Fundamentally they both come from anarchist ways of thinking. If there is no higher order or rule, and nobody has any veto power over anyone else, then the only thing left is to manage each relationship on an equal footing.
Poly for me is about the basic idea that nobody gets veto power over anybody else’s relationship, which means exclusivity simply doesn’t happen. It’s just like if you had a friend that said you weren’t allowed to have other friends. That would be weird, and there’s no real reason why romantic relationships should be any different.
interesting, because for me the appeal of poly relationships (specific kind, mind) is specifically the idea of being exclusive with a group of people, like we’re all married and equally into each other.
I mean if you find that arrangment happens to you organically then great, but ultimately if you have three people all together, that’s three pairs. Four people is six pairs.
There’s no getting around that fact, that’s just how many combinations there are. And if just one of those pairs breaks up for whatever reason, then that mutual group stops working. It’s a very tenuous arrangement. It can also be a big strain on the other pairs when that happens, especially if it breaks with the understanding of what the group is supposed to be.
That’s why I think it’s best not to have that kind of arrangement as a goal. It can happen, but trying to make it happen creates a situation where some pairs will feel pressure to go along with it even if they’re not a good match, which is a recipe for further drama. If there’s no goal like that, then people can feel the freedom to keep their connection loose if they feel like it.
Fuck, I’ll never be able unlink federated social media and polyamory in my head now.
Fundamentally they both come from anarchist ways of thinking. If there is no higher order or rule, and nobody has any veto power over anyone else, then the only thing left is to manage each relationship on an equal footing.
Poly for me is about the basic idea that nobody gets veto power over anybody else’s relationship, which means exclusivity simply doesn’t happen. It’s just like if you had a friend that said you weren’t allowed to have other friends. That would be weird, and there’s no real reason why romantic relationships should be any different.
interesting, because for me the appeal of poly relationships (specific kind, mind) is specifically the idea of being exclusive with a group of people, like we’re all married and equally into each other.
I mean if you find that arrangment happens to you organically then great, but ultimately if you have three people all together, that’s three pairs. Four people is six pairs.
There’s no getting around that fact, that’s just how many combinations there are. And if just one of those pairs breaks up for whatever reason, then that mutual group stops working. It’s a very tenuous arrangement. It can also be a big strain on the other pairs when that happens, especially if it breaks with the understanding of what the group is supposed to be.
That’s why I think it’s best not to have that kind of arrangement as a goal. It can happen, but trying to make it happen creates a situation where some pairs will feel pressure to go along with it even if they’re not a good match, which is a recipe for further drama. If there’s no goal like that, then people can feel the freedom to keep their connection loose if they feel like it.