You appear to be conflating non-monogamy with emotionally-shallow, superficial relationships undertaken primarily for sex.
I am in favor of a socially-connected human existence that involves an extended family/tribe of friends that one loves in different ways. What differentiates this from poly, other than sex?
Specifically, your assumption that having multiple sexual relationships negates the “specialness” of any sexual relationship that does occur.
I am in favor of a socially-connected human existence that involves an extended family/tribe of friends that one
loves in different ways.
Virtually any meaningful association of humans connected primarily by filial, affectional or social bonds could be described this way. It’s not specific enough by itself to differentiate polyamory from monogamy.
I was responding to your actual objection:
Don’t poly folks want to feel special to their partners? Because seeing my partner being emotionally or
physically intimate with someone else (or knowing they were, even without seeing it) = immediate
non-specialness.
...which immediately implies that having multiple sexual partners must somehow be synonymous with not desiring or having that sense of specialness.
So insofar as you admit you don’t get poly, your statement is honest—but the assumptions underlying it are mistaken. Many poly people want the same thing you do (a sense of specialness) and do not feel it’s jeopardized by seeing their partners emotionally or physically intimate with someone else.
And yes, there are some poly or otherwise nonmonogamous people whose desires and preferences probably don’t map to yours so readily. But some of us do understand what you want in a partnership, want it ourselves, and find it compatible with nonmonogamy.
Thanks for providing your perspective. I understand now that poly people get the sense of specialness in other ways, although how they accomplish it still eludes me on a visceral level. Intellectually, I see Alicorn and her insistence on being primary and on being able to demand exclusive time as accomplishing this sort of thing, but it still feels like not enough. But that’s just (unhacked) me. Thanks again.
Intellectually, I see Alicorn and her insistence on being primary and on being able to demand exclusive time as accomplishing this sort of thing, but it still feels like not enough.
These were parameters that either of us would have insisted upon, BTW. I’d been in a more nearly “undifferentiated partners” arrangement previously and had felt really insufficiently cared-for.
I am in favor of a socially-connected human existence that involves an extended family/tribe of friends that one loves in different ways. What differentiates this from poly, other than sex?
Specifically, your assumption that having multiple sexual relationships negates the “specialness” of any sexual relationship that does occur.
Virtually any meaningful association of humans connected primarily by filial, affectional or social bonds could be described this way. It’s not specific enough by itself to differentiate polyamory from monogamy.
I was responding to your actual objection:
...which immediately implies that having multiple sexual partners must somehow be synonymous with not desiring or having that sense of specialness.
So insofar as you admit you don’t get poly, your statement is honest—but the assumptions underlying it are mistaken. Many poly people want the same thing you do (a sense of specialness) and do not feel it’s jeopardized by seeing their partners emotionally or physically intimate with someone else.
And yes, there are some poly or otherwise nonmonogamous people whose desires and preferences probably don’t map to yours so readily. But some of us do understand what you want in a partnership, want it ourselves, and find it compatible with nonmonogamy.
Thanks for providing your perspective. I understand now that poly people get the sense of specialness in other ways, although how they accomplish it still eludes me on a visceral level. Intellectually, I see Alicorn and her insistence on being primary and on being able to demand exclusive time as accomplishing this sort of thing, but it still feels like not enough. But that’s just (unhacked) me. Thanks again.
From my other dialogue with you, I suspect that the difficulty is that you seek a much higher level of specialness than many poly people do.
To me, the level of specialness you seek would seem actively undesirable; while to you the level of specialness I enjoy might seem insufficient.
These were parameters that either of us would have insisted upon, BTW. I’d been in a more nearly “undifferentiated partners” arrangement previously and had felt really insufficiently cared-for.