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Kaj_Sotala comments on Polyhacking - Less Wrong
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Valuable post. Self-revelation is hard! I commend your account in this kind of forum. There are many considerations here, first and foremost of which is that emotional makeup a) differs greatly between people and b) is more set than we care to admit; i.e. not subject to hacking. If Alicorn's is to this degree, more power to her. Before the rest of my comment (as a mono): this is most emphatically NOT a moral judgment about polyamory. Consenting adults, will defend to the death your right, etc.
Other considerations (for someone like me, which maybe you are or are not):
I'm often on the defensive when polys talk to me, because there is a good bit of evangelism and insistence that monos are morally inferior, emotionally immature, etc. I didn't get that at all from Alicorn's post but it's out there, perhaps as a counteroffensive to monos who do express moral judgment. (Smart polys, police this so we can all have a real discussion!)
In my personal experience, many of the people who think they're capable of polyamory are not honest with themselves, and once a partner starts seeing someone else, they experience bad jealousy which they're uncomfortable admitting, because after all they're not supposed to; they're poly! Polyamory is going to TEND to favor a) people who become less attached emotionally in relationships; b) people who are very outgoing and popular (i.e. attractive people); c) women at younger ages (mid 20s) and men at later ages (30s onward). Sure, if you're Brad Pitt, be poly! Why not! Think of the population dynamics if everyone was polyamorous. Captains of football teams and cheerleaders as the primaries. The rest of us, gazing adoringly upon them while we wait for our turn on Tuesday night. Then back to the romantic ghetto. That's a bit extreme, but it's a serious thought-experiment about an all-poly-world.
Marriage is in large part an economic institution focused on child-rearing. Polyamory is a better arrangement for young non child-producing couples than for people who want kids. Are primary poly relationships, even like Alicorn and MBlume, as stable over time as mono? As good for raising kids, if that choice is made? As happy? (I don't think we know. Data?) And the whole idea of wanting someone as the primary means that, given enough time, you WILL meet a more amazing person years down the road, and one of the primaries will lose when you're overcome by the temptation to upgrade. Because of the way human brains relate attractiveness to fertility differently for different genders, this is going to give men an advantage over time as in c. above. One of MBlume's secondaries is going to knock his socks off and 12 years from now Alicorn might get demoted or fired. Or vice versa, but happens less often that way - again, personal experience, and we need data, but it was Alicorn who changed her lifestyle to be with MBlume, so it seems MBlume is the one with the upper hand, and this will increase over time. (Note: this is the main long-term reason I'm not interested in polyamory, at least for even half-serious relationships.)
Explicit symmetrical polyamory has never emerged stably in history so far. It's worth asking why. Maybe this is coincidence; maybe something has changed now that will be more conducive, but I think it's worth pointing out. For example, a higher prevalence of non-child-producing adults. More questions for actual studies.
So far I've been discussing polyamory as a hetero practice. I don't know any gay polys but it would certainly be informative to see what's different if anything about gay polys.
If you can do away with your emotional need for monogamy, why not do away with the need for mates and reproduction completely? I would frankly love to become asexual so I can think about other things for more than 2 minutes at a time! Not in the cards. (If you know a pill I can take or a meditative technique please hook me up. Then I can be nihilamorous.)
Finally, a lot of polys seem to be doing so partly because they get a buzz from being part of an alternative lifestyle community (affective death spiral, anyone?) While that was a bit of a low blow, I do think it's worth examining this in ourselves, especially with regard to whether choices we're presumably making for the rest of our lives are really sustainable. Kind of like diets, but even more important.
This is true. Poly requires excellent communication skills to pull off successfully, even more so than ordinary relationships. I keep emphasizing that poly is not for everyone: not only because you need to be emotionally suited for it, but also because it often takes much more work than a mono relationship. For most people, poly is hard.
I've heard this claim before, but I can't help feeling that it's still thinking in a mono pattern even while trying to think about a poly world. The whole point of poly is that X dating Y doesn't necessarily make either X or Y unavailable to others. If the captain of a football team has five women, that means that he only has one-fifth as much time for each of them, meaning that they're likely to be available to others as well. And perhaphs, since they're getting their desire for high-status übermasculinity satisfied from him, they'll also be more open to relationships with less masculine and lower-status men.
There are plenty of imbalances in dating-related gender ratios. A large fraction of men prefer women younger than themselves, so a straight man in his twenties faces competition from not only men his age, but men in their thirties as well. Add to this the fact that there are more men born than women, and we find that in a mono world a lot of young men will necessarily be left without the kind of a mate they'd prefer. In old age, the pattern reverses, so that it is the old women who have a hard time of finding a suitable partner. All of this is inevitable in a mono world, but in a poly world, there's at least the possibility that everyone will manage to date the kind of a person they want to be dating.
I'm not entirely sure about that one. Raising kids takes a lot of time and effort, often leaving the parents exhausted. It might be better for everyone involved if the kids have (say) three parents instead of just two.
At first sight it seems that those women are 4/5 available for other men in the group. But this assumes that men and women have the same sex drive on average. If we assume that men have stronger sex drive, or that their sex drive increases significantly when many women are sexually available to them (I am not a biologist, but I think both of this is true), then there is less than 4/5 availability of these women for the rest of group.
In other words, to make all members of a poly society equally sexually satisfied, this society must have more women than men. With the same number of women than men, less successful men will be frustrated, even if all women are satisfied. (Of course, if you are a woman, or if you are the most attractive man in your poly group, this is not your problem.)
EDIT: In essence, "one fifth of time" does not equal "one fifth of sex". A woman may spend one fifth of her time having hot sex with the captain, and the remaining time in just-friends mode, or 90% just-friends mode, with the remaining men.
Or perhaps, their demands will increase, and the remaining men will seem even more pathetic.
It seems to me that for most men monogamy is better. For women, two topics to think about: children and age above 40.
When the children are born, do you want to test paternity or not? (But even if you won't, some man will think that he is a father, and the others will think they are not. Or maybe, everyone will think that someone else was the father.) It seems like most men do not want to invest much resources into child that is not biologically theirs. Even if the man has one child with one woman, and three children with other woman, he may invest little into the first child.
If you are a young woman, it is important to note that the balance in "sex market" depends on the age. On average, younger women have higher sexual value than younger men, but older women have lower sexual value than older women. Thus we have so many young boys unable to find a girlfriend, and so many old women unable to find a partner (this imbalance is even worse because women on average live longer). Don't assume that your "sex market" value will stay constant.
Both monogamy and polygamy have their benefits and risks. The risks of monogamy are well known, therefore I wrote about the risks of polygamy. (Risks of monogamy: choosing the wrong partner and not having enough data to realize it; also if your partner dies or leaves you, you start from zero.)
This is a little bit more complex.
Sexual desires are not a constant for each invidual person.
It seems (in the poly community) that awesome sexual experiences with one partner make one want more sexual things with the other partners rather than less.
This is possible, though I would note that sex is just one of the things one gets from a romantic relationship. Even if a poly society would leave more men without sex, it might provide more men with things such as close companionship. It is not obvious which one is more important. (Companionship is far more important than sex for me, though I'm probably atypical for a male in that regard.)
Another possibly atypical male here:
To me, sex is a craving I occasionally get, but is no more pleasurable than any other fun activity.
Companionship is a constant need. I don't always need someone there, but I always need to know that there would be someone with me if I needed them.
Or you could just adjust the bisexuality / homosexuality rates... I dare say an all-men all-homosexual polyamorous group would have to be entirely stable, at least so long as we're playing entirely to gender stereotypes.
(Is there any actual research about women being less interested in sex, by the way? I've heard that dismissed as a myth a few times, born primarily of cultural conditioning, but never with any actual research either way)
I find that my (female) sex drive is incredibly mutable; I've been perfectly happy going a year with no sex, and at other times, in other circumstances (and with different available partners), been motivated to have sex daily. I suspect that the female sex drive is much more situational and partner-dependent than the male, and to model women as like men, but less horny, is a mistake.
Now I will do the Subjective Speculation Dance of Shame.
(electric slide) I like to shake my butt, I like to make stuff up (electric slide) Is there published data? Maybe! Doesn't matta! I'll pull it out of my butt! (butt shake!)
Please consider writing full lyrics and choreography and putting this on youtube.
You guys I think I made the shame dance too fun.
I looked it up, but I still don't understand what the electric slide is. I second Jack's suggestion.
This is awesome :D
This is my new favorite comment. Thank you! ^_^
Another, seperate point on biology:
The 5 women that are spending so much time with this alpha male will find their menstrual cycles becoming synchronised (assuming, of course, that they allow natural menstrual cycling). This will therefore mean that they are all at their most sexually active simultaneously.
Assuming that the peak sex drive of a woman is more than 1/5 of the constant male sex drive, this means that at least one of those 5 women will be unsatisfied during her days of peak sex-drive.
Which is an important fact in the context.
Menstrual synchrony is controversial.
I will note that, from my own reading, I am under the impression that (among animals in general) males will invest resources in any child that might be theirs, while ignoring/killing only those children that are definitely not.
As such I would be moderately surprised to discover that humans differed from this pattern, and cared only for children of known paternity.
The words "invest resources" mean something different for animals and humans. For animal male it simply means: allow the child walk on your territory; protect the child from predator attack; give the child some food. I would expect similar instincts from a human male.
The difference is, we expect much more from human males, which has no base in instincts. We expect human male to find a better-paying job (with longer working hours or less pleasant work), and use the money to support child's various needs, such as e.g. education.
If you have a piece of bread in your hand, and there is a hungry 3 years old child (possibly biologically yours) near you, the instinct tells you to give the bread to the child. But the same instinct does not tell you to change your job so you can pay your 18 years old child better college. We give our children far more than what our instincts say, and we also care about them much longer.
I have come across a report of empirical observations that directly contradicts this assumption:
In his book "Polyamory: Roadmaps For The Clueless And Hopeful", Anthony D. Ravenscroft states the observation that women have the stronger sex drive - It takes 3 men per women to get the women fully satisfied.
I have no qualms declaring that claim to be blatant bullshit.
I have yet to meet a woman who required sex more than three times daily (on an ongoing daily basis) in order to be satisfied and I would assert that women with that degree of insatiability or more would be rare outliers. Yet even that kind of pace is not hard to keep up (so to speak). While for most males the overwhelming biological imperative to seek sex is satisfied by less sex than that it takes only a modicum of accommodation or a hint of male pride to maintain a higher rate of sexual output.
I'm not here denying that women may have a higher sex drive. I would not even deny the possibility that some people may require being successfully pursued by three different partners (by count of number of mates not the potential sexual output thereof). I am saying that Ravenscroft massively undermines his own credibility when he tries to claim that it takes three males per woman in a given sexual system for the women to be fully satisfied. I deny that he has data that supports that and if he did produce such data I would defy it - with the expectation that it would be overwhelmed by other contradictory findings.
Wait, no, I take all that back. Women have ridiculously more powerful sex drives and can't help but throw themselves at guys at every opportunity. <My personal experience as an extraordinarily attractive potential mate has provided such a significant selection effect that it has completely biased my view of the world.> Not only that but when in relationships women need massive volumes of sex to be satisfied. <Such is my prowess at eliciting attraction.>
Unfortunately, after writing a long reply I accidentally discovered that accidentally pressing Ctrl + W closes Firefox without asking. So I will repeat the essence:
When monogamy is a society's official norm, polyamory is self-selected minority. Maybe the selection process now causes something that would disappear if more people become poly. For example, maybe for women with higher sex drive polyamory is more attractive. Also maybe for sexually passive men who enjoy the idea of their love having sex with another male (while emotionally staying in love with them) polyamory is attractive. This could explain how one woman could satisfy three men... if two of them are only watching.
Maybe women have the same sex drive as men, but still they are more picky. Even if a women would be able to fully sexually satisfy three top-quality men, I don't assume that an average woman would do the same thing for three average men. Maybe she would rather wait in line for her "five minutes with alpha". Most men would like the opportunity of having sex with many average women; women don't dream about having sex with many average men.
But this is all just a speculation. I would like to see a polyamorous society that survives 10 years.
I find that unsurprising, though folk wisdom suggests sex drive by gender varies greatly over age, so it's weird to not see a qualification there.
By the folk theory, which I have no idea if any research supports, that would be an unsurprising finding for male and female subjects in their mid-to-late-thirties, but the opposite would be expected for male and female subjects in the 18-24 range.
I was unclear on this point. As clarified above, I think you're probably right that 3 parents are better than two, for the kids. But ultimately, it's whether the arrangement is serving the parents' interests that will determine if kids are produced. The same person who loves being in long-term, child-free poly relationships might not want to be in a child-ful poly relationship, and in fact my intuition is that a lower proportion of people who are emotionally cut out for polyamory would eventually want kids. Need data.
If you're saying that the kinds of people who typically wish to be poly are the kinds of people who typically don't want children, that might be so, though I haven't seen any evidence for that hypothesis. Anecdotally, the "wants children" / "doesn't want children" ratio seems about the same as in the general population, or maybe as in the general high-IQ population. Your original comment seemed to talk about the suitability of poly for raising children, given that the people involved want children, though.
But I actually think that the main benefit of having three parents is for the adults, not the kids. Child-raising is typically really, really tiring, at least when the children are still young enough to need constant supervision. Having a third person around would really help make things easier. At the same time, there are all kinds of studies around saying that most of the things we'd expect to have an impact on the long-term outcomes of the children actually don't, and I'd guess that this would fall into the same category.
speaking as a parent (and someone who is poly) if it helps the parents, it helps the kids. And kids like having more adults around as resources.
Can you please give examples of this? It sounds fascinating.
The Nurture Assumption covers a lot of ground, reviews a lot of the scientific literature, and concludes that for many, many traits of interest you can divide the factors effecting them into non-parental environment and genetic factors leaving squat for parental effects. It's a great book.