This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
If you think of the relationship as a bargain, and suppose that the other half of the relationship isn't fulfilling what you thought you'd be getting in exchange for your monogamy, it's quite easy to imagine that the trade deal has no longer become worth its maintenance. If you're happy, the thought of straying doesn't appeal. If you're unhappy, you look for a quick fix of some kind of high to make you feel better -- emotional fulfilment, the feeling of being sexually desirable, just getting your rocks off, or whatever.
I think it's much more accurate to consider cheating, in many cases, a symptom of a failing relationship. Not always -- some people just want to have their cake and eat it, some people are genuine sociopaths and so on. But a lot of the time, the pull of sleeping with someone else isn't strong if you're not already quite unhappy. Similarly, asking to open a previously monogamous relationship is basically the same thing, since poly is just "cheating, but with permission" the request comes up in much the same situation; if this ever happens, the relationship is already doomed. I have never seen a previously-monogamous relationship survive becoming open.
Consider a parallel to religious doctrine; the urge to sin is always there, nobody never feels the urge to sin and no religion really expects you to, it's the ability to resist that makes you virtuous. This would make the equivalent of a poly society one where theft and murder are fine morally because who is anyone else to tell you that you can't do that stuff?
I one hundred percent reject this framing from the outset. Jealousy implies value. If someone is jealous of something you have, that means it is worth a lot to them. If lots of people are jealous of something you have, that means it's worth a lot in general. This goes completely unsaid in normal life because it doesn't need to be said -- yes, you're jealous of the guy with the fast car because you want it for yourself but can't have it due to cost. You're not jealous of the guy with a bag of apples because you can just go to the shop and buy your own bag of apples. The more exclusive something is, the more value it has. If I make a great achievement, it's in my interests that that achievement stay difficult, or else it becomes devalued.
If it became well known that the world's hottest 11/10 woman would fuck literally anyone who asked, fucking her wouldn't be considered very much of an accomplishment, nobody would be jealous of anyone who did it (because they could just do it too) and she wouldn't be considered to have much value. Men congratulate and envy each other for getting to fuck not the hottest women per se, but the most exclusive women, and the women are the most exclusive because they're the hottest and can therefore afford to pick and choose to the highest degree. In the same way that getting into a prestigious university (used to) mean that your academic ability is higher than the rest, getting to sleep with such a woman means that your attractiveness is higher than others; or, that you have more value.
In my estimation, then, if poly practitioners don't feel jealousy, it's not because they have evolved to an enlightened phase, it's because they simply don't value any of their partners enough to particularly care if they lose them to someone else. There are always more, right? Perfectly interchangeable. This is in the same way that a lot of people with Masters degrees and so on can struggle to find minimum wage work; if you have a specific degree, it's relatively obvious to the store you're applying to that you're going to drop them the moment something better comes along, so they don't want to waste their time integrating you in the first place; this is how I imagine poly relationships are all the time. You're the "primary" only until the ever-rotating pool of partners washes up a better prospect than you, and then you're immediately sidelined.
Not exactly. When you mentioned the concept, the first thing I thought of was that in the early days of my relationship, we were dating long distance, which is obviously fraught with trust issues from the start. But how I consoled myself was through costly trust signals; we kept driving the 4 hours each way to visit each other every weekend. I reasoned that this was a considerable outlay of time, effort and money if he was just planning on using me for a quick fuck and cheating on the side. There was no way he couldn't have found someone closer to use. It must have meant something because he was willing to put in the time and money to do these things that wouldn't have been necessary otherwise. There was no other explanation for going to such costs.
You can think of costly trust signals as ritualistic sacrifices of resources to prove devotion. I don't think social pressure particularly comes into it. Who shames divorces anymore, anyways?
Damn this stings. You might be on to something.
I don't disagree at all. The part about social pressure was only one aspect of enforcement, and really only applicable to commitment rituals.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link