I agree about BDSM but not about polyamory. One prominent subtype of polyamory is the aptly named “relationship anarchy”, which explicitly rejects rules and commitments. The modal polyamorous relationship includes some rules, but The Book on polyamory, More Than Two, takes a very hard line against rules and organizing your relationships to make you priorities legible. (The other The Book on polyamory, The Ethical Slut, I haven’t read, but I believe it’s near the relationship anarchist side.) Modern polyamory is greenish-red.
I’d say the default Bay Area rationalsphere breed of polyamory does involve significant structure, and that it is more stable. But this is probably an effect of the founding population of rationalsphere polyamorists being heavy on BDSM, and so already having a framework that balancing structure into your hedonism makes it stabler and healthier. There is also, very speculatively, more of a desire for stability, though since I’m comparing mainly to college-dominated populations I don’t know.
I agree about BDSM but not about polyamory. One prominent subtype of polyamory is the aptly named “relationship anarchy”, which explicitly rejects rules and commitments. The modal polyamorous relationship includes some rules, but The Book on polyamory, More Than Two, takes a very hard line against rules and organizing your relationships to make you priorities legible. (The other The Book on polyamory, The Ethical Slut, I haven’t read, but I believe it’s near the relationship anarchist side.) Modern polyamory is greenish-red.
I’d say the default Bay Area rationalsphere breed of polyamory does involve significant structure, and that it is more stable. But this is probably an effect of the founding population of rationalsphere polyamorists being heavy on BDSM, and so already having a framework that balancing structure into your hedonism makes it stabler and healthier. There is also, very speculatively, more of a desire for stability, though since I’m comparing mainly to college-dominated populations I don’t know.