Comments | autumnlaughing: (без темы)

autumnlaughing

(Untitled)

Dec 17, 2009 00:37

I've been thinking a bunch about monogamy and responsible non-monogamy lately. In the past, I felt that some people were monogamous, and some weren't, and the two shouldn't date, but that was about it ( Read more... )

poly

Comments 9

athenalaughed December 18 2009, 00:48:39 UTC

Obvious or not...this was really, really useful for me to read. Like a little "click" in my head. So: thanks.

autumnlaughing December 18 2009, 05:10:23 UTC

Yeah.. that was kind of how I felt! Glad to spread the wealth :)

blackdragon23 December 18 2009, 01:22:48 UTC

once again it all comes down to everyone is different.
(well that's how I look at it)

autumnlaughing December 18 2009, 05:11:58 UTC

True. But sometimes it's handy to be able to figure out if you and someone are on the same page.. and that gets trickier when you have more options...

jennylisa December 18 2009, 01:45:00 UTC

I think monogamy is a continuum.

autumnlaughing December 18 2009, 05:14:19 UTC

BTW, that is the CUTEST picture.

I feel like there's too many branches - maybe a couple of continuums?

the poly thing.... draya383838 December 18 2009, 02:28:19 UTC

i always was confused about this. Sans the whole marriage thing....

us old folk call it "dating" (ie. poly) and being in a "committed relationship" (ie. monogamy)

so.............

i tend to agree with people being both at one point or another.

it takes a lot for me to commit to one person, because they REALLY need to be worth the time and effort....

ps ~ miss you kat! hope you are well.
xoxoxoxo

Re: the poly thing.... autumnlaughing December 18 2009, 05:23:28 UTC

Not quite what I meant - I actually think that a person's preference for poly/monogamy is *relatively* stable throughout their adult life - people who are more monogamous are looking for THE person who is worth the time and effort, people who are less monogamous are looking for (however many) people who are worth the time and effort. (Except that I think that how much commitment people are willing to go for/interested in is another continuum.) Obviously, there's a limit to how much time + effort one can spend, regardless of how many deserving people there are out there (and folks who ignore this annoy me)

But I certainly can't point to much saying that I'm right - it's just how I think it works!

hope you're doing well, too!

Anthropological perspective joanhello December 18 2009, 16:12:55 UTC

The whole question of what is "natural" for humans tends to treat sexual bonding behavior as if it had a life of its own, completely detached from the rest of human life, except possibly for the childrearing part. In fact, sexual behavior tends to depend very strongly on economic and environmental factors. Among the Native tribes of this region, for instance, the economy was based on a matrilineal kinship system in which the strongest bond was not the sexual bond but the mother-daughter bond. A child's social identity derived mostly from the mother. Because it really didn't matter much who a kid's father was, there were no rules enjoining monogamy. Several surviving diaries of missionaries reported that the notion of monogamy as "fidelity" was pretty much unheard of and proved difficult to teach until the missionaries had enough government firepower behind them to forcibly change the kinship system ( ... )