent conflicts are rare (Kryptogal has some stories about what happens when this isn't the case).
https://substack.com/@kryptogal/note/c-234400049