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[Gunner-Chan]

I mentioned my exact count before. But I am actually married and in other extramarital relationships. So is my wife. I don't think it's even a factor in the marriage since we're both okay with it, and we both also want some variety in who we're seeing and well hey. Nothing wrong with spreading the love.

Ill never understand people who have a problem with this though. I mean yeah I can get if it's too much on an individual level. But I mean people who belittle and insult and otherwise say terrible things about others in open relationships. Those people I can't stand.

[Pnx]

It's... a weird possessiveness thing. I suspect it might be some sort of instinctual thing or something. I used to think it was normal... these days I sort of think it's just weird.

[Devling]

I don't think it would really work for a lot of people (Myself included).
High chance of drama, mostly.

[RedKing]

Something no longer being the only thing that gets any public lip service does not mean it is "dying."  Gay people marrying does not mean marriage is dying; heterosexual people not marrying does not mean marriage is dying.  Polyamory will not kill marriage, just like the institution of monogamous marriage did not kill polyamory.

No, but it can be argued that the confluence of religion and monogamy and their pressure on social norms did a lot to drive polyamory underground.

The modern revival of it in the United States has often been traced to long military deployments and high casualty rates, especially with combat pilots. "Swapping", polyamory, group marriage, whatever you want to call it....it provided both financial and physical security for the spouse left behind in case her husband was killed in action or deployed for years at a time. It's no big secret that infidelity rates among military spouses is considerably higher than the average population. Kinda tough for a person with an average-or-higher sex drive to sit at home for two years or more and just wait.

To me, it makes perfect sense that the concept is growing in prevalence and visibility because it fits the larger trend of ad-hoc relationships in society in general: development teams on SourceForge that coalesce around an idea then disperse afterwards, people coming together to support a project on Kickstarter then moving on, activists joining together to stage some big rally then going off and doing their own thing, artists and musicians collaborating on multiple projects with different groups of people, sometimes with overlapping groups, etc.

I suppose because the latter has been a thing with artists and musicians for centuries, polyamory has always been more prevalent among those creative communities. What you're seeing now is that as other walks of life develop a familiarity for these ad-hoc collaborative communities, the idea of forming ad-hoc relationship networks doesn't seem so foreign or taboo to them. (Though I should point out that this is just a personal theory.)

[Vector]

Sure, I'm absolutely in agreement that those things drove polyamory underground, but I was trying to deconstruct the "it must be one or the other!" talk that tends to go on a lot in these conversations.

[MrWiggles]

According to arechosocialology, (sp), Humans tend toward having a primary couple, with both sexes have a sorta FwB thing with various forms of commit, and romantic involvement. There wa a Big Think video about this. Monogamy isnt found in nature very often.  And Monogamy, along with marriage, in its common sense, are both, rather modern inventions.

I myself, is polygamy, and polyamorous friendly, but I wouldnt tend to it. My SO currently, lives with her fiancee. He and I have been friends for a long bit before this, and we tend to like similar things in girls. This is the first time that this has happen though.

In my preception, most polygamous realtionship are just really polyamorous, and of those, they're just loose network of fuck buddies.

When it leans more toward polygamy, then it just seems to be a ground for more drama and competition. I dont see polygamy be functional very often.

And there the whole 'Unicorn' issue too.

[Boea]

It's... a weird possessiveness thing. I suspect it might be some sort of instinctual thing or something. I used to think it was normal... these days I sort of think it's just weird.

Call it the advent of Cultural Evolution, and the disdain of Natural Selection's Evolution, it's interesting, but damn will it take a while.

[lordcooper]

Do what you will, so long as it harms none.

I can't say I understand the whole monogamy thing, but whatever floats your boat.

[kaijyuu]

I'm mono-romantic, but my rules for more... physical relationships are more open. I'll only ever love one person that way (Doctus~ ♥), but physical intimacy isn't something intrinsically tied to that emotion for me. Physical intimacy is untyped affection, and I could totally do it with a good friend.


Anyway, yeah, so long as everyone's satisfied, I don't care what you do. Completely monogamous relationship? A-okay to me. Completely open relationship with tons of partners? Also a-okay, though I might wonder how you avoid a drama bomb. Must have damn good communication between everyone, because even if everone's like me and won't get jealous, there's still concerns about STDs and the like.

[Hiiri]

Do what you will, so long as it harms none.

I can't say I understand the whole monogamy polygamy thing, but whatever floats your boat.

[penguinofhonor]

Personally, I'd never get in a purely monogamous relationship. If you think that if I sleep with another person I'm going to love them more than you, then you don't trust me enough.

I could probably only have one big emotional and physical relationship, and I'd probably only want to live with one person I'm in a relationship with at a time, but I could probably have one or two less serious physical and/or emotional relationships on the side.

[Telgin]

Ultimately?

Do what you will, so long as it harms none.

The details are more complex, of course.  This is something that I've researched a tiny bit for the purposes of speculative fiction and relationship models in nonhumans, and it is pretty clear that lifelong monogamy is exceedingly rare in nature.  It stands to reason then that it may not be natural among humans, and has already been stated in the thread historically it's not what humans frequently did.

I assume one of the main reasons we form prolonged private bonds is to help establish a stable family for raising children.  When you've only got one partner, you've only got one source of kids, and one partner to care for.  It's simple, and demonstrably works well enough.  In situations where one man has lots of wealth, he could care for several.  I'm guessing it's for mostly cultural reasons that polyandry was very, very rare, but as far as nature is concerned one male and lots of females is much more efficient than the alternative, so maybe there's a biological reason for it too.

In the modern world where it's pretty simple and reliable to prevent unwanted children, it makes more sense to have more open relationships where even sex among the "extras" doesn't much matter.

As for my feelings?  My interests in having an intimate relationship with anyone are approaching zero, so arguably my thoughts don't count.  I strongly suspect that I would have difficulty sharing someone, and would have even less interest in seeing several people at once.

I'm betting that the jealousy is instinctive in some manner.  It makes sense to be.  It's probably also implied or instinctive that humans will have a "primary" partner while not being opposed to extras if they believe they can get away with it.  That makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint too.

As for the speculative fiction bit I actually found it hard to convince myself to go with anything but the traditional monogamous marriage system.  Probably because for cultural reasons it's what I'm most comfortable with.  Interestingly, I actually felt a bit guilty even considering polygamy, again likely for cultural reasons.

[GlyphGryph]

Relationships are either hard work, or I'm way less competent at them than other people, because, while I and the wife are open to the idea of polyamory, I just don't know when I would have time.

[Korbac]

Obligatory warning that someone is going to ask "What is love" and then an oft - abused 90's song is going to come into play.

I'm kind of surprised so many people here are poly-somethings! I didn't know there were so many of you. As RedKing says, there's 'sleeping around', but it sounds like what you guys are talking about are emotional attachments.

I've got no problems with it although I will reiterate the point that it can be more complex than a monogamous relationship. But if you can do it, and find it enriching, then why the hell not!

I'm with Vector on the 'possibly never going to get married' thing. I like mah bro's too much. This is probably going to have a negative impact on my life when all my friends graduate and move away from me, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I do have one close friend who I think I'll have for my entire life (he's too dependent on me as an emotional dump - tank, haha.)

[lordcooper]

I've got no problems with it although I will reiterate the point that it can be more complex than a monogamous relationship

True, but it can also be a lot less simpler.  I've noticed a lot more paranoia and possessiveness between people in 'traditional' exclusive relationships, although this is obviously very subjective.