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This is on my mind https://t.co/E3fGNwpGRm
Am mildly anti-poly bc polydrama *rekt* multiple scenes I’ve been a part ofOn the other hand, everyone’s bcoming poly – it’s one of the few anti-atomizing forces out thereSo maybe just need to embrace it & figure out how to do it w fewer negative externalities??? https://t.co/tKQEifI4IG
@TylerAlterman There was a talk by Ari and James that goes into this topic but what I felt missing was blurring the lines of the intellectual and the personal. How does the personal affect the intellectual? How might monogamous and polyamorous views conflict within a scene?
@TylerAlterman https://t.co/SMM76HXy2x
@TylerAlterman This isn't meant as a gotcha BTW. It's just that poly lacks a broad culture of role models for how to do it, so elders are important. Poly communities exclusively in their early 20s are trying to figure out poly, relationships in general, and just how to be people at once.
@TylerAlterman my own view on this - having grown up polyamorous & since converged on monogamy https://t.co/gzlDhA2uWZ
@strangestloop @wholebodyprayer I kept having the option to be w other people, & finding that I didn’t care or use it 😂 it was strange, I felt like I was “supposed” to want it, but having it felt completely inert 🤷♀️ when I did exercise it - just to test, ya know? - I still converged to one person over time
@not_a_hot_girl @TylerAlterman Oh, “grew up poly” means that due to childhood emotional neglect my family imparted absolutely no values on me So when I found myself attracted to multiple people I just sorta went for it, & felt further encouraged by hypersexualization in pop culture
@not_a_hot_girl @TylerAlterman see also: I spent loads of time on tinder & through alternative cultures of hyperpromiscuity, kink, even sex work only to arrive at - uh, this https://t.co/UBcmBtrAOy
@smallkewlhuman ahahaha yeah. as I’m learning more about *just how intense* the energetic / karmic exchange in sex can be when you’re not numbed out I’m tooootally understanding cultures that postpone sex till after marriage. (srsly, I once thought that idea was SO DUMB 🤷♀️)
@relic_radiation @TylerAlterman https://t.co/Rq1h7z8L6yWhat do you think of the view of poly as an orientation, like for a rare handful of people in the world they CANNOT just be with one partner?
@sidewayskoyote @TylerAlterman Yeah there's a sense in which this question is a bit like asking "being trans: good or bad?" (see Aella on poly as an orientation)The pressure to be mono or the pressure to be poly in various cultures is probably bad, but maybe it's good for the option to exist and be known
@relic_radiation @TylerAlterman One of my closest friends, who loves very deeply, is this way, so I am inclined to trust in this view - but still think poly in the culture could be net bad, the way encouraging everyone to claim mental illness/transness is bad https://t.co/2R6LzFjknC
@sidewayskoyote @TylerAlterman I don't know if I fully agree with this completely morally neutral take. From a consequentialist perspective, maybe it's "bad" bc its existence in the culture as an option tempts many people who would be better off mono.but I'm glad that some people who *need* poly can be poly
@not_a_hot_girl @TylerAlterman the thing that worries me about popularizing poly is that attachment wounding really, really, reaaaally hurts & culture doesn’t have the socioemotional tech to humanely metabolize that much wounding. a lot of ppl try to “work it out” but there’s no ‘other side’, just more pain https://t.co/tZNrh3iHwc
@not_a_hot_girl @TylerAlterman that said. fear based monogamy is a tragedy, and “you can’t admit attraction to anyone else, or else you’re a bad person” is just as much of a painfest as attachment wounding run amok 🤷♀️ edge of collective consciousness, this
@TylerAlterman ideals are admirable, but the poly ppl I’ve met seem to struggle to enact the ideals tried poly with one partner; turned out I was more open (ok w sharing her) than I thought, and she was less open (ok w sharing me) than she thought this was the worst surprise ever
@TylerAlterman I'd recommend people try it, and also that they seriously consider they might not stick with it I'm a former poly person oriented towards monogamy, but I have trouble imagining being with someone who takes monogamy for granted