Is polyamory the future of relationships or...

slatestarscratchpad

Anonymous asked:

Is polyamory the future of relationships or something that will always be limited to a small percent of population? How many people become poly due to their sincere interest in loving more than one person, and how many to play games or avoid the social stigma related to admitting to open/promiscuous relationships? The power dynamics are more complicated, but do you feel that they're on average more fair than in monogamy? Which groups could by disadvantaged in polyamorous relationships?

slatestarscratchpad answered:

I think it’s probably the future of relationships, just because most non-religious people can’t produce a coherent case for monogamy except “think of the children”, and most people will very reasonably say “well, I’m not planning on having children for a while so I’ll be poly for now”. It also seems like nonstandard relationships getting more accepted is a trend (gays, interracial marriage, etc) so I guess I should bet on the trend continuing. I’m not sure there’s a real dichotomy between “genuinely in love with many people” and “wants to be promiscuous”. For example, I became poly because my girlfriend at the time was poly and it would have been weird to have a mono person in a relationship with a poly person. Then I continued because why not.

mitigatedchaos

It isn’t entirely about logic, it’s about how they feel. I read a while back that something like 30% of one-night stands end in relationships. Many people find casual sex unsatisfying. While poly is not identical, it wouldn’t be surprising if it really just isn’t a fit for most of the population without modifications of some kind.

Not to mention the likelihood of devolving to polygyny with all the bad consequences that entails once it gets normalized for the normies.

gender politics

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slatestarcodex.com

Polyamory Is Not Polygyny

[Content warning: polyamory, brief quote of weird Heartiste stuff] The objections I hear to polyamory tend to separate into two narratives sharing a common thread. The first narrative is supposedly…

bambamramfan

SSC’s latest seems like a classic case of letting gender politics obfuscate power and class issues that cut across gender.

He quotes some PUA:

Polyamory — multiple and simultaneous sexual relationships — means, in practice, a few high value dudes hording all the pussy.

And then he uses both his intuitive experience and his LW survey data to show that men and women in polyamory date about the same number of people. There’s at least no clear cut numerical advantage to men. My experience also agrees.

But what if we neuter that sentence, and look at it again:

Polyamory — multiple and simultaneous sexual relationships — means, in practice, a few high value people dudes hording all the dates.

Which is to say, charismatic and confident people of either gender, dating a lot of people, and awkward and introverted people of both genders dating no one, only one person, or being a hanger on in a larger polycule that doesn’t get a lot of attention from the partner regardless.

That sounds… less implausible. It doesn’t exactly match my observed experience, but it’s not super far from it either. I’ve certainly seen in nerdy groups a Queen Bee that is dating half the men, in a way that seems parallel to the alpha-males that PUA’s fear/worship.

It’s not at all clear that this is bad. This seems just as likely to be the result of “some people want more partners, and are more socially outgoing to find them, while some people want less or are less willing to put themselves out there to meet them,” which would be fine. Or it could be this high-value thing. (I detest rat-tumb’s focus on high-status-males as the evil beneficiary of social engineering, which seems both empirically and ontologically unsound, but from a capitalist-critical perspective, “liberalizing trade regimes” often means “the rich people get more stuff and poor people somehow have less.”)

But, I’m also not going to be surprised by the subjective perspective of people low on the social totem pole. Before, they had hope in this pigeon-hole thing, where each person could get at most one partner, so eventually the people as attractive as them would realize their best chance for a life long relationship was with fellow low-class dates like themselves. It was a bad model, but I’m aware people believed in it. Now they worry no one will be left waiting for them, and they’ll be entirely alone forever. So there’s some people who seem to be having a lot of sex (stealing their jouissance) and they aren’t reaping the benefits.

The answers they come up with are usually dumb, but they are at least seeing/feeling a thing.

mitigatedchaos

Bambam honey darling kun, and also @slatestarscratchpad friend,

I love weird nerds but weird nerds aren’t a representative sample for the behavior of typical relationship norms.

A better example for normies applying this would be all the other countries, territories and communities where polygamy is practiced, as well as communities within the US where one man will have 11 kids by 8 different women.

No full poly until Tranhumanism makes it possible to ‘defect’ from both your sex and sexual orientation, pls.

gender politics

Anonymous asked:

Can you read all your posts under “gender politics” tag and truthfully say that you want to live when the life is like that? I couldn't.

Dearest Anon-kun,

My representation is a bit more dire than how I actually interpret the situation, in part because it’s intended as a counter-balance to mainstream feminism, which strips women of their agency and refuses to critically examine their role in the social dynamics which create these situations.

“Women are powerless” is really quite deeply normalized almost everywhere! It’s very insidious.

Comments regarding even cishet neurotypical women should be regarded as generalizations that do not uniformly apply to the population, and many subgroups don’t necessarily fit them. Additionally, low-status women also exist. In fact, women that don’t fit this mold are more common in my subcultures!

Additionally,

1) I have a reasonable shot at making it to the Transhuman era.

2) I have a close relationship to my ex WRT expressed vulnerability & female companionship, though not sexually.

3) Have you observed the number of self-identified “traps” and other such individuals among the Alt Right? I believe this represents a sign of an impending Male Gender Meltdown, the consequences of which are hard to predict. Overall, I do think progress is being made, as indicated by the appearance of multiple male gender movements.

Also,

All my exes are bisexual (and therefore have no set reason to behave in a certain pattern of attraction), and this blog will continue to not disclose my sex/gender.

Kind Regards,
Miti

P.S. If you are secretly the tumblr user known as BA, this blog hopes for your swift recovery regardless of whether that is low in probability. If you are secretly tumblr user RO, this blog hopes for an increase in your available useful energy.

gender politics

ms-demeanor

Anonymous asked:

Okay heres what makes me dead on curious about this indie game about someone who only cares about the feelings of men (boohoo)... How do you make a feminist cyberpunk future? Isn't that kind of like the opposite?

cyberpunkpixeljunk answered:

Nah, just make sure the women in the setting fit the setting. Plus, what do we know about this game? It could be just fine.

mitigatedchaos

@ms-demeanor: <long post>

Honestly, I think once you start creating a Feminism that isn’t a gender war munition (e.g., one that actually deconstructs the threat narrative around men and so on), it stops being Feminism and starts being something else. But I don’t have a whole lot of intellectual charity left for Feminism or SJ in general.

I think a lot of people absolutely underestimate the amount of totally useless medical problem bullshit that already exists and is not any kind of sublime commentary on the nature of humanity.

I think you’ve got it wrong on MGTOWs (and I’ll note you said them and not MRAs - good, since they aren’t identical). MGTOWs aren’t an activist movement, they’re debris from problems we aren’t supposed to notice or talk about. That 1 in 1,000 woman that hit all the problems in her life from bad man after bad man? MGTOWs are the male version of that.

Source: cyberpunkpixeljunk gender politics

obiternihili

argumate

dudebro is just a terrible word for any kind of progressive purpose given that it entirely concedes masculinity to the opposition.

blackblocberniebros

I think we’re more than prepared to concede masculinity to the opposition. What redeeming qualities does it have? Everything I’ve seen masculinity be is aggression, envy, or pride, all of which are, uh, mortal sins.

mitigatedchaos

…are you joking?

Or have you just already defined masculinity as everything you hate?

If it turns out that a significant number of straight women actually like masculine men and haven’t been brainwashed into it, what is your plan?

How can a male build a healthy self-identity if to be male is nothing more than to be a flawed woman?

obiternihili

In that last line, being male and being a Man™ are different things. You can be male or female and you can be you by having your own goddamn identity and thinking for yourself instead of bullying the sick weak nerdy kid into it for not conforming to some arbitrary set of interests

like I might disagree with bbb on this because being a real man to me is just being an adult. But being a Man™ or even the subset of Men™, the dudebro - is giving up defining my own identity and giving up making maturity, not interests or the way I express myself, the performative element.

dudebro was pretty much always meant to refer the kinds of people we think of as stereotypical frat boys anyways. Dumbasses who don’t give a shit about consent or abuse or anything like that except fucking people ±over. That’s not being a man. That’s being garbage.

And if a lot of women are attracted to abuse, why? And are we sure? Are we sure underlying factors aren’t distorting the really important values?

And like if definitions differ definitions differ. Get over it. The line beginning with “Or” is not actually a point however smugly it’s phrased.

mitigatedchaos

Have you considered that maybe it’s your conception of masculinity which is very narrow and culturally limited, here?

There is more than one way to be masculine and exploring and normalizing new masculinities could be very helpful (and still attractive to cishet women and thus not self-erasing on the long-term). Conceding masculinity to the opposition is a terrible idea.

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anosognosic

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ranma-official

freedomproject.com

Six Baltimore Schools Can’t Produce a Single Student Proficient in English or Math

Despite spending more per pupil than all but two large school districts in America, at least half a dozen government schools in Baltimore were unable to produce one single student who was proficient in either English or math last year.

Dan Kahler

triggeredmedia

They spend the 3rd most in the nation per student and can’t produce a quality student.

MONEY IS NOT WHAT MAKES SCHOOLS GOOD.

It’s family values and communities. Things the left has been trying to destroy for decades.

ranma-official

I completely agree, they would have been good at math if they’d hated gay people more, you make sense.

mitigatedchaos

Actually, Community and Family don’t require hating gay people (if you aren’t a member of [SUBSET OF RELIGIONS]). It is this blog’s belief that stable and beneficial families can be the new cultural norm without stomping all over the LGBTs.

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roguetelemetry

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ElectronConf Seattle 2017

ranma-official

Github eliminated gender bias in selecting conference speakers for ElectronConf by using randomized blind review, 100% of selected speakers turned out to be men, so they are cancelling the conference

amazing

argumate

now reveal the demographic breakdown of the reviewers

mitigatedchaos

For diversity purposes in tech companies, Asians count as white. So obviously majority white, ofc.

I mean, you think I’m shitposting, but most of my shitposts are not completely groundless - there was a criticism of diversity levels at some Silicon Valley tech company a while back, and they conveniently left out that like 30% of the staff were Asian.

(And from what I’ve read, it’s Asians that take the actual brunt of Affirmative Action policies in schools… overall I’m not sure how long the political alignment will hold out. The true racists are split on this matter from what I’ve seen.)

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argumate

Against all reason I’m fascinated by the friendzone discourse, seriously.

It’s closely related to something you hear less about: the bonezone, which despite its name is not opposite the friendzone, but rather adjacent to it, not far from relationship town; someone’s really gotta diagram this stuff out.

“I can’t believe they put me in the friendzone!”

This complaint can have layers of meaning, but it starts with disappointment. The speaker was hoping to make it to relationship town, or maybe just a quick visit to the bonezone, but instead ended up in the friendzone, where they’ve already been many times before. It’s identical to a similar complaint that is also very common, although typically not in these words:

“I can’t believe they put me in the bonezone!”

The speaker was dreaming of relationship town, or perhaps a long stay in the friendzone, and had a rude awakening to find themselves here instead. Logic suggests a third complaint which you also may have heard:

“I can’t believe they want to take me to relationship town!”

The implications of this one are obvious.

But why does disappointment over mismatched expectations around friendship, sex, and relationships, attract so much heated debate?

The first wrinkle is that disappointment can turn to angry accusations. They led you on! They were deliberately ambiguous about the destination! They have ulterior motives!

While miscommunication is regrettable and sad, deliberately deceptive conduct can be infuriating; no one wants to have their time wasted and their emotions toyed with by someone who isn’t being honest with them.

But this is self-evident, why would it attract debate? Unless…

mitigatedchaos

Consider: dating and relationships often run on subtext in which actually revealing your hand is a huge turn-off, unless you’re dating some kind of nerd or other unusually direct person.

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ranma-official

afloweroutofstone

What do you think the odds are of least one congressman in the next few years coming out and saying they think the Earth is flat and that NASA’s been lying to us? Realistically, 10, 12%?

gunsandfireandshit

Like, the head of an MRA reddit got outed as an elected rep, you’re acting like these people don’t already control NASA funding

ranma-official

Redpill, not MRA

mitigatedchaos

Remember when an article was published saying that “MRAs” were in a frothing rage over Mad Max: Fury Road, but actually it was RoK, a site that explicitly thinks MRAs are all losers?

At this point, I’m very close to thinking the misinformation is deliberate.

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Polyamory Is Not Polygyny

Male and female brains aren’t wired differently

Six Baltimore Schools Can’t Produce a Single Student Proficient in English or Math

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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

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Six Baltimore Schools Can’t Produce a Single Student Proficient in English or Math

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