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Personally, I think there's nothing wrong with polyamory. Whatever blows your skirt up. Biologically speaking, men wants to inseminate as much women as he can.

by snitko 16y ago

Personally, I think there's nothing wrong with polyamory. Whatever blows your skirt up. Biologically speaking, men wants to inseminate as much women as he can. I also accept the author's point about freedom and different kind of experience that monogamy cannot give. But then the author would also have to agree, that monogamy may have the depth that any non-monogamous relationshop lack, so it might be a trade off. Then medically speaking, monogamy is safer. Psychologically, there are also trade offs: it's usually difficult enough to get along with one person - I believe issues multiply when you have many. For example, I don't see anything particularly scary about having multiple wives (western culture thinks it's some sort of barbaric behavior), but if you look at it closely, you would understand why it only works in traditional societies like muslim: because they have mechanisms for holding it all together. Men there have obviously more authority and thus they hold the power of getting it all together. In the western world the task gets a lot more complicated because people are more independent and have more rights legally. One thing for sure, divorce cases with this model would be a legal hell. Please note I have not made up my mind about the particular lifestyle so I'm totally neutral here. I'm not into any relationship right now, but when I think of it, I sometimes think about how would it be a monogamous ones and sometimes I feel more like I'd want to stick with some sort of polyamory.

mkramlich 16y ago
Guess: when you're looking at one good-looking woman you're thinking monogamy. when you're looking at two good-looking women you're thinking polyamory. ;)
steveklabnik 16y ago
> But then the author would also have to agree, that monogamy may have the depth that any non-monogamous relationshop lack This is simply not true. The number of partners has absolutely nothing to do with the depth of any given relationship, poly or mono. > I believe issues multiply when you have many. It's actually the opposite. You don't have to get upset because someone is lacking in some area, because you have someone else that covers it. It actually takes a lot of pressure off of a given relationship.
- snitko 16y ago
  1. I disagree. The number of partners has to do a lot with the depth of any given relationship. The reasonable analogy is learning a skill. The more time you spend on it, the better you become. The more time you dedicate to other disciplines, the more broad interdisciplinary knowledge you gain. It's a tradeoff. And I don't see why this cannot be applied to people. 2. As far as I can tell from everyone else's experience (haha) there are always issues. Issues is not something to be ignored, but rather something to be discussed, otherwise they grow into something you can't actually solve. The more partners you have, the less time you have to discuss those issues.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    1. While your basic idea is good, the aspect that you're missing is that relationships with one person can actually enhance your relationships with another. Poly actually encourages the very skills that make relationships work. 2. From my actual experiences, there are always issues, yes. However, they're not as big, because you quickly get very good at communicating and resolving those issues. I didn't mean to imply that issues should be covered up, sorry. That's absolutely not the case. What I meant was, you can appreciate a relationship with different people for different reasons.
    - snitko 16y ago
      Okay, points taken, they sound valid. Although the problem for me is, I can't take your word for it. I wish there was some research on it with some real data. That would rule out any speculation. For now, there'd be mostly subjective views and opinions with no evidence. If there was some evidence, then we could probably see the general pattern of relationship changing over time and see how humans would handle this in future.
      - steveklabnik 16y ago
        It's true. It's hard to find out about this for a few reasons. First of all, it's really hard to get good data. This thread is actually the most I've ever spoken about it on the internet, because I'm not really 'outed' in public except to the people who know me in real life. This is largely due to the stigma (and probably some holdover Catholic guilt) that's associated with poly. Secondly, the data is tainted by people who aren't _really_ practicing open relationships, and only do it to 'spice up' or 'save' a slowly failing monogamous one. I largely attribute my own success to it being one of the preconditions on my relationship being formed.

by snitko 16y ago

mkramlich 16y ago

Guess: when you're looking at one good-looking woman you're thinking monogamy. when you're looking at two good-looking women you're thinking polyamory. ;)

steveklabnik 16y ago

> But then the author would also have to agree, that monogamy may have the depth that any non-monogamous relationshop lack This is simply not true. The number of partners has absolutely nothing to do with the depth of any given relationship, poly or mono. > I believe issues multiply when you have many. It's actually the opposite. You don't have to get upset because someone is lacking in some area, because you have someone else that covers it. It actually takes a lot of pressure off of a given relationship.

snitko 16y ago
1. I disagree. The number of partners has to do a lot with the depth of any given relationship. The reasonable analogy is learning a skill. The more time you spend on it, the better you become. The more time you dedicate to other disciplines, the more broad interdisciplinary knowledge you gain. It's a tradeoff. And I don't see why this cannot be applied to people. 2. As far as I can tell from everyone else's experience (haha) there are always issues. Issues is not something to be ignored, but rather something to be discussed, otherwise they grow into something you can't actually solve. The more partners you have, the less time you have to discuss those issues.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  1. While your basic idea is good, the aspect that you're missing is that relationships with one person can actually enhance your relationships with another. Poly actually encourages the very skills that make relationships work. 2. From my actual experiences, there are always issues, yes. However, they're not as big, because you quickly get very good at communicating and resolving those issues. I didn't mean to imply that issues should be covered up, sorry. That's absolutely not the case. What I meant was, you can appreciate a relationship with different people for different reasons.
  - snitko 16y ago
    Okay, points taken, they sound valid. Although the problem for me is, I can't take your word for it. I wish there was some research on it with some real data. That would rule out any speculation. For now, there'd be mostly subjective views and opinions with no evidence. If there was some evidence, then we could probably see the general pattern of relationship changing over time and see how humans would handle this in future.
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      It's true. It's hard to find out about this for a few reasons. First of all, it's really hard to get good data. This thread is actually the most I've ever spoken about it on the internet, because I'm not really 'outed' in public except to the people who know me in real life. This is largely due to the stigma (and probably some holdover Catholic guilt) that's associated with poly. Secondly, the data is tainted by people who aren't _really_ practicing open relationships, and only do it to 'spice up' or 'save' a slowly failing monogamous one. I largely attribute my own success to it being one of the preconditions on my relationship being formed.