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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   4603 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 12, 2025

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Maybe you'd argue they should give monogamy the old college try so they can make an informed decision on which suits them better

Given the predominant cultural messaging, it can be safely assumed that even among the Bay Areans they did give monogamy the old college try.

Scott, by his account, has a good marriage, a tightly knit community and a pair of twins. He still finds poly a net-positive to his life.

Difficult to separate? He has all of those because of poly, and being extremely high status (within a limited scale) he's going to have way above average success for a poly male (if he so desires). Not exactly someone I'm going to turn to as a replicable example.

@TheDag as well- Eons ago I commented on the phenomenon of a non-zero number of poly EAs claiming also to be asexual, and I continue to wonder the extent to which this is the Bay Arean egregore poisoning a population for a phenomenon that would otherwise be known as "having close friends," since for some noticeable fraction the addition of sex to the calculation does not play a major role.

I blame social media as well for putting the final nail in the meaning of "friend," but like marriage it was already down the slope of not meaning much.

I continue to wonder the extent to which this is the Bay Arean egregore poisoning a population for a phenomenon that would otherwise be known as "having close friends,"

Related.

I dunno, though. Everyone intuitively understands the concept of an emotional affair, and a lot of women (and probably a lot of men too) would see it as a betrayal if they found out that their spouse was sharing intensely intimate thoughts and feelings with another person of the opposite sex, even if their spouse hadn't yet fucked (or even kissed) the person. I don't know what Scott's love life is actually like, but to me it sounds like he has a wife and also a "harem" of other women with whom he has emotional affairs, achieving a degree of emotional intimacy greater than mere friendship, even if there's no fucking. I could be wrong, though: maybe what he calls his polycule is functionally indistinguishable from a dude who has a wife and a bunch of female friends, who treat him almost like their honorary "gay best friend".

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