"To this I would just refer back to the statistics on the likelihood of abuse when an adult other than a parent is in the home. Why would those be different in a polyamorous situation? That’s my general system level proof of which one of these is likely better for children at the social level of analysis. Also the statistics about the general well-being of children with two parents in the home. That is very clearly more stable, you probably know those statistics better than I do, and while of course not perfect it does seem very hard to argue that if that wasn’t the case for more people (which we know is possible because it was the case for virtually everyone not that long ago) general welfare would be much better."
Hm, this didn't occur to me because I rarely see poly people bring a third person into the home itself. I more often see partners interact with the children the same way as any other close friend.
But also, thinking about this in near mode - does this mean people shouldn't live with their extended families? Shouldn't have nannies? That single moms shouldn't remarry? I think usually people agree that an extra parent-figure is worth this risk, especially if very carefully screened. I haven't thought about this much because I haven't seen this situation, it's not something I have a strong opinion about, but it doesn't seem that different from things which we already acknowledge are good.
I'm not sure I agree with the man from Mars argument for two reasons. If the third partner was living with the couple, it would look completely different from cheating. If they weren't, I think the Martian would process it as an unusual sort of friend or relative - someone sometimes comes to the house, everyone is glad to see them, they all hang out together, and maybe the third person helps take care of the kids sometimes. I don't think it would look very much like cheating unless the Martian already privileged the have sex/don't have sex distinction above everything else. But also, I'm not sure I agree with the Martian argument at all. Movers bringing your stuff to a new home would look to a Martian a lot like thieves robbing you. So what? Are we supposed to draw some deep conclusion from that?
"When you have a “primary” relationship would you ever be okay with someone making you one of their “secondary” relationships and treating you like a lower priority when this is consuming your time/resources to go make another bond with someone else? I haven’t read all of your old stuff but someone pointed me to a piece a few weeks ago where it seems like some people were pretty shitty to you. Can you easily imagine a future where if this satellite person wasn’t spending their time with you that they go off and find a more fulfilling relationship? If the answer to that question is yes and you imagine that person thirty years in the future what do they ask you to do right now in order to help them on their way? Are you doing that? Maybe the answer to that exercise really is “I love you so much that I always just wanted to sort of be in your orbit, but never really mattering enough to be in the home with you.” I won’t lay out the last one because I just typed it out and it felt mean but yeah, if the person you loved most in the world was involved in this kind of a situation would you think that is what is best for them and everyone is doing their best for them?"
I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what you mean here. If you mean "X is Y's primary, but Y is X's secondary", I agree that's not a good kind of relationship. I don't really see it happen and I think people would be against it with their usual "be against specific unhealthy dynamics" module. If you mean "do you think someone will help their other partners find primaries and build happy families", then yes, this seems to be what happens. I wrote my partner's dating site profile, and my wife actually tried to match up one of her partners with a mutual friend last week.
I do hope that I'm adding (rather than subtracting) to most of my partners' lives, and they're adding (rather than subtracting) to mine. I don't want to do too much personal infodumping to you, but one of my partners helped me through a really hard time, let me live with them when I had nowhere else to live, and was partly responsible for me starting this blog. Another comes over once or twice a week to help take care of our children. I've helped one of my partners get their business to work, and am helping another partner and her husband figure out IVF and genetic screening issues.
I continue to be interested in knowing the exact way it doesn't work at scale. We have Aella's survey data which says poly relationships seem to last as long as mono and have the same level of self-rated security and satisfaction. If you tell me a specific theory about the problem with poly relationships, I can probably get Aella to test it.
I’ll email you for the sake of observing the forms of truth-seeking but I would advise you to ignore it because you have twins who matter way more. I feel like I’m scolding someone who is gay about being gay and that isn’t my intent. You’re a person, whatever a perfect relationship might be with zero entropy at zero degrees kelvin doesn’t matter as much as your humanity. If you have history with people that certainly matters and it’s very important.
I have my own bullshit which I fully admit might color my views here. I doubt I’ll be able to think up some test that could be obtained by filtering some columns in a spreadsheet that someone hasn’t already filtered. But I’ll see if I can’t think of something worth typing up an email over.
Everything you're saying makes sense and I'm not upset. I hope I'm not crossing the line by discussing your childhood trauma too dispassionately. I'll probably ask people in general for a test in a Highlights From The Comments post, so don't feel obligated to figure one out if you're not excited about doing so.
Trivers' theory of genetic conflict raises its head here. It's bad for her existing children, but can permit her to have additional children who have entirely different interests.
"To this I would just refer back to the statistics on the likelihood of abuse when an adult other than a parent is in the home. Why would those be different in a polyamorous situation? That’s my general system level proof of which one of these is likely better for children at the social level of analysis. Also the statistics about the general well-being of children with two parents in the home. That is very clearly more stable, you probably know those statistics better than I do, and while of course not perfect it does seem very hard to argue that if that wasn’t the case for more people (which we know is possible because it was the case for virtually everyone not that long ago) general welfare would be much better."
Hm, this didn't occur to me because I rarely see poly people bring a third person into the home itself. I more often see partners interact with the children the same way as any other close friend.
But also, thinking about this in near mode - does this mean people shouldn't live with their extended families? Shouldn't have nannies? That single moms shouldn't remarry? I think usually people agree that an extra parent-figure is worth this risk, especially if very carefully screened. I haven't thought about this much because I haven't seen this situation, it's not something I have a strong opinion about, but it doesn't seem that different from things which we already acknowledge are good.
I'm not sure I agree with the man from Mars argument for two reasons. If the third partner was living with the couple, it would look completely different from cheating. If they weren't, I think the Martian would process it as an unusual sort of friend or relative - someone sometimes comes to the house, everyone is glad to see them, they all hang out together, and maybe the third person helps take care of the kids sometimes. I don't think it would look very much like cheating unless the Martian already privileged the have sex/don't have sex distinction above everything else. But also, I'm not sure I agree with the Martian argument at all. Movers bringing your stuff to a new home would look to a Martian a lot like thieves robbing you. So what? Are we supposed to draw some deep conclusion from that?
"When you have a “primary” relationship would you ever be okay with someone making you one of their “secondary” relationships and treating you like a lower priority when this is consuming your time/resources to go make another bond with someone else? I haven’t read all of your old stuff but someone pointed me to a piece a few weeks ago where it seems like some people were pretty shitty to you. Can you easily imagine a future where if this satellite person wasn’t spending their time with you that they go off and find a more fulfilling relationship? If the answer to that question is yes and you imagine that person thirty years in the future what do they ask you to do right now in order to help them on their way? Are you doing that? Maybe the answer to that exercise really is “I love you so much that I always just wanted to sort of be in your orbit, but never really mattering enough to be in the home with you.” I won’t lay out the last one because I just typed it out and it felt mean but yeah, if the person you loved most in the world was involved in this kind of a situation would you think that is what is best for them and everyone is doing their best for them?"
I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what you mean here. If you mean "X is Y's primary, but Y is X's secondary", I agree that's not a good kind of relationship. I don't really see it happen and I think people would be against it with their usual "be against specific unhealthy dynamics" module. If you mean "do you think someone will help their other partners find primaries and build happy families", then yes, this seems to be what happens. I wrote my partner's dating site profile, and my wife actually tried to match up one of her partners with a mutual friend last week.
I do hope that I'm adding (rather than subtracting) to most of my partners' lives, and they're adding (rather than subtracting) to mine. I don't want to do too much personal infodumping to you, but one of my partners helped me through a really hard time, let me live with them when I had nowhere else to live, and was partly responsible for me starting this blog. Another comes over once or twice a week to help take care of our children. I've helped one of my partners get their business to work, and am helping another partner and her husband figure out IVF and genetic screening issues.
I continue to be interested in knowing the exact way it doesn't work at scale. We have Aella's survey data which says poly relationships seem to last as long as mono and have the same level of self-rated security and satisfaction. If you tell me a specific theory about the problem with poly relationships, I can probably get Aella to test it.
I’ll email you for the sake of observing the forms of truth-seeking but I would advise you to ignore it because you have twins who matter way more. I feel like I’m scolding someone who is gay about being gay and that isn’t my intent. You’re a person, whatever a perfect relationship might be with zero entropy at zero degrees kelvin doesn’t matter as much as your humanity. If you have history with people that certainly matters and it’s very important.
I have my own bullshit which I fully admit might color my views here. I doubt I’ll be able to think up some test that could be obtained by filtering some columns in a spreadsheet that someone hasn’t already filtered. But I’ll see if I can’t think of something worth typing up an email over.
Everything you're saying makes sense and I'm not upset. I hope I'm not crossing the line by discussing your childhood trauma too dispassionately. I'll probably ask people in general for a test in a Highlights From The Comments post, so don't feel obligated to figure one out if you're not excited about doing so.
Email sent and likewise no offense taken.
> That single moms shouldn't remarry?
Trivers' theory of genetic conflict raises its head here. It's bad for her existing children, but can permit her to have additional children who have entirely different interests.