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jmed comments on Polyhacking - Less Wrong
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A question before I continue: would you consider kissing, cuddling, snuggling, fussing, etc. as things you'd allow a partner to do with others or not?
Just so I can cater my examples to the exact region of the distinction.
I consider some allowance for those things as part of family/friendship. Soo... kiss = cheek, the way you'd kiss a friend or cousin, no open mouth clearly sexual "makeout" kissing. Hugging is fine. Cuddling/snuggling are kind of borderline. Depends on context. But typically people don't sit around snuggling friends they aren't sleeping with or trying to sleep with.
I do this all the time. When I hang out with the correct subset of my platonic friends we casually flop onto each other and braid each other's hair and exchange backrubs. I have photographic evidence. One doesn't have to be weird about those things.
I want to be your friend!
You are my friend! You just live far away.
But do you think it is common/typical/majority behavior?
I concur with your unintended implication that female-female groups do this ("braid each other's hair, exchange backrubs") more often than male-female and male-male pairs do.
I platonically snuggle with some of my male friends too. And I have photographic evidence of some guys I know who are not dating each other snuggling, too.
I guess I don't know how typical it is. I don't know many normal people and suspect they're dull.
Upvoted for this.
Ditto.
It isn't. I know a few normal people ("normal" along this particular dimension of personality/behavior, at least).
You are correct in your suspicions.
Especially the braiding the hair part...
Guys are less often braidable but I ask when they are.
That reminds me. My hair is just about long enough that I'd be able to accept if asked. Definitely due for a hair cut!
I need more friends like your friends.
I think I need to hack to be more like her friends. Snuggling and braiding sounds healthy!
Perhaps not. But I am having to draw on an atypical hypothetical to try and find our exact point of disagreement. I hope you don't mind?
Okay, so, refined hypothetical: The person you are dating is also, in their personal opinion, 'dating' an asexual man. This man has no interest in making out with them, let alone sex, but does enjoy romance, and cuddling up with them in order to share the feeling of emotional closeness.
Your partner considers this relationship equally important to the relationship between the two of you, and makes sure to schedule sufficient time to spend with each of you. They celebrate their anniversary with this other partner, and your anniversary with you, as well as wishing to spend time with this partner on valentines day. They recently met this other partner's family, going to his brothers wedding with him; as his 'date'.
Does this bother you?
Not at all.
Yes. No one should be as important to my partner as I am.
If you modify your scenario to involve an asexual male who likes to cuddle (or a gay male or a straight female, easier for me to imagine than a purely asexual male, although I know those folks do exist) and that that person is important to my partner but not as important as I am, then I would not have a problem with their cuddling at all, or being emotionally close.
That is very interesting, thank you for taking my hypotheticals seriously, and answering honestly.
What you are asking your partner to give up is not the "swinging lifestyle" as you thought: you're also asking your partner to give up having anyone they consider as important as they consider you.
I hope you can now understand why people make such a big distinction between swinging (where they have other sexual partners, who aren't as important as their romantic partner) and polyamory (where they have multiple romantic partners, who may not be sexual, but can be equally important to each other)
I knew about the distinction before, I just didn't realize how much polyamorous people disliked being associated with swingers, and phrased poorly as a result.
There still seems to be more overlap (more poly folks who permit one-night stands in swinger-ish manner than monogamous folks who permit it). Do you find this not to be the case? Most poly partnerships keep their sexuality limited to the 3 or 4 or 6 of them, and would look down on a partner having sex with people they didn't intend to add to the long-term group?
How common is it in your experience for the polyamorous to have non-sexual romantic partners?
Hmmm, I'm not entirely sure. In my social circle far more monoamorous people #PRACTICE# one night stands (in a swingerish manner) than polyamorous people. The polyamorous people may #allow# it; but when you can date whoever you want, and aren't forced to limit it to a one-night stand, why would you limit it?
My social circle is, however, distinctly atypical, and so cannot really be construed as evidence of much.
Groups suggest a closed loop, which is uncommon. However many poly people I know are uninterested in having sex with anyone who they don't feel a romantic bond with, simply because they have far more satisfying alternatives available.
Maybe 10%, or so. Not massively common, but certainly not unheard of. Far more would be open to non-sexual romance, just haven't had one.
The association with swingers is a problem due to the fact it leads to people, such as yourself, failing to recognise the differences, and making factually incorrect statements.
I'll answer your questions shortly in a seperate post; but I have a point I feel I may have failed to make, so I'll make it here:
The post I first replied to contained this line that I quoted:
You have since revealed that there is a level of emotional and intellectual connection that you consider line crossing. This is an important change in your position, so I think it is important that you put those two beliefs together, and realise that one of them must be wrong.
Work out which one is wrong, and remove it; that is the purpose of this whole site :-)
It's not a change; there was no explicit comparison between connection to others and connection to me in that statement, so I didn't address it there.
So, to clarify: My partner can have any level of emotional/intellectual connection with friends and family, as long as it remains non-sexual and I remain most important / without equal.
In the previous post your only restriction was that they not have sex with others. You have now stated that you have two restrictions*: that is a contradiction of your previous position.
*and the restriction requiring that they give up anyone that is of equal importance to you is a massive one, far larger, to me and many polyamorous people, than the sexual restriction.
That my partner would have anyone equally important to me in the first place is highly unlikely, because we are not poly. How would such a high importance relationship form against a monoamorous backdrop? So it's really not a big deal in practice.