TV Morality

[3113]

Of course, the morale police showed that this didn't work because the kids found out and some people had affairs outside of the group (and in this situation, one of the kids wound up stabbing the woman who was cheating on her dad - ahem).

So - lesson learned, it seems! Swinging parties are evil!

LOL! Yeah, I saw this episode...really annoying. But I think it's one of the earlier ones where they felt they had to use Las Vegas as a morality play. And the "morality" aspect varies depending on who is writing the episode. Writing staff aside, I've noticed that the show's characters, their personality quirks and such, change depending on who wrote the episode. In this case, it seems particularly off base that all these cops seem to lead such sexually straight lives that they can wryly and judgmentally comment on "devient" lifestyles in a city that specializes in such things. Where the hell were they raised and where have they been living that all this is such a shock to them?

CSI isn't the only one to do this. BONES has done it as well. They seem to feel that so long as they have one character--the "anthropologist" objectively commenting on the subject (being "fair" to it if you will), they can have everyone else acting like such acts are circus freaks, abnormal, dangerous...and in the end, fatal! So beware!

 

[gauchecritic]

Not devilish, legit question. But - does "not monogamous" mean "big swinger parties with multiple partners all in the same room?"

Maybe, maybe not . . .

Yes, yes it does. From OED online:

Not monogamous (adj.)
1. opposite of monogamous.
2. big swinger parties with multiple partners all in the same room.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Yes, yes it does. From OED online:

Not monogamous (adj.)
1. opposite of monogamous.
2. big swinger parties with multiple partners all in the same room.

Do they have a citation? Like "first used in Marlowe's Dr. Faust, 1612," or something like that? Maybe in Dickens?

 

[CrimsonMaiden]

In defense of these fictional swingers, they all knew each other well. They got together once a month to party.

It was a group from the same neighborhood, and they had several rules that they were supposed to follow: the kids were not to know, no pictures, no affairs outside of the group, always use condoms - more, but I don't remember.

Of course, the morale police showed that this didn't work because the kids found out and some people had affairs outside of the group (and in this situation, one of the kids wound up stabbing the woman who was cheating on her dad - ahem).

So - lesson learned, it seems! Swinging parties are evil!

This is the one where the woman was found in the fountain, right?

 

[The_Fool]

Always makes the move go easier when you move a friend and find toys under the bed that they forgot about.

 

[cantdog]

I see press reports of these suburban "sex party" rings from time to time, with events involving dozens of people, apparently mostly strangers. That's a bit different from a full toybox, and something I do find somewhat disturbing morally (and from a public health standpoint). Of course the reports might be all bullshit.

Not a bit, old fruit. There are plenty of such events. Search cleverly in the yahoo groups. myspace groups, and so on. Swingers, prostitutes, combinations of the above. Use keywords like swap, escort, GFE.

A little winnowing of the results, and you will soon enough know more about the underground sex in your area than you ever thought you could!

 

[Guest]

. . . .

 

[Guest]

. . . .

 

[cantdog]

In defense of these fictional swingers, they all knew each other well. They got together once a month to party.

It was a group from the same neighborhood, and they had several rules that they were supposed to follow: the kids were not to know, no pictures, no affairs outside of the group, always use condoms - more, but I don't remember.

Of course, the morale police showed that this didn't work because the kids found out and some people had affairs outside of the group (and in this situation, one of the kids wound up stabbing the woman who was cheating on her dad - ahem).

So - lesson learned, it seems! Swinging parties are evil!

Note the rules here, Roxanne. A closed polyamory can be set up to be very innocuous from a public health standpoint.

Sure, they'd spread colds and flus to one another, but people already do that anyway, in schools and mills and most anywhere.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Old fruit?

Closed polyamory = limited public health risk - roger.

Can it resist the slings and arrows of human nature, including jealousy, in/out group dynamics, destructive power games, etc.? That seems a more open and interesting question. Not saying it's impossible, but I bet money that most do not succeed in that. Which raises another interesting question - what's the secret of those that do?

 

[Guest]

. . . .

 

[cantdog]

Gotta love 'old fruit.'

Minus roger??

 

[cantdog]

And sure, I bet they all die the death one way or another. Politics, in the broadest sense of the term. You listed the main pitfalls, Rox. But gaming clubs, gardening clubs, and garage bands have similar hazards. You can't avoid friction if you are willing to risk contact.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Gotta love 'old fruit.'

Minus roger??

Oops. "dash" roger, "colon" roger.

Let me start over:

Closed polyamory = limited public health risk: Acknowledged.

 

[cantdog]

Oops. "dash" roger, "colon" roger.

Let me start over:

Closed polyamory = limited public health risk: Acknowledged.

Ohh! I getcha now.

sorry about the old fruit. Got carried away.

 

[human_male]

I don't really think I'd like my mum to see all my German Goo Girls videos.

Or the box of condoms I call my hope chest.

 

[cantdog]

Still, you'd be beyond caring by then, I suppose..

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Ohh! I getcha now.

sorry about the old fruit. Got carried away.

Oh, I'm a fan of colorful Englishisms.

 

[3113]

Not saying it's impossible, but I bet money that most do not succeed in that. Which raises another interesting question - what's the secret of those that do?

From what I know, the ones that work require what I'd call a "true mindset." That is, you don't get people in the group that have the idea "this will be exciting, let's try it, it's so wicked and sexy..." blah, blah, blah. That works all of a few times and then things like jealousy and such start to creep in. What's needed for such groups to work are people who really *think* in this way. A woman who looks at her "husband" with another woman (or wife) and thinks, "Look at what a great time he's having. That makes me so happy!" and men who look at their "wife" with another man and think, "There's my brother. I love him, and I love her, and I love seeing them having such a wonderful time together."

It's similar, I think, to the mindset surrogate moms need to have. You can't have a woman carrying another couple's baby who thinks to the baby within her, "You're mine." You need to have a woman who thinks, ALWAYS, "There are your parents, I can't wait to give birth to you so you can be with them." She is always aware that she's a surrogate and being a surrogate is what makes her happy. Likewise, in this instance, the people in a polyamorous relationship are always aware that their partners are for sharing, and it makes them happy to share.

This is true also for even the swinger life to work. Swinger life often involves husbands and wives who are devoted to each other, live together and have sex mainly with each other, with interaction with other couples as recreational sex, not as gaining extra husbands/wives. That's very different from, say, a group marriage where there are multiple husbands/wives.

 

[Boota]

While I'm not a swinger, I have some experience on the subject, having provided security for about a year to a swingers club. The BIG rule for the club was secrecy about who was there. Consenting adults were risking their careers and families by participating in that lifestyle. If the wrong person found out what they did on their off hours it was all over. The first couple I met when working there was a judge and his wife. If it was learned that they were into swinging his career was as good as dead.

The top professions of the members at the club I worked at were teachers, law enforcement, and medical. If people knew what they were into they would have a fit. A lot of those people could lose their livelihoods, their families, etc. It's ridiculous.

 

[oggbashan]

A teacher and his wife from a nearby town have been arrested and charged with running a brothel staffed with illegal immigrants held by force. The teacher and his wife have been released on police bail. Reading between the lines of the local paper's reports they appear at worst to have been minor characters in the case. The real villains seem to have been illegal immigrants themselves.

Whether the charge is eventually proven in a court of law, that teacher's career is finished. He was a Phys Ed and IT teacher. He is currently suspended from the school on full pay until the case comes to court. It is unlikely that any school would ever employ him again.

Og

 

[gauchecritic]

in/out group dynamics

Hee hee

 

[cantdog]

Naughty, gauche; you sound like Beavis and Butthead...

I first thought seriously about group marriage when I read Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. But the group marriages one actually hears of are much less interesting-- Abu Dhabi sheikhs, Mormons wearing strange Garments and marrying, eighteenthly, a thirteen-year-old from a business partner's family, Zulus and Waziris in the 'earlies,' to use Trader Horn's word. Not the same thing. Marriages in The Moon... were much more gender-equal. Every utopia in Heinlein is gender-equal, and he seems blithely to assume that of course the future will be like that.

To have a line marriage like the one in that book today, here, you'd have to keep the whole arrangement secret, something you couldn't ever do, with kids. Kids will give you away, man. They say anything they hear to anyone. And once they do, as Boota says, the game is fuckin over.

Just a pipe dream, I guess.

 

[Oblimo]

I've always wondered: in a (theoretical or real-world) group-marriage structure where all spouses are legally equal...what happens when A wants to divorce B but still be married to C?

 

[cantdog]

I've always wondered: in a (theoretical or real-world) group-marriage structure where all spouses are legally equal...what happens when A wants to divorce B but still be married to C?

It was spelled out in the book, actually. One joins the marriage, or one leaves it.