← Back to context

Comment by poisonborz

3 hours ago

Tangentially related, but look up relationship anarchy. If we'd demolish outdated "standard" labels of our relationships, and normalize to making connections between any 2+ persons without them needing to feel shame or the pressure of internal/external expectations, we'd be a happier society.

13 comments

poisonborz

Reply
dbspin  2 hours ago

This is a recipe for perhaps the most unhappy society imaginable. Without such outmoded ideas as 'commitment', and 'through thick and thin' relationships become subject to the immediate barometer of personal happiness. In practice this is anything but equitable, freeing and fulfilling. It results in people with perceived high 'value' flitting from relationship to relationship, often several at once. Invariably leaving relationships and abandoning partners when the ordinary vicissitudes of life arise - job loss, ill health, aging, deaths of parents etc.

Real intimacy requires investment. Relationship anarchy, any time I've seen it attested or practiced, faciliates the opposite. It's a fetishisation of alienation. What you're describing as 'pressure of expectations' can be understood very differently, as the expectation of reciprocity. In other words, being able to rely on people - whether as friends or lovers, when things get difficult. Without that, all we have is limerence and capriciousness.

I say all this as someone who's been in non-monogamous relationships of various kinds - from weeks to years. Without the possibility of commitment and the acknowledgement that all relationships are inherently hierarchical, we atomise individual needs and make real enduring connection and community impossible.

tifik  3 hours ago

How do you address jealousy? Im very much on board with the idea in general, and have given it quite a bit of thought, but I’ve never been fully sold on the idea that jealousy is fully based on social constructs

  • swagasaurus-rex  1 hour ago

    I find it funny that poly relationships will insist on talking about feelings but get very uncomfortable at any sign of jealousy or attachment.

  • designium  3 hours ago

    It helps to deconstruct what jealousy is. Is it the fear of losing someone to others? Or is it possessiveness? He or she are mine like property? Or we are simply conditioned to react like that given certain situations that triggers jealousy? I found it’s easier to deal with jealousy once I understood the source of it and treat jealousy like a symptom not the cause.

  • poisonborz  3 hours ago

    I tend to believe self-assured people do not become jealous as they don't terminally depend on a relationship. This of course depends on age, how social someone is or the population size in the area. This is a general human problem, the traditional answer of "ownership" has problems of its own.

    • swagasaurus-rex  1 hour ago

      People who do not depend on relationships simply don't enter into relationships.

      For everybody else, there is the normal and perfectly human feelings of jealousy, attachment, fear or loss, and feeling associated with self-confidence.

    • tifik  2 hours ago

      All good points, but this doesnt really answer my question. If we imagine this hypothetical non-monogamous society, with no social constructs incentivizing monogamy, jealousy being in human nature would remain a driver towards monogamy. I imagine historically this is how most religions arrived at propagating monogamy. In christianity and judaism for both genders, or in islam for female monogamy, as jealousy was such a common driver of conflict that may even escalate into wars. Enforcing monogamy as the moral choice has some merit, if it avoids bloodshed, though obviously ideally people capable of being in non-monogamous relationships shouldnt be punished for being in one.

      1 reply →