What about polyamory

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First of all, research in the area is extremely biased. Need to explain why? We evolved "monogamy" for bla bla bla. Yea right, its just too embarrassing to claim the opposite thats all.

From purely biological facts. The higher the fidelity rate in animals, the smaller the testicles and penises. As a comparison, gorilla females live in a harem and are extremely fateful to there male. We have 4 times bigger testicles, our sperm is beater quality, and our penis gland shape is supposed to scoup out the sperm of the guy that were there earlier. The gorillas don't have that "accessory", so the X4 factor is even bigger. Also our sex drive is on all the time, in "normal" animal its once per year. Both species of our closest relatives are extremely horny. Chimp females are extreme sluts, its something like 10 different males in 15 minutes (that's not human by the way). Bonobos are even worse, with bisexuality, pedophilia, incest etc.

Seriously, what kind of monogamous species are we? There's clearly intense spermatic competition going on. How can you have that intense sperm competition in monogamy? It's not even serial polygamy, since sperm competition can occur only if sperm of more then two males is present simultaneously in a female.

Really you just can't explain that our "balls" are X4 plus bigger then those of the gorilla and claim we are supposed to be monogamous. I think it's quite crystal clear, no possibility to argue. Its to "drown" the competition.

The psychological explanation i gave is not BS. It goes together with the "physical" evidence.

The dimorphism, can be explained by the very demanding child development. Evolution cut corners in women in order to save resources for producing the kids.

You still ignore the fact that cultures everywhere for hundreds if not thousands of years have put monogamy for a lifelong relationship. Its not expected to have one partner lifelong, but it is natural for us to fall in love with one person and raise a child with one person. and no dictators arent the ones making us do this

Yeap, and if you dare digress, you are put to death or shunned from the village. Sounds very natural.

You don't explain why our "balls" are so big? Whats for?

I wouldn't mind having two husbands, sometimes. Or a husband and a boyfriend. That way when one is being a douche, I could just go be with the other one.

Although that is not how polyamory works.

You can be in a committed relationship with two or more people as long as everyone knows. You can be in a committed relationship with one person and just see others on the side as long as everyone knows. I think that the poly community frowns on using it as a backup though, so I wouldn't be included, if I even were to get my husband to agree to that.

The only thing I see wrong with polygamy would be people marrying several people simply for tax purposes and insurance benefits. If people want to have more than one husband or wife, and it's a real relationship, I don't see how that hurts anyone else. I know people who have married for tax and insurance purposes. A friend of mine who is a gay man married a friend of his because he had a great job and she had a crap job. They get the tax writeoffs, and she's on his insurance. They live in a nice home, she has her part of it, he has his part of it. She sees who she wants to and so does he, and they have both had live in partners before. They are just married on paper, but are good friends and do love each other in a nonromantic way. Sort of like Will and Grace except without the dysfunction.

I think that people like the FLDS who believe in polygamy for religious reasons should be legally allowed to do so. If they were legally allowed to do so, then they wouldn't all have to live on those seperatists compounds and suffer all that isolation and abuse.

But I see no problem with simply polyamory. Most large cities have a poly community. It's not that hard to find. They can usually be found through the BDSM community. Find a local BDSM Munch and go to it. Meet people there, tell them you want to learn about poly and they will introduce you to other people. It's not a place to pick up potential partners either romantic or play, it's a place to meet and befriend other people who enjoy the same things and share the same views on particular topics.

You just stated the reason why these kind of relationships are more stable. You will be surprised how prevalent this rule of "two=instability" is in nature.



Well in real polyamory that would be called secondary relations. You can' go along well with everybody, and the other "husbands and wives" can't be thrown out because just you don't like them enough.



Seriously i would prefer a polyandry with a couple of nice aspie girls and a bunch of cool aspie guys, then having Christina Aguilera for just my self (that i find physically just fine by the way, but its not the point).



BDSM ? I think you meant LGBT.

No, I meant BDSM. There is a crossover between the poly community and the BDSM community, as well as the LGBT community. Not everyone in every group practices every thing.

I suggested the BDSM groups because there are many LGBT groups who are more conservative and don't have a lot of members who are poly or support poly. The BDSM community isn't as focused on romantic relationships as the LGBT community is. I am not talking community as a whole, or individuals. I am talking about the particular community groups meeting to discuss issues relating to either BDSM or LGBT.

You were discussing polyamory, and not polygamy, correct? Polygamy would fall under romantic relationships exclusively, while polyamory could of course also fall under that, but it also includes committed couples who simply see others on the side for physical reasons. I've found many more poly folks in the BDSM community as a whole than I have the LGBT community.

PM me and I can give you the name of a good newsgroup to look into this further if you are interested.

I think poly has a cross over in to everything. LGBT is more general.



Conservatives in LGBT? Ouuu what a surprise. Good advice by the way.



Polyamory is more chaotic i think.

Polyamory isn't necessarily chaotic. I know a married poly couple. She isn't interested in anyone else, but he is. She doesn't mind that he is. He is married to her and is also in a commited relationship with another woman who he stays with at times. It works out well for them.

Polygamy is when you marry more than one person. Polyamory is when you are in romantic relationships with more than one person. The whole "swingers lifestyle" from yesteryear could also be technically catagorized as polyamory, but many people just refer to it as being nonmonogamous nowdays. It really depends on which crowds you are in at the time I suppose. Just like any other vernacular.

I know several poly folks. Some are into BDSM, some are bi. I suppose the one poly person I know who has the most going on in his life is Philip The Foole. He is a self proclaimed poly bi switch. He just can never make up his mind.

Thats exactly what i meant by chaotic, they aren't clearly defined bondaries. The woman you are describing, has probably some unconscious issues. Basically i'm saying she is afraid, social pressure etc.... We are all poly, its just that we get a phobia from society. Its similar to nudity, its perfectly harmless, yet people don't act that way.

Why would she have issues just because she is content with one partner but doesn't expect her partner to be content with only one partner? They have had this arrangement for a long time. When they met, she knew what he was into. It didn't bother her at all. Granted, they met at a BDSM munch and those groups tend to be more open minded. However, her not wanting more than one partner doesn't make her have issues, be afraid, be under social pressure, etc.

How can you decide something like that about a perfect stranger after only hearing one small detail of one aspect of her life?

Before I start, I want to address the poster who claimed that monogamy had "evolved" as a protection mechanism against STDs. Thus far in human history, there has been exactly one demographic that could possibly have been affected enough by STDs for something like this to matter--and in one particular generation, one particular period of time. It was (mostly) the 1980s, for (mostly) promiscuous gay men. Anyone else noticed the generation gap during which there seems to be almost nobody with AIDS? Here's why:

They died. Older gay men went through their more promiscuous years before the disease became widespread, and younger ones use condoms. STDs have not done anywhere near enough damage in the tiny amount of time they've been an issue to affect natural selection to such an extent that the entire way people think about relationships changed by necessity. Condoms. Problem solved. So that theory goes out the window.

My next (and really just mental masturbation) point is this: What do you mean by monogamy? Do you mean pair-bonding for life? OK, so far so good. Now do you mean pair-bonding for life, but with infidelity mixed in? Do you mean getting married for life, even though you might not love that person or even love someone else? You need to define exactly what it is you mean before we can have a productive discussion about it, because otherwise everyone's going to hear "monogamy" through their own filters.

So anyway, for me, what I've found to be most rewarding is to have two "primary" women who I'm seeing non-exclusively, where all parties are free to go out and get laid by whoever they want, judgment- and jealousy- free. It's a fine balance, and definitely took a lot of learning on my part to figure out what made me happiest. You don't need to label your relationship "girlfriend" or "wife" or "f**k buddy" or anything like that--if you both enjoy each others' company...well, who really cares what you call it? Plus, it's not cheating if there's nothing to cheat on.

And for the record, no, I don't for a moment believe there is such a thing as a relationship between two people who love each other completely, for their entire lives, without desiring (openly or not) a variety of partners here and there (or, more realistically I think, all the time. They just don't tell you about it).

My own personal experiences and what I learned via intensive study of evolutionary psychology match up surprisingly well.

If you know what it's like to love more than one person at a time (so do I, for what it's worth), then why would you worry about the other person's affections? If you're able to love more than one person, why wouldn't she?

~Kate

@OliveOilMom
You took it too badly i think . I'm taking as a base that monogamy isn't really "normal". So if she restricting her self, its some psychological issue. By issue, i meant lite, not asylum kind of issue.

@BurningMoose
I mean the official nonsense.

@Meow101
Secondary mean's you are second rate in her heart, not just n°2. This is what he doesn't like.

Monogamy may not be what we were biologically programed to do, but it is what we have been societally programed to do for centuries in Western culture at least. Also, how is it any different to only want one person than it is to be asexual? Some people are simply not interested in romantic partners. I'm not talking about people who have hormonal imbalances which cause loss of libido, but of people who just have no interest in romance or being with someone else? It's not what we are biologically meant to do either.

Shouldn't what a person wants to do be the thing that person does? If someone wants more than one partner, fine. If they don't, fine. If they don't want any, fine. I don't believe there is any "normal" when it comes to something like this. It's just how each person is wired. We should no more all be polyamorous than we should all be monogamous or celibate. It's just up to the person. There is on "one twue way".

You talk about possibility, and get too philosophical (offended?). I talk about probability( 90+%=normal). In the end of the day, natural selection does her thing.

From what i know, the most efficient configuration is poly, thus natural selection wired it in to our skulls. Psychologists know there is a conflict between our instincts and society. Specifically Freud thought that this was necessary so that civilization can be maintained. Ironically, religious fundamentalists say something similar. I believe, that these assertions were true. If you consider that historically the only way to maintain civilization was with a dictator, then indeed, all the counter our nature rules make sense. Its beater to have a dictator then anarchy. However today things have changed (mass education, Internet, technological revolution, cities of millions, democracy). Just consider the military, in the past a bunch of peasants with knives were a non negligible military force, today a couple of soldiers can slaughter hundreds of civilians, the imbalance of power is staggering, a tiny police force is effective in controlling millions(i mean to control order, not impose a dictatorship), the government doesn't need any more to use psychological tricks like interfering with the sexuality of people.

+1.

However, I'm completely against monogamy being the social default. I don't like people being pushed in either direction, but people seem to more often say 'I'm not poly, and that's okay' while in a group that's highly poly, than 'I'm poly and that's okay' in a group that's primarily monogamous.

I'd rather there not be any default, but having society punishing people for admitting they're poly is a problem.