Ego said: There is a reason this idea is becoming more popular. If you've got a high-profit, highly-advertised product to sell, you want to create as many insecure, atomized eyeballs as possible.
I think this argument is somewhat confounded by the fact that there are more practitioners of poly-amory on this forum than in the general population. The way it works is that if you live in the post-Freudian world, and you and your partners can all say "post-Freudian", and talk over coffee about attachment-theory, then there is a level on which you don't have to engage in the process discussed in attachment-theory. Of course, there remains another level on which you still do have to engage in the process discussed in attachment theory.
For instance, I was often cared for by my grandmother, my great-grandmother and another older Polish woman who lived next door when I was very young. So, in one of my earliest memories, I am running on bare chubby toddler feet up and down the wooden hallway in an old house because my Great-grandmother wants me to come cuddle in one bed with her, and my grandmother wants me to come cuddle in another bed with her, and they are both laughing and calling to me with Polish pet names. It was a situation in which I felt very much loved and wanted, but under a bit of tension to choose. So, I can relate this memory to any or all of my poly-amours, and discuss how it pertains to our relationship and/or my choice to live in a Polish enclave as I enter into my pre-grandma phase of life.
OTOH, I could choose to have a discussion on the basis of sibling-peer-relationship theory rather than attachment theory. I could talk with one of my partners about how that theory suggests that I might have difficulty in relationship because I had no brothers. This theory also suggest that only children will have difficulty forming relationships as adults, so this growing demographic might be a partial cause of atomization of the non-self-aware.
I can also discuss a relationship, or multiple relationships, on the basis of power dynamics, economic exchange, sexual dichotomy theory, etc. etc. etc.
When you practice poly-amory, you are purposefully choosing to be relaxed in your attachment, in a similar manner to the way you can purposefully choose to relax your anxiety center when you engage in S&M type interactions. OTOH, I don't think it is appropriate to assign moral superiority to either of these practices, such as scoffing at people who prefer "vanilla" sex, or stating that polyamory is akin to graduate school level relationship practice. They're both just nerdy things to do that will serve the self-interest of some people some times and other people not at all. I would agree that engaging in either practice can tend towards causing a bit of "what is really real?" nihilistic depression at times, but that's pretty much the downside of being a nerdy deconstructionist in any context, and just requires re-centering yourself on the always very real moment and your presence in it with another person who will always be both known and unknown, and never truly possessed by you.
