Polyamory as Simplified Amory

See also: Polyamory with Aella and Yassine, The Polyamory Post, Contra Aella on Polyamoric Lexicality, Transhumanism as Simplified Humanism

Introduction

Whatever your issues with polyamory, it should not be mystifying. I recently listened to an episode of The Bayesian Conspiracy on polyamory, and that was my main takeaway. They had the guest Yassine on to defend monogamy against the polyamoric onslaught of Eneasz and Aella, and several times throughout, he expresses his mystification with polyamory. While I won’t argue it’s for everyone, I will say that if you find the very idea baffling, you're probably overthinking it.

Polyamory is quite simple, really no more complicated than liking things in general. We’re all happy to enjoy many different books, shows, songs, and so on. Nobody thinks you should be satisfied once and for all watching a single film, or that it devalues your favorite food if you ever eat another. As the old atheist adage goes, “We’re all atheists with respect to most gods. Some of us just take it one god further.” Likewise, we’re all poly for most things. Some of us just extend it to people!

But isn’t the situation different with people? Books and movies are disposable; people aren’t. Surely the comparison itself is dehumanizing.

At a glance, this seems wrong. We’re fine having multiple friends, collaborators, and family members; even multiple children, quite an intimate relationship. Nobody would think it’s a betrayal of your first child to have a second, or that you must love the first any less. There’s a single, narrow aspect of life for which we’ve declared that one must be enough: the romantic relationship. Why?

Again, I’m not saying everyone should go poly. But if you find yourself saying, “What a wacky lifestyle, why would anyone do something so crazy?”, then you’re looking at it all wrong, and you may frustrate or offend many poly people. If you want to stop being mystified, you need to understand the polyamorous frame of mind.

Definitions of Polyamory

We now commit a cardinal rationalist sin and argue definitions. This was a crux between Aella and Yassine: what do we mean by polyamory? Getting at this should help us better understand the poly mindset.

Aella defines it as not restricting your partner from pursuing romantic or sexual relationships with others. This struck me as entirely unobjectionable, but Yassine objects. He alleges three problems. First, most people don’t use the word this way. Second, it conveys less information than alternative definitions. Third, it’s self-serving.

Common Usage

Yassine claims the common meaning of polyamory is the active practice or desire to have multiple relationships, not just a lack of restrictions. He cites the definition on the r/polyamory FAQ in support, but I find that it says “polyamory involves multiple consensual, loving relationships, or openness to such”, the last point of which is also consistent with Aella’s definition.

Does anything really hang on this distinction? I suspect that so long as Yassine views polyamory as some abnormal desire for extra sex, extra love, extra relationships, he will continue to be mystified by it. If he instead comes to view it as a pretty ordinary desire for all those things, simply without extra limitations layered on top, he’ll be closer to understanding it.

Setting that aside, how closely does Yassine’s definition match common usage? A big problem with the “actively practicing” definition is that many people call themselves poly even if they’re currently single or only seeing one person. Polyamory is their preferred relationship style, and this preference is present at all times. They don't need to be actively engaging in multiple relationships at any given time to think of themselves as poly. Polyamory is more like an orientation for them than just a behavior; this is a key motivation behind Aella’s definition.

Why not just go with “the desire to have multiple relationships”, then? Aella objects that this describes most people. According to her surveys, about 70% of people express interest in seeing multiple people. Yassine himself even describes this as the standard straight male sexual fantasy.

Are all these people poly, then? Clearly not, but why? You might say because they only think about doing it, but never act upon it. But that gets us back to the “actively practicing” definition, which we’ve rejected. In my view, the central difference is that while many people would enjoy engaging in multiple relationships, they don’t want their partner to do the same. Hence Aella’s definition points precisely at the core distinction between the ordinary and the poly.

Overall, if Yassine says people don’t use Aella’s definition, I say they don’t use his either. That’s not really how people use words in the first place. There isn’t some well-established, consistent definition of polyamory which Aella is defying; there’s a fuzzy cluster of related things, and she’s trying to pick out the most central factor as coherently as she can.

Edge Cases

But how coherent is Aella's definition? Yassine identifies an edge case which he believes undermines it. Consider the classic polygamous marriage: a husband with multiple wives. Under Aella’s definition, since the wives don’t limit who their husband sees, they’re poly. Conversely, the husband *does* restrict his wives, so he’s not.

Aella acknowledges that her definition breaks down here, but she maintains that any definition will have edge cases and that hers is still best overall. Plus that hypothetical husband is definitely not polyamorous, and her definition correctly captures that. Or that's how it seems to me, anyway. Yassine apparently wants to count him as poly; I'm not sure what to say except that I don't share his intuition (although the husband is also clearly not monogamous).

Conversely, I believe Yassine’s definition breaks down on much more central cases. Yassine largely defends the “actively practicing multiple relationships” definition. To him, someone who's currently engaging in just one relationship should be considered monogamous. This gives some wacky results.

Suppose I'm chatting up a woman at a party and I think she likes me, but when I mention that I'm polyamorous, she says she's in a monogamous relationship right now. I would consider this a clear signal that I should back off. But on Yassine’s definition, that may be wrong! It might be totally fine for me to make a move! Because she might just be monogamous *right now*, you see. And in the very act of us getting together, she would *become* polyamorous.

This is just silly. If I find out that someone's monogamous, I’ll assume it’s inappropriate for me to pursue them, not start interrogating their exact relationship structure. That would be really weird, and if it turns out they’re monogamous in, y'know, *the normal way everyone means that word*, I'll seem like a creep who can't take a hint.

Aella’s definition is superior because it informs action. It tells us what behavior is appropriate or inappropriate, while Yassine’s gives the wrong answer in very central, decision-relevant ways. I once again disagree that his definition is the "standard" one.

However, there's a more central example which Yassine’s definition actually handles better: a closed relationship of multiple people. If three people form a polycule in which no outside dating is allowed, then taking Aella’s definition strictly, this would not be polyamory, while it's clearly consistent with Yassine's.

This is definitely strange. However, most of the problem disappears if we let both definitions exist along a continuum. Recasting Aella’s definition, the fewer restrictions someone has for their partners, the more poly they are. Then while the closed polycule isn’t as poly as a totally open relationship, it’s still more poly than a monogamous one.

For Yassine’s, we should likewise say the stronger the desire for more partners, the more polyamorous the relationship is. Thus while a closed polycule is definitely polyamorous, it’s admittedly less polyamorous than a completely open one. I prefer these sliding-scale definitions anyway, and I think it undercuts most of Yassine's advantage.

What is the Content of “Polyamory”?

Yassine next objects that Aella’s definition holds little content. If the goal is to understand polyamory as an orientation, he says we should define it in terms of what people actually want. Aella’s definition says a poly person doesn’t restrict their partners but tells us nothing about what relationships they actively desire.

Compare this to being gay, which implies a clear relationship preference. Yassine asks us to imagine going to sleep straight and waking up gay: there would be a very clear change in our romantic desires. But under Aella’s definition, it’s unclear what changes if you suddenly switch from monogamous to polyamorous.

Or so says Yassine. I think the difference is obvious. If you went to sleep monogamous and woke up polyamorous, you went from being uncomfortable with your partners seeing other people, to comfortable. That is quite a stark difference.

If you want to further frame things in terms of an active personal desire, we can augment Aella’s definition to say that a poly person also does not themself want to be restricted. Even if they're only interested in one person right now, they still never want to be restricted from seeing others. This makes the definition a lot more symmetric, and I think it's another good update.

Is Polyamory Better Than Monogamy?

Finally, Yassine objects that Aella essentially defines polyamorous people as the good guys: “We let our partners be free, unlike those pesky controlling monogs.”

Aella bites the bullet here and admits she does think polyamory is better. And I do think that informs her choice of definition, but not in the way Yassine claims. Aella thinks polyamory is better due to its lack of restrictions. Any version of "polyamory" where partners still restrict eachother—such as classic polygamy—is not one she's interested in. So she defines it this way to clearly describe what it is she practices and supports. Not, I believe, in an attempt to shield polyamory from criticism.

I think Aella's right, but even if polyamory is better, that doesn't make it some moral imperative. In her own words, “I do think polyamory is ideal, but in the sort of way waking up at 5am, exercising, drinking a green smoothie and then going to work at your orphan-feeding charity is ideal. It’s a nice, idyllic goal, but for a lot of us it’s not practical.”

Nobody's perfect. There are lots of ways I could be a better partner. I could have fewer insecurities, more patience, and less of a temper. But I can't change all that by a simple act of will, and these imperfections don't make me a bad person. We can say the same for being monogamous.

As an aside, an added benefit of the symmetry we introduced in the last section is that it makes Aella's definition less self-serving. Poly people do more than just not restrict their partners: they also want to be free from restrictions themselves. This is a selfish desire, not an innately virtuous one. Hopefully Yassine likes this definition more on these grounds.

Stress-Testing Justifications for Monogamy

The case for polyamory is simple. Romantic feelings arise naturally—unless we actively suppress them—even while we're in a relationship. Most people get the occasional crush on a friend or coworker. These desires are not fundamentally different from our multifarious desires in other areas of life, so the real question is why not to pursue them.

Time Limitations

I've compared the polyamorous attitude toward relationships to the standard attitude toward everything else, such as friends, movies, foods, and so on. Yassine tries to bite the bullet and says his objections to polyamory apply in these other cases as well.

Since our attention is limited, giving more focus to one thing necessarily detracts from others. Practicing polyamory detracts from your primary relationship, and making new friends likewise detracts from your other friendships. If my best friend suddenly has no time for me, I'm liable to be upset.

But Yassine misses the bullet here because his objection to polyamory runs deeper than a simple lack of time. For example, Aella asked if he would object to his wife sleeping with someone while on a business trip. He gave a strong yes, even though she would never see him again and this wouldn’t detract from her time with him in any way.

And even if we accepted this argument, Yassine never gets around to explaining why the optimal tradeoff is a single partner, which is the key question at hand. If my best friend had no time for me, I’d be annoyed, but I wouldn't demand to be their *only* friend. That would be an insane overcorrection. The burden is on the monogamist to explain why that *is* the sane tradeoff for romantic relationships.

Being “Enough” for Eachother

Returning to the business trip example, if Yassine's problem isn't the time expenditure, what is it? He says the fling would show that he’s “not enough” for his wife. This is a rather silly objection here, since the only sense in which he’s “not enough” is that he’s not physically present! Why take that personally?

More generally though, no one person is ever "enough" for another. Yassine thinks if his wife wants someone else, this necessarily means he's severely lacking in some respect; he's unable to give her everything she needs. But you'll never satisfy all of your partner’s needs! They'll always depend upon their family and confide in their friends. We don’t take this personally. Yet for some reason, Yassine does take it personally in the case of another romantic partner.

Compare again to friendships. We’re all fine with our best friend having other friends. We don’t expect that we alone should be “enough” for them. We don't even frame it like that. So why for romantic partners?

I think if your wife is interested in someone else, this needn’t reflect deeply on you. Loving or being attracted to one person doesn't necessarily detract from your feelings for anyone else. I've had crushes on and been in love with others while still fully loving my wife, so I know this is possible. To baldly assert that it *must* reflect poorly on you is just begging the question. To argue persuasively for monogamy, Yassine needs to explain *why* it reflects poorly, not just claim that it does.

Bad Breath Analogy

Here's an attempt to do just that. Imagine you’re walking down the street and a stranger stops to tell you your breath smells awful. You might conclude not just that it smells bad, but *overwhelmingly* bad, since it was bad enough that a total stranger felt the need to break a social taboo and tell you.

Yassine argues by analogy that if someone wants to go poly, we can infer not just that they're a little dissatisfied with their relationship, but *very* dissatisfied, since they've gone so far as to break the bounds of monogamy. So sure, nobody satisfies *all* their partner's needs, but if they're so unsatisfied that they need another partner, that's a red flag.

However, this argument only works in a monogamous culture. Wanting to go poly in a monogamous world may indicate a problem, but if polyamory were normalized, this needn’t be so; it would cease to be an extreme measure. By analogy, if strangers were comfortable broaching sensitive topics with eachother, you couldn’t infer an unusual problem from the bad breath example.

Since we do in fact live in a monogamous culture, you might say it's a valid inference. But there are polyamorous subcultures where the inference fails. And its validity also differs based on personal outlook. Suppose that stranger before was on the spectrum. If they haven't internalized certain social norms, we can’t infer much if they break them. For people who are poly as an orientation, we likewise can’t infer that something significant is lacking in their primary relationships.

Overall, Yassine is right that if you're in a steady monogamous relationship and your partner suddenly wants to go poly, something may be amiss. But that’s more a fact about monogamous culture than it is a problem with polyamory. And the problem doesn't apply at all if your partner wants to be poly from the start. This is a clear example of Yassine imagining that polyamory requires some abnormally strong romantic desires, leaving him mystified as a result.

Monogamy as Costly Signaling

This final argument is so awful I feel bad even including it. If I were monogamous, I would still disavow it. But Yassine put it forth in earnest, so it bears responding to. He claims that monogamy is a way to signal dedication to one’s partner: to show you how much I care, I won’t see other people.

There’s a reading of this which I find completely gross and toxic. Under that interpretation, this argument abandons any defense of monogamy as good in its own right, reducing it to a form of self-immolation which is valuable to your partner precisely because of the strain you undergo. It imagines that your partner wants to put you through something arduous for the sole purpose of showing how much you care, not to directly satisfy their needs.

There are a million arbitrary things one could do to signal their dedication like this, many of which we all agree would be toxic for a partner to expect. I could cut off all my old friends, stop speaking to my family, and abandon my own hobbies and interests. Surely if I love you enough, you should matter more. But why would any decent partner ask this of me, and why would I want to be with one who did?

I assume Yassine would object to this framing, so let’s try a more charitable interpretation. Aella argues that poly people can display dedication just as easily as monogamous ones. She shared an example where she was feeling especially lonely, and some of her partners went out of their way to see her more than they otherwise would have. Yassine endorsed this as the same basic concept.

Personally, I wouldn’t really call that signaling. As Aella rightly asks, when does a signal stop being a signal and become the thing itself? Aella’s partners weren't really “signaling” their dedication; they were just being dedicated, by directly meeting her concrete needs.

Even if we call this signaling, if Yassine concedes that it's doable within polyamory, what advantage does monogamy then have? Signaling devotion in this way takes time. It's a matter of building up trust over the course of a relationship. By repeatedly observing your partner coming back to you, when you know they could leave at any time. Yassine argues that monogamy is a sort of shortcut, a way to clearly signal devotion up front. To my mind, searching for a shortcut like this cheapens its sincerity and legitimacy.

To be clear, monogamy is a genuine relationship need for many, as Aella herself mentions early on. For many people, polyamory would simply cause too many negative emotions to be worth it. This is a valid reason to be monogamous. But in that case, I’d say you're directly meeting your partner’s needs, not signaling devotion.

Conclusion

I would like to stress again that I’m not trying to say polyamory is for everyone. I do admittedly want monogamous people to reflect more on the justifications for their own relationship style, but mainly, I’m trying to explain why it shouldn’t be a baffling lifestyle.

There is nothing in polyamory but the common sense we apply to all other relationships—and everything else we enjoy in life—applied to romantic relationships. If you enjoy sex, love, and romance, why not partake in it the same you would anything else you like?

Could polyamory really be just that simple?

Yes.