Should We All Be Poly?

This month I received...

Are 200-year-old dead guys’ hot takes on love still wrecking our relationships?
Why are humans so bad at monogamy? Turns out, love and marriage as we know it has only been around for the last 200 years and many Romantic Era ideas are still at the root of our relationship troubles today. Is it time we update our notions of what love looks like? Let’s find out in this Wisecrack Edition: Why Monogamy is Weird

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Written by Rachel Van Nes
Hosted by Michael Burns
Directed by Michael Luxemburg
Edited by William Schwartz
Motion Graphics by Jackson Maher
Produced by Olivia Redden
Additional production assistance by Griffin Davis and Matias Rubio

Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound

#Monogamy #Polyamory #Wisecrack

© 2022 Wisecrack / Omnia Media, Inc. / Enthusiast Gaming

[doctorklockwork]

“There’s also the problem of jealousy…our brains literally don’t want us to share…”

In biological anthropology this is called “mate guarding.” Deep romantic attraction tends to go hand-in-hand with wanting to guard them from other potential mates. We’re also hardwired to be physically attracted to others, which is evolutionarily advantageous for obvious reasons. Many species of social primate, including chimpanzees, display this paradoxical behavior. So it would seem we are hard wired for infatuation toward a primary mate, while also bang others and guard our main love interest.

My take away from this is that singular romantic infatuation, multiple physical attractions, and emotional hurt/jealousy are all perfectly natural. Monogamy embraces singular infatuation and empathizes with the deeply rooted drive to guard out mates in order to spare ourselves from the emotional distress of infidelity, while polyamory seeks to minimize the “mate guarding” drive in order to fulfill our complex romantic and physical needs through multiple partners. The concept of cheating still exists in many of these relationships, so mate guarding is still a factor in the dynamic. Oh, and then you have the “fun couple looking for a third” crowd, which emphasizes monogamous romantic partners, but embraces mutual lust as an antidote for jealousy.

There’s three slices to the pie here and each model only focuses on two, albeit in different ways. Evolution made us into paradoxical creatures, so there’s no one model that will work for everyone. Do what works best for you and your parner(s), but don’t assume it’s a one size fits all solution for society

[DrumWild]

Sartre being polyamorous makes sense. He always had a wandering eye.

[BSFJeebus]

I've got enough poly friends to know it's not for me, it's not for everyone, and then there are people who think they can do polyamory and find out it's not what they think. Being able to manage your feelings and sharing multiple people across your wants and needs, IT TAKES A LOT to do it right.

[tkdyo]

It really seems like all of the philosophers arguments used against monogamy in this video do not match up with the modern concept of what a married couple should be. "struggle for dominance:. "putting the burden on someone else to complete you emotionally and spiritually", "owning someone" etc. They all sound like codependent relationships. A healthy monogamous relationship is one of equals who already love themselves and who's goals in life align. This allows them to help each other grow and achieve those goals. Obviously, poly relationships can also be this, Im just saying that the arguments presented don't really match up to what the actual goal is.

I do agree that humans are probably hardwired somewhere in between. Similar to some species who are mostly monogamous. At the end of the day, people who feel more drawn to one or the other should go that way. But above all else they need to be open with their partner(s) about what they want and be with like minded people.

[TextbookBoxingGB]

I remember seeing a video where someone said… “being poly is just the same as being single”

Maybe it’s my insecurity, but I wouldn’t be able to open up to someone in a relationship when I knew they were sharing the same deep intimate moments with someone else

But that’s just me

[hannahrosemusic]

The secret to both monogamy and polyamory succeeding is "COMMUNICATION". Stop assuming whatever your partner feels, and stop assuming that they know exactly how you feel. Jealousy is common with both poly and mono couples, just like compersion, so talk about those things. If you don't feel safe talking with your partner, then you shouldn't be with them.

[jacksfacts]

As someone with a degree in evolutionary anthropology, i would have to disagree with the idea that we don't really know if we're monogamous or not, and the theory proposed about men having to be a protector as the cause of monogamy. Marlowe (2010) found that in 31 warm-climate foragers, (which is the best baseline for human evolutionary history), the median percentage of women with co-wives was 10 percent, and when polygynous marriages do form, they are often short term and only last a few months as they are often transitional from one relationship to another (hill and hurtado 1996).

The majority of marriages in hunter-gatherer societies are exclusive pair-bonds with marital infidelity universally disfavored. Now, this doesn't mean that everyone married for life, only between 15-25% of marriages in these societies ever make it past 25 years, divorce is pretty frequent, with affairs being the leading cause of it. At best, we appear to have evolved to be serially monogamous, forming stable, exclusive pair bonds, for a decade or two before splitting, mostly due to male promiscuity.

Stable polygyny begins to arise with the advent of farming and herding of domesticated animals as now males can hold vastly more wealth and resources that can support multiple wives at one. This leads into my next point about how monogamy evolved in the first place. If it was just about protecting offspring, then it would be much more likely that we would have a gorilla-like harem social system with one male protecting his offspring of multiple females from other males. However, while it is thought that during early hominin evolution, this was the dominant social system, it clearly isn't the case by the time humans evolved.

The leading hypothesis is resource support for offspring, human babies are incredibly energetically expensive and mothers alone can't gather enough resources to keep a baby alive, it requires their partner to also help provide enough resources for offspring survival. The paternal support is normally so intensive that males can't afford to support children from multiple wives at the same time.

Now this is not all to say that humans today can't be poly or any social structure that they desire to be, our society allows us this luxury, but it is important to understand how humans evolved their mating and social system in order to understand how that'll affect our choices today. For men, it's usually easier to be poly because it's evolutionary in our favor to mate with as many partners as possible, while women have a generally harder time as they have evolved wanting to be more exclusive in order to have a reliable partner in child care. Thank you for reading this rant lol.

[MrAdamArce]

Theory: humans have always done a mix of these relationship styles in varying amounts throughout our history. It's the equivalent of arguing "Tits or ass? Which is best?" Everyone will have their answer and endless new categories will appear.

[JaylaPLuna]

Every relationship requires trust, transparency, respect, critical thinking, active listening, empathy and constructive communication. Do what’s best for the partner or partners you choose to consent with; poly or mono, love is beautiful and we can all make room on this spectrum of human relationships for all the manifestations of love and friendship

[ChromoFlow]

1. "Its impossible to put all your needs on one person!" its not a requirement at all. The whole 'be my everything' isn't for the modern person...there's a thing called friendships and family that can fulfill emotional needs. It doesn't have to all come from your partner. If you're in a situation where your partner has to be all of your social interaction and attention, you have other things to address outside of the relationship (Not everyone has relationships with their families but we all should have friends and acquaintances!)

If you say 'needs', and you only mean sexual needs, another partner isn't always going to solve it (ex story women who cheated with a man who was worse in bed. woops), because they don't have a reason to fulfill your needs either. They wouldn't know them. If you're communicating your sexual needs to a new person, why can't you talk to your partner about it? If you have communicated this to them, then compromise exists in all relationships you have with any other person. If you are unable to compromise at all, then uh wow. Then you may be sexually mismatched and have to consider moving on. Not every relationship works in every way. (If you're kinky, date kinky!)

2. "Poly relationships are about open communication!" Open communication is great. Monogamous ones can have good communication too. Many issues in monogamous relationships stem from not talking to each other. People often cheat or get passive aggressive instead of asking their partner for what they want. Why are people afraid to talk to each other? If you are afraid to confront your partner about your feelings in the relationship, that's a problem that should be addressed. Both types of relationships can have open communication. It's not exclusive to poly relationships.

Any person currently in a relationship can decide to be more open about their feelings. "Couple's therapy' is just a place that forces the talks that people are afraid or otherwise unwilling to do without assistance. From what I've seen, there seems to be a strong implication that any jealousy you feel in a poly relationship is your problem you have to get over by yourself. Which seems counter to the whole 'open communication' aspect and doesn't seem emotionally healthy. What if you're actually feeling neglected? From multiple partners? Do you hold a meeting then? Or the solution is to go date other people outside of them, if jealously isn't considered a relationship issue but a personal one?

These 'open communication' talks might not always be happening, that can happen in any type of relationship. Even friendships. What I see is "being a more communicative partner" Being tied with "Being poly" when there is no reason it has to be. We can all do better!

3. I've heard polyamory described as being like being able to bang your close friends. I have no desire to do so. I'm not horny enough. I'm in a long term relationship with my partner that satisfies me emotionally and physically. I have close friends and family. There isn't any benefit or appeal for me to be with an additional person in a romantic relationship. It would only add complexity to my life. This isn't me saying poly is bad or anything negative. I'm saying it's hard to fathom for me! (Like wow how does it work?)

For instance if you're in a poly relationship, do you also know all of your partners families well? relatives? their friends? do you live together or visit the other partner(s) in evenings? or is it a casual situation where you visit and have sex with another partner and come home to your "main partner"? Do you live alone and visit them all (that just seems like FWB) do you attend family or big life events with them, like birthday parties, baby showers, weddings? Do you bring everyone or only certain partners (depending on their schedules and availability)? Who's house do you visit for Christmas dinner? It's a lot to grasp for anyone who doesn't live that way. Trying to maintain all those connections for multiple partners including scheduling and maintaining satisfying sexual and emotional relationships with every one of them seems exhausting. Life is just more complicated now. But those who have the personality, time, energy and money to manage all this, I'm happy they're having a romantically fulfilling life that suits them!

T.L.D.R. Being poly doesn't mean you're more open and communicate better all the time. Being monogamous doesn't mean you have unrealistic expectations of your partners. Both can be in both types of relationships because we're all people at the end of the day. I think we should champion being more open about our emotions to all aspects of our lives (where it is safe, I'm aware not all people have that luxury in every scenario)

I am fully supportive of my friends and others who are in poly relationships. However, I don't like being judged for not being interested in them when they're brought up. Not being interested does not mean I am against them. Not everyone has to BE in a poly relationship to normalize it. I'm happy for anyone who's in a happy relationship, regardless of shape or size.

End rant.

[PatriciaCross]

Compersion has so much benefit in life, even outside of romantic relationships. The ability to see people succeed in some way and genuinely feel happy for them is a really important one we all could benefit from learning. Even if we weren't all polyamorous, I think the world as a whole could really benefit from learning compersion. It is something we should start learning at a young age.

[kannolli]

Asking a question like “what relationships are humans made for” is a problem in itself lmao

[Xmar]

I am very happily married to my best friend. We have several polyamorous friends and my brother-in-law was in one for a while. My partner actually openly talk about polyamory and whether or not we would ever be opening to including another person or couple into our relationship. We're both 100% okay with it but the biggest thing that holds either of us back from actually doing that is the work to do it properly. We have seen the polyamourous relationships of friends' fail because of a lack of communication or respect of others' boundaries. I absolutely see benefits for monogamous and polyamorous relationships. But regardless of how many partners you have, at the end of the day it comes down to respect and communication. People just deserve to be happy. Who cares who they love or how many people they love. Love is love.

[pyrosianheir]

I mean... preface - Let people do what they want. I'm monogomaous, never been interested in going poly.

That said, maybe we shouldn't take old world royal/noble harems as the example? The nobility and royalty had far more chance to have multiple wives, as well as far more reasons. The better question is what were the commoners doing during that same span? I'm sure some were poly, but I have a hard time believing it was all of them.

[jiffylou]

In order for polyamory to actually come into effect and be a possible social and interpersonal good, society as a whole has to get over some things, mainly polyandry. It's a mathematical imperative, like in the roman times, that if multiple women can flock to the same man, multiple men have to be able to do the same in order for there to be broader benefit. But there is far more social stigma and uncomfortableness around polyandry than polygamy, both historically and anecdotally, which holds any egalitarian ideals back from their full potential.

[sellbythebell]

Jack O'Brien was talking about polyamory right before he left. I feel like we've come full circle in Cracked 2.0 .

[drummerdan]

I am personally 100% a monogamous person, but I can see where the appeal of polyamory comes from. Just do whatever you want y'all.

[ATRStormUnit]

The question what is "normal" or better is redundant in my eyes. No kind of relationship (or anything) is "normal", at best you get something typical. Just let everyone enter any type relationship they like and communicate honestly.

[leviathaneyes]

I have literally never met a poly relationship where people were equally on board. Theres always those who suffer but settle, or like the best way Ive heard it described, "who wanted the poly relationship, and who cries themselves to sleep."

[Freakshow]

I'm a monogamous person who was in a relationship for about 5 years. 4 years in my partner asked to join a polycule with people they trusted. I wasn't exactly thrilled by the idea but after discussing it I eventually agreed to let them join. Over time our interactions decreased and we talked privately less and less. Members of the polycule began flirting with me and even admitted they wouldn't be against being in a relationship with them though I refused. A year later my partner and I broke up due to not feeling attracted cis gendered people and felt more fulfilled in t4t relationships. We still remained friends but given our friend group is now in said poly and in relationships with one another I feel like I'm the odd man out and I think even they see me that way as well and have continued to flirt with me. I haven't dated anyone since then.