Monogamous Characters making the jump into non-monogamy (or not...)

[TheRedChamber]

'Hannah and I' are not well-defined characters. Hannah has been bugging me for a surname and 'I' hasn't even been given a given name yet. They've been popping up in my stories quite a lot recently - or rather I've gotten halfway through the planning stage of a story, going 'wait, is this adorable nerd couple, the same as my previous nerd couple' and then deciding, what the hell. Besides a love of fantasy art and video games and a playful sex-life, there's not a lot to them. One thing which has been constant though is that all my stories so far have been stricty two characters.

Which brings me to my latest story which I'm currently fleshing out in which they accidentally discover a local dogging spot near to them. The story will develop over a series of Friday nights and obviously has practically no limits to how crazy it COULD get. I suspect though that I'm going to work out a middle path where they have some fun but don't go as far as 'opening up their relationship' (especially to anonymous strangers), but when I write it, who knows what lines the characters might decide to cross.

So what I'm interested in this thread is if anyone has developed characters who were initially intended to be monogamous in early chapters/stories but then one day just broke the rules. To be clear, I'm not interested in stories where the characters were always going to sleep around but just started faithful. I'm thinking of when the authors intentions for them got reshaped somewhere along the line. Or indeed, times where you decided to test the characters resolve and they 'passed the test'.

(Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with polyamorous relationships especially in erotica)

 

[Rob_Royale]

So what I'm interested in this thread is if anyone has developed characters who were initially intended to be monogamous in early chapters/stories but then one day just broke the rules.

Nothing wrong with that, but be ready for the reader backlash. At the end of my first Aunt Tina story, I "suggested" perhaps adding another man to the relationship. The reader's responses were decidedly against the idea. And this was in an incest story!

by Anonymous user on 08/31/2023
Please leave the friends out of their relationship! You’ve got a great story going, don’t ruin it.

by Anonymous user on 08/31/2023
Don’t let Gabe share Tina. Let the two of them continue to grow their relationship. Adding new people just ruins the story

by xxx  on 08/30/2023
I did not like the idea of bringing another man into their relationship.

by xxx  on 08/30/2023
I gave this 4 stars only because you brought in the possible third party.

by xxx  on 08/30/2023
Then the nasty bombshell; a third person. Until that point, you were on a full 10* but now just 4*

by xxx  on 08/30/2023
I agree with the others adding another man could screw it up. Better to have a family reunion or such.

 

[AchtungNight]

Society assumes everyone is monogamous, but then why do they still train us to become so? And why is polyamory still sexy too?

How to flip the switch? Temptation is one key. Take my first story “Fear, Lust, and Vanity.”

Rachel- “I don’t want to admit I’m attracted to other women. I’m committed to my boyfriend Ryan!”

Keira- “Come on, he doesn’t have to know!”

Scarlett- “And even if he does find out, he might have no problem with it. My boyfriend knows I’m bisexual and is cool with the idea!”

Keira- “And aren’t we beautiful, Rachel? Why don’t you be with us and see if you like women too?”

Rachel- [blushes] “Well…”

Intense emotion is also important. Rachel wouldn’t be that into the other two girls in the above scenario if they hadn’t just helped her after her car was stolen and they had to escape an army of paparazzi. Gratitude and friendship are powerful motivations.

Jealousy and double standards work too. The classic scenario of a male playboy wooing multiple women while expecting his wife to be faithful will piss off the wife. She decides to woo multiple people too, to show her husband how he’s being a jerk. But then he doesn’t react as she expects. He’s fine with her being polyamorous as he is, even cool with an MMF threesome if she wants that. And she does…

 

[Euphony]

'Hannah and I' are not well-defined characters. Hannah has been bugging me for a surname and 'I' hasn't even been given a given name yet. They've been popping up in my stories quite a lot recently - or rather I've gotten halfway through the planning stage of a story, going 'wait, is this adorable nerd couple, the same as my previous nerd couple' and then deciding, what the hell. Besides a love of fantasy art and video games and a playful sex-life, there's not a lot to them. One thing which has been constant though is that all my stories so far have been stricty two characters.

Which brings me to my latest story which I'm currently fleshing out in which they accidentally discover a local dogging spot near to them. The story will develop over a series of Friday nights and obviously has practically no limits to how crazy it COULD get. I suspect though that I'm going to work out a middle path where they have some fun but don't go as far as 'opening up their relationship' (especially to anonymous strangers), but when I write it, who knows what lines the characters might decide to cross.

So what I'm interested in this thread is if anyone has developed characters who were initially intended to be monogamous in early chapters/stories but then one day just broke the rules. To be clear, I'm not interested in stories where the characters were always going to sleep around but just started faithful. I'm thinking of when the authors intentions for them got reshaped somewhere along the line. Or indeed, times where you decided to test the characters resolve and they 'passed the test'.

You've got an uphill climb.

First, In medias res ("in the middle of things") is not your friend so far. Stories almost always start at a climatic moment (our "start" but they've lived a whole backstory life before this.)THIS story is worth telling b/c of how they pivot into it from this turning point event.

Monogamy/ish doesn't naturally transition into your events. Even a toe dip/negotiated Poly carries way more reader baggage than even jubilant monog.

Also, who's the protag? My leaning is the woman as men's cliche of "take whatever sex comes" works against you.

The Poly is a stand in for a WANT. What is her want? What is she lacking, solving, otherwise addressing by taking such a significant step? Don't be generic in her want. "To try it." "Something different." "Fulfill a 'fantasy" are fools gold. They SPEAK there being a need but what, psychologically, is desperately pulling at her so much she's radically reconceptualizing her sexual identity?

Give her DOWNSIDES. "Can't always get what you want... get what you need" is incredibly true to life and stories are safe mental test runs for how we'd solve a life problem if we were confronted with it. You can have everything go swimmingly but stories revolve around conflict. It doesn't have to be Lifetime Drama of the Week but show life's "uh oh, there's a catch. There's ALWAYS a catch."

The rest should flow easily from those critical considerations. You've established what she wants and why she so desperately wants it. She goes through a series of challenges (story is how those challenges CHANGE her so, even her husbands changes aren't but so important more how HIS changes AFFECT her in her journey (minutia? Yes. Absolutely worth keeping in mind. You'll read a difference when you do.)

They'll be some big crisis where she is knocked off her path of getting what she wants without real consequences (make it hurt so her emotional victory at the end resonates)

And a few more testing events of your choosing where she moves further and further away from her flaw.

Then she claims her final prize, her new "strength" (which is exact opposite of her weakness) which slays the dragons that forced her into her quest to begin with.

It's not IMpossible to write the Poly as something other than the inciting, want, or climax event but whoooooo boy are you swimming against reader currents.

Probably why you're having trouble with a quick think fix. This is serious psychological negotiation for your protag if even a reasonability of realty is required.

I'm a firm believer in fleshing out the key parts of telling a story (addressed above) and you'll stumble into some chess pieces you can then move around since you now have a gameboard in front of you.

These aren't requirements but the further you stray from story structure basics, the more doomed you are to write not a story but a bunch of interesting situations. Sounds okay til you have to read the thing. Your brain will naturally feel something missing it's desperate for, story.

"A story is how what happens affects someone who is trying to achieve what turns out to be a difficult goal, and how he or she changes as a result." -L. Cron.

 

[Euphony]

Nothing wrong with that, but be ready for the reader backlash. At the end of my first Aunt Tina story, I "suggested" perhaps adding another man to the relationship. The reader's responses were decidedly against the idea. And this was in an incest story!

You'll get trashed in Incest for bringing in 3rd parties unless they are family, sometimes with a requirement of close family only.

There's a lot of "my one and only" or "fated to be together" going on in Incest.

Some civilian, no matter how great, wasn't anointed by the stars by blood and cannot be part of the sex tribe.

 

[Devinter]

@TheRedChamber - I think the underlying issue is if you set your readers up to expect one thing, and then do a bait and switch to something else. You can sometimes do that as a plot element to great success, but when it comes to erotica and arousal, you can't just change course rapidly and expect your readers to approve. Think of it this way: If you start writing a romance story and then in part 2 it's all about some foot fetish for page after page, all of the people who don't share that fetish will be put off.

Therefore, I would not recommend you suddenly make your cute couple that people are cheering for start cheating on each other. A threesome, group sex session, or something that they're all in on would work significantly better. Because both your characters are still there, still partaking, still having a good time, still having a connection with one another. Sure, there will be some readers that disapprove of this as well - but far fewer.

 

[Lifestyle66]

So what I'm interested in this thread is if anyone has developed characters who were initially intended to be monogamous in early chapters/stories but then one day just broke the rules. To be clear, I'm not interested in stories where the characters were always going to sleep around but just started faithful. I'm thinking of when the authors intentions for them got reshaped somewhere along the line. Or indeed, times where you decided to test the characters resolve and they 'passed the test'.

(Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with polyamorous relationships especially in erotica)

The first three chapters of my "Lifestyle" series describe the couple getting together and enjoying sex, even when separated and dating others. Then "Lifestyle Ch. 04: Mentors" has a swinger couple encouraging them to try the lifestyle. Those stories were posted to Erotic Coupling and rated over 4.4. Then "Lifestyle Ch 05: Newbies" was posted to Loving Wives and is at 4.04. Others posted to LW are similarly low rated.

So, it just depends on which category you post the story as to how well it's received. As stated many times in many other threads, if you post an extra-marital sex story in Loving Wives, it takes a hit in ratings and gets nasty comments.

 

[alohadave]

Nothing wrong with that, but be ready for the reader backlash. At the end of my first Aunt Tina story, I "suggested" perhaps adding another man to the relationship. The reader's responses were decidedly against the idea. And this was in an incest story!

by Anonymous user on 08/31/2023
Please leave the friends out of their relationship! You’ve got a great story going, don’t ruin it.

by Anonymous user on 08/31/2023
Don’t let Gabe share Tina. Let the two of them continue to grow their relationship. Adding new people just ruins the story

by xxx  on 08/30/2023
I did not like the idea of bringing another man into their relationship.

by xxx  on 08/30/2023
I gave this 4 stars only because you brought in the possible third party.

by xxx  on 08/30/2023
Then the nasty bombshell; a third person. Until that point, you were on a full 10* but now just 4*

by xxx  on 08/30/2023
I agree with the others adding another man could screw it up. Better to have a family reunion or such.

Incest and harem readers can be kind of particular with their kinks. They generally don't want any other man but the MMC involved in anything kinky.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Incest and harem readers can be kind of particular with their kinks. They generally don't want any other man but the MMC involved in anything kinky.

So, I discovered. Luckily I was leaning towards something loving anyway and the second part was more warmly received.

 

[ronde]

So what I'm interested in this thread is if anyone has developed characters who were initially intended to be monogamous in early chapters/stories but then one day just broke the rules. To be clear, I'm not interested in stories where the characters were always going to sleep around but just started faithful. I'm thinking of when the authors intentions for them got reshaped somewhere along the line. Or indeed, times where you decided to test the characters resolve and they 'passed the test'.

(Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with polyamorous relationships especially in erotica)

I've written several stories where the wife in a marriage decides to take a lover, but it was my intention that they do so when I started to story, not something that developed as I was writing it. A few are as yet unpublished because I'm sure I'll get the same comment about how straying wives should be made to rue the day the idea even popped into their head.

The plot of those stories isn't polyamory and they didn't have to pass any test. The plot is just the story of how a wife's mental state could lead her to find friendship with another man, friendship that sometimes leads to sex.

 

[TheRedChamber]

You've got an uphill climb.

First, In medias res ("in the middle of things") is not your friend so far. Stories almost always start at a climatic moment (our "start" but they've lived a whole backstory life before this.)THIS story is worth telling b/c of how they pivot into it from this turning point event.

Monogamy/ish doesn't naturally transition into your events. Even a toe dip/negotiated Poly carries way more reader baggage than even jubilant monog.

Also, who's the protag? My leaning is the woman as men's cliche of "take whatever sex comes" works against you.

The Poly is a stand in for a WANT. What is her want? What is she lacking, solving, otherwise addressing by taking such a significant step? Don't be generic in her want. "To try it." "Something different." "Fulfill a 'fantasy" are fools gold. They SPEAK there being a need but what, psychologically, is desperately pulling at her so much she's radically reconceptualizing her sexual identity?

Give her DOWNSIDES. "Can't always get what you want... get what you need" is incredibly true to life and stories are safe mental test runs for how we'd solve a life problem if we were confronted with it. You can have everything go swimmingly but stories revolve around conflict. It doesn't have to be Lifetime Drama of the Week but show life's "uh oh, there's a catch. There's ALWAYS a catch."

The rest should flow easily from those critical considerations. You've established what she wants and why she so desperately wants it. She goes through a series of challenges (story is how those challenges CHANGE her so, even her husbands changes aren't but so important more how HIS changes AFFECT her in her journey (minutia? Yes. Absolutely worth keeping in mind. You'll read a difference when you do.)

They'll be some big crisis where she is knocked off her path of getting what she wants without real consequences (make it hurt so her emotional victory at the end resonates)

And a few more testing events of your choosing where she moves further and further away from her flaw.

Then she claims her final prize, her new "strength" (which is exact opposite of her weakness) which slays the dragons that forced her into her quest to begin with.

It's not IMpossible to write the Poly as something other than the inciting, want, or climax event but whoooooo boy are you swimming against reader currents.

Probably why you're having trouble with a quick think fix. This is serious psychological negotiation for your protag if even a reasonability of realty is required.

I'm a firm believer in fleshing out the key parts of telling a story (addressed above) and you'll stumble into some chess pieces you can then move around since you now have a gameboard in front of you.

These aren't requirements but the further you stray from story structure basics, the more doomed you are to write not a story but a bunch of interesting situations. Sounds okay til you have to read the thing. Your brain will naturally feel something missing it's desperate for, story.

"A story is how what happens affects someone who is trying to achieve what turns out to be a difficult goal, and how he or she changes as a result." -L. Cron.

This is all interesting, but it doesn't quite gel with what I'm doing. And to be clear, nobody out there is going to be matching my story one-for-one, I'm just soliciting people to talk about their stories (which, lets face it AH denizens love doing) and seeing how other people's thought processes and writing exercises have gone.

The stories I've been writing with these characters is not 'the story of the relationship' - they're a set of short one-shots involving the same couple. The stories are somewhat temporally disconnected (their at university, they're cohabiting doing a Masters, they're in full employment) as required by the plot, but as the stories started to develop it became sensible to link them with a common couple. They're mostly light-hearted comedy pieces with the female MC dragging the male MC into some kind of sexual roleplaying fantasy - with some kind of twist at the end. In so far as there's is any motivation from the characters, it's basically starting from 'OMG, there's a famous dogging spot five minutes drive from us! We should check it out for shits and giggles' and then developing from there.

The issue, which you hint at, is there isn't a whole lot of motivation for them to go buck-wild at this thing - and they almost certainly won't. I'm edging towards an amount of activity which will be more than 'yep, that's a dogging spot, my curiosity is satisfied.' and far far less than her taking on all cummers. They will almost certainly be watched doing stuff. I'm less certain of exactly how much or how they are going to 'interact' with the other doggees. I suspect they may end up making a friend, having a conversation, but not actually doing anything sexual. Is that a wet squib of a story? Maybe it depends how I tell it.

(For anyone who is interested the three stories featuring this couple are: The Unbearable Obliviousness of the Late Night Nerd, Roped into a Fantasy, and We're Golden)

 

[AchtungNight]

My issue with monogamy vs polyamory is when readers of the opposite bent expect me to conform to their expectations- my characters are polyamorous and that’s not only acceptable but positive. Deal with it, imps! And by imps I mean Imperials, holier than thou stormtrooper types… Nazis would work too, I guess. I hate it when Nazis downvote my stories. Ugh. But that’s ok, I’m not here to pander to Nazis. Never have been.

A lot of the issues monogamy purists have is they confuse casual sex positive people with those who would force sex on others. I can’t speak for other people, but I’ve never been like that. In my stories, the characters need or want more than they have and because it’s fantasy land they can have their cake and eat it too. Doug Ramsay, the MMC of my LW story, is allowed to seduce his old crush Emily Johnson if it's possible for him to do so. His wife Lisa will gladly join them for a threesome later or be there for Doug if things don’t work out with Emily. And Emily will understand Doug’s heart belongs to Lisa and she’s content with casual fun. She just left her husband after forcing herself to deal with a monogamous life that wasn’t what she wanted anyway for nearly twenty years- she’s not ready for another serious relationship at the moment. Maybe she’ll go back to that someday and when it happens, Doug and Lisa will be okay with it. They’ll be pleased if she wants to join them on a weekend too while her husband’s busy or indisposed. But they won’t force either outcome on her. They satisfy their needs and hers. Unconditional love. Do people not get that?

Yes, it’s fantasy and not reality. But porn has never been about reality anyway.

On topic- make clear the monogamy is the ideal state for the purists if necessary. The polyamory is just extra fun. She’s bisexual and wants women too now and then. He gets to play around too to balance things out. Maybe everyone wants a threesome and so they have one. Or maybe it’s one on one night. Desires in balance, chaos is there but it’s ok. The couple needs extra fun in their lives and it’s attractive enough to tempt the outsider. Who is welcomed, not bullied or scorned. Honored, not objectified or exploited. They have fun too. Do purist Nazis not understand this?

 

[Lifestyle66]

... And Emily will understand Doug’s heart belongs to Lisa and she’s content with casual fun. She just left her husband after forcing herself to deal with a monogamous life that wasn’t what she wanted anyway for nearly twenty years- she’s not ready for another serious relationship at the moment. Maybe she’ll go back to that someday and when it happens, Doug and Lisa will be okay with it. They’ll be pleased if she wants to join them on a weekend too while her husband’s busy or indisposed. But they won’t force either outcome on her. They satisfy their needs and hers. Unconditional love. Do people not get that?

Yes, it’s fantasy and not reality. But porn has never been about reality anyway.

On topic- make clear the monogamy is the ideal state for the purists if necessary. The polyamory is just extra fun. ... Do purist Nazis not understand this?

I appreciate these discussions, because they make me think about things from other POVs. In doing so, I believe I'm slowly getting a better understanding why those monogamous NAZI purists think as they do.

When the man and woman marry, they promise fidelity to each other, which they believe (at that time) is sexual faithfulness to the spouse or partner. And many take it seriously that marriage is until death.

So, in your story, Emily "left her husband after forcing herself to deal with a monogamous life that wasn’t what she wanted anyway for nearly twenty years." But she married her husband with that faithfullness promise. So, they see that as "she lied" when she married him. From the purist's POV, she inflicts a non-consensual sexual change on her husband.

If she first divorces and leaves her husband due to irreconcilable differences with changing attitudes, some purists might take it easier. But if the husband or wife has extra-marital sex before they're divorced, they are forcing that sexual change on the unwilling spouse. In either case, there are die-hard purists who believe the commitment was "until death do us part," and even divorce is unacceptable.

If the story is one of a swinger or consensual sharing nature, they resort to name-calling with the husband's a cuck and the wife's a slut, and they predict it will end in divorce or other humiliations. Some of the comments I get on my swinger stories are "If they're going to fuck others, why get married?" They see marriage as sexual faithfulness PERIOD, and they can't separate sex from love in marriage.

IMO, they're all just "born that way" and we can't change them. But it takes intolerant haters to hate them. They are who they are.

 

[Devinter]

@Lifestyle66 - You make some good points. However, cheating on someone that you're supposed to love is a form of emotional non-consent and clear betrayal. If a reader is uncomfortable with non-consent, blackmail, mind control, and so on - then it is not at all strange to me that they also wouldn't like to see someone emotionally harm another person. And that's what happens when you promise someone something and don't keep your word. Why some people still throw a fit even if they divorce first, or even if both partners are consenting and in on it, I have no idea. That part is highly illogical to me.

 

[Lifestyle66]

... Why some people still throw a fit even if they divorce first, or even if both partners are consenting and in on it, I have no idea. That part is highly illogical to me.

I agree. I have a real-world example of that in my own circle of family and friends, where husband and wife mutually agreed to the divorce. The husband had previously cheated on his wife, and when the kids were grown, they divorced.

At first, everything was good between them. But within a year, the husband became jealous seeing his wife having more fun because it was easier for her to find willing partners.

So, those throwing a fit after a divorce is IMO due to selfishness and jealousy that they come out with less in the deal. Their spouse has the happier life, which they thought they would find as a single.

 

[AchtungNight]

I don’t hate them, but in the words of a popular tv star from my youth… I pity the fools.

 

[AchtungNight]

I agree. I have a real-world example of that in my own circle of family and friends, where husband and wife mutually agreed to the divorce. The husband had previously cheated on his wife, and when the kids were grown, they divorced.

At first, everything was good between them. But within a year, the husband became jealous seeing his wife having more fun because it was easier for her to find willing partners.

So, those throwing a fit after a divorce is IMO due to selfishness and jealousy that they come out with less in the deal. Their spouse has the happier life, which they thought they would find as a single.

In my LW story I made clear that Emily and Jake (her husband, soon to be ex) were estranged and just waiting for divorce after putting it on hold for a long time to avoid the process hurting their child. Maybe the kid would have been okay if they had split sooner. Maybe the readers didn’t like anyone living a lie so to speak- they don’t get that my characters didn’t like it either. So they modified their vows with hall passes. Jake was willing to play around while the kid grew up, Emily waited till he was eighteen. Doug and Lisa are a childless older couple and she’s infertile while he has a history as an abuse victim. They’ll be learning from many other people’s bad examples should they ever adopt and raise children.

Perhaps the imps worry it will be impossible for children to grow up emotionally healthy around such parents. To be honest, I share that concern. That’s why I have yet to write about it. But do I consider my characters possibly good parents despite this? You bet I do. They deserve a chance at least.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I don’t hate them, but in the words of a popular tv star from my youth… I pity the fools.

I agree.

But there are many (even here in the AH) who spew their own version of hate, thinking themselves superior and justified.

"I'm not an intolerant hater. But I HATE those others who are intolerant haters, and I can't stand them!" (LOL. The ignorant who don't own a mirror.)

 

[AchtungNight]

I agree.

But there are many (even here in the AH) who spew their own version of hate, thinking themselves superior and justified.

"I'm not an intolerant hater. But I HATE those others who are intolerant haters, and I can't stand them!" (LOL. The ignorant who don't own a mirror.)

I know what you mean. When I say “I hate Nazis” I’m just quoting Indiana Jones. Then I do what is necessary by opposing Nazis. It’s a necessity, not done out of hate. I hate having to deal with such people, not the people themselves. The sin is all I hate, to quote another favorite philosopher. One day they might put me to death like they did him. Hopefully they won’t lie about my life afterwards if they do that, or the truth vs myth will still be debated.

 

[Lifestyle66]

In my LW story I made clear that Emily and Jake (her husband, soon to be ex) were estranged and just waiting for divorce after putting it on hold for a long time to avoid the process hurting their child. Maybe the kid would have been okay if they had split sooner. Maybe the readers didn’t like anyone living a lie so to speak- they don’t get that my characters didn’t like it either. So they modified their vows with hall passes. Jake was willing to play around while the kid grew up, Emily waited till he was eighteen. Doug and Lisa are a childless older couple and she’s infertile while he has a history as an abuse victim. They’ll be learning from many other people’s bad examples should they ever adopt and raise children.

Perhaps the imps worry it will be impossible for children to grow up emotionally healthy around such parents. To be honest, I share that concern. That’s why I have yet to write about it. But do I consider my characters possibly good parents despite this? You bet I do. They deserve a chance at least.

In my circle and small part of this planet, I have many examples of both good and failed marriages, failed divorces, and just about everything imaginable (except possibly murderers, but never say never among my large, extended dysfunctional family.)

With my swinger couple, I built the wife as coming from a two-parent house, with her mother having PTSD from the death of the wife's older brother (mother trapped in wreckage as her son died beside her.) Her mother couldn't look at her daughter without breaking down from the loss of a child. The husband comes from a household with a workaholic father who was never around, and a mother who grew up in an orphanage and ran her own house the same way, emotionally distant from her kids.

In my stories, the wife complains about their dysfunctional upbringings, and the husband says; "Our parents grew up with their own demons and were the best parents they could be."

 

[AchtungNight]

In my stories, the wife complains about their dysfunctional upbringings, and the husband says; "Our parents grew up with their own demons and were the best parents they could be."

I hold similar beliefs about my own family. Hope they don’t make up negative stories or believe in them. So far I think we’re doing fine.

 

[AchtungNight]

I don’t hate them, but in the words of a popular tv star from my youth… I pity the fools.

Oh, and for the record, I don’t pity anyone in the same way as Mr. T. I’m still going to do what I must to them if necessary. No sparing beatdowns here. Think Aloy and Helis from Horizon Zero Dawn.

Helis- “You _pity_ me?”
Aloy- “Turn your face to the sun.” [stab]

 

[Lifestyle66]

Oh, and for the record, I don’t pity anyone in the same way as Mr. T. I’m still going to do what I must to them if necessary. No sparing beatdowns here. Think Aloy and Helis from Horizon Zero Dawn.

Helis- “You _pity_ me?”
Aloy- “Turn your face to the sun.” [stab]

I have an older friend who grew up in a rich family, and he's been very successful in life.

We were talking about his visit to a vacation spot when he described talking to people who grew up in poverty. He and his wife were just amazed that they had that chance to talk to someone like that, who actually grew up with no running water and had to use outhouses.

I explained that it was my own upbringing in a small, rural town with houses having hand pumps in the kitchen and outhouses. Having a 5-year-old friend whose grandfather used to beat when he was drunk. Having a very strict father of my own, and how he treated us kids when he was mad. And how we had to work to escape such a life.

My friend said "Well, it's good that you broke out of that cycle of abuse and don't behave that way."

I replied "What makes you think I've broken that cycle? I am who I am." He knew nothing about my past, and thus doesn't know who I am.

With all of the dysfunctional and successful examples from my extended family and friends, in my experience, we can't fundamentally change people. We are who we are.

We do what we must against those who invade our space and attempt to force us to change.

 

[AchtungNight]

Well yeah, but we still learn from the mistakes we see in our past and do not repeat them if we feel we should not. I grew up raised by a strict family that spanked me if I broke rules. My sister did too. We both couldn’t stand it. We considered ourselves good people and you didn’t need to prove that by physically harming us when we weren’t. She’s raising three kids right now without such physical punishment as part of the equation. I like to think it’s capable of working out right for both kids and parents. Last I saw they’re doing fine but the kids aren’t old enough for grade school yet. I’m not going to predict a bad future by saying some crap like she’s spoiling her kids. She’s not far as I know. Neither is their sex positive uncle who puts his fandom of porn on hold whenever he’s around the kids. They have two of those by the way- the other one is gay. And we’re both capable of being a great dad ourselves if we step into those circumstances. I just hope we measure up should we get the chance.

 

[MillieDynamite]

LT. Saavik: Monogamy is a difficult concept; it is not logical.
Captain Kirk: We learn by doing.
LT. Saavik: But not with you, sir. Not with you.