Somerville, Mass to recognize polyamorous partnerships

[Grenartia]

Imagine thinking that has any relevance to anything.

So you admit that you can't. Good to know.

Why do you even care about it? There's literally no reason to worry about it.

[Diopolis]

So you admit that you can't. Good to know.

Why do you even care about it? There's literally no reason to worry about it.

That making more people is the whole point of human sexuality, that we don't know under what conditions poly succeeds but that it has the potential to go very wrong, and that figuring out custody issues for poly relationships promises to be a cluster isn't enough of a reason?

[Grenartia]

Why do you even care about it? There's literally no reason to worry about it.

That making more people is the whole point of human sexuality,

With going on 8 billion people, increasing resource strain, climate change, overcrowding, etc., something tells me making more people is pretty damn low on the radar.

that we don't know under what conditions poly succeeds

We in the poly community arguably do. Open and honest communication, not being jealous, and mutual respect for your partners. Its not exactly a big fucking secret, and they're the same things that lead to success in mono relationships.

but that it has the potential to go very wrong,

Just like any relationship ever. Geez, man, that's the 2nd lamest argument against it ever.

and that figuring out custody issues for poly relationships promises to be a cluster isn't enough of a reason?

There's no reason they need to be any worse than for mono relationships. Which are a clusterfuck.

[Fahran]

Do you have any hard evidence that its currently the most prevalent?

Yes. There's a pretty broad anthropological consensus on this. Source

"Anthropologically, polygamy is defined as marriage between one person and two or more spouses simultaneously. It exists in two main forms: polygyny, where one man is married to several women, and polyandry, where one woman is married to several men. A third form, group marriage between several men and women, is rare; same‐sex polygamy is very rare. Polygyny is the most common form, including de facto forms, where a person is formally monogamous but socially polygamous, maintaining additional relationships. Contemporary anthropologists explore polygamous kinship and gender relations and the law and politics of polygamy. Focal points include managing love, emotions, and sexuality in polygamy and polygamy's impact on women's and children's health and rights. Polygamy becomes political when minorities such as fundamentalist Mormons claim the practice as a religious or cultural right in majority monogamous societies."

The poly community has a term for men who exclusively seek multiple women for a relationship. Its called unicorn hunting, and isn't looked very highly upon. Which isn't to say that NHA's assertion that such arrangements are outright discriminated against by the rest of the community is entirely accurate.

I feel like what you refer to as the poly community is a largely insular and marginal group within the broader community of people who practice polyamory, especially given that it is a socially accepted practice in many regions, and within the West, where monogamy has become the more conventional social model. You have to exclude fundamentalist Mormons, all those businessmen who go on "work trips", and certain immigrant communities as well since they practice polygyny almost exclusively to my knowledge.

The problem with the article is that it presumes a different set of social values than are widely accepted in current society. If you're drawing conclusions about a phenomenon for a society that values egalitarianism and gender equality, but are using cherrypicked datapoints from societies which decidedly never truly valued egalitarianism and gender equality in the first place, then you are at best making an honest, though fundamentally obvious, mistake, and at worst, outright lying.

Our society, despite a lot of the rhetoric and pretenses, isn't egalitarian or liberated from gender norms or the material conditions that support them. Even serial monogamy has led to more mild occurrences of the phenomena we could expect from widespread polyamory. Ostro presented a decent explanation for why this argument largely falls flat earlier. Some of it is biological. Some of it is cultural and social. Polyamory may work fine among your small, insular, and marginal community, a community largely populated by progressive, college-educated people who don't really care too much about social institutions. Your norms and concerns aren't the same as those that predominate in the rest of society and, even if they were, I'd rather impose my preferred model on society than yours.

I won't guess as to which of those the author(s) of the articles in question are guilty of.

Perhaps you could present data that provides a compelling counter-narrative? We do have examples of societies where polygyny isn't the most common sort of polygamy practiced. Demonstrate that we'd get something akin to what Celt insisted would happen.

Which is fundamentally saying that men aren't at all responsible for when they rape, kidnap, murder, assault, rob, and commit fraud, and that they require women to avoid doing them (which is somehow sexist against both women and men, and is fundamentally freudian in its flawed conclusion, AND perpetuates rape culture). Likewise, I have to question if they truly accounted for the fact that all of these crimes were more common even in monogamous societies of the past, and are more common in unstable societies of the present. Like, this is truly a prime example of fractal wrong-ness.

Pointing out that particular social institutions and models can produce social dysfunctions isn't the same as absolving people of moral responsibility. Poor people don't cease to be moral agents simply because a society that allows widespread poverty without a social safety net makes criminality, instability, and violence more common. You're arguing like a neocon here. We can both punish rapists and murderers and structure our society in such a way that people are less disposed to become rapists and murderers.

Sounds like the classic correlation = causation fallacy. In fact, hell, this alone proves the conclusion doesn't apply to Western societies at large, because Western societies do not have brideprices. In fact, it could equally be argued that the existence of the brideprice itself is the cause of these things, not whether or not the society which has it allows polygyny or not. Of course, that argument would itself require conceding that men only become involved in bad behavior when sexually frustrated with no outlet, and that they must have access to a woman to be satiated (which is extremely rapey and blatantly incorrect to say). I refuse to concede that argument (an argument which is DIRECTLY implied by both articles).

A bride price is one mechanism that can block men out of marriage but it isn't the only one. The issue is that, even in our society, polygamy is going to exacerbate socioeconomic and romantic disparities. I think it's a given that men who are unable to get married and unable to start families are going to have much less of a reason to give a damn about social order than men who do have those opportunities.

[Fahran]

Can anyone point to significant numbers of polyamorists that have above replacement fertility?

The Saudis. Polygyny can actually result in a higher fertility rate. Polyandry, on the other hand, tends to depress the fertility rate of a population. For obvious reasons.

[Diopolis]

Can anyone point to significant numbers of polyamorists that have above replacement fertility?

The Saudis. Polygyny can actually result in a higher fertility rate. Polyandry, on the other hand, tends to depress the fertility rate of a population. For obvious reasons.

I was attempting to use polyamory to here mean the liberal progressive term where it's totally, for realsies, completely different from anytime anyone ever tried this before.
In other words to get an example that we can both(me and gren) agree is polyamory and one which isn't .9 TFR dog moms.

[Fahran]

With going on 8 billion people, increasing resource strain, climate change, overcrowding, etc., something tells me making more people is pretty damn low on the radar.

Population contraction can have a good many deleterious consequences. Given the United States may have a fertility rate as low as 1.77 births per woman - the replacement rate is around 2.1 births per woman - encouraging social models that depress the fertility rate even further could lead to population contraction and the deleterious consequences in question at a faster rate.

[South Odreria 2]

lmao are people still doing malthusian economics

[Cisairse]

we've been in a transmalthusian state for literally decades, and you know trans rights matter

[Punished UMN]

In all honesty, the position is no less valid than the liberal position that we should always strive to prioritize personal freedom. The distinction is that one argument is religious while the other is ideological - representing a secular theology.

I could argue the "live and let live" position on ethical grounds.

Live and let live is a slogan for people too afraid to have positions. The personal is political, all social interactions have social ramifications. Everything one person does ultimately affects all of us, so we have a vested interest in regulating individual actions.

[Servilis]

i advocate for mass investigations on the entire city council to see who has the most child sized skeletons in their closet.

Ironic, coming from someone who's flag contains a skellington.

[Punished UMN]

not rly

Yes really.

You're in the same slippery slope that people who claim society is going to die because of LGBT people are allowed to exist are.

Social studies have confirmed that slippery slopes in social norms and policy really do happen. There's even a term for it: norm cascade. It's only a fallacy when the person making the argument has not given a mechanism of action for the norm cascade to occur.

Source: Eugene Volokh. "Mechanisms of the Slippery Slope." Harvard Law Review, Issue 116 (2003), pp. 1026-1137.

(You can actually see a norm cascade in-progress in this thread).

[Cisairse]

I could argue the "live and let live" position on ethical grounds.

Live and let live is a slogan for people too afraid to have positions. The personal is political, all social interactions have social ramifications. Everything one person does ultimately affects all of us, so we have a vested interest in regulating individual actions.

We're not talking about apoliticism, we're talking about polyamory.

[Punished UMN]

Live and let live is a slogan for people too afraid to have positions. The personal is political, all social interactions have social ramifications. Everything one person does ultimately affects all of us, so we have a vested interest in regulating individual actions.

We're not talking about apoliticism, we're talking about polyamory.

I repeat: the personal is political and the political is personal. Literally every action you take in interacting with other people is political and every political action you take is personal. Politics is not some magical sphere that isn't affected by social constructivism.

[Cisairse]

We're not talking about apoliticism, we're talking about polyamory.

I repeat: the personal is political and the political is personal. Literally every action you take in interacting with other people is political and every political action you take is personal. Politics is not some magical sphere that isn't affected by social constructivism.

I never disagreed with that & have no clue how it is relevant to this discussion

[Punished UMN]

I repeat: the personal is political and the political is personal. Literally every action you take in interacting with other people is political and every political action you take is personal. Politics is not some magical sphere that isn't affected by social constructivism.

I never disagreed with that & have no clue how it is relevant to this discussion

If you have no clue how it's relevant then you don't really understand the statement or what it's trying to get at.

[Cisairse]

I never disagreed with that & have no clue how it is relevant to this discussion

If you have no clue how it's relevant then you don't really understand the statement or what it's trying to get at.

Feel free to explain.

[Punished UMN]

If you have no clue how it's relevant then you don't really understand the statement or what it's trying to get at.

Feel free to explain.

1) Marriage is about the propagation of society and its values.
2) Monogamy ensures that the roughly equal number of people of both sexes and sexual orientations will be in a position to propagate society and its values.
3) Polyamory could undermine that because its an unknown variable that could disrupt this balance (especially true given that patriarchy still exists and so likely polyamory will simply reduce itself to exploitative polygamy)
4) Therefore, the normalization of polyamory could result in a smaller group in society being more responsible for the propagation of society and its values.
5) If a social group in society has disproportionate influence on social values, it will create political resentment.
6) Political resentment creates discord.

Essentially, while polyamory could theoretically introduce new freedoms, it also 1) opens the way for the exploitation of vulnerable women in a way monogamy does not (as seen in many societies) and 2) could (not necessarily will) undermine the cultural diffusion of values from generation-to-generation.

This is not to say that all polyamorous relationships will end in exploitation, but no one ever said that eliminating the minimum wage would make all people minimum wage workers either.

[Proctopeo]

I never disagreed with that & have no clue how it is relevant to this discussion

If you have no clue how it's relevant then you don't really understand the statement or what it's trying to get at.

I do understand what you're saying, I just disagree. However, I do agree that slippery slopes exist.

3) Polyamory could undermine that because its an unknown variable that could disrupt this balance (especially true given that patriarchy still exists and so likely polyamory will simply reduce itself to exploitative polygamy)

I don't, however, see what the boogeyman has to do with this.

[The Emerald Legion]

That making more people is the whole point of human sexuality,

With going on 8 billion people, increasing resource strain, climate change, overcrowding, etc., something tells me making more people is pretty damn low on the radar.

that we don't know under what conditions poly succeeds

We in the poly community arguably do. Open and honest communication, not being jealous, and mutual respect for your partners. Its not exactly a big fucking secret, and they're the same things that lead to success in mono relationships.

but that it has the potential to go very wrong,

Just like any relationship ever. Geez, man, that's the 2nd lamest argument against it ever.

and that figuring out custody issues for poly relationships promises to be a cluster isn't enough of a reason?

There's no reason they need to be any worse than for mono relationships. Which are a clusterfuck.

So you're an advocate of genocide? Because preventing people from having kids is a time tested means of wiping them out.

[Cekoviu]

3) Polyamory could undermine that because its an unknown variable that could disrupt this balance (especially true given that patriarchy still exists and so likely polyamory will simply reduce itself to exploitative polygamy)

I don't, however, see what the boogeyman has to do with this.

i'm sure you're able to grasp its relationship, you just don't want to.

[Proctopeo]

I don't, however, see what the boogeyman has to do with this.

i'm sure you're able to grasp its relationship, you just don't want to.

you're right, I should accept that Slenderman exists as an entity to oppress whamen

[Punished UMN]

i'm sure you're able to grasp its relationship, you just don't want to.

you're right, I should accept that Slenderman exists as an entity to oppress whamen

This is a stupid comparison. Your refusal to acknowledge that marriage exists primarily for the purpose of reproduction of capital, children, and social values, and that such a contract, when unregulated, would serve to increase the social power of those who already possess advantages in that area, is primarily driven by your libertarian ideology, and not by any kind of understanding of fact.

[Diopolis]

you're right, I should accept that Slenderman exists as an entity to oppress whamen

This is a stupid comparison. Your refusal to acknowledge that marriage exists primarily for the purpose of reproduction of capital, children, and social values, and that such a contract, when unregulated, would serve to increase the social power of those who already possess advantages in that area, is primarily driven by your libertarian ideology, and not by any kind of understanding of fact.

I don't think he is refusing to acknowledge that.
He's refusing to acknowledge patriarchy exists, but then again, patriarchy is more of a conspiracy theory than my beliefs are.

[Cekoviu]

i'm sure you're able to grasp its relationship, you just don't want to.

you're right, I should accept that Slenderman exists as an entity to oppress whamen

this but unironically tbh

This is a stupid comparison. Your refusal to acknowledge that marriage exists primarily for the purpose of reproduction of capital, children, and social values, and that such a contract, when unregulated, would serve to increase the social power of those who already possess advantages in that area, is primarily driven by your libertarian ideology, and not by any kind of understanding of fact.

I don't think he is refusing to acknowledge that.
He's refusing to acknowledge patriarchy exists, but then again, patriarchy is more of a conspiracy theory than my beliefs are.

diop be like "patriarchy doesnt exist but inshallah it should"