Brilliant. Have you read Ethical Sluts? great book for poly folks. Also, Sex At Dawn is a book that shows quite a bit of evidence that humans are very bonobo like and aren't really that prone to monogamy. It is not deniable that monogamy is the cultural norm for most of us, however, it seems pretty clear to me that it is a product of socialization and can be changed. Beautiful work, this post, both the words and the content.

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.

i personally appreciate the self disclosure and did not find it too gooey. this is a great example of what Heart of Now (a personal growth workshop i was involved in for several years) called "vision," the concept of going for something that you have not yet personally experienced but will improve the quality of your life. I like the idea of the socks, i think i will try that. You don't mention exercise, has that had any effect in the past? Also, this was posted some time ago, i wonder where your set point is these days.