"And when we end up with someone whom we end up being eternally and absolutely in love with, is that basically wanting to copulate with that person and no one else for the rest of your life?"
A book on polyamory I've been reading had an interesting point: that sex is the coin of monogamous love. Not love itself, but a symbol of it; when people are in a monogamous relationship they do essentially say "I love you, and my best way of showing it is to have sex with / show physical affection to you and only you and no one else, even when tempted, because you have my love".
But what about those of us who are polyamorous? Who practice responsible nonmonogamy, having close love-relationships with more than one person at a time, with the consent and knowledge of all involved? Sex isn't exclusive then, so it's not the coin of polyamorous love. You can't use sex to show love in the sense of "Hey, I give this to you and only you as a sign of my love to you" because you might have sex with other people too. With polyamory, the coin of love is
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"A kind of natural, biologically necessary, hardwired, nigh-impossible-to-escape addiction. The warm and fuzzy feeling, the safety net."
No, that's the in-love high. The infatuation stage. That fades after 2 months to 2 years (sometimes less, rarely more). After it fades, then the work begins. Infatuation, being in love, is not actually loving someone. It's being dizzy with their presence and the idea of them, it's having rose-colored glasses on so you don't really see or you ignore their faults, and eventually that's going to shatter or fall away. The polyamory community has a term for it - New Relationship Energy (NRE), that dizzying consuming rush where it's hard to think of anyone else but the shiny new person; with polyamory, you have to be careful and remember that NRE happens and make sure it doesn't cause you to neglect your other partner(s). That in-love high is neurological, hormonal, biological - it's the initial rush that tends to get two people procreating and keeps them together for long enough to have a baby, and then
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yes and no. I think the relationship sort of Love really is too intertwined with lust to be held separate. Of course... I suppose you could make the argument that they Are totally separate. but then I'd say that relationships are more based on lust than love. and somewhat need to be to function. Whereas with love one can forgo the relationship and lust part of things for the sake of the love felt for the person because one feels that is better in the end for your object of love.
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A book on polyamory I've been reading had an interesting point: that sex is the coin of monogamous love. Not love itself, but a symbol of it; when people are in a monogamous relationship they do essentially say "I love you, and my best way of showing it is to have sex with / show physical affection to you and only you and no one else, even when tempted, because you have my love".
But what about those of us who are polyamorous? Who practice responsible nonmonogamy, having close love-relationships with more than one person at a time, with the consent and knowledge of all involved? Sex isn't exclusive then, so it's not the coin of polyamorous love. You can't use sex to show love in the sense of "Hey, I give this to you and only you as a sign of my love to you" because you might have sex with other people too. With polyamory, the coin of love is ( ... )
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No, that's the in-love high. The infatuation stage. That fades after 2 months to 2 years (sometimes less, rarely more). After it fades, then the work begins. Infatuation, being in love, is not actually loving someone. It's being dizzy with their presence and the idea of them, it's having rose-colored glasses on so you don't really see or you ignore their faults, and eventually that's going to shatter or fall away. The polyamory community has a term for it - New Relationship Energy (NRE), that dizzying consuming rush where it's hard to think of anyone else but the shiny new person; with polyamory, you have to be careful and remember that NRE happens and make sure it doesn't cause you to neglect your other partner(s). That in-love high is neurological, hormonal, biological - it's the initial rush that tends to get two people procreating and keeps them together for long enough to have a baby, and then ( ... )
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Whoa... convoluted.
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