>I think monogamous people are monogamous because they are insecure.

But how does the author differentiate between "insecurity" and "protecting myself from an outcome I do not want." Just because a potential outcome makes me anxious does not inherently mean it's just an "insecurity" that I should "grow out of."

[edit]

This is clearly a failure of imagination on the author's part. I'm pretty introverted, and when I was younger I sort of implicitly suspected that no one "really" liked going to concerts. Somehow going to concerts had become a popular thing, and everyone must have been pretending to enjoy them just to fit in.

Clearly, this idea was as incorrect as it was naive. I had suffered a failure of imagination, and had incorrectly assumed that my native perspective was far more common than it is.

I think we've all suffered these sorts of failures at one point or another.

Is washing your hands insecurity over being dirty? Is taking notes insecurity over not having perfect memory? Is eating healthy insecurity over your body not being able to handle functioning well on its own?

I like applying Chesterton's fence as a rebuke to most calls to shed some traditional more of society. In considering this I'm not sure most proponents of polygamy understand why monogamy exists as a societal tenet in the first place.

> They have made the decision that going to the effort of getting rid of jealousy – of dealing with the pain of their partner spending the night somewhere else – is not worth the benefits they might gain from nonmonogamy.

This is about the equivalent of saying that people who decide to eat 3 meals a day are insecure about dealing with the negative emotions of being on a continual starvation diet.

Maybe the author should just try owning their position like "yea I want to sleep around and feel good about myself" instead of having to tear others down.

Completely unfounded premise, large "me me me" middle chunk, and an unwarranted conclusion.

There are plenty of mono people who choose mono and who deal with jealousy. The entire premise is starting off on the wrong foot. (There's also a good chunk of mono people who observe and/or try poly and say "dear God, I never want that scheduling nightmare")

It is certainly consistent with a large subgroup within poly that likes to send the message that polyamory will make you somehow a more evolved human being. But there, too, is plenty of evidence to the contrary. (Major sanctimonious preachers of the poly choir have turned out to be major shitheels in recent years)

So maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't conflate choice of partners with character, ethical behavior, or other traits.

Just a thought.

"Those who avoid casinos and don't buy lottery tickets do so because of insecurity" or even better "not letting your friend gamble with your money is a sign of insecurity." Edit: in both cases, casino and sex, it's the dopamine spikes that keep people addicted, so in essense the author suggests to embrace addiction, and even tries to paint it as a virtue.

The author explains the monogamy choice by jealousy and insecurity. But a different explanation is being territorial [1]:

«Jealousy is a negative trait, territoriality is a positive trait. Jealousy stems from fear and insecurity. The focus of jealousy is actually yourself. Territoriality is an instinctive act to provide and protect the one(s) you love. Jealousy focuses on you, territoriality focuses on your partner. You are being territorial because you care for their well being. Jealousy breeds resentment, anxiety and distrust, territoriality breeds a sense of safety, security and trust.»

[1] https://www.relationshiptalk.net/are-you-a-jealous-or-territ...

"And so how can we blame anybody for avoiding “fixing themselves,” even if it goes wrong?"

Choosing polyamory is not "fixing oneself." There is no benefit to it, unless the only thing you get out of sex is physical pleasure.

Fascinating. I'm not sure I agree on all or many points here... I wonder if the author is illustrating the extent of their own insecurities.

For example, one might have all the confidence in the world, but prefer to pursue a monogamous relationship for practical reasons.

I might be fairly content with or without a monogamous relationship, but I know that certain experiences would be exceedingly unlikely without one, and they're things I want to experience. For example, raising kids in a healthy environment. In a monogamous relationship I can provide a stable and functional environment for my kids to grow up in. I don't care all that much about who my partner has sex with, but I do care that our relationship meets their needs such that they don't feel compelled to have sex with other people, so we can raise our kids under conditions that keep everyone happy. It's not really about who they have sex with so much as creating a life where that isn't really a concern in the first place.

If I was concerned or insecure about sex, well, I wouldn't have had kids I think. They aren't conducive to having more sex at all, nor necessarily all that great for ensuring someone is monogamous. Divorce rates are evidence enough to illustrate that.

So am I insecure about something here? Not passing on my genes? Not having stability? I suppose you could frame it that way, but at some point you need to choose one thing over another, and it wouldn't be useful or informative to call that insecurity. I feel secure in my choice, for what it's worth.

I feel like the author starts from a position of poly being the "right" way to conduct yourself and worked backwards to deduce a reason why their school of thought is right and monogamy is wrong.

Couldn't you make the same argument the other way if you assume that monogamy is "right": "poly people are insecure in thinking that no one would commit to them and only them and they choose to act accordingly to that principle instead of working on themselves"? Of course there are poly people that are like that just like there are monogamous people that want to control/are jealous of their partner but I don't think either are as good of arguments as the author thinks

This writer's much more recent post is better: https://aella.substack.com/p/the-polyamory-post?s=r

I think she explains herself more thoroughly and isn't nearly as provocative about it, though still makes the same basic error in equating possessiveness with insecurity. Someone may be quite confident but still not like sharing. I think that's a basic impetus behind a whole lot of type A personalities and elite competitors that I don't believe you can rightfully call insecure.

Her definition is unorthodox to say the least, by the way:

> (edit: i should clarify that my definition of monogamy is “when you place a restriction or expectation on your partner’s engagement in sexual activity.” In a situation where two people are totally okay with their partner fucking/loving other people, but just happen not to due to lack of desire or interest in other people, I consider this just passive polyamory.)

I guess I fall into this category of having a "formally open" marriage because I don't believe it is realistic to expect that in 60 years together neither my wife nor I should ever encounter some opportunity to have safe, harmless sex with some other person, but at the same time, we're both homebodies who are not socially motivated and absolutely do not want to date or go looking for someone.

Calling us "polyamorous" on that basis stretches common usage. Every poly-identifying person I have ever known that talked about it seemed quite opposite, intensely social people who needed to constantly be around others and more or less craved nonstop affection and physical validation. If I was being less charitable, that could be framed as another form of insecurity.

There are quite obvious and real distinctions in what we're trying to get out of life. I just want one person so I can have a family and not be totally alone as I gradually get closer to death, but I have no absolute ideal of lifetime sexual exclusivity I intend to hold myself or my life partner to. Aella is a prostitute who has had a continually open application process where anyone on the Internet can apply to date her. Those are very different life goals and I don't think it is useful for her to categorize us together. If the beef is with people who force their non-willing partners into monogamy out of jealously, fine, say that, but don't say that is the single defining trait of all monogamy and thus your beef is with monogamy itself. Come on.

I think excess time to overthink stuff is producing such thoughts.

At the end of the day the only fundamental truth is that nobody wants to be present when 2 people are getting romantic/sexual. Also nobody wants to picture somebody they are having sex with somebody else before.

The above is something which is true for basically everybody except for rare fetishes.

Once you recognize the fundamental truth above it becomes perfectly clear that what people call polyamory is essentially 2 people having a pseudo-romantic relationship in which they don't live together and don't see each other every day.

And when they are not seeing each other they are having pseudo-romantic relationship with other people and everybody in this chain of pseudo-romantic relationships thinks of themselves as being the only one who is enjoying exclusivity but doesn't bother investigating if that's really the case. Of course they don't confess sleeping around either.

Such things have existed forever. It used to be called the "talking stage" when everything is still fair game but somehow you assume the other person is not taking advantage of the fair game clause which exists during the "talking stage".

Some social norms exist in other countries where it goes beyond the talking stage. Eg. France. But if you ask around they don't define themselves as poly.

It seems to me that both the militant believers and the militant non-believers always have a "they" to point to as the reason for their militancy.

I suppose everyone forgot about the individualist nature of protestantism.

The answer to authority fear and monogamy concerns is faith or religion. On further reading on this blog, aella was raised fundamentalist evangelist and it didn't take, by the time she was 19 it fell off her like a cloak that never fit.

It's a tiny bit of a shame, glad she's doing well but it is clear stepping into a more traditional church that has survived the test of time (and isn't fundamentalist) like catholic, orthodox or episcopal might provide her with the seed of a faith that can last.

She knows what she's doing though, the subtitle of her blog is "In pursuit of an internally consistent annihilation", so be her wants. A long way from Mary.