Hierarchical polyamory, in which each individual has (usually) one primary partner and some number of secondary partners.Polyfidelity, in which >2 people form a single committed relationship that does not allow outside partners.Polyamory, the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. This category is extremely broad, but the most common variations include:.Swinging, in which couples engage in social, recreational sex, mostly with other couples.Non-consensual non-monogamy, the most popular alternative.Other options that have been explored and documented include:
This, then, is your exercise: spend five minutes thinking about why your choice of monogamy is preferable to all of the other inhabitants of relationship-style-space, for you. If you haven't had it before, you now have the same opportunity that I lucked into several years ago, if you choose to exploit it. Others I've spoken with have had similar experiences. In this discussion I am targeting monogamy because its discovery has had an effect on my life that is orders of magnitude greater than that of any other previously-unknown known.
This holds even when I'm dating only one person polyamorous relationships have a kind of freedom to them that is impossible to obtain any other way, as well as a set of similarly unique responsibilities. Since that fateful day, I've been involved in both polyamorous and monogamous relationships, and I've become quite confident that I am happier, more fulfilled, and a better romantic partner when I am polyamorous. I couldn't come up with any particularly compelling answers, so I called Emma up and we planned a second date. It was certainly a good enough reason to ask myself, "Self, what's so great about this monogamy thing?" The chance to date a pretty girl, though, can be sufficient motivation for a great many things (as is also the case with pretty boys). Acknowledging default settings is not easy.
Advantages and disadvantages of serial monogamy wiki free#
I had previously had some vague awareness that there had been a free love movement in the sixties that encouraged "alternative lifestyles", but that awareness was not a sufficient motivation for me to challenge my default belief that romantic relationships could only be conducted one at a time.
When I was eighteen I went on a date with a girl I'll call Emma, who conscientiously informed me that she already had two boyfriends: she was, she said, polyamorous. The answers might not change your mind, but you'll still come out of the process with more knowledge than you went in with. A single observation can be all it takes, if you're paying attention and asking questions. Unless it's pointed out to us or we find contradictory evidence, that is. So even when our culture gives us a fairly accurate map of the territory, we'll never notice the Mercator projection's effect. These unknown knowns are largely the products of a particular culture they require homogeneity of belief to remain unknown.īy definition, we are each completely ignorant of our own unknown knowns. In the twelfth century, most Europeans possessed the unquestioned default belief that the Christian god existed. For example, most modern Americans possess the unquestioned default belief that they have some moral responsibility for their own freely-chosen actions. This category encompasses the knowledge of many of our own personal beliefs, what I call unquestioned defaults. These are things we do not know we don’t know.īut this taxonomy (as originally described) omits an important fourth category: unknown knowns, the things we don't know that we know. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. Many of us are familiar with Donald Rumsfeld's famous (and surprisingly useful) taxonomy of knowledge:
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