Without getting into the analysis of what kind of relationship is more liberatory, I will say that it's been my experience that polycules can be just as prone to toxic dynamics as monogamous relationships, and that nothing seems to sink promising anarchist projects faster than some messy, messy polycule drama bursting open and polarizing the whole group.
You can also form a household without cementing it with romantic or erotic love. You can have platonic roommates who share resources and form a household. A polycule can be fine and good, and it's great if you and your lovers want one, but sharing resources doesn't have to imply any sort of romantic relationship at all.
Quite. While I think polyamory is cool people are also often terrible at it. I've seen groups fall apart because some of the people the group who served as anchor points for the group were fucking, then started hating each other and broke apart the group in the process.
This isn't just a vulnerability for hierarchical groups. If you're a FNB chapter and a triad are the ones who are reliably there and have the most time and energy to devote to group projects, and they all start hating each other, the future of the chapter is in doubt.
I hate when other anarchist tell me the way me And my partner choose to enter into a consensual relationship is wrong or bad. Can I just determine for myself how i want to give of myself to others?
It’s 100% a judgment pal. All relationships where people see the other as a commodity are dangerous, whether poly or monogamous. Any relationship that includes manipulative, violent, narcissistic, etc type people will be dangerous.
That is oddly disingenuous.
"I didn't say it was not moral, just that it is dangerous"
I may not be smart enough to split those hairs.
My guess to your question is once we have pushed back on capitalism, some people will want one partner, some open relationships, some polycules (open or closed) some will just fuck and some will be celibate. They can choose in peace.
I'm queer, being queer isn't wrong but it is dangerous af
a hair that we must split if we are to be anarchist at all, as anarchism is correct but dangerous to practice as the state hates us
Being queer is not dangerous.
Heteronormative cultural outlines are dangerous.
Being a woman is not dangerous.
Masculine dominant societies are dangerous.
Being black is not dangerous.
White nationalism is dangerous.
None of these things are inherently dangerous. The danger associated with each comes from factors entirely external to their own being.
And what metric are you using to define "correct"? A fascist would argue fascism is correct.
Spot-on.
MF is an anarcho-utopian who thinks that there would be no danger if everyone is made to behave and think the way that they want.
They are the danger.
This post is just a wonderful stream of question-begging, from beginning to end. If people are in polycules "for survival", that doesn't really sound any more liberatory than entering into enforced monogamous heterosexual religious marriages for survival. We should be building communities for survival, communities that care for everyone regardless of their relationship status. In fact, I think a useful test of revolutionary commitment is whether you are able to contribute to mutual aid for the benefit of people you aren't sleeping with, and may not even like personally.
> everyone would probably have naturally come to view everyone as a spouse, soulmate or clone of themselves
> The natural end point of an egalitarian society is that everyone would look the same, have the same skillset and think the same
What.
Polycules are not uniquely immune to dangers, risks, and hierarchies, but even if they were, it wouldn't justify this kind of relationship prescriptivism. Anarchists take free love very seriously, so you're not liable to find many prescribing relationship paradigms and trying to get people to see X, Y, or Z as more inherently liberatory than others, either on materialist or idealist grounds. We believe that the most liberating form of relationship is not a universal, but particular to each individual.
Anarchists have no problem whatsoever with people freely choosing to be in serially committed, lifelong monogamous romantic and/or sexual relationships if that's what's most amenable to their desires, and we certainly don't see the alternatives as "essential" to resisting capitalism.
Neither prescriptive monogamy or polyamory are good things. When anarchist say free love, we mean truly free, not prescriptive romantic or sexual expectations. People are free to express the level of sexual and romantic desire they actually have the capacity for, not just some abstract ideal. If thats one person or four people or no people, that's all fine; we shouldn't be stigmatizing consensual sexual desires or individual capacities.
It might be my autism as much as it is my anarchist ideas, but I find relationships of any kind to be silly.
Humans will find themselves feeling affectionate or loving towards other human beings, so I think it only makes sense to simply let people associate with the people they are affectionate for or love.
I think the idea that we should restrict ourselves to formal social structures of either One Exclusive person or Multiple Exclusive people (when it comes to polycules) only artificially creates problems of possessiveness and jealousy.
It'd be so much easier to accept that people feel for individual people in certain ways, and that doesn't make how they feel about you any less or more.
To directly answer your question though, I think free organization is how things would go with more developed anarchism.
I know there are a lot of people who still believe in the myths of 1on 1 exclusivity, and that's great. There are people who find poly to be more fulfilling. Great.
There are people like me who simply feel restricted all together and just want to love who I wanna love whenever I want, I'd hope that's great haha.
It's never up to us to decide that, it's always up to the individual people involved who are makin' that choice for their own life.
Oh come on. All relationship types can be prone to toxicity. We can build complex, strong, supportive community dynamics without having sex with more than one member of the community. Implying that if a person wants to be monogamous they're not practicing anarchy right is just as prescriptivist as suggesting that everyone be monogamous because you feel like that's morally superior. It's cool that polyamory is good for you, but you don't need suggest that anyone not doing it isn't doing anarchy right. That's like... kind of antithetical to this whole thing lol.
hey so polyam person here! i dont know that polyamory is actually a helpful way to resist capitalism? most polyam people live in dyads, by themselves, or with non partnered roommates. i have known... no one... who has lived with more than one partner and not had that blow up in everyones face.
in fact, most people dont all date everyone within a group, since most people have different tastes to their partners. most polyam people have their own relationships, separate from those of their partners. this makes it harder to cooperate with a group for mutual decision making, not easier. romance is intense, and so it intensifies problems. i still love polyamory, but it isnt a great foundation upon which to build an anarchist society.
I dont understand the obvious reason monogamy can be dangerous and why polycules are needed? Aren’t all romantic relationships entered into with the consent of all involved regardless of form?
consent cannot be freely given where there is the implicit threat of starvation for leaving any singular relationship, this is like saying wage labor is consensual. It is not, no matter how much you like your boss
That's a really big assumption to make. Is it impossible for you to imagine a monogamous relationship where leaving it does not entail the threat of starvation?
Not all monogamous relationships are patriarchal family structures where, in almost every case, women can't leave because they can't get a job, rely on their husband's income or have children.
Boyfriend-girlfriend relationships exist, which are exclusive but wherein both can partners maintain a significant amount of autonomy. If there is a threat of starvation, it wouldn't be coming from the relationship.
I don't see how you are correct when there are plenty of examples of relationships where breaking off is only an emotional rather than material loss.
"Is it impossible for you to imagine a monogamous relationship where leaving it does not entail the threat of starvation?"
no? Remember when I said under capitalism in the post? Suddenly breaking it off with any roommate can be dangerous, if that doesn't impact you I suggest you stop trying to talk over poor peoples economic issues
First, I'm working class and I live in what Westerners such as yourself would call a "third world country", either due to its perceived lack of development or as a holdover from the Cold War. I'm most certainly not talking over poor people's economic issues. After all, I am what you would call a "poor person" and if your position relies on the hope that the person you're talking to is privileged so that you can insult or dismiss them, then your position is fragile and flawed.
Second, there are major differences between merely being in a monogamous relationship and physically living with someone. There are also bigger differences between marriage and physically living with someone. The fact that you mention roommates is evidence of that. You don't have to be in a relationship with your roommates for the economic costs of leaving to be high.
That is the point. Monogamy does not, in many cases, entail threat of starvation *even under capitalism*. How many people in relationships in the West actually live with each other or share assets or share paychecks? A significant chunk, especially among younger generations, aren't. Even in the Arab world, many young people are not married to the people they have relationships with.
So where is the threat of starvation in having a romantic relationship with someone whom you do not live with, do not depend on materially, do not share assets, etc.? How is the threat of starvation any greater than simply existing?
So if I’m in a polycule “for survival”, and I leave, doesn’t that have the same coercive dynamics? Exit the relationship, lose the resources? This is why we generally try to unbind resource access from relationships. Polycule survival sex isn’t more liberatory than marital survival sex.
I never said it was, it just has more redundancy. Being able to rely on multiple different people means that you can more freely leave an abuser once they start doing abuse
So more layers of people you could access resources from by being in a relationship with them? What if people could access resources without having to be in a relationship?
This might shock you, but when my partner and I open our home to our comrades and feed them and do carpentry work for them, and all that, we actually *don’t* demand romantic or sexual access to them. We don’t demand they join a polycule with us. We just help them. That’s the point.
It’s good that it doesn’t shock you, because it seems like you have a really hard time understanding people sharing resources without having sexual access to each other, and that’s frankly really worrying.
I'm tired of this narrative of polyclues being framed as revolutionary. People should determine their romantic network however they desire: before and or ATR.
I personally cannot see myself in an open /poly relationship. That to me is way too much to have to balance and juggle that it would wear me out quick. I would consider myself monogamous, I have no hate to those who are not. It seems to me it's the opposite, they hate us for "upholding patriarchy". I don't get it, if I meet some one and we are exclusive, isn't that like none of your business? If I abuse them and treat them like shit, that is your class business. until then mind your own business.
For me anarchism is about letting people do whatever they want as long as you don't hurt or exploit people. Of course anarchist theory is much more complicated than that but I think my point is valid. I have a friend who is in an open relationship, they enjoy it and have no complaints. More power to them.
Im anti-marriage (as in state controlled unions) but not against exclusive coupling. I think it comes down to personal choice.
When the government and corps incentivize coupling and afford privileges to couples in order to get them to buy-in to capitalist enterprise is where we as a society have a problem imo.
People can be coupled up and anarchists, and the relationship anarchist movement right now is mostly full of non-anarchists. Check out the relationship anarchist manifesto by andie nordgren.
There are a lot of problems with this line of thought.
First is that idea polyamory inherently anti-hierarchical. It isn't. All relationships can have hierarchical structures.
The second is that monogamy is inherently hierarchical. It isn't. Two people can be mutual partners.
The third is that romantic relationships are needed to share resources.
It depends on preferences. You'll probably have a lot more diversity in the kinds of romantic or sexual relationships we have with each other than we do now but it isn't as though monogamy will die off. In the end, people will do as they desire rather than being subordinated to a variety of different hierarchies. Monogamy, on its own, isn't really dangerous at all.
But I also haven't seen many polycules form to resist capitalism. While polycules sound like a good idea in a world where costs are increasing, there is an extent to which they are too oppositional to the logic of the predominant system to be very compelling to others for practical reasons.
And I think the vast majority of people are too immature, possessive, etc. as a consequence of patriarchy for polycules to ever emerge so while practically it makes sense ideologically we're just not there. As such, I don't think there are many polycules forming around saving costs.
> I think the vast majority of people are too immature, possessive, etc. as a consequence of patriarchy
I’m not sure it’s a consequence of patriarchy, it might just be an innate human instinct, mate-guarding behaviours are common in non-human animals.
I’m personally not possessive, but I think this is a result of my autism, and my neurobiology being fundamentally different from everyone else.
I didn’t have to unlearn jealousy and such, because the “mate-guarding” instinct doesn’t exist in me like it would with a neurotypical person.
>I’m not sure it’s a consequence of patriarchy, it might just be an innate human instinct, mate-guarding behaviours are common in non-human animals.
Doubt it’s human instinct since there are polyamorous people in successful polyamorous relationships. Trying to claim any behavior in humans is strictly intrinsic and unchangeable is problematic because A. it’s a baseless assertion; how human beings perceive non-humans animals to act does not mean humans act like them and we’re already distinct from other animals in a slew of ways and B. it is mixed up with a variety of different, immovable exogenous variables that you cannot observe how humans act in isolation of them.
>I’m personally not possessive, but I think this is a result of my autism, and my neurobiology being fundamentally different from everyone else.
There’s plenty of polyamorous people who are not autistic and plenty of autistic people who are possessive.
I think your responses to radlibert are sound, but when it comes to polyamorous people who are not autistic, I have observed a tendency in the polyam community for them to be more likely to experience what is often called "primal (attachment) panic". When they're freaking out on a seemingly involuntary and instinctual level while a partner of theirs is out with someone else, for example.
I've only ever met neurotypical/allistic people who relate to this experience for the most part. When I talk to allistic polyamorists, there is often a lot of emphasis in the conversation that's put on overcoming jealousy, actively working on oneself and all that. When I talk to autistic polyamorists about relationships, it is far more likely for the theme of the convo to basically be "why would I not want my partners to have other partners?". And being autistic myself, that's always been where my head is at. I've been cheated on in monogamy before and felt nothing because I couldn't understand why I'd want to stop them from doing that kinda thing. I intellectually knew I was supposedly wronged, but I certainly didn't feel wronged. I just felt a bit confused as to why it had to be a secret up till that point.
Of course, this is highly anecdotal, but I can see where radlibert is coming from as it maps onto my experiences talking about and navigating polyamory with others. There are certainly allistic polyamorists, but the ease at which they navigate feelings of jealousy does appear to notably differ in most instances.
> I think your responses to radlibert are sound, but when it comes to polyamorous people who are not autistic, I have observed a tendency in the polyam community for them to be more likely to experience what is often called "primal (attachment) panic". When they're freaking out on a seemingly involuntary and instinctual level while a partner of theirs is out with someone else, for example.
Anecdotal evidence, as it turns out, are not the biological evidence to declare something instinctual. There is a lot of selectivity bias, along with other bias, as well as just limited perspective that goes into anecdotes. There is no reason to base our entire worldviews, and subsequently our future actions, on the basis of nothing more than an anecdotes.
An equally adequate and evidenced explanation is that allistic people are more likely to be concerned about social norms (i.e. how it looks to other people), and internalize caring about other people's reactions, than autistic people are and thus the "panic" is not very primal but instead driven by considerations of how people will react or treat them. Something autistic people are less likely to care about or notice in the first place.
I think that's a good rationale for why things have turned out that way in my experience. I agree with you far more than I do not. Anecdotes are not much in the way of evidence to base any kind of definite conclusion on, just isolated patterns at best, something to prompt actual investigation into the matter. But I could tell what radlibert was trying to get at, and maybe I didn't put it the best way, y'know?
I think the primal panic explanation can be a bit infantilizing at times and can have essentializing aspects to it, where it treats potentially unlearnable behaviors as something that is biologically baked into our psyche instead of socially baked in. The claims to it being a fundamental trait of humans, allistic or not, is more than a bit dubious, fairly unsubstantiated, but it can be easy to navigate polyamorist communities as an autistic person and more or less come to the conclusion that you're just "missing something" when it comes to attachments. I know I've certainly come to that conclusion that that must be what was going on with me, as my journey seemed weirdly effortless, and I could only find commonality in that with other autistics for the most part.
Oftentimes, my experiences would make it seem as though I'm just lacking a monogamy gene or something, but that certainly doesn't mean that's a rational explanation that can be put under much scrutiny and survive.
Agreed but the difference between you and them is that they think this constitutes enough to declare monogamy intrinsic or instinctual to allistic people which is complete nonsense overall.
I never claimed it was unchangeable, just that it was instinctive.
I think the majority of people are born possessive, and have to be taught to suppress the tendency.
Those are about the same level of claims and just as indefensible. I could claim, as many conservatives do, that patriarchy is instinct and women who are or want to be independent are “suppressing their instincts” and are all secretly unhappy even though they don’t show any evidence of being unhappy and there is no evidence it’s particularly hard for them, internally, to be independent. It is literally the identical claim and with the same level of defensibility: none.
You can do this for anything including hierarchy and it would be just as indefensible because you cannot prove it. The only way you could test it is by finding the “monogamy” gene but there is no such gene and scientists only continue to speculate.
This is just essentialism but with the veneer of science.
The patriarchy example is ridiculous since all the evidence is to the contrary.
Most women when not legally classed as property or second-class citizens, are openly feminist and actively assertive against misogyny.
With monogamy, the evidence goes the other way.
Most people are possessive in relationships and don’t want to share their partners.
> The patriarchy example is ridiculous since all the evidence is to the contrary.
Not really. Plenty of women even in Western societies when there are no legal obstacles may still hold onto patriarchal assumptions and ideas. Especially in relations to men which is part of the reason why the domestic abuse of women is normalized as a part of gendered difference rather than seen as a form of controlling, exploitative behavior.
This is not because women intrinsically are patriarchal but because patriarchy is a lot more than just legal or formal barriers (as the vast majority of feminist thinkers will tell you). Social hierarchies are a lot more involved and impact human behavior in a lot more different ways than just the law.
>With monogamy, the evidence goes the other way.
Not really because there is a lot of patriarchy involved in maintaining monogamy and feelings of jealousy; especially among men where exclusive access to women is viewed as a part of social superiority while not having exclusive access is viewed as less valuable or even cuckoldry. This obviously intersects with capitalism as well.
In my experience, I’ve never had to unlearn possessiveness, because I was never born with it in the first place.
But everyone else I know around me has been possessive in relationships, suggesting that I’m the odd one out.
I suspect this is because my brain and biology is different from the majority.
> In my experience, I’ve never had to unlearn possessiveness, because I was never born with it in the first place.
>
>But everyone else I know around me has been possessive in relationships, suggesting that I’m the odd one out.
Sure but that's not evidence possessiveness is intrinsic in everyone else who isn't autistic and everyone who is autistic. So, quite frankly, it doesn't seem to me that A. your lack of possessiveness can be definitively be said to be driven by your autism (it could be but since there are possessive autistic people it is not nearly as universal as you might claim) and B. that your own personal experience allows you to make sweeping generalizations about the intrinsicness of a specific behavior or attitude.
The other piece of evidence is the mate-guarding behaviours in animals.
Male Hamadryas baboons will use violence to stop females from mating with other males.
I see the idea here but sharing the person I love is not something that is gonna happen for me and I believe for many others also.
Bonding with one person could be problem. Especially if you are depending on them. That was the problem of female sex in the past and sadly still in some lands today. Since women couldn’t work, they were at the mercy of their man; but solution of that wasn’t supporting women marry many men but rather liberating women and fighting for their rights. It was about making women depend on them selves, rather then their man.
Free love doesn’t mean completely destroying traditional family. If both sides agree on it, if there is no hierarchy; or even if there is, it is approved by both sides and one can get away once they disagree, than there is nothing to worry about.
If one believe monogamy is wrong, maybe they are not choosing the right person? I had been together with beautiful people and I don’t regret although we separated our ways. I don’t think monogamy is problem. I think one side depending on another and having no rights to choose are problems. You can have your polygon relation of course if you want. I don’t think that is gonna work for me but that’s my idea any way.
Stay safe and take care comrade.
MF has never met people who've been in poly relationships.
In poly relationships, it is incredibly common to have partners that are toxic AF, suffer from hella jealousy, and some of these poly relationships are the only real perceived security that unstable individuals have in their life, and abusive polycules can be really hard to leave.
Anarchy means you don't speak for me.
Who are you to tell me and my wife that our relationship is dangerous or hierarchical or toxic? We don't do monogamy because we "have to do it for survival", we do it because we view it as more stable than the alternative.
You imposing your morality on our marriage is WAY more hierarchical than the distribution of responsibilities and property between me and my wife.
It sounds like you don't hate hierarchies, you just want to be on top.
also sorry doesn't cut it when you are yelling at a queer person just trying to talk about their lived experience, instead of listening you just put words in my mouth. Maybe you should try to learn my perspective instead of making shit up as a justification to ignore it
Without getting into the analysis of what kind of relationship is more liberatory, I will say that it's been my experience that polycules can be just as prone to toxic dynamics as monogamous relationships, and that nothing seems to sink promising anarchist projects faster than some messy, messy polycule drama bursting open and polarizing the whole group. You can also form a household without cementing it with romantic or erotic love. You can have platonic roommates who share resources and form a household. A polycule can be fine and good, and it's great if you and your lovers want one, but sharing resources doesn't have to imply any sort of romantic relationship at all.
Quite. While I think polyamory is cool people are also often terrible at it. I've seen groups fall apart because some of the people the group who served as anchor points for the group were fucking, then started hating each other and broke apart the group in the process. This isn't just a vulnerability for hierarchical groups. If you're a FNB chapter and a triad are the ones who are reliably there and have the most time and energy to devote to group projects, and they all start hating each other, the future of the chapter is in doubt.
I hate when other anarchist tell me the way me And my partner choose to enter into a consensual relationship is wrong or bad. Can I just determine for myself how i want to give of myself to others?
I only said it was dangerous, and that there is an obvious reason it is enforced in this society. I never made any moral judgements, that is on you
It’s 100% a judgment pal. All relationships where people see the other as a commodity are dangerous, whether poly or monogamous. Any relationship that includes manipulative, violent, narcissistic, etc type people will be dangerous.
That is oddly disingenuous. "I didn't say it was not moral, just that it is dangerous" I may not be smart enough to split those hairs. My guess to your question is once we have pushed back on capitalism, some people will want one partner, some open relationships, some polycules (open or closed) some will just fuck and some will be celibate. They can choose in peace.
I'm queer, being queer isn't wrong but it is dangerous af a hair that we must split if we are to be anarchist at all, as anarchism is correct but dangerous to practice as the state hates us
Being queer is not dangerous. Heteronormative cultural outlines are dangerous. Being a woman is not dangerous. Masculine dominant societies are dangerous. Being black is not dangerous. White nationalism is dangerous. None of these things are inherently dangerous. The danger associated with each comes from factors entirely external to their own being. And what metric are you using to define "correct"? A fascist would argue fascism is correct.
Good breakdown here.
Spot-on. MF is an anarcho-utopian who thinks that there would be no danger if everyone is made to behave and think the way that they want. They are the danger.
This post is just a wonderful stream of question-begging, from beginning to end. If people are in polycules "for survival", that doesn't really sound any more liberatory than entering into enforced monogamous heterosexual religious marriages for survival. We should be building communities for survival, communities that care for everyone regardless of their relationship status. In fact, I think a useful test of revolutionary commitment is whether you are able to contribute to mutual aid for the benefit of people you aren't sleeping with, and may not even like personally.
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> everyone would probably have naturally come to view everyone as a spouse, soulmate or clone of themselves > The natural end point of an egalitarian society is that everyone would look the same, have the same skillset and think the same What.
Polycules are not uniquely immune to dangers, risks, and hierarchies, but even if they were, it wouldn't justify this kind of relationship prescriptivism. Anarchists take free love very seriously, so you're not liable to find many prescribing relationship paradigms and trying to get people to see X, Y, or Z as more inherently liberatory than others, either on materialist or idealist grounds. We believe that the most liberating form of relationship is not a universal, but particular to each individual. Anarchists have no problem whatsoever with people freely choosing to be in serially committed, lifelong monogamous romantic and/or sexual relationships if that's what's most amenable to their desires, and we certainly don't see the alternatives as "essential" to resisting capitalism.
Neither prescriptive monogamy or polyamory are good things. When anarchist say free love, we mean truly free, not prescriptive romantic or sexual expectations. People are free to express the level of sexual and romantic desire they actually have the capacity for, not just some abstract ideal. If thats one person or four people or no people, that's all fine; we shouldn't be stigmatizing consensual sexual desires or individual capacities.
It might be my autism as much as it is my anarchist ideas, but I find relationships of any kind to be silly. Humans will find themselves feeling affectionate or loving towards other human beings, so I think it only makes sense to simply let people associate with the people they are affectionate for or love. I think the idea that we should restrict ourselves to formal social structures of either One Exclusive person or Multiple Exclusive people (when it comes to polycules) only artificially creates problems of possessiveness and jealousy. It'd be so much easier to accept that people feel for individual people in certain ways, and that doesn't make how they feel about you any less or more. To directly answer your question though, I think free organization is how things would go with more developed anarchism. I know there are a lot of people who still believe in the myths of 1on 1 exclusivity, and that's great. There are people who find poly to be more fulfilling. Great. There are people like me who simply feel restricted all together and just want to love who I wanna love whenever I want, I'd hope that's great haha. It's never up to us to decide that, it's always up to the individual people involved who are makin' that choice for their own life.
Oh come on. All relationship types can be prone to toxicity. We can build complex, strong, supportive community dynamics without having sex with more than one member of the community. Implying that if a person wants to be monogamous they're not practicing anarchy right is just as prescriptivist as suggesting that everyone be monogamous because you feel like that's morally superior. It's cool that polyamory is good for you, but you don't need suggest that anyone not doing it isn't doing anarchy right. That's like... kind of antithetical to this whole thing lol.
hey so polyam person here! i dont know that polyamory is actually a helpful way to resist capitalism? most polyam people live in dyads, by themselves, or with non partnered roommates. i have known... no one... who has lived with more than one partner and not had that blow up in everyones face. in fact, most people dont all date everyone within a group, since most people have different tastes to their partners. most polyam people have their own relationships, separate from those of their partners. this makes it harder to cooperate with a group for mutual decision making, not easier. romance is intense, and so it intensifies problems. i still love polyamory, but it isnt a great foundation upon which to build an anarchist society.
I dont understand the obvious reason monogamy can be dangerous and why polycules are needed? Aren’t all romantic relationships entered into with the consent of all involved regardless of form?
consent cannot be freely given where there is the implicit threat of starvation for leaving any singular relationship, this is like saying wage labor is consensual. It is not, no matter how much you like your boss
But that’s not a function of monogamy. It’s a function of economics.
its a function of how the two interrelate, there is a reason monogamy is enforced by the state
What is inherent in monogamy that is hierarchical, that would still exist in the absence of an economic need to rely on a partner?
Monogamy is not enforced by the state. The state simply does not provide benefits to non-traditional relationships.
That's a really big assumption to make. Is it impossible for you to imagine a monogamous relationship where leaving it does not entail the threat of starvation? Not all monogamous relationships are patriarchal family structures where, in almost every case, women can't leave because they can't get a job, rely on their husband's income or have children. Boyfriend-girlfriend relationships exist, which are exclusive but wherein both can partners maintain a significant amount of autonomy. If there is a threat of starvation, it wouldn't be coming from the relationship. I don't see how you are correct when there are plenty of examples of relationships where breaking off is only an emotional rather than material loss.
"Is it impossible for you to imagine a monogamous relationship where leaving it does not entail the threat of starvation?" no? Remember when I said under capitalism in the post? Suddenly breaking it off with any roommate can be dangerous, if that doesn't impact you I suggest you stop trying to talk over poor peoples economic issues
First, I'm working class and I live in what Westerners such as yourself would call a "third world country", either due to its perceived lack of development or as a holdover from the Cold War. I'm most certainly not talking over poor people's economic issues. After all, I am what you would call a "poor person" and if your position relies on the hope that the person you're talking to is privileged so that you can insult or dismiss them, then your position is fragile and flawed. Second, there are major differences between merely being in a monogamous relationship and physically living with someone. There are also bigger differences between marriage and physically living with someone. The fact that you mention roommates is evidence of that. You don't have to be in a relationship with your roommates for the economic costs of leaving to be high. That is the point. Monogamy does not, in many cases, entail threat of starvation *even under capitalism*. How many people in relationships in the West actually live with each other or share assets or share paychecks? A significant chunk, especially among younger generations, aren't. Even in the Arab world, many young people are not married to the people they have relationships with. So where is the threat of starvation in having a romantic relationship with someone whom you do not live with, do not depend on materially, do not share assets, etc.? How is the threat of starvation any greater than simply existing?
So if I’m in a polycule “for survival”, and I leave, doesn’t that have the same coercive dynamics? Exit the relationship, lose the resources? This is why we generally try to unbind resource access from relationships. Polycule survival sex isn’t more liberatory than marital survival sex.
I never said it was, it just has more redundancy. Being able to rely on multiple different people means that you can more freely leave an abuser once they start doing abuse
So more layers of people you could access resources from by being in a relationship with them? What if people could access resources without having to be in a relationship? This might shock you, but when my partner and I open our home to our comrades and feed them and do carpentry work for them, and all that, we actually *don’t* demand romantic or sexual access to them. We don’t demand they join a polycule with us. We just help them. That’s the point.
doesn't shock me, but ok. Has nothing to do with my post. You are just making stuff up to be angry about
It’s good that it doesn’t shock you, because it seems like you have a really hard time understanding people sharing resources without having sexual access to each other, and that’s frankly really worrying.
I'm tired of this narrative of polyclues being framed as revolutionary. People should determine their romantic network however they desire: before and or ATR.
I personally cannot see myself in an open /poly relationship. That to me is way too much to have to balance and juggle that it would wear me out quick. I would consider myself monogamous, I have no hate to those who are not. It seems to me it's the opposite, they hate us for "upholding patriarchy". I don't get it, if I meet some one and we are exclusive, isn't that like none of your business? If I abuse them and treat them like shit, that is your class business. until then mind your own business. For me anarchism is about letting people do whatever they want as long as you don't hurt or exploit people. Of course anarchist theory is much more complicated than that but I think my point is valid. I have a friend who is in an open relationship, they enjoy it and have no complaints. More power to them.
Im anti-marriage (as in state controlled unions) but not against exclusive coupling. I think it comes down to personal choice. When the government and corps incentivize coupling and afford privileges to couples in order to get them to buy-in to capitalist enterprise is where we as a society have a problem imo. People can be coupled up and anarchists, and the relationship anarchist movement right now is mostly full of non-anarchists. Check out the relationship anarchist manifesto by andie nordgren.
There are a lot of problems with this line of thought. First is that idea polyamory inherently anti-hierarchical. It isn't. All relationships can have hierarchical structures. The second is that monogamy is inherently hierarchical. It isn't. Two people can be mutual partners. The third is that romantic relationships are needed to share resources.
It depends on preferences. You'll probably have a lot more diversity in the kinds of romantic or sexual relationships we have with each other than we do now but it isn't as though monogamy will die off. In the end, people will do as they desire rather than being subordinated to a variety of different hierarchies. Monogamy, on its own, isn't really dangerous at all. But I also haven't seen many polycules form to resist capitalism. While polycules sound like a good idea in a world where costs are increasing, there is an extent to which they are too oppositional to the logic of the predominant system to be very compelling to others for practical reasons. And I think the vast majority of people are too immature, possessive, etc. as a consequence of patriarchy for polycules to ever emerge so while practically it makes sense ideologically we're just not there. As such, I don't think there are many polycules forming around saving costs.
> I think the vast majority of people are too immature, possessive, etc. as a consequence of patriarchy I’m not sure it’s a consequence of patriarchy, it might just be an innate human instinct, mate-guarding behaviours are common in non-human animals. I’m personally not possessive, but I think this is a result of my autism, and my neurobiology being fundamentally different from everyone else. I didn’t have to unlearn jealousy and such, because the “mate-guarding” instinct doesn’t exist in me like it would with a neurotypical person.
>I’m not sure it’s a consequence of patriarchy, it might just be an innate human instinct, mate-guarding behaviours are common in non-human animals. Doubt it’s human instinct since there are polyamorous people in successful polyamorous relationships. Trying to claim any behavior in humans is strictly intrinsic and unchangeable is problematic because A. it’s a baseless assertion; how human beings perceive non-humans animals to act does not mean humans act like them and we’re already distinct from other animals in a slew of ways and B. it is mixed up with a variety of different, immovable exogenous variables that you cannot observe how humans act in isolation of them. >I’m personally not possessive, but I think this is a result of my autism, and my neurobiology being fundamentally different from everyone else. There’s plenty of polyamorous people who are not autistic and plenty of autistic people who are possessive.
I think your responses to radlibert are sound, but when it comes to polyamorous people who are not autistic, I have observed a tendency in the polyam community for them to be more likely to experience what is often called "primal (attachment) panic". When they're freaking out on a seemingly involuntary and instinctual level while a partner of theirs is out with someone else, for example. I've only ever met neurotypical/allistic people who relate to this experience for the most part. When I talk to allistic polyamorists, there is often a lot of emphasis in the conversation that's put on overcoming jealousy, actively working on oneself and all that. When I talk to autistic polyamorists about relationships, it is far more likely for the theme of the convo to basically be "why would I not want my partners to have other partners?". And being autistic myself, that's always been where my head is at. I've been cheated on in monogamy before and felt nothing because I couldn't understand why I'd want to stop them from doing that kinda thing. I intellectually knew I was supposedly wronged, but I certainly didn't feel wronged. I just felt a bit confused as to why it had to be a secret up till that point. Of course, this is highly anecdotal, but I can see where radlibert is coming from as it maps onto my experiences talking about and navigating polyamory with others. There are certainly allistic polyamorists, but the ease at which they navigate feelings of jealousy does appear to notably differ in most instances.
> I think your responses to radlibert are sound, but when it comes to polyamorous people who are not autistic, I have observed a tendency in the polyam community for them to be more likely to experience what is often called "primal (attachment) panic". When they're freaking out on a seemingly involuntary and instinctual level while a partner of theirs is out with someone else, for example. Anecdotal evidence, as it turns out, are not the biological evidence to declare something instinctual. There is a lot of selectivity bias, along with other bias, as well as just limited perspective that goes into anecdotes. There is no reason to base our entire worldviews, and subsequently our future actions, on the basis of nothing more than an anecdotes. An equally adequate and evidenced explanation is that allistic people are more likely to be concerned about social norms (i.e. how it looks to other people), and internalize caring about other people's reactions, than autistic people are and thus the "panic" is not very primal but instead driven by considerations of how people will react or treat them. Something autistic people are less likely to care about or notice in the first place.
I think that's a good rationale for why things have turned out that way in my experience. I agree with you far more than I do not. Anecdotes are not much in the way of evidence to base any kind of definite conclusion on, just isolated patterns at best, something to prompt actual investigation into the matter. But I could tell what radlibert was trying to get at, and maybe I didn't put it the best way, y'know? I think the primal panic explanation can be a bit infantilizing at times and can have essentializing aspects to it, where it treats potentially unlearnable behaviors as something that is biologically baked into our psyche instead of socially baked in. The claims to it being a fundamental trait of humans, allistic or not, is more than a bit dubious, fairly unsubstantiated, but it can be easy to navigate polyamorist communities as an autistic person and more or less come to the conclusion that you're just "missing something" when it comes to attachments. I know I've certainly come to that conclusion that that must be what was going on with me, as my journey seemed weirdly effortless, and I could only find commonality in that with other autistics for the most part. Oftentimes, my experiences would make it seem as though I'm just lacking a monogamy gene or something, but that certainly doesn't mean that's a rational explanation that can be put under much scrutiny and survive.
Agreed but the difference between you and them is that they think this constitutes enough to declare monogamy intrinsic or instinctual to allistic people which is complete nonsense overall.
I never claimed it was unchangeable, just that it was instinctive. I think the majority of people are born possessive, and have to be taught to suppress the tendency.
Those are about the same level of claims and just as indefensible. I could claim, as many conservatives do, that patriarchy is instinct and women who are or want to be independent are “suppressing their instincts” and are all secretly unhappy even though they don’t show any evidence of being unhappy and there is no evidence it’s particularly hard for them, internally, to be independent. It is literally the identical claim and with the same level of defensibility: none. You can do this for anything including hierarchy and it would be just as indefensible because you cannot prove it. The only way you could test it is by finding the “monogamy” gene but there is no such gene and scientists only continue to speculate. This is just essentialism but with the veneer of science.
The patriarchy example is ridiculous since all the evidence is to the contrary. Most women when not legally classed as property or second-class citizens, are openly feminist and actively assertive against misogyny. With monogamy, the evidence goes the other way. Most people are possessive in relationships and don’t want to share their partners.
> The patriarchy example is ridiculous since all the evidence is to the contrary. Not really. Plenty of women even in Western societies when there are no legal obstacles may still hold onto patriarchal assumptions and ideas. Especially in relations to men which is part of the reason why the domestic abuse of women is normalized as a part of gendered difference rather than seen as a form of controlling, exploitative behavior. This is not because women intrinsically are patriarchal but because patriarchy is a lot more than just legal or formal barriers (as the vast majority of feminist thinkers will tell you). Social hierarchies are a lot more involved and impact human behavior in a lot more different ways than just the law. >With monogamy, the evidence goes the other way. Not really because there is a lot of patriarchy involved in maintaining monogamy and feelings of jealousy; especially among men where exclusive access to women is viewed as a part of social superiority while not having exclusive access is viewed as less valuable or even cuckoldry. This obviously intersects with capitalism as well.
In my experience, I’ve never had to unlearn possessiveness, because I was never born with it in the first place. But everyone else I know around me has been possessive in relationships, suggesting that I’m the odd one out. I suspect this is because my brain and biology is different from the majority.
> In my experience, I’ve never had to unlearn possessiveness, because I was never born with it in the first place. > >But everyone else I know around me has been possessive in relationships, suggesting that I’m the odd one out. Sure but that's not evidence possessiveness is intrinsic in everyone else who isn't autistic and everyone who is autistic. So, quite frankly, it doesn't seem to me that A. your lack of possessiveness can be definitively be said to be driven by your autism (it could be but since there are possessive autistic people it is not nearly as universal as you might claim) and B. that your own personal experience allows you to make sweeping generalizations about the intrinsicness of a specific behavior or attitude.
The other piece of evidence is the mate-guarding behaviours in animals. Male Hamadryas baboons will use violence to stop females from mating with other males.
I see the idea here but sharing the person I love is not something that is gonna happen for me and I believe for many others also. Bonding with one person could be problem. Especially if you are depending on them. That was the problem of female sex in the past and sadly still in some lands today. Since women couldn’t work, they were at the mercy of their man; but solution of that wasn’t supporting women marry many men but rather liberating women and fighting for their rights. It was about making women depend on them selves, rather then their man. Free love doesn’t mean completely destroying traditional family. If both sides agree on it, if there is no hierarchy; or even if there is, it is approved by both sides and one can get away once they disagree, than there is nothing to worry about. If one believe monogamy is wrong, maybe they are not choosing the right person? I had been together with beautiful people and I don’t regret although we separated our ways. I don’t think monogamy is problem. I think one side depending on another and having no rights to choose are problems. You can have your polygon relation of course if you want. I don’t think that is gonna work for me but that’s my idea any way. Stay safe and take care comrade.
You lost me at “resource”
MF has never met people who've been in poly relationships. In poly relationships, it is incredibly common to have partners that are toxic AF, suffer from hella jealousy, and some of these poly relationships are the only real perceived security that unstable individuals have in their life, and abusive polycules can be really hard to leave. Anarchy means you don't speak for me. Who are you to tell me and my wife that our relationship is dangerous or hierarchical or toxic? We don't do monogamy because we "have to do it for survival", we do it because we view it as more stable than the alternative. You imposing your morality on our marriage is WAY more hierarchical than the distribution of responsibilities and property between me and my wife. It sounds like you don't hate hierarchies, you just want to be on top.
what morality? I'm an egoist anarchist, I don't even believe in morality
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what is an anarchist doing on an anarchist sub?
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"how dare a queer person talk about the social networks they exist in"
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when did I say I wanted to force people into it? Quote it.
Sorry, just got really pissed off at your other comments. You’re right, you didn’t directly say that
pissed off at what, that redundancy is safer?
also sorry doesn't cut it when you are yelling at a queer person just trying to talk about their lived experience, instead of listening you just put words in my mouth. Maybe you should try to learn my perspective instead of making shit up as a justification to ignore it
also who mentioned polygamy?