In the Wikipedia article on polyamory, there’s a Criticisms section that lists two criticisms. This thread is about the first, called “division of love”. Here’s the full text:
I think the Heinlein quote, when used as a defense against this criticism at least, undercuts itself with its last sentence. Time itself, which may definitely be considered a scarce commodity, places binding limits on how many one can love. This remains true even if one accepts the “Love Languages” personality typology, according to which quality time is only one of the five ways to express one’s love to the loved one. For each of the other four—words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch—also takes time: nobody has enough time to express their love in any of these ways to each individual that belongs to the majority of human beings.
Let’s imagine a polyarmory free from any sex. It is like having many friends. Should you have only one friend, or lost of friends? Reason would say that we need some friends, not too many, not too few. Time is finite but that doesn’t mean we can’t feel love for allot of individuals. We can only spend time with a few in life though, so we are supposed-to choose the best or most productive and ideal relationships. Also in a polyamorous relationship, you get attention from each of the people in the love triangle instead of just one. The common heterosexual monogamy I see seems vile, even in canada. The so called love develops, then there is violence and control, and you should know this in fine detail if you have seen how commoners relate in this type of “love”.
A polyamorous relationship is usually V-shaped rather than triangular. In that case, it consists of only one polyamorous person, and two monamorous ones. A love triangle or square or whatever would not be a problem, as then every participant would always get 1/x * x of the love that the others give, just as in a monamorous relationship. To me love (eros) is very different from friendship (philia).
Well I’m on meds that take away almost all of my horniness. I’m left with relationships based on mutual interests in the other aspects of life, such as the arts. You’re V shape is going to be f-ed. But that is because of the common monogamy stuff. I know that monogamy works for some people, but I’ve seen nothing but shit in practice. It looks good on paper bad in practice.
I don’t think that its a one size fits all thing. Some are more naturally inclined to love many and some naturally inclined to love no one. Most fit in-between somewhere.
side 1, the rare ideal intimacy, is about helping someone. The desire to help is first, then “help them feel loved, excited, happy”, etc.
side 2, wanting to fuck.
People in general may be intimate with only one person at a time, but through their life they have had multiple partners. Just not multiple at the same time.
I think your division, even if basically correct, is too extreme. Anyway, I don’t necessarily think it’s basically correct, at least not for everyone. I find it interesting, though, as personality typologist David Keirsey teaches that the four main types of person he distinguishes each makes for a different kind of mate: Playmate, Helpmate, Soulmate, or Mindmate (of course, every healthy person can be all four, but this is about preference or predominance). It’s funny, because I wouldn’t type you as the type he says would prefer to be a Helpmate. Then again, I don’t type myself as the type he says would prefer to be a Soulmate, either; and yet that is precisely the kind of mateship I mean here. Fucking, as distinct from making love, seems to be a Playmate thing par excellence; and as for the Mindmate, I don’t see much of a need for exclusivity there: as Plato’s Socrates repeatedly said, it doesn’t matter whose thoughts are sound; all that matters is that they be sound. For a Soulmate, on the other hand, what matters is not so much whether a thought is sound, as that it is one’s mate’s.
Your last comment is a good one, but it doesn’t do much to defend polyamory; rather to the contrary. After all, the “ex” is a typical object of jealousy.
I don’t think that polyamory has anything to do with love. It is a coine-term as a compromise between the imperative of loving and polygamy or promiscuity of the culturally degenerated modern people.
Vollgraffs order of rank of the human relationships:
das polygamische Verhältnifs,
die monogamische Ehe,
die Familie oder Güter-Genossenschaft,
das Corporations-Verhältnifs,
die Rechts-Gesellschaft (civitas),
der Staat (polis, res publica).
First is called “brutal egoism” and the last requires the highest degree of morality (Sittlichkeit).
We see no place for promiscuity here and it belongs probably only to totally feminized societies like the bonobo apes.
Polygamy is based on patriarchy. Love is not a requirement for #1, it is for #2.
Polyamory seems to be the return to 1, but with elements of promiscuity. No love here. Love which includes sexuality can only be 1 on 1.
Sauwelios, your ‘triangle’ seems very close to polygamy (whether polygynous or polyandrous) but without a marriage ‘ceremony.’ Is that what you mean?
Do you want a critique, which would weigh both the positive and the negative sides without necessarily stating an opinion one way or another, or do you want a criticism of polyandry or an affirmation?
The critique I mean is its devastation, in my view at least. I’ve done so by presenting a negative side to which no amount of positive sides could weigh up—again, in my view at least.
As I said, my “triangle” is not a triangle but a V or a /. It’s close to polygamy without marriage inasmuch as it’s a love relationship, not just a set of three feelings of love.
Okay. I know of no one in a polyamory relationship. And, by your last sentence, I assume you mean three people who ‘love’ each other in one of the many ways love has been defined. Lust is supposedly the most primal–it’s the need to procreate. Then comes attraction–finding someone with whom you’d like to procreate. Neither of these two feelings of ‘love’ seem to last very long.
If procreation is successful, however, the third kind of ‘love’ kicks in–the love of family–the family two people have created together. (I could branch off here, but I won’t.)
I can understand no way in which 3 (or more) people can honestly enter into a polyamory relationship. There’s always going to be a struggle for dominance, either male or female dominance. Given that struggle, plus the idea that lust and attraction are short-lived, a polyamorous relationship seems to me nothing more than a short-term relationship that is basically erotic.
Not really possible, imm, and certainly not my cup of tea.
I think you’re applying a somewhat skewed, perhaps more ‘modern,’ meaning to the word ‘lust.’ Please keep in mind that human culture continues to evolve. Marriages, for example, are often based on lust, not just now, but in earlier eras of human history. People didn’t ‘marry’ for love. They mostly married for procreation and land, or status.
There’s some disagreement, apparently, about the etymology of the verb “to fuck.” It’s Germanic as it has come down to us, but no one knows where it originated. It makes no difference. The meaning, in the western world, has always been pretty much the same–to have intercourse without any feeling of ‘love.’
So, assuming procreation–the never ending need for species to continue–is primal, what is lust? What is fucking?–other than the physical expression of the need to procreate?
If I seem very removed in this discussion, it’s because I am. Women seem always to have be chattel–property. If they can’t produce offspring, they can at least provide a means of sexual pleasure to their husbands and/or lovers. If this paradigm is still prevalent, it shouldn’t be.
Seems to me that so far the only arguments are of incredulity. Sauwelios doesn’t think one has time to love more than one person at once, and lizbeth seems to suggest that long-term love (shared by those who’ve created a family) is by definition between two people.
I disagree that time is a significant limiting factor on love. A father of three doesn’t love his children a third as much as a father of one. He may have a different relationship to them (and I’m sure a father of fifteen will have a different relation again); that doesn’t provide any evidence that it’s not love, or that the father of one has real, unshared love that is superior. Similarly, although I don’t have first-hand experience, I don’t see any reason to accept that one has just enough time in ones life to love one person and no more - I have quality time with my wife, with my children, with friends, with very little conflict. And I still find time to affirm them and give them gifts. It’s a wonder I have any left over for moderation and posting here.
If you define long-term love as between two people, polyamory is clearly a foolish endeavour. If you define it as between a man and a woman, homosexuality is a foolish endeavour too. “I don’t find members of the same sex attractive, I don’t understand how anyone can” isn’t much of a case against homosexuality, either. As for the love of family - I know some couples who have remained childless and still deeply in love over many decades, well into old age, so this seems a completely spurious assertion. I’m sure polyamorous unions have their share of power struggles; monogamous relationships have that too.
It seems that what is missing from the critique is any experience, even second-hand, of polyamorous relationships. Which detracts considerably from a critique, in my view, when it’s clear that the arguments are purely theoretical and divorced from any observation of the realities of the topic.
Marrying for procreation is not the same as marrying for lust.
It’s from the Dutch word fokken, “to breed” (e.g., dogs). However, this doesn’t mean someone who wants to fuck wants to breed. Not at all.
There is no “need for species to continue”. It’s just that individuals that have sex less tend to procreate less, which leads to species evolving to consist of individuals who want to have sex badly (because individuals that want to have sex more tend to procreate more). The sexual drive is a completely irrational, genetic drive, though.
No more than that men seem always to have to provide (food, shelter, etc.) for their wives and/or lovers.
I have two brothers and a sister, and my father usually took all four of us with him on daytrips (except when the youngest was/were still too young, or when the eldest was/were too old, or old enough to be left alone and to prefer that). If he’d have had to take each of us on daytrips separately, each of us would only have been taken on a daytrip one fourth of the time. So unless the lovers of a polyamorous person tolerate each other’s presence, and/or their relationship to that person is unequal, like that of a child to its parent, they will receive less love than in a monamorous relationship (other things being equal, of course).
My OP was inspired by personal experience. I found myself in a polyamorous relationship and did not want to be, for the reason given.
So love is as discrete as daytrips? You really feel half as loved as if you’d only had one sibling? If so - in a polyamorous relationship, let’s say a menage a trois, you will be receiving half the love, but from twice the people. There’s no net loss, whatever the scale - each person puts in and receives one person-love amount.
Of course, it’s probably only in the realms of philosophy or its cousin, bad poetry, that one would reify love into a concrete noun, rather than see it as a relation.
You didn’t have the time to love both people at once? That’s very practical. I’m surprised, I would have thought that emotional/psychological reasons would be much more of an issue for most people in such a situation.
