Metadata
- Author: Carson
- Full Title:: Polyamory Doesn’t Liberate; Monogamy Doesn’t Protect
- Category:: 🗞️Articles
- Document Tags:: Poliamory,
- URL:: https://carsonogenic.substack.com/p/polyamory-doesnt-liberate-monogamy?r=74c8x&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true
- Finished date:: 2024-12-21
Highlights
the healthy response to jealousy isn’t to structure your whole life around avoiding it, it’s to reassure your partner(s) of your commitment to them with good communication and affirmation. (View Highlight)
Poly is common in my social group of 30-something San Franciscans, maybe even more common than Monogamy, at least in the available dating pool. However, we have to be careful with that statistic because of course poly people are going to be over-represented in the pool of people who are “dateable”: they don’t need to stop at one! (View Highlight)
Nesting Partner - A partnership where the specific intent is to live together and probably build a family together. (i.e. the default monogamy of ages past. The term exists to imply that it is not monogamous even though the intent of the partnership is similar.) (View Highlight)
Polysaturated - Unable to date new people not because of relational rules, but because there is simply no more time. (I swear I coined this one independently, but so did the internet. sigh, it was too obvious.) (View Highlight)
as polyfidelity (monogamous commitment to a predefined set of multiple people) (View Highlight)
Just like in monogamy, a partner might want to see you all the time and want you to do the emotional labor of calming their insecurities. Just like in monogamy, your partners will have expectations of you, and there is no saving grace but communicating and negotiating expectations and boundaries well. (View Highlight)
One thing the experienced polyamorists seem to agree on, is that the joy of poly is about sharing love, life, and pleasure. If you want to avoid emotional labor, (or value your “you” time) poly is probably not gonna help you with that: (View Highlight)
Esther Perel always to the rescue!
Esther Perel, a famous hexa-lingual author and relationship therapist, has much to say about modern monogamy in an age where most marriages end in divorce, rates of marital infidelity are as high as 20%, and non-marital infidelity is far higher:
*The grand illusion of committed love is that we think our partners are ours. In truth, their separateness is unassailable, and their mystery is forever ungraspable. As soon as we can begin to acknowledge this, sustained desire becomes a real possibility.
- Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity* (View Highlight)
And Brene Brown!
the quest for specialness is completely unsatisfiable (and Brene Brown argues, narcissistic). Real security does not rest on our essential specialness in the eyes of our partner. (View Highlight)
humans are just about in the middle of these two categories. We are sexually dimorphic, but not nearly to the degree gorillas or chimps are. Our males die a little earlier, but not much, twins happen, but they aren’t common and…we pair-bond with lots of exceptions. (View Highlight)
many poly relationships are one man with multiple women. There is a big disparity in how this trend is expressed by sex. Coming from the ideal of poly-as-overthrowing-the-patriarchy, this might be surprising. But from the evo-psych perspective, or the perspective of anyone who has ever dated, it won’t be surprising at all. This matches the history of many human cultures, as well as the patterns of tournament species. I wonder, if in some cases, we are rebuilding a rough approximation of a tournament species pattern, where many women seek to partner with few highly-attractive men, who only give them fractional attention? (Like Genghis Khan or Elon Musk.)
Recently I’m starting to wonder if I want to share a partner with other women, because women make better housemates and can gang up to keep the random dude in line. For the cursed straight-ish girls like me… If all men are going to contribute to a household in comparative advantage is money, why not just all take the man with the most money? It’s not insane.
- SF Woman, 35, poly (View Highlight)
It cites Dataclysm
not symmetric with respect to sex [8|8] . The most attractive men receive a lot of attention from many women, and they are willing to give a little bit of divided attention to all of them. The women tend to focus on a fewer partners, and tend to go for men who are more attractive than they are. (the evobio term for this is “hypergamy” - it is also the pattern we see in dating apps [9|9] ) (View Highlight)
(More attractive men and and less attractive women benefit from polygyny: (View Highlight)
I remember having read somewhere that monogamy was something to give a chance to ugly men XD
Less attractive men and more attractive women benefit from monogamy: (View Highlight)
Relationship styles are practices not identities. One religion might resonate more with you for now, but you can always convert. (View Highlight)
One of the most interesting results of her surveys is that while by many measures, “fully monogamous” and “fully poly” report similar levels of satisfaction, there is a clear dip in happiness and satisfaction for the people in the middle. (View Highlight)
(From Aella’s survey — which, given Aella’s reputation as both a Rationalist and the highest-paid sex worker in the world, is definitely a selected audience. Still fascinating though! (View Highlight)
Polyamory will not set you free. Monogamy will not keep you safe.