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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024

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For the mainstream, as you say, the hot and horny will have no trouble finding people to fuck, and no qualms around fucking, and it will probably go the way of "persuading my partner to give me permission to cheat" rather than the elaborate rituals and hierarchies of the poly as currently practiced bubble.

Oh I think Poly has already burst containment and is a common memeplex from the Bay Area to Portland Maine.

My contention is that it has almost no impact on the actual rates of extramarital sex. What it has impacts on is the attitude of the cuckolded partner.

Which is why Aella's definition works: it focuses on the cuckolded partner rather than the cheating partner. In the same way that Financial Capitalism is, in a sense, not about the existence of rich bankers, rich bankers exist under any system, it is about the broad mainstream view of society being that the bankers deserve to be rich. Rich bankers existed under feudalism, but they were despised, subject to sudden expropriation if a king had a mind for it. Cheaters exist whether you have the poly framework or not, at best their justification is a backwards rationalization of what they were doing. The difference with Poly is the view of cuckolded partner on the situation.

...[P]eople who do 'go poly' and then one of the couple dumps the other because they've found a new love instead...

Call me Pangloss, but I don't really think all this matters much, things will be as they have always been, some marriages will break up or descend into misery. Since time immemorial it has always been thus and thus shall it always be. Doctors run away with Nurses, Lawyers run away with Paralegals, Bankers run away with Secretaries, Farm Wives run away with Traveling Salesmen while Rich Wives run away with Tennis Instructors, Fathers run off with Babysitters, and Bartenders run off with...well just about everyone what the fuck were you thinking marrying a barkeep to start with? Infidelity is as old as marriage, or maybe even older.