Topic: Love's last hope: Consensual non-monogamy (Read 355 times)

You don't have an historical analysis of events there, you have a made up history. That's also what we call "post modernism," in part.

It's made up.

Life in past ages was cruel, short, and brutal.

Well in the past, marriage was between a man and his property.  That worked but once women became acknowledged as humans (work in progress), marriage could no longer function the way it always had.  Women's rights are destroying marriage. 

This isn't about approving cheating, this is about showing people there is another way to have multiple lovers than cheating on your monogamous partner. 


Of all the things you could have made up, its funny you would make THAT up considering I am the poster on this board least in favor of government mandating things in our lives.  I think people should be able to do what they want including monogamy.  OP is merely suggesting people who have no intention in an honest relationship to not participate in deceptive monogamy by chronically cheating on their partner.   They need to be open to the idea that they don't HAVE to be in a traditional marriage.

People need to be clear about their desires and intentions.  Even if I bought into pragers' ideology.  What do you have to say about people who are determined to commit adultery?  Would you rather them be deceptive about and pretend they are not committing adultry it or honest about it upfront and commit the type of "adultery" where everyone agrees and no one gets hurt?

I wonder if traditionalists like prager also think women should be home makers whose sole purpose in life is to serve their husband.  That is how things were.  Women's rights and feminism are recent movements. 

I think I have been spending too much time debating postmodernists, leftist, and communists of late. So much so that I am pleasently suprised to see actual wisdom on display. Like a breath of fresh air.

Here is Dennis Prager's take on this issue. His conclusion's are not different then the high quality replies merited above.

7. Do Not Commit Adultery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0-epfgG7lI

I agree with this. My prior post showed that historically, these concepts had failed miserably and catastrophically, however a broadening of general acceptance of divergent lifestyles is very different than mandating or encouraging such.

But that's not what the poster wants. He's after government to get involved in this, and with his ideas at the forefront....

Divorce rates are higher nowadays because divorce is legal. It doesn't MORE people cheat than in the past. Nothing has changed that warrants change in this respect. Same percentage of people is getting betrayed, but luckily they can now escape bad marriages. There is nothing wrong with divorce. Find someone who is better suited for you. If someone betrays the person who loves them, they kind of have it coming, right? I don't believe cheaters should get an out in a form of society's aproval. And I definately don't think polyamory should become the new norm. If it suits you, fine, but don't expect a fan club.

No.  Polyamorous people do not lie beccause their needs are already met through their flexible relationships.  They don't need to lie.  

Its monogamous people who lie and betray because they are otherwise stuck with one partner for life.  It isn't an "or else" situation.  It already happens.  Infidelity is rampant.  Marriage is already broken.  

I'm going to use presidents as an example since they are people we all know and their lives are out there. They all identify as monogamous.

Donald Trump is clearly not practicing monogamous in an honest way.  He has had so many wives, children by different mothers and slept around on all of his wives.  He is banging porn stars on the side and grabbing married women by the pussy while 'moving on them like a bitch' and trying to fuck them.  This is exactly the type of person who has no business pretending to be monogamous.  He does so at the expense of a lot of people.  If his money and your sexism allows you to see this as harmless, then you aren't considering the husbands of the married women he wants to bang.  

From what we know (which is probably not everything) the Obamas seem to be well-suited for monogamy.  If what we see is true, then they are the type of people who should be monogamous.  I'm not denying that monogamy isn't great for some people.

Maybe Bill Clinton wants to be monogamous but has a lot of desires for other women and cannot control himself.  This has led him to lie and cheat for decades.  It even cost him impeachment.    He needs a relief valve.  He's not like Trump, but clearly needs a marriage structure that includes an occasional girlfriend.  

People need to acknowledge their personal needs and develop relationship models that suit their needs in a way that is honest and consensual for all parties involved OR ELSE......or else we will continue to see critically high failure of marriage.  The high divorce rates may actually be the best stat on behalf of monogamy because those are the people who escape the bad situations.  That doesn't include the people who avoid divorce and fight through depression, lying, cheating, domestic violence and living in misery over a failed marriage.  

So you are saying polyamours people will lie to and betray those who are only interested in monogamous relationship? We should all support polyamorus people or else? LMAO

Polyamory is about commitment though.  Its a huge misconception to think that it is about randomly sleeping around.   Monogamy is great for some people and they should stick with it.  You should definitely pursue plain ole monogamy if that is what works for you and your partner.  I'm just saying that people who know it's not for them should not force themselves or their loved ones to pretend monogamy.  You should support this more than anyone else because you don't want a partner who pretends to be committed to you and hides another lover behind your back.  You are exactly the type of person who is at risk to be hurt by these people.  

Look, dude, just because you can't commit to one person, it doesn't mean we are all like that.

I like marriage, monogamy,  love, routine, the whole shabang.

You are not saying anything revolutionary here. Just because most people are serially monogamous, it doesn't undermine monogamy or the fact that it is society's consensus this is how it will be. And the fact that many people cheat just means they are lacking morals.

Just so you know, on political compass I am right up there with Ghandi so you don't go saying this is some backwards conservative stance.

Polyamory isn't promiscuous.  Its committed relationships to multiple people within marriage. 

Why are you advocating for problems like

and over 50% divorce rate? even higher miserable marriage rate?

Why would you advocate for the misery of most people? What is your solution?

Yeah because you are certainly some one I would trust to tell me about the functions of human nature. Acting like an animal is not human nature. There are consequences to being promiscuous. I am not doing anything but advocating for a cultural norm. You are however performing a rather embarrassing act of projection as you contort your argument and jam it into a snarky little refractory box that you think cleverly argues against me using my own logic. What you have is nonsense word salad that is impressive only in your own narcissistic mind.

Building society is more important than your feelings, more important than fucking, more important than your delusional Postmodernist dumpster fire of experimentation on society. As usual you have nothing but Hegalian contortions and baseless claims.

Make no mistake people want flexibility.  They want to have more than one partner (and they do).  They just use deception and infidelity instead of doing it within an honest relationship.  Chaos is the state of marriage right now.  I'd say when something fails for most people, its a total mess. The stats are on my side.   People lie, steal, and cheat at a high rate.  Divorce rate is beyond the critical point.

So the question is, since this is human nature, why would you support a system that works against it?  Why not embrace human nature?  I feel like you have said this in the past.  Why not let the free market have its say?  

Imagine there are 10 people.  1 man represents the 20% you mentioned.  Maybe he can have sex witha all 5 women but there is no way he can please all 5 women in every way so they will eventually seek companionship from some of the other 4 men.  If he can and they are all happy then what is the problem?   Most likely, those women would either take a man in the 80% to themself or workout something polyamorous.  

It almost sounds like you are a sexist socialist who says capital (women) should be distributed fairly evenly so that the 20% doesn't take more than their fair share.  Strange how you are 180 from yourself on this topic.


There is more reason for marriage besides building a family.  Some seek companionship, some seek sexual plaesure and yes, some seek to build a family.  Polyamory allows the individual to cater their relationship to their personal needs.  

In many polyamorous relationships, the women can have sex with a man  in the 20% to satify her fantasy within her marriage to a man in the 80%.  The man can do the same and the two can live happily ever after because it was all transparent and conensual.  Its the force sexual exclusivity that is actually tearing many marriages apart.  

jes i also support polygamy, obviously many men are gay thats an important reason.

Monogamy has a very essential pragmatic purpose beyond religious rituals. Monogamy was designed to build society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

In nature what happens is 80% of the women go after the top 20% of men. This is a well known principal in science, one that is supported by studies as well as data scraped from dating sites. Essentially women largely overvalue their sexual marketplace value and only go after the top 20% of men. They see dating their equal as dating down, and dating down as men out of their league.

The result of this? Those top 20% of men essentially run harems of women while the remaining 80% of men have little to no chance of starting a family. People are wondering why men are checking out en mass. This is why. Women, now able to be supported by the state, are free to irrationally chase that top 20% of men, have lots of promiscuous sex, and maybe children out of wedlock to then grow old alone and unwanted.

Notice all the middle aged women now crying about how there are no good men left? You think that is a coincidence? All the men they COULD have paired with are no longer interested, because they have nothing to offer them with their primary reproductive years behind them. Instead of finding a man who would have stayed with them into old age during the years of her highest sexual market place value, she was busy trying to "trade up" and ended up getting traded in herself.

In summary, men are happy with enough to eat, a warm place to sleep, and maybe some video games. That means if they aren't building families, they have no real motivation to build society either. This plays out in the drop of tax revenues that they would have otherwise been paying working jobs to support them. No one wins from removing monogamy. More horrible destructive ideas from Captain Postmodern himself.

Just like every other "novel bit of communism" you come up with, it's been tried before and failed.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1926/07/the-russian-effort-to-abolish-marriage/306295/

There might be a couple reasons people don't want to be a part of such things. You've described what is known in modern slang as "a clusterfuck." The term has negative connotations, describing a totally, completely screwed up situation.

clusterfuck
n.   A chaotic situation where everything seems to go wrong. It is often caused by incompetence, communication failure, or a complex environment.
v.   To fuck (something) up, to make a total mess of.

I know many couples who are devoted and who see love more than sex.

I'm not sure why people are still trying to force themselves into monogamy when its clearly not for them.  There are many reasons why people need to be open to consensual non-monogamy

1.Monogamy is not natural and has traditionally flourished under patriarchal conditions where the woman is considered an item given away by her father to serve her husband.   As women start to become recognized as independent humans, strain is being put on the institution of marriage.  Monogamous marriage cannot dominate society without women being treated as property.  This is why half of marriages are ending in divorce. It only goes downhill from here as women make gains in the workplace and become breadwinners. 

2. One person cannot satisfy your needs forever.  A little variety is great.  Imagine going through life with just one friend or just one family member.  That would be brutal.  Why should we limit the lover to one?  Most people can't.  People cheat.  Sure some people have the love to make monogamy work or the discipline to suffer through it, but whats the point?  The point should be happiness and a life of freedom.

3. People get married for a lot of the other reasons it is advantageous.  Aside from love and companionship, marriage gives you a partner in life.  Someone to help raise kids, take care of the home, and bring in income.  These features could all be multiplied in a polyamorous relationship.  You build a team instead of just a 2 person partnership.

I'm intrigued by the idea of polyamory.  In my 20s, I had a friend group that behaved in a way that is pretty typical amongst young people.  There were about 4 men and 4 women in the group, we were all best friends and hung out all of the time.   No one seriously dated, but there were times where couples would form and fizzle out.  Over a 4 year period,  pretty much every possible combination was made.  We were all happy for each other and it wasn't the same as hooking up with strangers.  It was wholesome.   This is the tribal way humans interacted for hundreds of thousands of years.

Polyamory is customizable, honest, and safe.  It could be as simple as husband and wife having boyfriend and girlfriend, or as complicated as a 4x4.  No one is cheating because everything is transparent and agreed upon through consent.  This is much safer than cheating and even hookup culture because there is actually a commitment and you know who all is in your sexual circle.