Still more poly links

[chanaleh]

I always think these posts will be "last one for a while", but there's just more coming up all the time. :-}

This whole Tiger Woods thing is causing a fair bit of commentary from the non-monogamy faction (much as the whole Bill Clinton thing did 12 years ago). But in particular, I couldn't not repost the one from my fandom object Jay Michaelson,

Comments

poly fidelity and culture

[enochs_fable]

Well, the Christian Bible sez one flesh, anyhow. The Jewish prohibition against same was culturally based.

Even more than the fundamental disconnect, here's what bugs me:

• Tiger was actively or by omission lying to his wife about agreements they made. Most poly people I've been acquainted with also tend to have their own agreements about what works for them - and breaking those is cheating. I've seen it be incredibly destructive, and when poly is involved, it tends to be a terrible rippling tide that destroys multiple relationships... and Michaelson wants to claim this as a pecadillo rather than an ethical failing? If someone is going to cheat, having open relationships only changes the particulars of the cheating - not the fundamental disrespect and disregard for other's feelings at the core of it. Using an instance of infidelity as a platform to promote polyamory seems deeply misguided to me.
  
• Notice about how he pulls out the old chestnut about male desire, and tosses feminism under the bus - maybe I'm misreading, and maybe it's the context of his post, but the subtext seems to be 'come on, men are just LIKE that, if people were okay with it, things would be cool, man!' and women are almost... irrelevant, agentless.
  
• Another reason why patriarchal polygyny is a lousy model to point back to - just because some other model is out there and older... doesn't mean anything except that it's another cultural construct in a completely different cultural context. For good reason, he doesn't mention Mormon fundamentalists.
  
• Humans are adaptable cultural animals. To assert a particular cultural construct of affiliation isn't "natural" is rather missing the point (at least not without serious data to the contrary). Not to mention, a negative case doesn't tend to win friends.