Not being poly and only a bit rational (so far), I’ll only propose
Is polyamory actually higher amongst LW people than the general population? Do you just have more exposure to polyamorous LW people than a wider polyamorous population?
Do polyamorous LW people talk about their polyamory more than polyamorous non-LW people?
Is polyamory actually higher amongst LW people than the general population?
This made me realize I didn’t even know whether there were reliable estimates of polyamory prevalence in the general population. A cursory Google Scholar search didn’t net me anything, but the Wikipedia article has a data point:
Research into polyamory has been limited. A comprehensive government study of sexual attitudes, behaviors and relationships in Finland in 1992 (age 18-75, around 50% both genders) found that around 200 out of 2250 (8.9%) respondents “agreed or strongly agreed” with the statement “I could maintain several sexual relationships at the same time” and 8.2% indicated a relationship type “that best suits” at the present stage of life would involve multiple partners.
Meanwhile, 13% of LWers in the 2012 survey said they preferred polyamorous relationships, although only 6% reported having multiple current partners. While 13% is appreciably higher than the Finnish survey’s 8%-9%, the discrepancy could just be because the Finnish survey’s from a different time & place and has a more even gender ratio.
Danke. I’m a bit relieved to see you didn’t find much either in terms of representative samples of the general population; I can feel a bit better about being lazy. (I did get a kick out of the popularity of open marriages among the kind of people who answer surveys on Oprah’s website.)
Not being poly and only a bit rational (so far), I’ll only propose
Is polyamory actually higher amongst LW people than the general population? Do you just have more exposure to polyamorous LW people than a wider polyamorous population?
Do polyamorous LW people talk about their polyamory more than polyamorous non-LW people?
This made me realize I didn’t even know whether there were reliable estimates of polyamory prevalence in the general population. A cursory Google Scholar search didn’t net me anything, but the Wikipedia article has a data point:
Meanwhile, 13% of LWers in the 2012 survey said they preferred polyamorous relationships, although only 6% reported having multiple current partners. While 13% is appreciably higher than the Finnish survey’s 8%-9%, the discrepancy could just be because the Finnish survey’s from a different time & place and has a more even gender ratio.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/9p9/open_thread_february_114_2012/5v6g may help.
Danke. I’m a bit relieved to see you didn’t find much either in terms of representative samples of the general population; I can feel a bit better about being lazy. (I did get a kick out of the popularity of open marriages among the kind of people who answer surveys on Oprah’s website.)
Survey says that 13% are poly and 30% are uncertain or lack a preference. That’s higher than the general public.
it might not be much higher once you control for age, gender, location, socioeconomic status, etc.
In particular, I have no idea what fraction of the non-LW-reading but otherwise similar public would say “uncertain/no preference.”