In the "poly kicks evolution in the teeth" link I was left scratching my head wondering why "Polyandry is no more egalitarian than polygyny; any relationship in which only one person is permitted to have other partners lies outside polyamory's accepted definition". I would have said that in a threesome, logically speaking, there are three dyadic partnerships and each person has two partners, but I think maybe you assumed (1) that no one is non-heterosexual, (2) only sexual partnerships count, and (3) all groups have at least one penis and at least one vagina (so you can't just have three wives or three husbands in a closed but poly relationship).

A triad in which all three people are involved with each other, regardless of gender, absolutely counts as polyamory. As typically practiced, I believe, polygyny and polyandry don't, because the man or the woman, respectively, is the only one allowed to have multiple partners. (For the record, I'm bisexual, so I was definitely not assuming (1).)

It originally seemed to me like you were coming from the poly community and reaching out to the rationality community (partly because I was hearing recapitulations of what I recognize as "defensive rationalizations of poly relationships" and assumed you'd originated them). Now I think (maybe?) it is the other way around: you're starting with rationality and trying to bring us along as you explore poly issues?

I've been poly for ~4 years, which substantially predates my discovery of any sort of rationalist community, though I would have happily identified myself as a rationalist from about age six onward. Polyamory is unquestionably the right approach for me; while I doubt that that is universally true for all people, I believe it is worth careful consideration, and that many would find it advantageous to adopt.

So my tentative guess about our exchange here is that (1) "your axe" is simply thinking that it is worthwhile to be open minded about this controversial topic and (2) the defensive and biased elements of the arguments (to the degree that they exist and I'm noticing them) are mostly passed through from the source community that you're drawing from as you read into the literature and summarize it for LW. I thought the admission of "an axe" was connected to "the defensive arguments" and was wrong about the connection.

So, yes, I'd agree with (1) here. As for (2), well, this post is the first in a sequence that is describing/summarizing arguments from a book, but the authors are not (to my knowledge) polyamorous, nor does the book make a strong conclusion in favor of polyamory.

If I have been biased or defensive on this topic elsewhere, that is my failing alone.