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Raymond: The problem is that katharina seems to be saying:
(people who sleep with someone other than their spouse) == (selfish, dishonest, dishonorable)
It seems no one here would care to argue that the following is untrue: (people who sleep with someone other than their spouse)(through lying or manipulation) = (selfish, dishonest, dishonorable)
But many of us agree that there exists: (people who sleep with someone other than their spouse) != (through lying or manipulation)
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I think maybe Katharina just can't hear anyone else over the volume of how awesome she's being. She turned this thread up to eleven!
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There are always people who are POSITIVE that THEIR breaking of vows and infidelity is totally justified. Even the scummy consider themselves heroes.
I'm not worried about people "on my back". Anyone so preoccupied with the wil-o-the-whisp and determined to talk about me instead of an actual interesting and relevant subject isn't worth worrying about.
You know who'd I'd be interested in hearing from? Someone who: 1. Has been married for ten years. 2. To the same person. 3. Who deliberately made it a marriage where from the beginning they slept with other people regularly - both of them. No "faithful only to you" in any shape or form in the vows. 4. While still sleeping with each other - love match only, business arrangements don't count. 5. Would do it again, as would their spouse.
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kath, no is arguing is there are plenty of people who breaking vows and are scummy. No is arguing there is any particularly sizeable percentage of people who attempt poly lifestyles honestly and successfully. But you're insisting, not merely that the people who do so are merely .01% of the population (a statistic you completely made up), but that those .01% of the population are STILL SOMEHOW CHEATING, even though both the male and female partners agreed to it, are both participating in it, in at least one case that I know of both blog extensively about how they go about it and why they think its a good idea.
If you stopped insisting that this (arbitrarily small) group of people don't exist at all, when several of us in this thread actively know one or more people who fit the description, we'd stop focusing on that "Will O' Wisp" and move on to something else.
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Nope. That's not what I said. Read it again.
Regardless, it's irrelevant. That's what statistically insignificant means. Not that it couldn't possibly exist, but that if it does, it happens so rarely that you don't have to worry about it.
What I AM saying is that if you vows are the traditional ones, which reference fidelity, or contain ANY sort of reference to fidelity in them, then breaking them with your spouse's permission is still breaking them, because they were made with more than your spouse involved. If you don't want anyone else involved at all, then don't get married. If you want to get married but still be free to cheat up a storm, then include that explicitly in your vows. If you didn't, then get divorced first, because otherwise you are breaking them.
As an addendum, dating while married is a rotten thing to do to the person you are dating as well as the person you are cheating on. If you respected her, then you'd be single before you ask her out.
And the reason I think a mistress has to have either low esteem or something wrong is because I don't think healthy people want to romantically be with someone who doesn't respect them.
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Heterosexual monogamous marriage has been so enforced as the acceptable model due to the Catholic Church (re: St. Paul), alternative relationship models have been devalued or established as ungodly, freakish, unhealthy, or sexist. Functional open marriages are underreported because of stigmatization. This must be taken into consideration when discussing statistics.
Also, it is incorrect to say that the small percentage for healthy open marriages is statistically insignificant. Simply put, that is not the way stats work or the way that term is used. False premise.
I get what you are saying about vows. But including extramarital sex in vows and then engaging in such does not constitute cheating. If what you are doing is in accordance to your vows, then you are not breaking your vows!
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quote:That's part of why the vows are important and "getting permission" isn't one of the options. The honorable options are either married and faithful or else divorced.
quote:If you want to get married but still be free to cheat up a storm, then include that explicitly in your vows. If you didn't, then get divorced first, because otherwise you are breaking them.
See, you keep making (even in a post where you claim you are not) statements like these. If you include an understanding that you can both have sex with other people in certain situations in your wedding vows, then having sex with other people in certain defined situations is not cheating. The definition of cheating is circumventing a rule. If that rule doesn't exist, you can't break it. We aren't arguing about the statistical relevance of a group of people. We're arguing that you've made statements that are simply not coherent.
I disagree with the notion that you should get divorced (and then remarry?) if you and your partner both agree to amend your vows after the fact, but I at least get where you're coming from there and I have no real counterargument other than "it seems silly to me."
My introduction to poly relationships was reading a blog by a guy who goes by the name "the Ferrett" (it's not just his screen name, it's what his friends and wife call him). I'm not sure whether he's been married a full 10 years but he's at least pretty close. I suspect they did not include a poly-specific wedding vows but I would wager that he, his wife, and the people they made the vows in front of are all okay with them having come to the understanding they have no after the fact.
He "came out of the closet" with regards to poly a few years ago and has since talked about it with some frequency. One main thing he emphasizes:
quote:Polyamory is one of those words that doesn’t quite work, like “Republican,” or “Love.” The problem with Polyamory is that, being one word, everything thinks there’s one definition… But really, “Polyamory” as it’s practiced in the real world is a thousand different concepts, bundled up in one loosely-related package.
It’d be like if we used the same word to describe bagels, biscuits, and Wonder Bread simply because they’re all bakery products made with wheat.
There's a lengthy post in which he discusses the rules of their arrangement, which I touched on earlier. The full post is here.
There's lots of very unhealthy ways to be poly. But I cannot for the life of me imagine that people following those rules would be statistically more likely to fail at their relationships than anyone else. (For that matter, a lot of monogamous people would do well to read on the extent to which he and his wife make an effort to respect each other).
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: What I AM saying is that if you vows are the traditional ones, which reference fidelity, or contain ANY sort of reference to fidelity in them, then breaking them with your spouse's permission is still breaking them, because they were made with more than your spouse involved.
Fidelity in the context of marriage is conjugal faithfulness. You can be faithful to your spouse in the context of an open marriage. There's no rule that states otherwise.
Not that you've yet taken the effort to cite one when asked multiple times.
quote: If you want to get married but still be free to cheat up a storm, then include that explicitly in your vows. If you didn't, then get divorced first, because otherwise you are breaking them.
They don't have to, because vows don't say you aren't allowed to have sex with anyone else. Also, if we want to be hyper-literal in an attempt to defend your incorrect use of the word 'cheating,' then you can't just use 'get divorced' as an alternate option because you're not allowed to. You promised to stay married till death do you part.
Oh well!
quote:And the reason I think a mistress has to have either low esteem or something wrong is because I don't think healthy people want to romantically be with someone who doesn't respect them.
A mistress (defined here by the act of 'having sex with a married person,' whether or not that act of sex is allowed and open knowledge within that marriage, does not have to have low self esteem or 'something wrong with them' because it's not categorically impossible for an open marriage relationship to be sans respect for the third party, no matter if you assume so through amateur, reactive pseudopsychology.
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For anyone who is interested in learning more about a generally functional poly relationship, here's two posts from the Ferrett's wife that are also pretty good:
The latter is a "advice for poly relationships" post which is really an "advice for relationships, period" post.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: The problem is that you called people who entered into polygamous relationships with the knowledge and approval of their partners "cheaters," even though this is not in fact "cheating." If you'd acknowledge that you misspoke, and that it is indeed possible for people to have polygamous relationships without "cheating," I'd imagine people would get off your back ASAP.
The disagreement, I think, stems from everyone's view of marriage.
If you're of the opinion that marriages are personal, private things, and that the couple makes the marriage what it is, then poly-amorous relationships are not a problem, provided there's respect, consent, etc.
But if you think of marriage as a sacred institution, something akin to entering a monastery or mosque, it changes your view. For instance, while entering the Alabaster Mosque in Cairo, we were required to remove our shoes, and all women had to wear coverings if their clothing showed more than the forearm and ankles. If you didn't want to follow those rules, that's fine. But you could not enter the mosque.
Marriage, for those who feel this way, is no different. If you want the privilege of entering into it, you must follow the rules and traditions. So a poly-amorous marriage would be considered a sham.
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Marriage, as an institution, does not mandate monogamy. You could add a qualifier that "An open CATHOLIC marriage is cheating" or "An open MORMON marriage is cheating" since we're all acknowledging rules put in place by specific sects and cults and denominations and all that.
In marriage itself, it's not an automatic disqualifier that renders any open sex 'cheating,' nor, in the case of Katharina's psychological argument, does it automatically make someone low-morals, inconsiderate scum or assure that people having sex with the married person/persons necessarily has low self-esteem. This is where the disagreement comes from, is that Katharina is making stuff up from out of her own personal moral disgust and refuses to admit she is using inapplicable language and making incorrect absolutes.
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FoolishTook, you explained it perfectly. I think the government should administer civil unions with the legal benefits that marriage currently has, and marriages should be religious and/or personal contracts that individual couples create for themselves. It would simplify things. Couples would have to actually talk about their expectations for their relationships explicitly, and marriage contracts could be scrapped and rewritten without having to go through a complicated legal process.
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Marriage, as an institution, does not mandate monogamy. You could add a qualifier that "An open CATHOLIC marriage is cheating" or "An open MORMON marriage is cheating" since we're all acknowledging rules put in place by specific sects and cults and denominations and all that.
In marriage itself, it's not an automatic disqualifier that renders any open sex 'cheating,' nor, in the case of Katharina's psychological argument, does it automatically make someone low-morals, inconsiderate scum or assure that people having sex with the married person/persons necessarily has low self-esteem. This is where the disagreement comes from, is that Katharina is making stuff up from out of her own personal moral disgust and refuses to admit she is using inapplicable language and making incorrect absolutes.
In around half of US states adultery is both illegal and grounds for divorce. So a pretty strong argument could be made that monogamy is a part of secular marriage contracts in those states. Now whether it's "cheating" if you sign a marriage certificate in such a state while agreeing beforehand that you're going to have an open relationship I don't know, "cheating" not being a technical term. I tend to think it would be better for such a couple to come up with their own contract than to sign, in front of witnesses and a judge, one that they have no intention of abiding by.
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"I tend to think it would be better for such a couple to come up with their own contract than to sign, in front of witnesses and a judge, one that they have no intention of abiding by. "
I tend to think it would be better if the marriage contract didn't exclude people because of a lifestyle they've agreed to.
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I rather think the change in the law will come, but I also think that its more than a little unjust to ask people to wait to access a civil right until the majority of people are comfortable with their sexual practices.
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The difference is that the SSM lawsuits are seeking access to a form of contract that already exists and is offered to others, with all the rights and responsibilities that it entails. Not to change the form of the contract.
I have no problem with consenting adults entering into whatever arrangements they mutually agree on. I do have a problem with "fingers crossed" agreements. I think important arrangements supposedly based on honesty shouldn't be entered into with a lie, even if it's to a judge and not to the other party. It's pretty much the same as what I tell people who want to be married in church to please their parents (or for the pretty setting) even though they don't believe in God. If the marriage vows are important to you find a way to make them without telling a lie.
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"The difference is that the SSM lawsuits are seeking access to a form of contract that already exists and is offered to others, with all the rights and responsibilities that it entails. Not to change the form of the contract. "
Except, the argument that the anti-SSMers are saying that it DOES change the form of the contract. So how would polyamory change the form of the contract if a fundamental way, while same sex marriage would not? I feel like any answer here is going to get into the same form of argument that exists around SSM...religious mores and squick factor.
" I do have a problem with "fingers crossed" agreements."
I don't when, if you don't cross your fingers, you are denied access to a legal institution that is recognized as a fundamental civil right.
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I actually am more concerned with poly-marriage getting legalized than same-sex marriage. (that is, I am not at all concerned about same-sex marriage but I am concerned about poly). Not because I am against poly relationships, but because there's a lot of different types of poly relationships, and every single one of them changes the dynamics of state law in a way that is not merely semantic. Poly relationships are (or can be) large, sprawling interconnected things, and the considerations of who gets what tax breaks and who gets visitation rights when a person is sick and can only have so many visitors and who gets child custody in the event of a divorce - these are not insurmountable obstacles, but they are real issues that cannot be addressed simply by substitution the word "man" for "woman" or vice versa.
In this area, statistical significance IS, well, significant. The effort involved to craft legislation for poly relationship is enough to warrant a noticeable percentage of functioning, healthy poly relationships. We may already have that percentage (the arbitrary one I'm going to make up now is maybe 5% in a given state), but more actual research needs to be done to determine what types of poly relationships warrant support from the government.
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I guess I haven't heard a huge outcry (even among poly people I know/read about) over the lack of official support for open marriages. Generally if you want an open marriage I think you can do it. There's some social stigma, but thats not something that goes away in the face of government endorsement. And if your partner ends up wanting a divorce, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference whether your vows officially banned whatever action you took. Staying together due to a technicality isn't exactly going to be a great option either.
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Nitpick: Statistical significance refers to the likelihood whether a phenomenon (or a set of phenomena) could have occurred by chance.
Please PLEASE do not misuse this term. It does have a VERY specific meaning. I understand the concern over whether the percentage of marriages using a non-monogamous framework is significant enough to warrant legal attention and/or social concern. But the phrasing is not to say that the percentage is statistically significant but that the percentage is practically significant.
Anyway, there have been changes that allow people to define who is granted privileges to their lives, such as visitation rights and medical decisions. If people are granted further power to define who is allowed access to very personal information and decisions, it may render some marriage privileges obsolete.
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Amberkitty: I dearly hope the situation you describe in your last paragraph comes to pass. The current system is too inflexible by far.
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: Sterling: It isn't that I'm not listening, but that I can't figure out what your point is. You seem to be equating this infidelity argument with Savage's assertion that gay men are less interested in a faithful marriage, but I don't see where you make the jump from "Some gay men aren't faithful" to "seeking to create marriage that includes infidelity" and then to "I must stop other people from doing things in their marriage that I don't approve of."
I don't understand your thought process that leads you to believe that your situation is actually going on (strawman) or why you care what other people do when they're married (noneya bidness).
I don't believe that the situation is going on at present; in fact, I don't even know that Savage's assessment of the potential (or lack thereof) for fidelity in gay men is particularly accurate. Arguably, the push by gay men for the right to enter marriage- which is, at present, an institution that carries with it an expectation of sexual fidelity- could easily be taken as a sign to the contrary.
But I do find the possibility of several million people getting married all at once who do not believe that monogamy has value in a sexual relationship to have an significant possibility to change the institution of marriage and the perception thereof- and not necessarily in a positive manner.
What occurs in private between consenting adults is indeed, I would agree, none of my business, whether it's a sexual relationship between three partners or a ceremony in which said partners profess that they mutually agree to enter into such.
When people ask that such a relationship be recognized by law and society as identical to a monogamous relationship, it seems reasonable to ask, "Is it?" Especially when there's a possibility that such a recognition might cause some people to believe that the various problems, stresses, and issues of one are substantially similar to the other, to their detriment.
I can support SSM with a clear conscience in part because I have no qualms about a public policy that says that marriage as it presently exists is a beneficial and useful instituion and so of course one should be able to engage in same whether one wishes to marry someone of the same or the opposite sex. My (quite admittedly!) limited experiences with polyamorous relationships have not led me to a similar conclusion about their potential as an institution. This is not to say that there are not or cannot be useful and beneficial polyamorous relationships, only that my observance has seen a lot of harm and hurt as a result of the attempt even without matters of children, property, inheritance, end-of-life care and the like coming into the picture.
I recognize that at present a significant number of marriages end in divorce. But I find it hard to believe that those numbers would improve if law and society were suddenly to say, unequivocaly, that marriage vows no longer entail the assumption of sexual fidelity. Of course couples can choose to remain monogamous despite a change of expectations. But is harm likely to be done to marriages as a result, and are the contrasting tangible benefits worth it?
In short, it's all well and good to say that marriage, and what occurs within it, is a private matter. And in many aspects, this is true. But not all. When law and societal expectation of what the contract entails change, those issues are decidedly not private matters.
My qualms do not take the form of opposition to SSM; they just recognize that maybe, possibly, they herald that this issue may come up on another day... And, somewhat uncomfortably, that I might find myself on the other side of it.
Further, I'm not unwilling to consider the possibility that this issue can be worked out, that the parallel existance of polyamorous marriages could occur without substantial harm to existing marriages, or that a framework could be created under which it was tangibly evident that polyamorous marriage was a net benefit.
But my experiences leave me singularly unwilling to accept that as a given on faith, and being told it's none of my business doesn't particularly help.
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quote:Originally posted by Sterling: But I do find the possibility of several million people getting married all at once who do not believe that monogamy has value in a sexual relationship to have an significant possibility to change the institution of marriage and the perception thereof- and not necessarily in a positive manner.
I understand your doubt, but I am not clear as to your reasoning other than "I have seen it fail often". Can you elaborate further? How would introducing sexual non-monogamy in the institution of marriage ruin marriage?
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"They are saying that, but the courts seem to be pretty consistently ruling that they are wrong. "
And? Do you have any doubt that 30 years ago the courts would not have ruled in a different fashion?
Its easier to find historical examples of polyamorous marriages than it is to find historical examples of gay marriage. On those grounds, I think its hard to argue that same sex marriage doesn't change the form of marriage, but polyamorous marriage does.
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Same sex marriage does not change the way the law relates to opposite sex marriage. Removing the legal presumption of monogamy does change the way the law relates to monogomous marriage.
For instance, someone who was cheated on in a theorectically monogamous marriage would no longer be a legally wronged party. It would no longer be grounds for a divorce in states that haven't moved entirely to no-fault divorce. You can argue that those are positive changes, if you think they are, but they are definitely changes to the legal status of current marriages. I have yet to see any example of how allowing same-sex marriage affects current opposite sex marriage in any way.
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Sterling: I guess what is tripping me up most is what makes you believe that a large population of gay men want to somehow institutionalize open marriages. I am unaware that shuch a movement exists.
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Especially considering there's no pressing NEED to institutionalize open marriages. You just, you know, have one. Nobody's going to stop you. If it came down to (another) court challenge, where someone was actually bizarrely being prosecuted for being 'adulterous' despite consent and approval of both parties within the marriage, it would go to court, and any such technical prohibition against open marriage would be struck down resoundingly.
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quote:Originally posted by Sterling: ... But somewhere amidst Lust ("swinging" marriages) and Pride (Gay Pride) he rather casually claims that gay men simply don't tend to be monogamous, and that it's not realistic to expect them to be.
Something interesting, somewhat related to the original post. Lesbian marriage more monogamous than straight marriages more monogamous than gay male marriages?
quote:Of course, actual real life-long monogamy is relatively rare, especially if you take into account pre-marital sex. And therefore, the ideals of monogamy and hypocrisy are deeply entwined. But the social conservative will be fine with some measure of hypocrisy as a concession to human nature as long as the norm is enforced. I know of no more sophisticated treatment of this than Jon Rauch's here and most acutely here.
Will marriage that encompasses gays and lesbians undermine this?
The first thing to say is that lesbians seem to be far more eager to marry than gay men. Duh. It's not because they're lesbians, it's because they're women. It follows, however, that lesbian couples are likely to be more monogamous than most straight couples as well as more numerous than gay males ones. So adding lesbians to the mix actually reinforces monogamy as an ideal and feminizes marriage in ways that Ross would presumably favor.
Gay men? I think it's fair to say that the fact that they are men makes monogamy less likely than even straight marriages. If Eliot Spitzer had married another Eliot Spitzer, he may have had more sex on the downlow and spent a lot less money on hookers. Male-male marriages that survive are likelier to have some kind of informal level of permission and forgiveness and defensible hypocrisy on this score than most male-female marriages or female-female marriages, especially if the men marry young. I think the honesty within these relationships can actually be a good thing and can help sustain a life-long commitment rather than weaken it.
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I guess I haven't heard a huge outcry (even among poly people I know/read about) over the lack of official support for open marriages.
Ah but why would there be an outcry? If the Supreme Court rules in favor of SSM (Which I believe to be unlikely) then it becomes that much easier for practicers of other types of non traditional marriages to get the same privilege . Let someone else jump over the toughest hurdles.
I work with a man that lives in an open marriage. He is married and loves his wife, but they are both swingers. When they do swing they always do so while the other is present and approves. For them it works. I don't agree with the lifestyle but it seems to work for them. He has told me "There is more to marriage than just sex."
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quote:He has told me "There is more to marriage than just sex."
That's one of the things that I really don't like about defining "faithfulness" in the context of marriage as being solely or primarily about not having sex with other people.
To me, the point of the faithfulness is that your goal is now to make that person and the family you create together the center of your life, that you are going to try to always be someone that they can trust and rely on. If that's something that you can achieve while having sex with other people, then I don't see a problem with it.
I'm not going to have sex with someone other than my wife, just like I'm not going to abuse her or demean her to others or cultivate non-sexual intimate relationships with others that would lead me to neglect her. And the primary reason for that isn't that I promised not to do any of those specifically, but because they violate the overriding vow of faithfulness that I took (actually, I'm really not going to do them because they would hurt her and I love her and take my marriage very seriously - if I needed the vow not to do them, I shouldn't have gotten married in the first place).
The focus on marriage as a vehicle for socially sanctioned sex is often a distraction from what I see as the really positive things in a good marriage that really should be the focus.
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I still think that everyone's take on this question:
quote:Marriage, as an institution, does not mandate monogamy.
is at the heart of the issue. I have two specific responses to some of the presumptions behind the arguments here:
Claiming that the Catholic Church is responsible for creating our current view of marriage is rather Eurocentric. I suppose that's understandable in a discussion populated mainly by Americans, but keep in mind that the Catholic Church has had absolutely nothing to do with the concept of monogamous marriage as practiced in, say, China, India, or Africa, where large swaths of humanity live and have, for thousands of years, considered monogamy to be the norm and sexual fidelity to be inherent in marriage. Even more strictly so than many Christian civilizations.
Secondly - what Katharina is trying to say about the Will-o-the-Wisp and "statistically insignificant numbers" is that we're drawing assumptions about human behavior from fringe examples. This is a prevalent trend in the postmodern approach to the world: to focalize the marginal. But it does us a great disservice when we're trying to get a broad view of human nature.
Finding out that something exists in the world is not enough to prove that it is a common human experience. Some have tried to find out what's truly universal by discounting anything that is contradicted in one human society by another - the oft-quoted idea that the only universal taboo is incest is one of these attempts. But attempts like this allow a very small phenomenon to mask the huge presence of a more common phenomenon. Is it part of human nature to kill your enemies and eat their brains? If you allow yourself a broad scope that generalizes across cultures without getting bogged down in variations among small numbers of people, you're going to say "of course not; that is anti-social behavior." But if you follow the same train of logic of the "universal taboo" people you'd say "Well, yes, it exists in the Highlands of New Guinea. It must be a natural human behavior."
"It exists" does not mean "it is a favorable behavior." The natural world is full of maladaptive behaviors. They might survive in little lingering eddies for a while but guess what ultimately happens to them?
Is sexual fidelity an inherent assumption of marriage?
Answer 1: Anecdotes A, B, C, and on down to R say no: Just read wikipedia entries on all your favorite artists. They totally cheated on their wives. Prostitution is the oldest profession. Because things exist they're legitimate.
Answer 2: Looking at the majority of human cultures, present and past, that base society around monogamous couples and possess stigmas, laws, and penalties against adultery, we'll have to say yes. If it's all about personal preference, then there's no reason that humans from such disparate cultures should, in such large numbers, be displaying similar behavior.
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quote: has had absolutely nothing to do with the concept of monogamous marriage as practiced in, say, China, India, or Africa, where large swaths of humanity live and have, for thousands of years, considered monogamy to be the norm and sexual fidelity to be inherent in marriage. Even more strictly so than many Christian civilizations.
That might be more impressive if you didn't just make it up in contravention to actual facts.
edit: Multiple wives and concubines were an accepted and historically significant part of Indian and Chinese marriage customs. And Africa is a big place, but various parts of it have historically practiced various forms of polygamy.
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Are you telling me that the Catholic Church has defined marriage norms in China? Is that an acutal fact?
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No, I'm saying that you've made up the idea that China, India, and Africa have considered monogamy the norm for thousands of years and that this has no foundation in things that actually happened.
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OK, I see your edit and understand what you meant.
I shouldn't have said monogamous marriage in that sentence, I should have said an expectation of sexual fidelity. I was thinking one thing and typing another.
I'm very aware of the history of polygyny, but the expectation of sexual fidelity was a very big part of social codes in all of those places.
I should point out, however, that polygamy, where practiced, has always been a privilege of a wealthy or otherwise privileged class. The majority of the population has had to stick to monogamous marriage because, frankly, the math doesn't work out well when you don't.
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I notice that even the people who want to say that sexual activities with people other than your spouse is totally okay are very quick to note that THEY are faithful and THEIR WIVES never have to worry and OF COURSE they'd never have sex with someone else. That they practive sexual fidelity.
In the midst of denying that the expectation of fidelity should exist, they are quick to note that they follow it.
To me, that's more telling than anything else. "This behavior is totally okay, but of course I would NEVER do it. I actually love my wife."
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: I notice that even the people who want to say that sexual activities with people other than your spouse is totally okay are very quick to note that THEY are faithful and THEIR WIVES never have to worry and OF COURSE they'd never have sex with someone else. That they practive sexual fidelity.
In the midst of denying that the expectation of fidelity should exist, they are quick to note that they follow it.
To me, that's more telling than anything else. "This behavior is totally okay, but of course I would NEVER do it. I actually love my wife."
It's like the people who argue that pornography is totally harmless because they use it responsibly and their spouse likes it too.
But I'm guessing nobody wants me to open that can of worms up in here.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
It's worse than that, even. It's the people who are, literally, claiming behaviors are totally fine and shouldn't be considered destructive that they quick to deny they would ever do, because such behavior would destroy their relationship and they are better than that.
quote:Originally posted by Annie: I'm very aware of the history of polygyny, but the expectation of sexual fidelity was a very big part of social codes in all of those places.
But wouldn't that have just been an expectation of sexual fidelity on the part of the woman? The man could be having sex with as many wives or concubines as he could afford. And no permission from those women was required.
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This is true. Their concept of marriage contained double standards for the men and women involved. Heaven knows I wouldn't trade places with O Lan from The Good Earth for anything you could offer.
And yet that was still a very small minority of the men in those countries. Poor and lower-class men who couldn't afford additional wives were expected to remain faithful to the one they had.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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Did either of you look at the links I provided earlier to the in depth discussion by practicing poly-amor-ists about how and why they consider their relationships healthy?
For me, the question of whether something is "natural" is irrelevant (for reasons Annie just described). The question is, is a given behavior helpful or harmful?
For poly, the obvious answer to me is "helpful to specific people when done in specific ways." People who are already in happy, committed monogamous marriages obviously have no particular use for poly, whether done "healthily" or not.
The actual questions I assume we're dealing with here are:
1. Should society as a whole go out of its way to shun/discredit poly relationships, period? 2. Should society make any effort to recognize poly relationships in an official, marriage-like capacity? 3. Should individual people who want to pursue a poly relationship do so?
I think the answer to #1 is that "poly" is a such a varied, complex thing that reflexively shunning it is silly. I do think the "spouse who puts up with a "poly" relationship because they don't have the will/means to leave their partner" is of course unhealthy and should be discouraged for the sake of discouraging unhealthy paradigms. But that is such a completely different animal from "honest agreement between two or more adults who all consider sexual fidelity largely irrelevant to the strength of their relationship" that the two shouldn't be remotely compared. Unhealthy relationship frameworks should be discouraged. Things that happen to have the same name as an unhealthy framework but are otherwise perfectly workable should not be.
#2, my answer is "not yet" because there's no single version of poly that is widespread enough to really warrant specific laws addressing it.
For #3, my answer is "so long as it actually makes sense for those people," and nobody is qualified to judge that other than the people in question and their closest friends.
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No, that's not the issue, because what you are talking about is much too narrow a subset of everything encompassed by extramarital sex.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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(Edit: assuming you're replying to me in the first place, my most recent posts's point was to break up the myriad issues into their component parts so we weren't conflating different things.)
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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I've read quite a bit recently on polyamory. I'm not convinced that a minority of people succeeding in sustaining relationships and claiming that they're happy means anything. I read a particularly disturbing article this morning. I say disturbing because it brings a child into the issue.
quote: Recently, the child asked his father who he loved more: Mommy or Terisa. "I said, 'Of course I love momma more,' because that's the answer he needed to hear," Matt says. He and Vera say they are honest with him, in an age-appropriate way. "We don't do anything any regular parents of a 6-year-old wouldn't do," he says. For the moment, it seems to be working. The child is happy, and there are two extra people to help him with his homework, or to pick him up or drop him off at school. They expect the questions to increase with age, but in the long run, "what's healthy for children is stability," says Fischer, the anthropologist.
So he admits that stability is important for children while describing his utterly UNstable love life. And admits lying to his son because "that's what he needed to hear."
The article freely admits that polyamory hasn't been studied long enough to ascertain long-term effects on children. I, for one, hope that we can learn from the research done on children in other similar unstable life situations such as divorce, and extrapolate that to realize that children are not going to be healthy if the adults in their lives are performing social sexual experiments on their home environments.
I don't care how happy or fulfilled you and your consenting friends claim to be. When you're normalizing a social behavior that's harmful to children and publicizing it, thus influencing even more people to try it out, that is something that is no longer confined behind closed doors and I have the right to say something about it.
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