polyamory and polygamy

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pukingRainbows
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polyamory and polygamy

Post by pukingRainbows »

I had a question for all the people who practice polyamory on this board:

How does polygamy factor in for you? Defined as allowing people to have more than one married spouse.
Does it seems like a natural extension of polyamory? And something desirable as a social possibility?

From what little I've seen, I've always found it very similar to what I would categorize as casual dating but clearly there's more to it than that. I'm curious to understand it in the context of more serious and committed relationships.

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jennypenny
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Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by jennypenny »

An older thread you might find interesting ... viewtopic.php?f=20&t=6547

I have no inherent objection to polygamy as long as both men and women are allowed to have multiple spouses. I haven't seen any good studies though on the effects of such arrangements on any children involved in those situations. Most studies show that kids benefit from two-parent households, but maybe it's the stability that's important and would carry over into polygamous families? I don't know, and the answer to that would factor into my opinion.

pukingRainbows
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Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by pukingRainbows »

Thank you @jennypenny
That was interesting! And funny.

Reading about the complexity that can result from polyamory, specifically in @7wannabe5's posts, where it was mentioned how at one point, a situation approached too closely to the concept of prostitution, it made me think about the other end of the polyamory spectrum: completely casual sexual encounters and possibly involving a financial transaction.

Essentially, how do people who practice polyamory feel about prostitution? Is it another level of having multiple partners? Is there a line between buying dinner for such a partner or just handing them the money?

I hope I don't sound judgmental here. And I'm actually pro prostitution, assuming it involves consenting adults.

In general, I am just interesting in exploring how polyamory approaches these different types of relationships.

Kriegsspiel
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Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by Kriegsspiel »

pukingRainbows wrote:
Sat Feb 17, 2018 10:49 am
Essentially, how do people who practice polyamory feel about prostitution? Is it another level of having multiple partners? Is there a line between buying dinner for such a partner or just handing them the money?
Prostitution is more honest :lol:

Jason

Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by Jason »

Well, if you hand a prostitute money, you're guaranteed to have sex but you might not get kissed. With a regular girl, it's usually the other way around.

Kriegsspiel
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Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by Kriegsspiel »

Ok.

Jason

Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by Jason »

Food for thought.

7Wannabe5
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Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I think it is of limited use to consider polyamory by placing it in boxes constructed by more familiar paradigm, such as married/single or wife/mistress/girlfriend/whore. The best basis for a model I have come upon is the one suggested by the authors of "Designer Relationships: A Guide to Happy Monogamy, Positive Polyamory, and Optimistic Open Relationships." which divides the realms of relationship into Sexual, Emotional, Social, and Practical. So, the widest set of possibilities would be free ability to choose to make contracts over varied periods of time with varied individuals in an possible combination of these realms. For instance, you could vow to "love forever" (lifetime emotional contract) with one individual and you could contract to exchange sex for money one evening only with another individual (one day sexual and practical contract.) Oftentimes individuals in any sort of relationship become resentful or engage in conflict because assumptions have been made, expectations aren't shared, and contract is not clearly communicated or described. For instance, the stereotypical female who expects that a male will call for a second date based on behavior to which she inaccurately assigns meaning, or the disappointed newlywed who expected that marriage contract should provide for sex on demand, or the new girlfriend of divorced man who feels jealous when he chooses to go Christmas shopping with his ex-wife, or the husband who is stunned to learn that his wife has been stashing funds away in a secret account towards her early retirement without his knowledge, or the co-worker who provided emotional support while you were going through a crisis, and then holds expectations of practical support for promotion of work project. And a million different possible ways in which humans attempt to follow the rules of "Don't shit where you eat." and/but "You only reap what/where you sow." and/but "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" and/but "You can't have your cake and eat it too." etc etc. etc.

So, for instance, I refer to my BF as my BF because we engage in a fairly large contract in all 4 realms, particularly Social and increasingly Practical, but we are not in love with each other, never have been, and both assign slim possibility to future likelihood of mutual infatuation. OTOH, I was mutually "in love" with my married polyamour with whom I had much less social or practical contract, because 80% he was doing that stuff with his wife, so our relationship was Emotional/Sexual. My third partner was Sexual/Social/Practical and is now Practical/Social/Sexual. I also interacted with a couple younger men on only Sexual basis since I decided to practice polyamory, but I don't like that very much, because I guess I need at least one of the other realms of involvement to lend some level of substance to the sex. I think this speaks to the difference between modern polyamory and semi-archaic polygynous practice, because when females are given equal power/say in relationship structure, whether monogamous or polygamous, they are going to want more or different complexity, at least at the level that differentiates the male tendency to look at pornography vs. the female tendency to read romantic or erotic novels.

Jason

Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by Jason »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Mon Feb 19, 2018 9:26 am
relationship into Sexual, Emotional, Social, and Practical.
"So (input name) before we start anything, I just want to go over some relationship ground rules here. Although we met only a few hours ago on a chat line when I was so high on pharmaceutical grade cocaine that it didn't matter to me that you live in a crime infested neighborhood and I'm still not ready to accept your explanation that I was merely hallucinating about that young couple I saw gagged and bound to your radiator, I have decided that I will in fact have sex with you. Now, admittedly that doesn't exactly make you a Gold Medal winner in my female Olympics, but at least you qualify to compete which does separate you from, um, um, let me think here...ok...let me think of one...ok... Rosie O'Donnell...and....um...ok...females who also happen to be immediate family members. Well, at least, genetically speaking."

"Moving on, I will agree to put my arm around you if let's say, you accidentally run your dog over with your car or that huge goiter on your neck does turn out to be cancerous or you recover some type of memory concerning some weird Uncle of your's, which let's face it, wouldn't be that big of a surprise to anyone. I think you realize by now that I am not a complete fucking asshole."

"Furthermore, I will agree to be seen in public with you, at least in a "riding the cyclone at Coney Island at off peak hours" sense if not the "Hey, you want to go to my parent's house on Thanksgiving" sense. Of course I would require that you wear a full head scarf and pretend that you are a special needs person, which really isn't that much of a stretch any ways, and since I'll be wearing a Priest collar, you only refer to me as Father O'Reilly."

"However, just to be clear, and please, do not take this in any way personal, under no circumstances, and I mean none, am I ever, and I mean ever, going to help you move, fill out a form, or give you a ride to a dentist appointment, even though judging the current state of your mouth, is unlikely to ever be on the calendar."

"Now, if these terms are acceptable, I think we have the beginnings of something really beautiful here."

7Wannabe5
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Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Jason:

lol- The practice of polyamory does not preclude the importance of setting standards. It just eliminates the requirement that adherence to strict or forever monogamy is one of the standards. So, for simplistic instance, a female could still follow the 3 dates before sex rule if she was practicing polyamory. In fact, in some ways, it is easier to raise your standards for conduct when you practice polyamory, because you never get "too hungry" for whatever relationship resource(s) you are seeking. Or it's kind of like shopping when your already well-organized, fairly well-stocked, and you have a pretty specific list. So, when you are already seeing 2 men who have many attractive qualities and exhibit many attractive relationship behaviors, it's unlikely that you would settle for less, rather than more or different/complementary from a 3rd partner. For instance, I met my current BF when I was feeling pretty happy with the mix of the two men I was already seeing, but I needed someone who was more available/desiring to do things on the weekend with me. On the same day I met him, I had coffee with another man who was equally willing/wanting to fill that role. Affluent middle-aged men who just went through a bad divorce like to have an attractive social companion they can take to the theater or out to dinner or on a weekend trip without having to worry about them wanting something more serious, because they won't be ready to enter into a serious relationship again for a few years at the very least. I tell them to just pretend like I am a girl in her 20s who is currently in grad school and plans on moving to wherever she needs to for her career in a few years, so doesn't want to enter into any sort of long-term oriented relationship that would in any way limit her options. Analogously, if I wanted to just have a hawt fling, I would pretend like I was on a trip somewhere just for one night, and pick a partner based on my highest standards for attractive stranger in an elevator, which would be somewhat higher standards than you might think, because I can usually intuit a man's level of intelligence pretty quickly. Of course, my stranger in an elevator standards would vary somewhat more towards the muscular with a bit more leeway for the IQ than my choice for Dinner Conversation and Theater Date and vice-versa.

IOW, the obvious, easily learned best practices for avoiding a situation like you described (or the gender-reversed equivalent of dating the female who will let you drive her to the dentist, pay the bill, and carry her purse to the car but will never let you touch her boobies), would be to "Up your game", "Know your level", "Self-validate" and "Be self-aware about your unwillingness to earn/pay the proper penny for what you think you want in relationship but aren't getting."

EdithKeeler
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Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by EdithKeeler »

@jason—haha! You crack me up.

Every time I read one of these threads about polyamory, I just start to feel tired. I admire you guys who have time and inclination, but I just can’t imagine all the time it takes to manage all these relationships.

I barely got thru Valentine’s Day, and now DBF is having some minor surgery. I can’t inagine having to juggle multiple paramours, including valentines gifts and baking—A likes cookies, B likes cake, C is low-carbing.... and what would I do with all the flowers and jewelry I’d rake in? 😁 Plus the obligations like surgery, other family members, holidays... Although if I could ask paramour A to take paramour B to the hospital, and maybe get paramour C to take the dogs to their vet appointment, it MIGHT be worth it.

I’m just a one-guy at a time sort of gal, I think.

Reminds me of the joke: Q: why do debutantes avoid group sex? (Or polyamory?) A: Too many thank you notes to write. That’s me.

7Wannabe5
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Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

EdithKeeler wrote:Every time I read one of these threads about polyamory, I just start to feel tired. I admire you guys who have time and inclination, but I just can’t imagine all the time it takes to manage all these relationships.
Yeah, sometimes it makes me feel tired too, but I currently have less interest in the two alternatives. My youngest sister who is also an ENTP just got married for the first time at the age of 42. She lives in NYC, does legal contract work full-time and take a class or attends an event related to a different hobby 5 evenings/week; yoga, rock band, Japanese, writing, etc. Her husband in an INTJ, so it works well for them, because he gets alone time while she keeps herself lively with all her different activities. I am too much of a home-body (less E than my sister) for that sort of arrangement, but I might consider long-term monogamy if I could find somebody otherwise attractive, who would not bother me while I worked on 5 different hobby projects at the same time while at home. He would have to not bother me in the library, the garden, the home laboratory, the kitchen or my craft-space, while simultaneously being required to regularly bother me in the bedroom, converse charmingly over meals, drive the car and lift heavy objects as needed.

TopHatFox
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Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by TopHatFox »

Polyamory - originated from the feminist movement and has undertones of equality and a web of everyone's needs being met

Polygamy - originated from patriarchal cultures and often features competition and a power imbalance

------------

@Edith, but imagine having two lovely people to cuddle with, who also like one another. You don't have to do it all since there are other people in the group to help out. : ) My preference is having two committed relationships at the same time, who also like and enjoy spending time together. What I hate is when polyamory is used as an excuse to have many half-assed relationships.

EdithKeeler
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Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by EdithKeeler »

@Edith, but imagine having two lovely people to cuddle with, who also like one another. You don't have to do it all since there are other people in the group to help out. :
Well, I’m curmudgeonly enough, as is my DBF, that it’s highly unlikely we’d find another person grouchy enough to fit in with us. And yeah—more people to help out—but more people whose crap I’d have to help with, too. And I’m not much of a cuddler. I’m cool with sex and then go to your room (as is DBF, thankfully!).

Just not for me. Y’all polyamor all you want, and I’ll live vicariously through your adventures. And I can still go to bed early!! 😁

7Wannabe5
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Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Also, as Jason has noted, I am half talking theoretical dollhouse model in the cloud-vacuum of my XNTP-A brain crap on this topic, because I agreed to have dinner with my ENXJ-T "ex" who I haven't seen in almost 3 years this evening. Since the two of us generally had sex about 5-10 times/week during the 3.5 years we were a couple, if I let him sweep me off my feet again, that will be the end of my polyamorous practice until he makes me so angry with his overbearing ways that I break up with him again.

The funny thing is that my ESXJ-T BF with whom I have a lot of fun, but can't raise the tent of romance, thinks I should move in with him, primarily for reasons of mutual convenience and rational interest, if I don't end up getting back together with my "ex." Since continuing to reside with my bi-polar 2 maniac mother, now that she is doing better health-wise, is entirely intolerable, I am spending today frantically researching possible OPTION 4. I have been offered a teaching job full-time until the end of the year in the district near my garden, so I just need to nail down some housing for less than $400/month. The problem with the theoretically independent solution is that I am kidding myself if I fill in the blank of "Who will I be sleeping with?" with NOBODY.

George the original one
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Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by George the original one »

@7Wannabe5 - you're just asking for trouble again when you bring ex-ex-exes back into the equation. Leave them as FWB (at best). I say this from the point of view that I have an ex-gf that there's no way in hell we could live together(*) and I'm fortunate that for most of the past 20 years she has resided on the other side of the planet plus we figured out the FWB-thing 30 years ago.

She and I had a conversation 6 years ago and it went:
Her: "Why aren't we together?" [she has memory troubles now... this might have been the first sign of it?]
Me: "You know why."
Her: "Yeah, you're right, we would have killed each other by now."

(*) From my point of view, it would have been like being Mr. Bucket married to Hyacinth from "Keeping Up Appearances", only I ain't the saint he is.
Last edited by George the original one on Tue Feb 20, 2018 12:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

7Wannabe5
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Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Gtoo:

I know, I know...maybe if I do my best to suppress my tertiary drive towards Harmony and my weak Quaternary function of Memory and bring forward my secondary genius function of Introverted Thinking (Accuracy), we will cut right to the chase and have a big fight over dinner. The question I should ask myself towards Accuracy is "What choice keeps me in integrity with my principles?" IOW, I need to focus on the fact that over the long term my primary social need is free debate and not make a decision based on emotions. IOW, truth is that I want to be loved, but I NEED to speak my piece or suffer slow suffocating death of my spirit.

Crosspost- lol- on the Hyacinth and Mr. Bucket reference. Gotcha, but FWB would never work for this "ex" and me, because we were too romantically involved. He would not be contacting me if he didn't want to throw all in and offer significant contract.

7Wannabe5
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Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

And now my BF is saying that he wants to be monogamous because I am meeting with my “ex.”

Clearly, I need to spend less life energy posting on this forum and find some more middle-aged single female friends (sigh)

daylen
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Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by daylen »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 5:54 pm
Clearly, I need to spend less life energy posting on this forum and find some more middle-aged single female friends (sigh)
I find it hard to find people in real life that can have conversations of the caliber found on this forum. Though, I haven't really put much effort into it.

7Wannabe5
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Re: polyamory and polygamy

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@daylen:

Absolutely true that this forum performs the function of general purpose "salon" very well, in addition to its primary specific purpose of providing social support for those attempting practice of extreme frugality and/or FI /ERE on multiple Wheaton levels. However, it is not exactly a well of support for somebody in their feminine energy (understatement here), nor should it be. So, I was just noting that I am currently lacking a more appropriate circle for that form of support in my life, because all 3 of my sisters are unavailable at the moment due to different, more harrowing crises than the drama in my middle-aged love life, and I have done a sucky job of maintaining ongoing contact with many other female friends IRL, and I am not currently part of an open jovial group of peers like constituted my water aerobics class.

However, I would note that recent practical advice Jacob offered vis-a-vis link to Personality Hacker site, did prove helpful, and I handled my meeting with my "ex" better because I kept telling myself "Your memory function is like an infant you should just keep swaddled." and asking myself "Is this accurate?" and "What choice is in alignment with my principles?" I had almost forgotten how charming my "ex" can be, so it took all my masculine energy to withstand his sales pitch which included offer of "joy." Most men only offer "fun", so I had to be almost Spock-like in my Introverted Thinking quadrant to withstand the allure.

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