Monogomy, yay or nay

Hippychick...I bet you and your husband have a really great sexual relationship don't you?

 

Absolutely, and we've been together for almost 10 years now.

 

you two are so cute! ^^

 

Awww, thankyou greengoddess.

 

You're good role models for young couples..

 

I certainly have no desire to change your mind! I'm glad you're happy, and I, too, believe strongly that sex is a sacred thing that I want to share with those I love. I just love more than one woman. And each of them loves more than one man.

You say that you don't care what other people do, but you also say "Show some restraint," which sounds like you are asking other people to be monogamous regardless of their desired lifestyle or orientation.

The same way it is not a slap in the face to want another child in addition to the one you have. If my beloved also has deep feelings for her lover, that does not diminish her love for me. I don't expect it to be that way for you any more than I would expect a straight person to turn gay, but I hope you can accept that different people are oriented differently, and that one way is not "better" or "more natural" or "more loving" than another.

Monogamy is about: love, honesty, communication, trust, and connection between two people. Those qualities are not all present in every relationship, but in my experience, they are present in every *good* relationship.

Polyamory is also about: love, honesty, communication, trust, and connection between two or more people. The same qualities are necessary for it to work.

Well, yes, I quite agree. To allow the men the freedom to have multiple relationships while denying that freedom to women is quite oppressive. But I have not heard anyone advocate that in the poly community.

My impression is that you really want to be OK with people having whatever style of relationship they desire, but when people say that polyamory works for them, you feel threatened and afraid that you are being pressured to open your relationship, so you say judgmental things like "Show some restraint." But I think that in your heart, you really believe that the love I have for my lovers is a good thing, just as I am really happy that your relationship is so fulfilling to you.

Love to all,
Steve

 

I'm an openminded person, I am not threatened, but I disagree with the lifestyle you live. And that is my perrogative.

 

I dunno I'd have to agree with stevepremo that you are acting threatened and judgemental. Just because you don't agree with some one doesn't mean you have to throw out flippant remarks that overexagerate my opinion:

You act like I'm having sex with everyone I've seen on the street. It's not like that. For one thing that would be extreamly unsafe. I'm not having sex with compleate strangers either. They're always someone that I trust or that my boyfriend trusts and I trust my boyfriend's opinion on who's safe. Besides I've only had sex with 4 people including my boyfriend and that's a lot less than some other people that I know that have sex exclusivly with their partners.

If you're truly open minded you really wouldn't tell me what to do. I don't expect you to suddenly go into my life style as you should expect me to go into yours. I really wouldn't want you to if you are extreamly unconfortable in doing so. You gotta do what's best for you and what's most confortable for you.

I never said always. But I believe the satistics of how sex is in most dwindling relationships have the same effect. Besides most relationships don't make it that long anyways. Isn't the divorce rate 52% now?

You are blowing my opinion out of proportion. It simply isn't like that at all. Me and my boyfriend fufil each others needs and it has nothing to do with being dissatisfied in any way shape or form. It might be hard for you to understand but a person can be satisfied with someone in a relationship but still see other people. Take friendship for example. You can have a great time with them and just because you have more than one friend doesn't mean you are dissatisfied with your orginal friend or best friend... it's just that you simply have another. Besides your relationship with your partner shouldn't be affect by other people.

My dear, I believe you are being really defensive or childish in this. You choose. I really don't apreciate your rude commentary and the only reason why I said you lived in a fairy tale was because you comment it on my first.

Absoltuly not. I was just using men as an example since it's more prominant in them. If you don't feel comfortable with that set up your partner should know it. Whatever rules you have set up in a relationship should be followed if that's seeing just one person or whatever. As I said in one of my eariler posts just because they do have those needs doesn't mean they should go around and cheat on you. Then they'd be lying and clearly hurting your feelings without thinking of you and being rather selfish and breaking the importance of trust the foundation in a relationship. Also the street is too ways. IF the man is allowed to see whoever then so should the woman or else it's a control issue.

Again, I don't apreciate your flippant childish remarks. An openminded person doesn't call someone "Crazy" just because their opinion is differnt.

A comparasin is a comparasin and as long as the point and message is made across clear it doesn't really matter what is being used to comapre. And it was food with sex not love.

 

Say what you mean. Mean what you say.

And by the way...it's COMPARISON

I'm childish? Yeah, OK. Whatever you say LOL.

 

I say yay for monogamy, and it works for me. It doesn't work for everyone and I realize that- but I think its important for monogamous people to seek out other people interested in monogamy and for polygamous people to seek out those kinds of relationships, too. That would be ideal.

 

It sounds like the old saying, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". If someone is making Monogamy work, then more power to them. If you are with your first lover, then you are monogamist. If you are not, then you have to question if you are really a monogamist. Everything from there is a shade of grey.

The real issue should be honesty. People choose an open lifestyle for many reasons. Sometimes it is so they can participate in a bi-sexual relationship, and still enjoy a life partner. If a couple both agree to whatever works from them, no one should be in judgment of that.

It sounds like most of the "bashing" of polygamy is based on a fear of someone breaking their trust. Society has become polygamist more than monogamist, but few are honest about it. So the fear is justified.

For all of you who have only had ONE LOVER, and hold on to the true sense of Monogamy, more power to you, I wish you all the happiness and hope that it is mutually respected. At fifteen, I wish I had that much will power, maturity and forethought.

I realize that I will take some criticism on my narrow view of monogamy, but Monogamy means ONE LOVER. We have adjusted that to ONE LOVER AT A TIME. Time is a shifting perspective. SO if you have ONE Lover, but not your first lover, and you go back to an old lover, after breaking up with the newer (now old) lover, is that monogamy? And then you go back to the old lover again, a year later. A week, a day, an hour? Time makes it all subjective. Beginning to see my point?

Food for thought,
James

 

I like monogamy for the simple fact that I could never stay with a man who was okay with having others inside of me and I know myself and when i don't feel like I'm kept the way I need to be I get really immature and self-destructive.

 

I vote for monopoly

 

POLYGAMY ALL THE WAY, makes the most sense, more of everything to share, helps ease burdens, more security, less power struggles, more hands to share the labor, more hearts to share the love, more heads to share the ideas, etc, etc. If you can leave the idea of stereotypes then you have a chance. And remember fidelity is still the same!!

 

**** If you are with your first lover, then you are monogamist. If you are not, then you have to question if you are really a monogamist.****

Tex, i can see that you're really trying, and i appreciate that. I feel like you are smart enough, and contrite enough, to understand what i am trying to say. If you would like you can go read my first (second?) post in this thread.
you bring up a good point that i have also considered, and around here we call it 'serial monogamy'. But in truth monogamy does not mean one lover, it means only one wife. Still it is true that most folks i know who are 'mono' go through as many lovers in a ten year period as most of my 'poly' friends. A lot of the folks with firm opinions on this thread have not been having sex that long, and SHOULD be 'mono'.

***The real issue should be honesty. People choose an open lifestyle for many reasons. Society has become polygamist more than monogamist, but few are honest about it. So the fear is justified.***

Polygamist means more than one wife, and is oppressive in that it does not offer the same options to the woman. And where i think 'polyamory' is a stylish word nowadays, i think it is often just a word for debauchery. Polyfidelity is nearly an unknown word even in this thread.

***I realize that I will take some criticism on my narrow view of monogamy, but Monogamy means ONE LOVER. ***

It means one wife, which is a rather judeo concept (wife) that does not really exist in many cultures (though the judeans will tell you it exist everywhere) which is inherently defined "till death do us part". You can have 500 lovers at the same time as you are monogamous, but as i say; most folks are so brainwashed by the existing power structure that the word polyfidelity is barely used. Even in a thread on mono vs poly, on a forum used exclusively by the counterculture.
You seem pretty smooth though, i bet you get it first shot.

 

Big Yay on Monogamy.....cheaters hurt people and never make any relationship work to its full potential.

 

Why "should" I have to do anything a particular way if what I'm doing works for me? What does having sex for any particular amount of time have to do with someone's views on a relationship?

While one can consider this... because times have changed so has the concept of marriage and the idea of one lover. People can divorce now a days as compared to before so there is no longer a "death do us part" type of thing anymore. Considering one lover to be one lover in a life time would be rediculous in this day and age. It doesn't fit into this lifestyle anymore and the idea of "One lover at a time" is now what relplaces that concept.

 

because having sex involves another person. Its not a self contained act so what works for you may not be working as well for your partner. For example (not the best example, but relevant), smoking cigarettes in public may work for you but it effects the people around you so it is outlawed in most places. If you only care about yourself then have sex with yourself. If you want to ignore others feelings then so be it. Have fun when it happens to you at a time or with a person you don't want it to ......

 

Monogamy is most definitely an invention of the Chrtistian church. In Islam, a man can have as many as four wives. Mormons were forced to give up polygamy as the price for Utah's admission into the U.S.

Monogamy was designed as a means to control the sexual behavior of men, since men -- like the males of almost every other species on Earth -- are "hard-wired" by Nature to mate with as many females as possible to preserve the species.

Don't believe me? Consider the fact that in the overwhelming majority of divorce cases in which "infidelity" is cited as the reason for the divorce, it's the husband who's the "infidelitous" one in 90 percent of those cases.

And even among unmarried couples, the male partner is far more likely to "cheat" than the female partner is.

If you've ever been to a "swingers" club or party, you've no doubt noticed that there were far more men in attendance than women.

Right here on this very thread, the majority of those who have expressed a preference for monogamy are women, while the majority of those who favor polyamory are men.

As a man who's been "out of the closet" for nearly 30 years -- the last 13 years as bisexual -- I defy anyone to prove to me that same-sex male couples (especially those under age 40) are monogamous. My male partner of 20 years and I certainly aren't. We never have been and we never will be (Even though at fiftysomething, we have nowhere near the libido we had when we were twentysomething). And while I can't speak for all bisexuals, I can tell you that for THIS bi male, monogamy most definitely does NOT work; I'd be feeding only one side of my sexuality while starving the other side.

I think it's time for our society to finally admit that men are polyamorous by Nature and centuries of enforced monogamy cannot alter that.

-- Skeeter

 

Koopa, There is no cheating in implied in any form of 'poly'. Cheating is just lying. Mono folks often call all types of things cheating. They do this to put a negative moral implication on things, thereby elevating themselves and their choices beyond the question of choice and into the realm of 'already decided, and i am right".

Raven, i did not say YOU should anything. I allowed that a lot of young folks respect their innocence and that such respect makes sense when you are innocent. It was me noticing a paralell between two facts and spoke of noticing both. I did not tell anyone what to do. Nor did i imply my authority to do so.
I only point out that is it no surprise that folks who were virgins for most of twenty years, and virginless for only a few, are more prone to limiting the amount of partners; thereby maintaining their continuity of personality. Those with more years on this earth as non vigins are often less adamant about the number, and sometimes follow with focusing their concern rationalizing the truths in their current situation.

On your second point, raven, i did not write that, i was responding to it.
With that said, no amount of your saying this or that will change the fact that 'till death do us part' is what judean marraige is, or that such commitment STILL does not imply monogamy (one wife). The commitment of 'till death do us part' can be fullfilled even if you are living with another woman.
You sound like a nice young man, and i don't mean to imply you should not choose for yourself. You are however young. Try to remember that i have been POLYFIDELITOUS longer than you have been on this planet. Your opinions are valid, but i am not new to this particular conversation.

Most folks that speak of poly are just using it as an excuse to have sex. If you read my first post on this thread you may learn that most folks do not even know what some of these terms mean.

I have reposted it below for your convienienc.

There is a lot of learning for us to do on this subject. The different control paradigms of the past have not encouraged freedom, and sex was just one of the tools.

First, monogamy only means one wife. It actually addresses the woman as not part of the discussion, only the object of it. The same is true of polygamy, which is why polygamy is illegal (it is unfair to women).
Polygamy means more than one wife, and again doesn't ask the woman, but tells her.

Polyamory means more than one love, and does not definitively include nor include sex or marraige
POLYFIDELITY is a word that more folks should know. It means more than one commitment. In polyfidelity (my preference) both the man and the woman have the choice to start a relationship, but are still 'required' to behave in a fidelitous manner; with dating, courtship, engagement and other traditions being acknowledged and enjoyed.

Almost all of my relationships in my life have been polyfidelitous.

Monogamy is much more popular with young folks, who practice it like "serial monogamy" and are not always safe. It is also popular with older folks, who have already had enough "serial monogamy" and are ready to 'settle down'. To me it all too often looks like sef delusionment.
I'm all for folks doing what they want (with eternity in thier hearts), but i do not remember very many "monogamous" relationship that were %100 successful. Most either had 'mistakes' or lies of occaisions or etc.
I prefer to be honest with myself and my spouses about my occaisions, than have to lie or call them mistakes.