Ethical Sluttery: Theory and Practice

"Different backgrounds" is a very broad net to cast. My wife and I are different in that she's a "city girl" whereas I am a suburbanite, but we are both white, middle class, monogamous, heterosexual, with Christian families but no devout faith.

I think one would find that this is very prevalent; most people marry within their local cultural group. As there are few cultural groups that practice "ethical sluttery" as a norm, this behavior pattern can only exist as an underground subculture.

edited 22nd Aug '13 1:38:49 PM by Fighteer

Well, media is really the problem. Media is designed to evoke and manipulate basic human emotions and needs, such as the need to feel needed. By far, the most common way of feeling "needed" is the concept of the One True Love. That you are some lucky person's ticket to happiness, and they are the same for you. We're given this assumption from our childhood, and everything we see in fiction and Real Life only reinforces it. Facebook, in particular, is a quagmire of sappy inspirational quotes about true love passed around by lonely people.

But, for people like my aforementioned mentor, she was raised outside of that expectation. Sure, she was exposed to media like other kids, but her Dad was apparently King Dingaling of Australia and never raised her with any form of nudity or sexuality taboos. She was free to figure out what made her happy, and go for it.

I would devote a lot of my text to describe how lucky that is in itself, but it would be off-topic

Theory and practice, I think that one of the hardest hurdles to overcome is at the beginning phase: how to open the closet without sounding wrong, or at least, too acute. As for practice: how much of a leeway are you going to give each other? I hate any relation that has time limits tagged in.

Cultures differ somewhat, Handle, in relatively small ways, and mores can differ fairly widely, but you aren't going to find massive disparity in fundamental beliefs within a culture. Part of the definition of a culture is "a shared group of attitudes or beliefs." That's why I said I thought that we are running into a vocabulary collision; we're using "culture" in two very different ways.

To me, how tidy a a house should be kept is not a "cultural" difference. Who's job it is to keep the house appropriately tidy may be — one culture may hold that it's strictly women's work, another may hold that it's the job of the man, and a third may expect both to contribute roughly equally, and yet another may hold that neither of the homeowners should have to do it— that they will have paid servants to do it.

American culture is predominantly monogamous. That's the expectation, unless something else is specified. In terms cribbed from games, monogamy is "according to Hoyle" and anything that's not monogamy is "house rules". Depending on whose house the game is at, those rules could be anything. But it's not safe to assume that because you were playing at Joe's last week and his house rule is "one-eyed Jacks are wild" (or "do whatever you want with whoever you want, but I want to hear about it from you first and don't bring home and STDs.") that that rule is in use everywhere.

What do you mean by "leeway" and "time restraints"?

edited 22nd Aug '13 3:59:13 PM by KingZeal

...Eh, I don't think anyone said that. We're painfully aware of everyone having different sets of standards as we are.

You... did say something about having a boom of people for a time, then losing just as much people for weeks. Something like that, right?

That was in response to Handle, here. I may be completely misunderstanding him, but What I'm getting is that he considers each minor personal preference to be just as much a "cultural difference" as major things like sexual norms are.

edited 22nd Aug '13 4:06:40 PM by Madrugada

Ah, my bad.

In anycase, I think it would suck if getting people into polygamy is as painfully lengthy as trying to hangout with people at night. And that costs money.

I would advise having an ironclad, hermetic, Marianne-trench-proof closet when it comes to this shit. This can be seen as way worse than being gay: look at how much of a big deal it has been for gays to get that status that comes with "marriage". Heck, according to a gay friend of mine, in the UK the reform consisted exclusively in calling it marriage; they already had all the rights and all the fiscal advantages of married couples.

It can be more lengthy and fraught with landmines, Culminas. I'm in the middle of exactly that situation right now. And it's confusing and frightening and frustrating.

ETA: in part because poly is largely in a big iron-clad, hermetic, Marianas Trench-proof closet around here.

edited 22nd Aug '13 4:16:14 PM by Madrugada

As for the Minor Preferences that are not Big Things, maybe I've been looking at things wrong, and, like with the Toilet Seat Divorce, the small things are just pretexts and red herrings for the big ones. It's just that, in my experience, people made a huge deal of the small ones, and never even spoke of the good ones. It's as if sexual rules were a matter of convention, while which side the forks go on the table is a matter of proper taste, and that the latter matters much, much more than the former, at least in terms of neurotic, compulsive attachment.

Or maybe it's just that everyone I know has Super OCD.

I don't think that they're just pretexts or red herrings. Many people assume that someone ignoring your preferences in small things means that they will/do also discount your preferences in large ones. And sometimes that's exactly what it means. (Sometimes it isn't.)

I just don't consider those small things to be "cultural differences". Like Fighteer said, things that are generally considered to be cultural tend to be broad categories

No, I think you misread. I was saying that I once had a "stable" of four girlfriends, and then lost them all within the span of a few weeks. Mostly to things just not working out. My point was, if people think that polyamory gives you protection from rejection or heartbreak, then they're fools. If anything, it multiplies it.

Which is why I'm curious as to how you reconcile it with the rest of your life. I apologize if I'm being presumptuous here, but having multiple partners to deal with sounds monumentally difficult unless you make agreements with your partners that you lay down at the beginning of the relationship that say you might not necessarily always be there or always understand what your partners expect of you. There are a lot of couples out there with myriad relationship problems, but when you're dealing with two or more people at the same time that have different rules they want you to deal with and expectations and obligations they want you to meet, to put it bluntly, I'm not sure how you keep track of it all. I do understand that you may have varying degrees of intimacy with your various partners, and some might not mind if you misstep on the little things. But as your partners are going to be different people, I don't imagine you'll always even have one that's like that.

Speaking here as someone confused about his own sexuality (if anything, I'm about 80% sure I'm asexual, but I'm not willing to say that I am until I've made sure of a few things), I have a lot of trouble figuring out what it is that I myself want, and I'm just one person that has full access to his own thoughts and feelings. I have a hard time imagining myself in a relationship with one person, let alone multiple. Communication sounds absolutely essential for polyamory, so I imagine there are a lot of people out there that just wouldn't be able to handle it, even if they were so inclined. If I ever decide that I am indeed so inclined, though, I'd certainly be willing to make the attempt.

To be honest, I'm still struggling to figure it out myself. I haven't been the most successful at it, in my initial attempts. But, I'm confident that I'll improve. I've only got the rest of my life to try.

So again, I'll use my mentor as the best example I can think of. You're right that communication is essential, but again, that's one of the things I like about it. She's also extremely big on discipline. She'll use whatever means necessary to train bad habits out of you and good ones into you—sex, education, punishment, whatever. Even when she's not the one in control, she will seize it in an instant if she sees someone fucking up.

Her take on poly communication is that you're more forced to do it, unlike in monogamous couples, where you can grow more complacent. Now, yes, there are lots of polyamorous people bad at communicating (I've lived it) and there are monogamous people very good at it. However, if you notice that you have a track record of not communicating things you should because you're scared of offending your One True Love, you might need the extra discipline being in a polyamorous relationship typically makes you balance. But, again, YMMV.

Also, you need to figure out a type of relationship that works for you, and establish hard rules. Do you want a "shared" relationship (meaning one central person that many different lovers share), do you want an "open" one (where everyone is free to do whatever they want), do you want a group relationship (where everyone in are in mutual relationships with each other person)? These are all, unfortunately, under the blanket web of "polyamory" (which is kinda like calling every Asian person a "Chinaman" now that I think about it). It takes serious planning, discipline, and self-reflection to figure out what you want.

But again, if this is to be attempted, I suggest getting a mentor. Because you will fuck up, and you'll need someone to tell you what you did wrong.

edited 22nd Aug '13 9:35:39 PM by KingZeal

I don't pretend to know how the in and out of polyamory and other so called alternative lifestyles work. But 'polite society' base it's ethics regarding sex, family and romance on the ideals of monogamy, marriage and fidelity.

Is sexual and romantic promiscuousness inherently less moral or ethical then the 'traditional values' of society?No. I don't think so. But I do believe that such social structure is of greater important then most people give it credit for.

edited 23rd Aug '13 1:13:11 AM by joeyjojo

What is it, precisely, that makes it so important?

What does that being important entail, precisely? What should one do about that?

Makes what so important, Handle? Communication?

No, he means "traditional relationship values", as per joey's post.

I'm of the opinion that society needs a set of commonly shared 'relationships values' to function properly.

Such 'relationship vaules' don't necessarily have to be in the 'traditional' vain however. I'm sure my ancestors engaged in group marriages and socially accepted wife swaping at one time or the other and still lived relatively long and happy lives. But their social structure was built to accommodate that and made sure that it was everyone's responsibility that the kids still got feed and that there was enough firewood for winter.

The 'freelove' movement never quite got it's heads around that part IMHO.

Well, then that means we need to ask the following.

1. What does "necessary" mean in this context?
2. Why do you think it's necessary for society to function?
3. When you say properly do you mean "at all" or "at its best"?
4. And what are the consequences of its absence?

edited 23rd Aug '13 8:18:18 AM by KingZeal

Also, by all accounts, the children of poly couples do get fed and raised lovingly and responsibly. Some would suggest they are better off: it would seem that, in a poly community, there is always an adult in the house that is free to answer the queries of the children, or help them with their homework, or just play.

A friend of mine has poly parents (or at least, his parents aren't entirely monogamous and okay with that. After the initial FYI, we went with a "don't ask, don't tell" policy). He's turning out better than I do so far. His sister on the other hand, not so much.

Yeah, I don't have much of a sample size, but looking at what I do have, I'd say raising kids is as much of a crapshoot for both monogamous and polyamorous parents.

@Zeal: Those are pretty big questions. I'm not sure I can proper express an answer to them here.

@Handle: The keyword there being communities. We don't really have those. The era of divorce has lead to a generation raised by a single parent and their their procession short stay lovers. I believe it was to the detriment.

Anyway Zeal and Kayeka. Tell me more about your friends. I'm quite interested in the ins and outs of their relationships.

Ha!

edited 23rd Aug '13 8:12:35 PM by joeyjojo

The "Ins and Outs", huh?

....Sorry.

Anyway, she lives in Australia but comes to the States frequently on business, so I don't know much about her relationships outside of what she tells me. I know that she has a lot of boyfriends (including me) and girlfriends, and that she's a blatant omnisexual. She has strict rules and expectations when it comes to her relationships, foremost being that every X amount of time, you need to go to a doctor she approves of and get a clean bill of health. Second being that you understand that you do not "own" her or her time, nor does she do the same unless it's during "play".

There are other hard rules, but they're mostly contextual. In terms of her life, I know she's been married more than once (but for more than a decade to her current), and they have kids. Her husband has retired from polyamory because health concerns have left him in a state of Can't Have Sex, Ever (she's never elaborated more than that), though he approves of her continuation. I've never met him, but he seems like a pretty cool guy. From what she tells me, he really likes what she's told him about me (she tells him everything she plans on doing before she does it, and doesn't do anything new or unusual without his okay).

I also know that both of them brought children into the marriage from previous relationships, and have two of their own together. She also has one child that she's not sure if her husband is the biological father of, but he was like, "Fuck it. It's mine if I say it's mine."

edited 23rd Aug '13 7:52:12 PM by KingZeal