"Sharing the Wealth": a mono shows his admiration

The Daily Californian (UC Berkeley)

A columnist for the Berkeley student newspaper finds us scary but praiseworthy:

Sharing the Wealth

By Louis Peitzman

I'm told that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. That's likely why I've never given polyamory a second thought. Openly dating two (or more) people without drama or moral conundrums sounds great, but there's got to be a catch, right?

Further research, however, indicates that there isn't, really....

I'm not advocating polyamory for all, because that would mean polyamory for me, and there is no way in hell. I'm just saying, I admire the openness, the communication, the everyone getting exactly what they want. We could stand to learn something from the polyamorous, even if we see our relationships as a strictly one-on-one deal.

...First, there's the idea of sharing. Non-poly couples deal with this, to some extent, but there's a sizable difference between sharing your closet space and sharing your significant other. The latter requires understanding, security and the knowledge that a person can't really belong to you in the first place. One of the things I like most about polyamory is that there's this inherent selflessness built in. As an only child, that appeals to me, because it's pretty much a foreign concept.

From a practical perspective, polyamory forces time management.... Sorting all this out requires massive patience and a color-coded Google calendar....

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we come to the issue of jealousy — or maybe the lack thereof. Except, from what I understand, polyamory isn't so much about not getting jealous as it is about dealing with that jealousy productively.... Instead of getting all torn up about it, which is probably how I'd handle things, they use it to their advantage. Rather than mope, they identify and respond to their feelings: Where is this coming from? What can I do to stop it? How can I prevent myself from feeling this way in the future?...

Read the whole article (Aug. 11, 2008).

And while we're on college newspapers, a columnist for the Dartmouth Free Press weighs serial monogamy versus poly:

By Valerie M. Arvidson

Serial monogamy, the repeated leaping from one sexually monogamous relationship to another, has become the most popular dating trend of our generation.... In a way, it is a median: Polyamory (literally “many loves”), having multiple sexual partners at once, is still regarded as a risky undertaking; while full blown monogamy this early in our lives feels like a death sentence.

...College-aged students are most often found in serial monogamist relations partly because leaving home means needing to find someone else to take care of them.... But this kind of investment often gets poor return because, let’s face it, monogamy is hard. It’s a social ideal that many question. What are the benefits over polyamory? It feels safer. It feels safer to have series of monogamous relationships as opposed to parallel sexual relationships. The risk of getting hurt seems less, and yet, serial monogamists probably get hurt just as often as polyamorous persons; the pain is just punctuated and stretched across time....

Read the whole article (June 2008).