Interesting article on polyamory

[MillieDynamite]

I can't speak for Jo, but if she's unfaithful to me, she's the best liar ever. How she'd have time to cheat is beyond me. I also don't have the time. However, if I did, I wouldn't. We took vows, and to the best of my knowledge, neither of us has broken them. We tried poly before we married, but it was always a threesome, not either one of us off with another person. However, if an open relationship is your bag, so be it; it's not my job to judge.

 

[Comshaw]

proceeds to call those who don't practice it "limited by their capacity to love", "small", and "closed"

Gee, I wonder!

Interesting. As always someone will read into what's been said exactly what they want to see. If you will be so kind as to reread what I posted and make an attempt to understand what was said, I would appreciate it.

My indictment wasn't addressed to those who "don't practice it" but have the tolerance and intelligence to allow for its use by others. It was addressed to those who are intolerant of others living their lives as they see fit. I saw something on my Facebook feed the other day that fits this: "I saw a comment on my feed I disagreed with. You know what I did? I scrolled on." Good advice that.

It's like homosexuality. It isn't the people who disagree with the lifestyle but are willing to move on because it doesn't affect them at all. It's the ones who insist that, just by the fact homosexuals exist, it will destroy the country, their life, religion and the world! If we all lived by that premise, what a rotten world it would be.

Comshaw

 

[PennyThompson]

Slippery slope arguments are easy to make, but they often don't hold up under careful scrutiny, because it turns out that the issues around recognizing the legitimacy of A turn out to be quite different from the issues around recognizing the legitimacy of B. That, it seems to me, is the case with gay marriage and polygamy. But even if one questions that it doesn't seem like the same slippery slope analysis applies to polyamory.

This 100%. From my understanding of the discourse around gay marriage in the 1990s and early 2000s, the conservative slippery slope argument was "Well if two men can get married, it's only a matter of time before three people will want to get married, or a man and a sheep will want to get married!"

Their conception of legal marriage was strictly one man/one woman. (Interestingly, some religious conservatives at that time believed that transgender people who medically transitioned were perfectly in line with their definition of marriage) They couldn't understand (or maybe just pretended that they couldn't understand) that from a legal and social contract perspective, there's really no difference between "One Man, One Woman," and "Two Adults."

In terms of things like taxes and property and inheritance and medical decision-making, they're exactly the same. Extending legal marriage protections to "Two Adults," does not logically lead to any further redefinitions, and there haven't been any serious efforts to do so, aside from some religious fundamentalist factions who believe in religious polygamy.

 

[MillieDynamite]

What you talking 'bout, @PennyThompson? Well, it is Biblical, but maybe David carried it a bit too far.

This 100%. From my understanding of the discourse around gay marriage in the early 2000s, the conservative slippery slope argument was "Well if two men can get married, it's only a matter of time before three people will want to get married, or a man and a sheep will want to get married!"

Their conception of legal marriage was strictly one man/one woman. (Interestingly, some religious conservatives at that time actually believed that transgender people who medically transitioned were perfectly in line with their definition of marriage) They couldn't understand (or maybe just pretended that they couldn't understand) that from a legal and social contract perspective, there's really no difference between "One Man, One Woman," and "Two Adults."

In terms of things like taxes and property and inheritance and medical decision-making, they're exactly the same. Extending legal marriage protections to "Two Adults," does not logically lead to any further redefinitions, and there haven't been any serious efforts to do so, aside from some religious fundamentalist factions who believe in religious polygamy.

 

[PennyThompson]

What you talking 'bout, @PennyThompson? Well, it is Biblical, but maybe David carried it a bit too far.

 

[StillStunned]

They couldn't understand (or maybe just pretended that they couldn't understand) that from a legal and social contract perspective, there's really no difference between "One Man, One Woman," and "Two Adults."

This is an interesting point. If you say "marriage is only permitted between a man and a woman", as opposed to "marriage is permitted between two adults", the implication is that men and women are different in the eyes of the law or societal rules.

 

[PennyThompson]

the implication is that men and women are different in the eyes of the law or societal rules.

That was explicitly the reasoning behind the US Supreme Court's decision on gay marriage, that preventing people from accessing the legal rights and responsibilities of state-sanctioned marriage on the basis of sex violated the Equal Protections clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

And of course, going farther back in history in the US at least, the conservative definition of marriage had been "One man and one woman of the same race." They used exactly the same slippery slope arguments to try and prevent interracial marriage, and a supreme court ruling pointed to the Equal Protections clause to overturn that ban as well.

 

[nice90sguy]

"You can only love one person at a time!"

If by "love", they mean "fuck", then I agree, on purely anatomical grounds.

 

[PennyThompson]

If by "love", they mean "fuck", then I agree, on purely anatomical grounds.

A body can accommodate more than one insertion at a time, you know

 

[MillieDynamite]

Never heard of a threesome?

If by "love", they mean "fuck", then I agree, on purely anatomical grounds.

 

[nice90sguy]

By "Fucking" I'm referrring to the insertion of a penis into an orifice. The choice and number of orifices is irrelevent, it's simply a question of the unitary nature of the penis.
Of course you can BE fucked by up to seven people, if you include nostril and earhole fucking too.

 

[PennyThompson]

By "Fucking" I'm referrring to the insertion of a penis into an orifice. The choice and number of orifices is irrelevent, it's simply a question of the unitary nature of the penis.
Of course you can BE fucked by up to seven people, if you include nostril and earhole fucking too.

That is a very Greek Antiquity definition of fucking

 

[MillieDynamite]

But in a threesome you can take it up your ass while your pounding pussy or ass! You can also be fucking with someone and eating another person. You have a limited view of the word fucking!

By "Fucking" I'm referrring to the insertion of a penis into an orifice. The choice and number of orifices is irrelevent, it's simply a question of the unitary nature of the penis.
Of course you can BE fucked by up to seven people, if you include nostril and earhole fucking too.

 

[SimonDoom]

This 100%. From my understanding of the discourse around gay marriage in the 1990s and early 2000s, the conservative slippery slope argument was "Well if two men can get married, it's only a matter of time before three people will want to get married, or a man and a sheep will want to get married!"

These arguments conjure up, in my mind, the great line by Bill Murray's character in Ghostbusters: "Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!"

 

[nice90sguy]

I'd never marry a sheep. Marriage is about more than wild, woolly, incredibly satisfying sex. I mean, what would we talk about afterwards? I need to be stimulated intellectually too. I guess the best I could hope for is a warm, furry fuck-buddy.

 

[MrPixel]

Once I finally got past Wired's paywall (or whatever was locking me out... didn't like my browser), I should've left it alone because it was hardly about the relationship aspects and all about what dating apps poly persons used for hookups. Like the headline said. Silly me.

There was a very nice, positive article about polyamorous families in the NY Times several months or a year or two ago.

The polyamory I write about as fiction turned out to be not all that far off from what was covered in the NYT piece. There's certainly the mundane day-to-day of managing a communal household, and the polycules discussed were maybe a little more dynamic than what I portray, but I was close. Given this is LitE, my tales have far more sex, but the inherent joys of intimacy with multiple partners was touched upon. Both open and closed polycules were mentioned, as was ethical polyamory.

 

[StillStunned]

I'd never marry a sheep. Marriage is about more than wild, woolly, incredibly satisfying sex. I mean, what would we talk about afterwards? I need to be stimulated intellectually too. I guess the best I could hope for is a warm, furry fuck-buddy.

Ah, but the lies we tell them to get them into bed!

 

[Comshaw]

If by "love", they mean "fuck", then I agree, on purely anatomical grounds.

Hmmmm...so those who get spun up at swingers for going from partner to partner fucking multiples one at a time over a few minutes or hours shouldn't get upset because it's no different than going from partner to partner (via a breakup of a relationship) fucking multiples over months or years? It would appear, other than the time difference, both are serial monogamy! I'll go with that!

Comshaw

 

[MillieDynamite]

Babababout anything you want.

I'd never marry a sheep. Marriage is about more than wild, woolly, incredibly satisfying sex. I mean, what would we talk about afterwards? I need to be stimulated intellectually too. I guess the best I could hope for is a warm, furry fuck-buddy.

 

[PennyThompson]

I'd never marry a sheep. Marriage is about more than wild, woolly, incredibly satisfying sex. I mean, what would we talk about afterwards? I need to be stimulated intellectually too. I guess the best I could hope for is a warm, furry fuck-buddy.

Ah, but the lies we tell them to get them into bed!

There is a highly relevant YouTube video for this, but the last time I shared it like three people said "What the fuck is wrong with you Penny"

I'll let you google "Thanks, Smokey!" on your own this time!

 

[StillStunned]

I'll let you google "Thanks, Smokey!" on your own this time!

I've posted it myself here once or twice.

 

[Comshaw]

There is a highly relevant YouTube video for this, but the last time I shared it like three people said "What the fuck is wrong with you Penny"

I'll let you google "Thanks, Smokey!" on your own this time!

WTF is wrong with you Penny???? Other than having a sense of humor I adore.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Polygamy and polyamory are two very different things, though, aren't they? I'm not personally involved in or familiar with either in practice, but that's my understanding. Polyamory is the practice of more than two people being in a loving/intimate/sexual relationship with one another. Polygamy is more than two people being married, sometimes via legal recognition, and sometimes in defiance of the law. The legal issues don't arise in polyamory; they do in polygamy.

I'd agree with this, with the caveat that sometimes laws intended to address polygamy have spillover effects on polyamory - in particular I recall that Utah had a law which was directed at FLDS-style polygyny but was broad enough that it could also have affected polyamorous relationships.

Umm, let me just pull up my notes from where I was researching this the other night. I'm not sure if it's different from what you're saying, or just phrased differently.

Polygamy is the blanket term for polygyny (one husband, multiple wives), polyandry (One wife, multiple husbands), and serial monogamy (remarriage due to death or divorce of a spouse). The first two could be bigamy but the third would not.

There is no special term for when a marriage involves more than one of both genders.

Polyamory is basically polygamy without marriage.

A king with one wife, and multiple concubines, would be in a monogamous marriage, but living a polyamorous life.

There is some overlap between the two, but IME it's rare that a "polygamous" relationship would also be acknowledged as "polyamorous" or vice versa.

Historically, polygamy tends to be part of a social/religious structure and it comes with a bunch of rules and expectations that are just as restrictive as you'd find in a traditional monogamous marriage if not more so. In a Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints community, for instance, you get one very specific, tightly delineated form of polygyny. If you're a woman who wants to have two lovers at once, or even one who wants to maintain her own household and just spend weekends with a boyfriend, there is no place for you in that community. The shape of your relationship is dictated by your community's expectations.

By contrast, polyamory usually comes from a rejection of those kinds of externally-set expectations. The idea is that Bob and Chris and Alice (etc.) should be free to figure out what kind of relationship works for them, and as long as they're not scaring the horses or inflicting it on people who don't consent, nobody else should have a say in that.

I'm polyamorous, but most of my friends are monogamous folk who believe stuff like: nobody should be pressured into a relationship or marriage or having children, people should be free to leave a relationship that's not working for them, it shouldn't be assumed that the husband will be boss of the household, and monogamy is their personal choice that doesn't need to be enforced on others. I feel like I have much more in common with those monogamous friends than I do with traditional models of polygamy where about our only point of agreement is that there are times when it's okay to have more than one partner.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Polyamory is usually defined as *ethical* non-monogamy, which excludes a lot of historical polygamy, harems etc, because of the lack of freedom of many of the people involved.

Some swingers would exclude themselves from polyamory because they insist emotions are reserved for their spouse/partner alone. Most seem to accept that they are friendly at least with sexual partners, and fucking a friend on a regular basis could be called a relationship in a different social circle.

 

[Bramblethorn]

When I was younger, I thought that polyamory was simply an excuse card that people used to first create and then claim martyrdom for all the drama in their lives.

Once I grew up‡ I realised that it was actually just that the people I knew at that time were all world class drama queens, and that any -y or -ism that included anyone from that extended group was guaranteed to be a complete and unadulterated shit-fest and that it was best if I just stayed away and, occasionally, cheered for the particularly photogenic detonations.

This is wisdom.

Believe me, there are plenty of polyamorous people rolling their eyes at the drama queens and kings too. And sometimes waiting for the day when those folk will go find some other way to be edgy and attention-seeking so the rest of us can get back to board games night in peace.