Polybook Day 10: Simplification and Its Discontents, Simplification Mechanisms in Polyamory
Or, how it is possible, to swallow it.
I told somebody recently, “for polyamory, some people are very good at the math, some people have mechanisms for avoiding needing the math”
Let me explain this in more detail, in this post about legibility and simplification mechanisms.
(A reminder, my take is that a lot of monogamous relationships fall apart because the parties take for granted that a lot of things are true *because* they got married, without checking for if they actually agree on their assumptions of what a marriage *is* and remain comfortable for many years until it blows up due to a big schism in worldviews becoming evident and unavoidable.)
***This will need to be expanded on to be an entire chapter
When problems are solved by sex, versus when sex is not a problem
One simplification mechanism is “just don’t get jealous.”
Another is, “get jealous, but have a way to make the jealousy fun.”
These are two different things.
There are some people for whom jealousy is “just not a problem.” They naturally feel compersion, or the way their sexual development arose, they don’t feel jealous, or their jealousy is not particularly severe and they have nice ways for themselves around handling it internally.
These are sometimes perhaps seen as the “gold standard” by some, but I would not agree. I would not say that this has to be the gold standard. It is not the case that “people have worked very hard to get to this gold standard.” Rather, the stars have aligned such that this is where they are.
In fact, they might have issues with partners who are really confused about why this person doesn’t get jealous, and the partner gets really turned off that there is no “heat” or “spark” in a certain way. And so it is not even the ideal in any specific relationship.
That would be in the category of “the sex is not a problem” in terms of simplification.
Sometimes, the problems are solved by sex. People are mad at each other. They get drunk. They have sex. They feel re-regulated. This can be great.
The failure mode is again when only one partner is into this. If the other partner, for example, shuts down sexually when there is conflict, that means that when there is conflict, sex can’t be the resolution mechanism. This can really suck if there is no other method.
This is very much an incomplete list. Here are just a few to get the list growing. Hopefully I will add more.
A List of Simplification Mechanisms
Both parties agree to “not be jealous” and both can do whatever
Anything is okay, as long as it is shared before it happens
Anything is okay, just not in my house, not on my property
Anything is okay, if it’s on my property, I better be included
Anything is okay, no overnights, be back home by a certain time so that the day isn’t much different
Doing everything only together, telling each other everything, shared phone access
Meeting people on a shared couple account only, doing everything together, no autonomous online flirting
Not telling each other anything (Don’t ask Don’t tell)
A type of sex is allowed (only casual, only BDSM)
Only specific people are allowed (such as A Closed Triad)
Only specific settings, like parties, or weddings :O are allowed
Only specific times are allowed (like when somebody is away for a long business trip)
Anything is allowed, at any time, except for penetrative sex
Anything is allowed, at any time, except barriers must be used
Anything is allowed, at any time, except an STD test is required before meeting up with me (at all, do not call, do not try to make plans, I don’t want to see you and feel “tempted” if there is no test.)
Anything is allowed but no parasexual texting / Instagram relationships
Anything is allowed but don’t be addicted to porn
I haven’t gone into *how* each of these serves as a simplification mechanism.
But if you look closely, you will notice something. The point of each of them is to have a pretty broad (or specifically narrow) set of affordances. Either the “allowed” list is pretty clear and limited, or the “not allowed” list is pretty clear and limited.
Though I haven’t spelled it out here, there is a philosophy for “what is allowed” or “what is not allowed” for each of these. The legible coordinating mechanism therefore is something that the parties can philosophically agree on. The agreement would not just be around the “what” but also around the “why.”
The affordances are not expected to “grow.” It is not the case that each of these is a “starter pack of sexy things, to be added onto later.” Each of these can have a starter pack, but each of these is meant to be a terminal state, in the same way that a monogamous relationship is meant to have a terminal state. Yes, a breakup can still happen in polyamory relationships, just as in monogamous relationships, and yes, polyamorous people can cheat, just the cheating ends up looking different than “had sex with somebody else, period.”
It is not the case in a monogamous relationship that “we are in this relationship where we do not sleep with other people, but if you start sleeping with other people, I will stand behind you and continue to route my life around you because I love you so much.”
Similarly above, it is not the case that “Anything is allowed but don’t become addicted to porn, but if you do become addicted to porn I will stand by you because I love you so much.” Rather, the same way that cheating is often seen as an end to the relationship in monogamy, or at least a renegotiating point for rebuilding trust, each of these situations outlined has a factor that would end the relationship or be a site of renegotiation.
I do recommend having a starter pack of any version of these, in the sense that you want to ease your partner into any system that you are using. You would be surprised by *how many little things* could be either ethically or phenomenologically a problem for your partner, that you would never expect. You also would not be able to guess what kind of aftercare they may need or how good they are at stating their needs, pivoting to changes, or making beautiful their own phenomenological landscape. You also wouldn’t know what changes you are inserting in their world that are changing their ability to make themselves feel good. Did they move into their place? Did they move to your city? Did you tell them not to play their stupid music at night? Are all their musical instruments in a storage unit? Is your place too small for them to paint? Do you use them as emotional support about work stuff? You may well be affecting this person in a way that affects their ability to be the person they want to be, or their ability to be the person they want to be with you.
“Copium” may be a meme joke, but if they had a steady supply of Copium that was 50mg before meeting you, and then by being with you, they actually need Copium of 80mg, and what they actually end up with on net is Copium of 20mg, there is a big problem.
Fights around, “I need this,” “No you don’t get to have this” are common in poly relationships just as they are in monogamous relationships. Some poly people are poly because they are skilled around knowing what kinds of “I need this” they are good at providing, and know how to be legible around it to other people enough to attract and keep those people around. [Probably should expand on this]
Costs and Benefits
There are various benefits and costs to these simplification mechanisms listed above. Trying to balance out the benefits and costs of them, if you are not fully into one system, is how you end up with another legibility problem.
What are the costs and benefits of each?
If both people agree to not be jealous, then the benefit is that “who is responsible for managing their own emotions” becomes straightforward. But also it doesn’t give any structure around “hey, I can manage jealousy in this situation, but if this other situation happens, that will be way too much for me and I will need external emotional support.” You still will have to have agreements about what situations will end up being overwhelming, and what support the people will get in such a situation, or if those situations will simply be avoided. This can get complicated very quickly.
Telling each other everything, and always being together, is a fine and standard format. Many swingers are like this, for example. They go out together. If one is out of town, they don’t use that as an opportunity to see other people. That’s not a discussion. They just see other people together as a site of fun. If one person wants to go out to a party, and the other doesn’t, that’s not a fight. They just don’t go. If the parties have significantly different appetite for this stuff, such that one always wants to go and one never does, that might be the site of a breakup or a restructuring of the terms of the relationship.
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell often means that there are kinds of intimacies that the parties are fine not having and don’t see as important for the relationship. Some people really like Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Some people really do not like it.
If you are trying to do a hybrid method, then legibility about the hybrid method becomes important, and a lack of legibility at that new site can be a problem. Often there are not “patterns” you can just apply to your relationship.
What does illegibility look like?
Let’s say that there is a triad. A man, a bisexual wife, and a casual girlfriend. The girlfriend is allowed to date whoever she likes. The site of legibility is “We are having casual sex, don’t fall in love.”
There can be issues here because is love a set of feelings, or a set of actions? Is driving the girlfriend to the vet when her dog has a seizure an act of “love” or is it just diligent good friend behavior?
A lot of people in the community end up with rather bespoke definitions of things that serve as functional definitions in the community meant to solve certain problems.
For example, you can’t stop somebody from being in love if they are already in love. Thus, “policing love” would not make sense for somebody. In the poly communities, there often is a version of love that is referred to as a felt internal feeling that is often hard to describe, and that happens pretty often, as a very distinct feeling from “acting on the love” or commitment. The problem that is being solved for, is in some monogamous relationships, “love” for another can be deeply threatening to the stability of the existing relationship, and polyamory rejects this coupling of love and threat as necessary.
In this situation with the girlfriend, perhaps the “legible agreement” is that there is another woman “for them.”
It can be the case that “of course ‘our’ posture towards her will be “love” if we see her often enough, because love happens when you see somebody often.” But then if what “our” posture should be can actually be a site of big conflict. Unfortunately, the process of revealing this difference in posture can be well deep into the new relationship, and then the process of resolution is tricky. Both parties have to be willing to see the other side’s perspective and create a new unified story.
That is just one example. There are a lot of concepts here, that more expansion on could be useful on. Feedback is very welcome.