Now we know why he’s so happy

Two months ago (an eternity in podcasting, I know) I was on the Bayesian Conspiracy podcast to discuss polyamory with Aella and Eneasz, both of whom are hella fucking poly.[1] I favor monogamy without moral objection to polyamory, yet its appeal eludes me. Given the caliber of my interlocutors, I walked away feeling uncharacteristically frustrated with our conversation, largely because I think we lack a shared understanding of each other’s vocabulary.

This post is a belated attempt to remedy the miscommunication, and not one that necessarily requires listening to the episode first (though it helps of course). I address the definition of polyamory, how we talk about ‘restrictions’ in relationships, and where trust comes from.

Return of the Antipodes

We started by rehashing my ongoing disagreement with Aella and her idiosyncratic definition of ‘polyamory’. While this definition offers a new perspective, it's important to consider how it aligns with the broader understanding of polyamory and its impact on communication:

The definition of ‘polyamorous’ that I find cleanest, for me, is not forbidding your partner from having extra-relationship intimacy. It doesn’t matter if they’re acting on it or not, it doesn’t matter if you don’t feel like banging anybody else, as long as your partner could go have sex/love someone else if they wanted, then to me, that’s polyamory.

I previously addressed why I really don’t like this ‘antipodal’ re-definition, in contrast to the straightforward and commonly-accepted “the practice of or desire for multiple concurrent romantic/sexual relationships” understanding.[2] Aella has subsequently stated that her position is best expressed as a 2D chart:

Almost a political compass meme…

…which nullifies a lot of my criticism. If you had to compress the spectrum down to just one, Aella favors the ‘restriction’ axis as more fitting while also acknowledging that some information is lost in the process. I agree that a chart allows for more nuance, but disagree with re-defining polyamory to focus away from the ‘interested in many’ axis for multiple reasons:

  1. The risk of confusion by the re-definition is very high
  2. The information conveyed by the re-definition is very low
  3. The ‘restrictions-on-partner’ framing can get incoherent

It’s totally fine to use words with semantic ambiguity (e.g. light, right, match) when their meaning is clear enough in context (e.g. “You made the right choice by striking a match in the dim light”); and it’s totally fine for Aella to want to express a perspective that doesn’t align with mainstream understanding of polyamory. But it’s really confusing to use a word with an obscure interpretation that forks away from its pre-existing common understanding. Consider the outrage if a politician ran on a platform of “green infrastructure” only to deliver oil refineries painted green. Sure, the election promise wasn’t technically false, but the confusion is significant and foreseeable enough to deem it intentional.

The re-definition could be justified if it had compelling benefits, yet it ends up conveying less information. If someone said “I’m a vegetarian” everyone would interpret this as describing their personal abstention from eating meat. But if this person privately redefined ‘vegetarian’ to mean they’re okay with others not eating meat, it shifts the emphasis from a direct expression of one’s own attributes to an indirect reactive stance regarding others’ choices, leading to a conversation that feels needlessly convoluted. It certainly can be relevant to know what the vegetarian will tolerate, but that’s rarely ever the most relevant information. Similarly, if someone hitting on me tells me they’re poly, my first thought would be “they have a desire for multiple relationships” and definitely not “if we were in a relationship, and if I had a desire for multiple relationships, this person is willing to tolerate me pursuing these relationships”. What purpose could this circuitousness possibly serve?

It’s trivial to conjure examples of how the ‘restrictions-on-partner’ framing devolves into incoherency. One man has a harem relationship with 50 women who he forbids them from seeing anyone else, while they’re fine with him sleeping with whomever (If you’re following along on the chart, he would be on the top left while they would be on the bottom right). The women are all considered “poly” according to Aella’s ‘restrictions’ re-definition, but the man is not. If he wanted to expand the harem, seeking out “poly” women to add to the roster would be unnecessarily frustrating for everyone involved, because it’s just not how people use the term.

One of Aella’s objections to focusing on the traditional ‘wanting multiple relationships’ axis is that it isn’t distinctive enough, since almost everyone has some semblance of that desire. This is true but flattens far too much. Her survey data is the gold standard here, and it does show mild interest in banging others among the monogamous.

Horizontal axis reflects relationship length in years, not genital size

There’s a meaningful difference between an errant desire to bend the barista over the counter, and playing calendar tetris with a dozen of your secondaries, such that it doesn’t make sense to cleave “want to pursue extracurricular intimacy” into a neat yes/no binary. There’s no dividing line under the classic mono/poly definition, it’s a gradient spectrum ranging from “fleeting thought” to “overriding purpose in life”. Aella has written about how the ‘restrictions’ axis also falls along a spectrum (poly couples often have rules on condom use, emotional boundaries, or not fucking your partner’s dad) which means it’s not immune from her own criticism.

Overall I have a very high opinion of Aella’s integrity and have no reason to believe she’s intentionally duplicitous, but the re-definition appears motivated by propaganda purposes. She’s very transparent about believing polyamory to be the more virtuous path in contrast to monogamy (as is her right!), and it’s often useful to use language to influence social dictate, but no one has to agree with accepting terminology with baked-in beliefs. Remember how protestors against the Dakota Access Pipeline insisted they be referred to as ‘water protectors’? Given the negative connotations attached to promiscuity (which, as a former slut myself, I neither share nor endorse) there appears to be an aversion to advertising ‘polyamory’ too much under the “wanting multiple partners” framing. Instead, it’s marketed under the much more palatable “not wanting to restrict others” framing.

However, the same accusations of wielding definitions as an ideological cudgel could be fairly levied against me. She rightly pointed out that our primary concern should be the accuracy of the definition, rather than focusing excessively on avoiding ideologically charged framing.[3] When I was asked if polyamory did indeed place fewer “restrictions” on people, I said yes but as I’ll expand upon in the next section, I’m retracting my answer because I don’t believe we have the same understanding of the term “restriction”. Otherwise I agree with prioritizing accuracy; I don’t care what specific words we use so long as they’re useful at conveying information to others.

The ultimate question for vocabulary choices should always be “Am I reasonably certain that my listener has the same understanding of this word that I do?” Based on the multiple reasons I outlined, the focus on ‘restrictions’ is too confusing and too ambiguous to pass this test.

I Want You to Want Me

Let’s marinate into whether ‘restrictions’ is the best way to cleave the mono/poly dichotomy. Consider two scenarios:

  1. You are cordially invited to contribute to a vegetarian-only potluck.
  2. You are subject to criminal penalties under the Peter Singer world regime if you consume any sustenance of animal progeny.

The two pictures are not the same. Both, technically, describe ‘restrictions’, but this again flattens far too much under a single banner. The aforementioned “don’t fuck my dad” rule used by poly couples is also a ‘restriction’, but it would be absurd if that’s enough to void their polyamorous certification.

When Jonah Hill asked his then-girlfriend surfer Sarah Brady not to post bathing suit photos, he framed it as expressing his relationship “boundaries”. Oh but isn’t that just what a controlling abuser would say to whitewash his yoke? There’s no bright line rule here, you can’t delineate between “boundaries” and “abusive control” without having to conjure up an array of debatable and interpretative factors.

I was once in a monogamous relationship where my partner then expressed a strong desire to date other people. I had no desire to get in her way or otherwise be a hindrance, so I said “Ok!” and promptly broke up with her. I didn’t tell her what she wasn’t allowed to do, instead I unambiguously expressed my own interest in not wanting to be in a relationship with someone who has an active desire to fuck other people. Would skipping out on a vegetarian-only potluck because you’re tired of quinoa count as a ‘restriction’ imposed upon the host? Under a very strict literal reading, sort-of-yes, but it’s an incoherent use of the term that confuses more than clarifies.

The poly brigade’s retort about how everyone wants to fuck other people doesn’t fly. Granting that this desire widely exists, it does so on a spectrum of intensity. I’ve often found myself swept up by the nascent intoxication of a new situationship where the thought of pausing for a define-the-relationship talk seemed almost alien. My Tinder matches would be left fallow and rotting on the vine, because why bother? I want my partner to have the same overriding desire for me; not for them to reluctantly forgo others because of my say so. If I had to utter that kind of proclamation, it’s probably too coercive.

When the county clerk stamped my marriage license recently, my touch neurons did not suddenly get cryptographically locked to only respond to my wife’s DNA. I’m not pursuing hot people not because I somehow lost the ability to notice them, and I’m not fucking anyone else not because my wife forbids me, but because I just don’t care to. My wife certainly could double-explicitly prohibit me from doing so, but that would be the equivalent of her forbidding me from taking up fly-fishing.

I wonder if there’s a lack of imagination from both camps. I’ve had several casual dating periods, so I have some insight into the thrill and excitement of rotating through flings like a flipbook. But when I see my poly friends juggling a stable cadre of full-blown secondary relationships in addition to their primary, I feel vicarious exhaustion. I admit it, the energy devoted seems so excessive that I wonder how much of it is performative, motivated by the desire to showcase their apparent enlightenment,[4] or maybe it’s to ensure they have enough board game partners. On the flip side, I wonder if they believe my assertions that I’m not interested in pursuing others to be genuine, or whether they assume I’ve been browbeaten by the dominating cultural narrative into accepting my imaginary handcuffs.

To be fair, the prevalence of cheating is very strong evidence that monos (especially men) are indeed dishonest about their desires for extra-relationship fucking, either because they’re lying to themselves, or because they’re willing to abandon this desire as a practical concession to finding a partner in a monogamy-dominated landscape. Honesty is good, and so I would heartily recommend polyamory to anyone who (for whatever reason) is irresistibly drawn towards breaking their exclusivity pledges. All this is also a strong indicator that polyamory is socially disfavored, so this potentially justifies using deliberate vocabulary re-framing as a balancing counter-force.

What is Trust? Baby Don’t Hurt Me

Moving from the semantics of polyamory to its practical implications, let’s delve into the pivotal roles of trust and jealousy in these relationships. The foundational problem we have to deal with here is humans’ persistent proclivity towards lying, which remains because of how often it’s personally advantageous to do so. Naturally, humans also developed a countervailing proclivity for detecting and dissuading dishonesty as a safeguard. It’s impractical to live ensconced within an intractable and perpetual barrier of suspicion, so we have measures to let our guard down selectively.

Ideally we build trust over time through shared experiences and history, but there’s also potential “trust shortcuts” such as costly signals and commitment rituals.[5] Basically, any actions that someone is unlikely to undertake unless they were genuinely committed count. In the context of romantic relationships, these can range from the extravagant (atrociously expensive weddings) to the mundane (introducing a new girlfriend to your friends). Though far from infallible, shortcuts retain some usefulness because the traditional method of building trust can be unreasonably and agonizingly slow.[6]

This nicely segues into the role of jealousy. It’s considered a negative and disdainful emotion, and fair to say that the polyamorous are particularly proud of the cultural technology they’ve developed for dealing with it, but I want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing here. If Alice sees her boyfriend Bob talking to Cindy and feels [negative emotion] in response, it could be a result of pure resentment (Alice hates seeing Bob receive attention from other women) or it could be a reasonable response to a lack of security and assurance (read: lack of trust). The problem is both variants (call them resentful vs rational) get shoved into the same “jealousy” laundry hamper without efforts to distinguish the two, and what would otherwise be a reasonable emotional response gets dirtied by proximity.

Consider another example with polyamorous couple Doug and Emma. They’ve been each other’s primary partners for years and have mutually disclosed social security numbers. One day Emma jets off to Europe with a new fling without telling Doug, who only finds out about this through her LinkedIn updates. Upon her return she continues exhibiting increasingly detached behavior, spending less time with Doug and cancelling plans at the last minute with irreverent excuses, all while reassuring him he remains her top priority in life. Doug is no spring chicken and deploys an arsenal of polyamory tools as remedy (open communication, compersion seances, and even a meticulous line chart of their decreasing time together) but nothing works. Emma continues to reaffirm how important he is to her via garbled late-night texts, and Doug continues to feel [negative emotion].

Would anyone dispute Doug has valid reasons for trusting Emma less? Yes, she says he’s a priority, but her actions indicate otherwise. He has ample reasons to believe Emma is *gasp* lying. Maybe she’s not, perhaps this is all just a misunderstanding with an imminent denouement. But if Emma was indeed lying, what can be done to maintain the relationship? After such a grievous betrayal, it wouldn’t be tenable for Doug to carry on as usual, nor would it be practical to proactively commit to the uncertainty of rebuilding trust via the traditional slow-burn accumulation. Only trust shortcuts — within the grand lineage of romantic serenades perhaps — are likely to be viable options here, if anything.

I never expected any of the above to be a point of contention, but it was! Again, humans routinely lie, especially about sex and relationships. Emma could have been lying to Doug about her commitment to their relationship just to stall for time until she meets an upgraded Doug replacement. Poly relationships commonly organize around having a primary partner, and even relationship anarchists necessarily express a hierarchy through the inescapable constraints of the attention economy, all of which are potential opportunities for trust to erode. Around ~25 mins mark, I asked my poly interlocutors how to ensure someone isn’t lying to you, their responses were a variant of “just trust them bro”. Ok, but how? The point here is that trust cannot appear out of thin air, it has to come from somewhere, and this is true regardless if it’s a polyamorous or monogamous relationship!

This is another area in particular where I worry that a polyamorous framing saturated with righteousness could lead one astray. If you’ve inculcated your lifestyle as inherently virtuous because “jealousy” is either non-existent or adequately contained, there’s a risk of aligning all suspicion (not matter how reasonable) as inherently sinful or indicative of moral failing. Sometimes it’s good to distrust.


We should use words that other people know the meaning of. We should avoid creating unnecessary ambiguity by flattening distinct phenomena under the same banner. Prioritizing clarity is particular important when dealing with something as complex as human relationships, whether polyamorous or monogamous.

Now, let’s play some board games.

  1. ^

    Throwback to 2020 where I also discussed polyamory with Aella on episode 12 of The Bailey podcast.

  2. ^

    If you only trust our future robot overlord, here’s also what chatGPT said: “It’s fair to say that the definition of polyamory you provided is not widely accepted in its entirety. Polyamory, as commonly understood, involves more than just not forbidding extra-relationship intimacy. It typically includes aspects of ethical, open, and consensual engagement in romantic or sexual relationships with multiple partners. The definition you've provided focuses primarily on the aspect of non-restriction, which is a part of polyamory but doesn't encompass its full scope.”

  3. ^

    At the ~16mins mark, Aella said “I think the question should not be ‘Are we trying to avoid virtuous framing?’ but rather ‘Is this accurate? Are poly people in fact placing fewer restrictions on their partners?’”

  4. ^

    I’ve also previously written in Cuckoldry as Status Jockeying about concerns with the way polyamory is framed socially, and how that might discourage transparency about one’s desires.

  5. ^

    I take responsibility for contributing to the confusion with how I discussed ‘costly signals’ in relationships. The classic example of a costly signal is the peacock’s extravagant tail, a reliable indicator of overall fitness precisely because it’s so gratuitously expensive to maintain. When I described ‘commitment rituals’ as ‘costly’ on the podcast, I meant it in the sense that they impose social costs. Public declarations like pledge ceremonies and weddings “work” not because they physically prevent the oath-takers from subsequently breaking their commitments, rather the aspiration here is the pomp and circumstance of the ritual comes laden with sufficient social pressure to encourage ongoing compliance.

  6. ^

    The galaxy-brain take here is to tally up all the “trust shortcuts” we grudgingly rely upon on a daily basis and imagine how you’d cope without them: online product reviews, uniformed police officers, food safety inspection grades on restaurant windows, bank logos on ATMs, and on and on. The point is not that these shortcuts are infallible, they can and are indeed frequently exploited, but that’s not enough to throw them all away.

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On the definition question, I would say that, if we only have the two terms "monogamous relationship" and "polyamorous relationship" to work with, then I'd define "monogamous relationship" to be one that has the single-partner restriction, and "polyamorous relationship" to be one that doesn't.  Because that seems to be the most important distinction to make: establishing the rules you're working with.

If we're talking about poly and mono individuals, then... Again, the rules they use seem to be the important thing to describe.  (If you defined it based on how many partners you currently have, then you'd say a person with two partners is poly, and if they break up with one partner they become monogamous, and if they're trying to find a second partner they're still monogamous, until they succeed and then they become poly again; this seems silly.)

Now, "the rules you use" technically comprise two parts: the rule you impose on your partner, and the rule you would accept being imposed upon yourself.  Usually, I'd expect it to go both ways by default, but if we had to choose a definition based on just one part, which should we choose?

If you restrict your own behavior, but don't care what your partner does, then you can have a relationship with a classically polyamorous person (who has multiple partners and lets you do the same) or with a classically monogamous person (who has one partner and expects you to do the same).  [And if you restrict your partner's behavior and don't accept restrictions on your own... then you can't really have a relationship with a classically polyamorous person (because they'll want to "cheat" on you), or with a classically monogamous person (because you reserve the right to "cheat" on them).  So those people need to find some kind of nontraditional relationship that isn't either classical mono or poly.]

Since the first case is compatible with poly relationships, I think poly people want to include them.  And I suspect a sizable fraction of classically monogamous people aren't comfortable including a person who goes around saying "I don't care if my partner sleeps with other people"—plus, there isn't much point in advertising that to classically monogamous people.  So there is some reason to classify people as poly based on whether they would restrict their partner's behavior.

If you have a higher number of terms to work with, then you can probably construct better definitions.  This seems like a good idea.

One of the neglected problems with the 'restriction' framework is that it assumes a pre-existing desire that needs restraint. Restrictions are meaningless if the desire isn't there, but if the desire is there then the restriction is bound to be intolerable. Therefore whether or not there is desire is the far more consequential factor. This is why I wrote this:

I wonder if there’s a lack of imagination from both camps. I’ve had several casual dating periods, so I have some insight into the thrill and excitement of rotating through flings like a flipbook. But when I see my poly friends juggling a stable cadre of full-blown secondary relationships in addition to their primary, I feel vicarious exhaustion. I admit it, the energy devoted seems so excessive that I wonder how much of it is performative, motivated by the desire to showcase their apparent enlightenment,[4] or maybe it’s to ensure they have enough board game partners. On the flip side, I wonder if they believe my assertions that I’m not interested in pursuing others to be genuine, or whether they assume I’ve been browbeaten by the dominating cultural narrative into accepting my imaginary handcuffs.

On the flip side, I wonder if they believe my assertions that I’m not interested in pursuing others to be genuine

I can believe this, but it's a weak claim, and insufficient for monogamy.  Much harder to believe would be the assertion that if they pursued you—if a very attractive woman started working with you, and spent a lot of time in your presence chatting with you, flirting and touching you to whatever degree you'd permit, that you wouldn't be the least bit tempted.  I can believe that you'd control your desire, but do you claim that the desire isn't there?  Actually, I think I can quote you on this (bold added):

One of Aella’s objections to focusing on the traditional ‘wanting multiple relationships’ axis is that it isn’t distinctive enough, since almost everyone has some semblance of that desire. This is true but flattens far too much. Her survey data is the gold standard here, and it does show mild interest in banging others among the monogamous.

Next:

One of the neglected problems with the 'restriction' framework is that it assumes a pre-existing desire that needs restraint. Restrictions are meaningless if the desire isn't there, but if the desire is there then the restriction is bound to be intolerable. Therefore whether or not there is desire is the far more consequential factor.

Is this true of all desires?  Surely not; surely there are many weak desires that people cheerfully compromise on in the process of building a relationship.  (In general, if there's a thing that mildly benefits you and majorly bothers your partner, it makes sense to agree to not do that—or, if you prefer, to learn your partner's needs, count them equal to your own, and happily do what's best for the both of you, without needing any "restriction".)

So is it just sexual desire for non-partners, then, for which either you don't have the desire, or you have it so strongly that no compromise is tolerable?  I can also quote you here:

There’s a meaningful difference between an errant desire to bend the barista over the counter, and playing calendar tetris with a dozen of your secondaries, such that it doesn’t make sense to cleave “want to pursue extracurricular intimacy” into a neat yes/no binary. There’s no dividing line under the classic mono/poly definition, it’s a gradient spectrum ranging from “fleeting thought” to “overriding purpose in life”.

I have a desire to be super rich, but it's either unlikely to happen or not worth pursuing. I have a desire to be an elite athlete, but it's either unlikely to happen or not worth pursuing. I have a desire to fuck an endless parade of super models, but it's either unlikely to happen or not worth pursuing. It's very possible that I would feel differently about pursuing multiple relationships if the chase was either much more effortless or more rewarding. Yet the number of sexual partners I've had already easily puts me in the top <1% of males on that metric. So if I'm expressing reluctance despite that relative advantage, I'm very skeptical how much my preferences would change much in response to greater opportunity.

I think there's a big rhetorical difference between "I have no desire to do this" vs "I have a desire to do this, but it's small and unlikely to matter", for someone who cares about whether you're likely to do it.  Naively, the former sounds like, "Oh, so you're no more attracted to other women than a gay man would be?  Wonderful!  I've met such a faithful man!"  Whereas, to an audience that needs to be persuaded, the latter might raise questions like "Might the desire grow in the future, as desires sometimes do?  Under what circumstances?  How likely is it?".

And if one takes the "outside view" and looks at general statistics about divorce and infidelity rates, I got a total failure rate approaching 40% after 10 years.  I suspect at least half of those people were earnest about their marriage vows, so the mere fact that you're earnestly stating that you'll be together for the foreseeable future don't seem especially reassuring.  The statements must be evaluated on their merits.

I see your argument about your personal situation, but one could also argue that your history implies you have a high sex drive plus a high ability to get new partners, and that this will have implications if your partner becomes unattractive to you some years down the road.  I'm not actually sure about the direction of the net update.

From your post:

To be fair, the prevalence of cheating is very strong evidence that monos (especially men) are indeed dishonest about their desires for extra-relationship fucking, either because they’re lying to themselves, or because they’re willing to abandon this desire as a practical concession to finding a partner in a monogamy-dominated landscape.

Or because they naively reported "Yes, today I have no desire to fuck other people" early in the relationship, and thought that was the end of the story.  They didn't look into the causes of infidelity in relationships and really evaluate the likelihood of each of them.  "Will I become less attractive to my partner as I age, and vice versa?  Can we, and will we put in the effort to, do anything about that?  Will our sex drives remain compatible?  Will one person be afflicted by stress or something, and just become unpleasant to be around, etc.?  What is the actual probability that we'll be happy together in 5 years, 10 years?"  They were short-sighted, and probably motivated to be that way for multiple reasons.  (But also, some of this is hard to predict even if you're trying hard.)

Then the situation changed, and their desires changed, but they were already in the relationship, and at least initially their desire wasn't strong enough to justify leaving the relationship.  But it grew stronger.  At some point they have to choose between renegotiating / preparing to leave the relationship, or cheating, and some end up choosing the latter.

I think monogamists have significant motivation to self-deceive upwardly about their propensity towards fidelity.  I think you'd have to agree that the incentive exists: both because it lets them earnestly tell prospective monogamous mates that they'll be faithful, and because they probably think it's morally good to have that quality.  Believing and stating outright falsehoods is not the only possible manifestation.  Making honest mistakes that point in that direction—by being reluctant to follow "dangerous" lines of inquiry, or by quickly seizing upon claims that support the desired conclusion and not scrutinizing them for flaws—can achieve similar results.

Watching the poly/mong argument on Twitter, my best guess is that sex has a very different personal meaning for these two groups of people. They certainly seem to be talking past each other.

I think the simplest distinction is that monogamy doesn't entertain the possibility of a monogamous sexual/romantic partner ethically having other sexual/romantic partners at the same time.

If it's not monogamy then it can be something else but it doesn't have to be polyamory (swingers exist and in practice the overlap seems small). Ethical non-monogamy is a superset of most definitions of polyamory but not all because there are polyamorous people who "cheat" (break relationship agreements) and it doesn't stop them from being considered polyamorous, just like monogamous people who cheat don't become polyamorous (although I'd argue they become non-monogamous for the duration).

It's probably more information to learn that someone is monogamous than to learn that they are polyamorous and learning that they are ethically non-monogamous is somewhere in the middle.

On the definition question, in addition to what localdeity wrote:

  1. I assume that on the first axis we consider position "interested in two people" already pretty non-monogamous, while the position "my partner can have sexual or romantic relationships with anyone except one particular person" is still very poly. If that's the case, your position along "interested in one"/"interested in many" axis can be easily changed if the set of people you know changes, even slightly. This position isn't a fact about you, more like fact about you and your options in current environment. In contrast, your position along the "restricts partner/doesn't restrict partner" axis can't change much if your partner's environment slightly changes. So if we want the definition of something stable and identity-related using one axis, the second axis is better suited for this purpose.
  2. On practice (your experience may vary) the definition that uses axis "interested in one"/"interested in many" causes kinda missing-the-point arguments from monogamous people, like "I barely have time for one partner". I think, if the restriction based definition were generally accepted, the discourse would be better.

I don't understand, how is it missing the point? "Interest in more than one" is necessarily affected by practical concerns, non?

On the "why" question...

Let me start by interrogating the monogamy rule.  What exactly is the rule?

  • Is it that certain forms of physical touching are against the rules?  [Handshakes?—I've heard many Muslims do consider that out of bounds.  Hugs?  Kisses on the cheek?  Rubbing sunscreen onto their back?]  How about looking without touching?  [A wayward glance?  Is there a time limit?  Depending on how clothed they are?  If they choose to dress sexily, what obligations does this impose on you to avoid them?]  And presumably there are exceptions for medical procedures.  [Or are there?  Maybe you can insist on same-sex doctors.]
  • Or is it more like "Don't engage in behavior with the intent of sexual gratification with anyone but your partner?"  [How about porn and masturbation?  What if someone flirts with me and I play along and I enjoy it?  What if you think they're flirting with me and I disagree?]
  • Is it "Flatter my desire to be the exclusive target of your sexual desires"?  [Does this imply lying about not finding celebrities hot, or a don't-ask-don't-tell policy, or attempts at self-modification and/or self-deception?  "Well, 25-year-old Scarlett Johansson isn't my husband's coworker, and if she were she wouldn't just throw herself at him, so I can forget about such unrealistic threats."  Does that mean, if your husband gets fitter and hotter, you'll find this threatening?]
  • Or is it, perhaps, "If you're asking these questions, you're obviously not suited for a relationship with me"?  [Which I have been told.]

I don't see good answers.  For the exclusively behavior-focused rules, any line you draw seems probably either overly restrictive, or there are some people who would derive sexual pleasure from what is allowed and that probably defeats the purpose—or possibly both.  And it seems like, in practice, people draw the line in fairly different places, for unclear reasons; it seems arbitrary and stupid.  Unless I take it to be a consequence of the more intent-focused or outcome-focused rules, which have their own problems—tending to strike me as either super-restrictive, a source of arguments and self-deception, and/or unrealistic.

 

Next, putting that aside.  Even supposing you're in a perfect monogamous setup, where both of you only have eyes for each other... how long can you honestly promise that will last?  Googling says that 20% of marriages end in divorce within 10 years.  A British survey of those that were together 10+ years said that 20% of them had cheated.  I haven't found a source with numbers, but I think there are also lots of couples who, though they stay together, they rarely or never have sex anymore.

Things happen.  You and your partner may change, and one may become no longer attractive to the other.  Can you really, honestly promise that won't happen?

Maybe you think you have specific information about yourselves.  Is a promise of "There's a 90% chance we'll still be great together in 10 years" emotionally satisfying?  What about 80%?  60%?  It may be a worthwhile bet, but the thing people seem to want is "I'll only ever love you / be attracted to you", and that strikes me as either a short-term honeymoon effect, self-deception, or perhaps a condemnation of one's own sexual market value.

 

Next, there's the question of why you would want those restrictions.  First, coming from economics, I've learned to be extremely skeptical of arguments for why it's a moral imperative to restrict competition.  Second, the way I interpret "I love my partner", one of the consequences is "If there's a thing that makes her happy or otherwise helps her, and makes no difference to me, then that's a good thing"—more generally, her happiness and well-being should factor into my utility function.

What exactly is it that people object to, in their partner having sex with someone else?  Interrogate that.  There are potentially valid concerns in there; isolate them.

  • Scared that she'll run off with the guy and leave you?  Fair.  Now imagine you're confident she's not going to do that.  (If necessary, imagine you have a marriage contract where if she does that, she forfeits $1M, and/or her reputation, or whatever.)
  • Scared that she'll bring home STDs or an unwanted pregnancy?  Fair.  Now suppose the guy is screened for STDs and they're using multiple forms of protection.
  • Scared that the guy will abuse her?  Fair.  Now suppose you know the guy and he has an impeccable history, and meanwhile she knows she can come to you with any complaints.
  • Scared that she'll always go to him when she's horny, and stop having sex with you?  Possibly fair.  In the general case this should be negotiated; but here, let's suppose we're considering what she's allowed to do specifically when you're out of town for a week.
  • Scared that she'll discover the guy is a much better match for her than you and want to leave you [separately from the question of whether she does leave you]?  Well, erm, if that's true, do you think it's morally proper for the relationship to require her to be stuck with just you indefinitely?
    • If you have kids already, then maybe she'll decide that keeping an intact family environment is more important than whatever delta in mate quality she can get from him over you.  Or maybe she'll decide the latter is more important, and screw the family?  Would you have married someone with that set of priorities?
    • If you don't have kids or any other big commitment holding you together, well...
      • If the thing attracting her to the guy is shallow, then surely she'll figure that out after not too long.
        • If, during that time, she completely abandons and mistreats you, then I'd say she wasn't good relationship material.
        • On the other hand, if it means she's away from you just a few days a week... is that so bad?
          • If, during that time, you're wracked with anxiety at the prospect of her possibly deciding to leave you... then how confident were you in the first place that you and she were a good match?
            • If you think you're a good match, but also think she'll likely make a bad decision based on his shallow appeal and whatnot and you won't be able to persuade her otherwise... then remind me why you think she's a good match for you?
      • If she's truly long-term significantly better off with him, then... you really want to keep her tied to you forever?  Are you proud of doing that?
        • Or would you want her to mindfuck herself into thinking that, no, she really is better off with you?  And not tell you she did that, so you can keep your own conscience fully clear?  Jesus Christ.

Ultimately, you can separate the "jealousy" concerns into "valid" vs "not something you'd endorse upon reflection", and I think the "valid" concerns can frequently (not always) be addressed, so there's a decent-sized space of possibilities where sticking to monogamy would mean denying your partner something good for no endorsed reason.  Which I consider beneath me.

 

For having children, I think something resembling marriage is a good idea.  But I think the rules that make sense for it are along the lines of "don't bring home STDs, unwanted pregnancies, or serious drama; don't abandon the family; maintain some agreed-upon level of romantic activity with your partner; don't get involved with people who will try to persuade you to break these rules [this probably shouldn't need to be a rule]", and that monogamy is a suboptimal approximation to the ideal.

For simple pleasure... Well, "do what you want, subject to other people's rights and the agreements you make with them" seems like the thing; one needs a strong argument to say otherwise.  There are probably problems with the overall market; people say the top few men end up with lots of women, and the bottom x% of men are left out in the cold.  Polyandry might help with that.  Either way, technological alternatives to sex are making that matter less, and I think this will continue.  That seems fine to me.

  • There are people who say that if men have sex substitutes, then they'll be (or already are) less motivated to make themselves economically productive to attract women, which will be bad, and therefore we should ban sex substitutes, like the upcoming sex robots and perhaps today's porn and possibly more stuff.  I humbly suggest that such people should be forcibly addicted to cocaine, and have Martin Shkreli sell their fix to them at whatever price he chooses; surely that will motivate them to power the economy.  More seriously, it's an infringement on general freedom, and the fact that it works by setting up a bunch of people for serious emotional distress by making it difficult and uncertain for them to fulfill a strong biological need ... strikes me as reprehensible.

For "building a life together"... if not for the sex/romance aspect, you could do this with a very close lifelong friend.  Some people do.  It would be cool if this happened more often.  But anyway.  I think there's a set of people who think, "I'd like to build a life with this person... But I worry that, at some point, she'll lose interest in sex, and that I'll be miserable.  I won't want to leave her, but I might not be able to tolerate staying."  Some of the /r/DeadBedrooms posts describe that exact outcome.  But if the relationship allows getting sex elsewhere, that can let it survive that problem.

I think this misses what people find so attractive about monogamous marriage. The act of constantly comparing what one has to what one could have imposes a lot of psychic costs. Choices are Bad. Comparison is the Thief of Joy. 

Better to have both parties make a socially "enforceable" commitment to stop dithering and choose. Of course you are, in a sense, actively choosing to continue to be together every day (because you could still leave), and there's a way in which that's beautiful too. But the lived experience of monogamy, for me, includes being free from the burden of choice. This is what people mean by "building a life together" that you are missing.

If you find choices inconvenient, you can develop the habit of not paying attention to the non-default choices, or make a big unilateral commitment if you want.  But suppose your partner doesn't mind the additional choices, or even enjoys having them.  Why insist that she make such a commitment?  Commitments for long-term projects, like buying a house and having kids, make sense.  Why tie a commitment about sex to it?

Suppose you, or your partner, develop a medical condition that destroys your libido, and then the other person finds the situation miserable.  (Or, more prosaically, suppose someone gets older, has job stress, and/or gets chronic pain; then stops taking care of oneself, and becomes unattractive, and is somewhere between unwilling and unable to fix it.  Problems of that type range from "act of God" to "totally your fault, bro", and I think where particular instances lie is a source of arguments.)  Do you want that to mean you have to choose between indefinite misery or blowing up the life you've built?

Essentially, I regard the sex drive as a powerful force, that is less than 100% aligned with what I care about, and can shift over time, unpredictably, and isn't entirely under my control.  If it happens to align with the family I'm building, then great, and I'll try to keep it that way.  But why on earth would I voluntarily add the element of "If the sexual relationship breaks down despite my best efforts, then that likely destroys the family"?

I think the existing categories reflect cultural knowledge that some things are correlated. (Such knowledge could be obsolete, of course.)

For example, people often want to spend more time with people they enjoy having sex with. So in theory, you could have an arrangement like "have sex with whomever you want, but keep doing 50% of care for our children", but in practice it seems that people who find an exciting sexual partner start neglecting their other duties, such as their children from other relations.

This is further complicated by human propensity for lying and rationalization. The person who finds a new exciting partner will not come to you and say openly "hey, childcare is suddenly very unappealing to me, could we make a different mutually satisfying arrangement?" Instead, they will probably just start spending less time/attention on children while denying that they are doing so, or they will suddenly "notice" that the children are already grown up and actually need much less of their time/attention.

Shortly: If your partner finds a different sexual partner, popular wisdom predicts that your children will probably be neglected, so the traditional way to prevent it is to restrict each other's sexual freedom.

Similar with buying a house: you probably intended to live there together, but now your partner may be more interested in living together with their new sexual partner.

Now of course, despite best effort, things happen that ruin our plans. But that is not a reason to actively invite plan-ruining things into your life. (That is, if you care about your plans.)

For example, people often want to spend more time with people they enjoy having sex with. So in theory, you could have an arrangement like "have sex with whomever you want, but keep doing 50% of care for our children", but in practice it seems that people who find an exciting sexual partner start neglecting their other duties, such as their children from other relations.

You say "people".  That would make sense as an explanation for why females don't want their mates to have sex with others.  But for why males don't want their mates to have sex with others, I think there's a much stronger reaction, due to what I think is a much stronger effect of "If my mate has unrestricted sex with others, then the children she gives birth to might not be mine, so I might end up spending my life providing for what turned out to be zero biological children".

Googling for "jealousy in the animal kingdom", a result says:

In response to romantic rivals, male titi monkeys are known to become aggressive, place themselves between their mates and potential rivals, and occasionally physically restrain their mates to keep them from moving toward intruder males. For the research, published in October 2017 in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, the scientists had male titi monkeys watch their mates interact with stranger males for 30 minutes and watch stranger females interact with stranger males for the same amount of time.

When observing their mates, the monkeys experienced increased levels of the hormones testosterone (associated with mate-related aggression and competition) and cortisol (an indication of social stress). Additionally, brain scans revealed the primates had heightened activity in an area of the brain associated with social exclusion in humans (the cingulate cortex) and another area associated with aggressive behavior (the lateral septum).

And if you wonder whether humans have inherited this, I'll refer to my comment that mentions stats on violence (including murder) motivated by jealousy.

That part is made obsolete today by modern knowledge about reproduction, contraceptives, and paternity testing.  The "they might go off with their lover and neglect me and our children" part is kind of addressed by family court today, although that comes with a huge dose of inefficiency, pain, and uncertainty; in practice you tend to just end up with single mothers raising their kids, maybe with some amount of child support; luckily modern civilization is so rich that the problems from such outcomes are usually psychological, rather than "kid starves to death".  In theory, one could draw up a contract in advance; I don't know how well pre-nups tend to work.

There is no one monogamy rule, but a range of expectations. For me it's that I don't want to date someone who has an active desire to date other people. From that standpoint, this is neither a rule nor is it a restriction. I wrote this above, and I don't understand why it's seemingly so difficult for others to parse.

The answer to your interrogatories for me would all boil down to "are my partner's actions indicative of a desire to date other people?" From that standpoint, there's no reason for me to care about handshakes, or kisses on the cheek, or a wayward glance, or even flirting, because that's not really indicative of this desire. Even random make-outs with a stranger at party might not be indicative, depending on the context. I wouldn't want to be lied to about this desire, so I wouldn't want to be flattered under false pretenses.

In terms of how long that exclusivity desire can last, I don't know! I can't claim to predict the future. Maybe it will end tomorrow or never (both very doubtful). I never made a claim otherwise, and I agree that would've been an example of self-delusion. I will remain in my relationship so long as it is worthwhile, and from my current standpoint I don't see any obvious reasons for that to diminish anytime soon, but you never know. I am comfortable with that risk.

Regarding the why I want restrictions, I don't. I am not restricting my wife from doing anything she wants to do, and neither is she to me. If she gains a desire for others, I wouldn't want to stand in her way. Doing so is absolutely anathema to my principles of prioritizing individual freedom and autonomy.

For me it's that I don't want to date someone who has an active desire to date other people.

I note you say "date" other people.  But if you meet someone new at a party (which wasn't meant to be a date), and that turns into having sex with them, and you never see them again... I don't think that counts as a "date", but I think most monogamous people would call that cheating.  I'm guessing you would too.  So I'll assume you mean "date or have sex with".

So how about a passive desire?  Something of the form "If the sexiest person in the world threw himself at her, would she be tempted?".  (I think almost everyone would have to say yes to this.)  How about "If the sexiest person in the world did his best to seduce her (stopping short of intoxication—above the legal limit, that is) over the course of a party, might she give in to temptation?"  If the answer to this were above, say, "30% likely", would that bother you?  How about 90%?

I might guess your answer would be "If that happened once, then my desired type of partner would want to avoid that in the future, and would avoid drinking any alcohol at future parties, and would learn to cut off interaction—rudely if necessary—if someone is making serious progress at seducing her; and if that was her response, then I'd be fine staying with her.  If she didn't change her behavior and acted like that event was fine and she wouldn't mind if it recurred, then I wouldn't want to be with her anymore."  How am I doing?

If that happened once, then my desired type of partner would want to avoid that in the future, and would avoid drinking any alcohol at future parties, and would learn to cut off interaction—rudely if necessary—if someone is making serious progress at seducing her; and if that was her response, then I'd be fine staying with her.  If she didn't change her behavior and acted like that event was fine and she wouldn't mind if it recurred, then I wouldn't want to be with her anymore.

I know that @ymeskhout disagreed with this, but it seems basically right to me. For a marriage of (hopefully) many decades, I don't necessarily expect perfection at all times, but I expect significant and honest commitment. So, I wouldn't consider one mistake in several decades to be a dealbreaker, if all parties agreed it was a mistake and made active attempts to do better. IDK how long @ymeskhout has been with their partner - maybe their perspective could change over time? I have been (monogamously) married for 11 years FWIW.

I've only been married two months, so I can't stake any longevity experience. As I wrote here in response to a further comment, it's really difficult to imagine how exactly I would react when a hypothetical scenario requires me to fill in so many assumption gaps. For one, I would find it alarming if my non-drinking wife got that intoxicated. I was previously in a relationship with someone who had a history of severe manic episodes, and it was deeply unsettling to always have to scrutinize her behavior through the lens of "does she really want this or is this a sign of burgeoning mania?"

Yeah, it would be alarming! It might lead you to wonder, in addition to "should we break up", additional things like "does she have an undiagnosed brain tumor or hormone disorder", "did someone drug her", etc. I think I ultimately agree with you that it would be highly uncharacteristic behavior, and in some ways the fact that it's highly uncharacteristic is the ultimate metric we are shooting for, and the actual behavior is just an imperfect proxy for that. And then you would have to figure out what the cause of the highly uncharacteristic behavior was.

It seems that the thing you guys are describing is that what you expect from your partner is "She is running a 'monogamy' module in her head."  A monogamy module says things like "I'm monogamous", "My partner has to be monogamous", and "Monogamous people don't have sex with anyone other than their partner."  These tend to lead to observable behaviors and characteristics.

It seems as though you might care more about the monogamy module itself, than about the behavior it's ostensibly about guaranteeing.  Like, if I read the above a certain way, it suggests that if there was a situation in which your wife cheated, you would be more worried about the implications—that either (a) she no longer has that module or (b) there's something wrong with her—than you would be bothered about the behavior itself.  Is that right?

Speaking only for myself, yes that's basically right. Non-monogamous behavior is evidence in favor of several bad hypotheses, but only some of which would make me mad or want to break up. Split and Commit. Things that it would be evidence of:

Dealbreaker:

  • She doesn't want to be committed to me any more

Mad but not necessarily a dealbreaker over a long marriage if we can work it out:

  • She wants to remain committed to me but is having some problem with our sex life and is too scared/embarrassed/confused to talk to me about it
  • She wants to remain committed to me but has developed serious issues estimating and/or controlling her voluntary alcohol (or other drug) use
  • We had a serious miscommunication and she honestly but unreasonably thought I had told her I was OK with whatever she did

Not mad:

  • She's suffering from some kind of medical condition that causes her to act uncharacteristically or be otherwise unable to control her behavior
  • She was the victim of some severe psychological or chemical manipulation
  • She was suffering from physical duress/threat
  • We had a serious miscommunication and, on reflection, I think it's my fault - the most reasonable interpretation of my words/acts in retrospect was that I had told her I was OK with whatever she did, even though that's not what I meant
  • She didn't actually cheat at all but circumstances conspired to nonetheless lead to strong appearances in favor of a cheat hypothesis

So if I were to get some strong evidence that my wife cheated, I would want to try to collect some more evidence that would differentiate which of these nine realms (or are there others?) that we are in.

I see, that makes sense.

Would you say that the ultimate purpose of wanting monogamy is still for the object-level "because I don't want my partner to behave in that way"?  Or has it transcended that completely?  Perhaps "Well, this is just how relationships work, to my mind, and I don't want to change that; and meanwhile, given that this is how my current relationship works, that is a framework by which I'll judge my partner's behavior"?  Perhaps even "I don't care about the behavior itself at all anymore [apart from direct causal effects like STDs], but people with the monogamy module usually have better self-control, maturity, and other desirable qualities, so I'm happy to stick with it and consciously endorse that strategy"?

I...am honestly not sure. Probably mix of all? But i see the "probably not a dealbreaker" category as in the nature of "we all sometimes hurt each other, this hurts a lot, but it doesn't necessarily outweigh all the good years and forgiveness is possible" - not like it doesn't matter

This is an excellent breakdown of what I tried to articulate regarding "filling in assumptions in a hypothetical"

I meant "date" expansively, so yes "date or have sex with". I don't want to be with someone who has an active desire to have sex with other people. Your guessed answer is off. I don't deny that either myself or my partner could be smitten by a particularly motivated sexiest person in the world, but then again I don't know how relevant such an extreme hypothetical could be. But if it did indeed happen, I would have no interest whatsoever in placing any restrictions on my partner after the fact. They expressed their revealed preferences, so it's best to let them go so they can pursue it. Even if they don't have a subsequent shot, I would have no interest in staying with them.

Really?  You're comfortable being with your partner, even if you believe her character is such that she has a high probability of yielding to temptation in that scenario... but if it did happen, then that would mean you'd want to break up with her, not because you think it's likely the scenario would recur, but because of what it revealed about her character?  I am surprised.

Is it the difference between "high probability" and "100%"?  Is it that the details of the event would likely carry more evidence about her character that you couldn't ignore?  (Conservation of expected evidence, though.)  Or perhaps it's more like, you're running a cognitive algorithm that says you shouldn't accept a relationship in which your partner has behaved like that?

Based on the conversation I have read here, it seems like ymeskhout is okay with not being 'fully rational' or being Dutch-bookable in certain ways, and I think he's interpreting some of your hypotheticals as qualitatively in the same class as Pascal's Wagers, and is making a sensible decision to go with his gut and to simply ignore them when making decisions about his relationships.

Pascal's Wager is a good comparison here.

I said "my partner could be smitten by a particularly motivated sexiest person in the world" but you translated that as "she has a high probability of yielding to temptation in that scenario". I also did not say anything about what the scenario would reveal about her character (I'm not even sure what that means) but rather what it would reveal about her preferences. If you have a point I believe you can make it without mischaracterizing my statements.

Well, I asked if 30% vs 90% made a difference, and you didn't specify a probability, so I figured you meant your argument to be independent of that probability.  That was presumptuous of me.

Ok, so, is your position that your partner's preferences are such that, faced with the scenario, she has a low probability (you have admitted it's nonzero) of giving in to temptation?  And that this is what makes you comfortable with her, monogamy-wise?

If so, my next question would be "Can you imagine more seductive situations in which the probability would be higher, of her giving in to temptation in a way that still counts as 'cheating'?  How high can the probability go?"

Extreme hypotheticals can be useful in exploring the outer fringes of our positions, but they do a very poor job of informing our day to day conduct. I'm not averse to engaging with your "drunk wife meets sexiest person in the world" scenario, but for me to give any semblance of an answer requires me to fill in a multitude of assumptions that are too numerous to fully catalog (ex. how did my non-drinking wife get drunk? is she a materially different person when severely intoxicated? whether I went with her to the house party or not, how did my introverted wife find herself alone with the world's sexiest stranger? did I abandon her? etc etc.). Unless I'm specifying each and every assumption I'm relying upon, it's virtually guaranteed that you'll hold a different assumption, which would necessarily change how you interpret my answer. I don't understand what you find enlightening about this hypothetical.

It seems far more relevant to me to think about far more common scenarios, but I don't know if probability is the best way to contemplate this though. I can certainly imagine scenarios where my wife is smitten by a friend/co-worker/barista/whoever and if that happens then we can end our relationship because I wouldn't want to get in her way. I don't think about this scenario prospectively because there's no reason for me to care about it if it hasn't happened. Whether the risk of this scenario happening is 1% or 99% in the future bears little relevance to what I do in the present; I'll continue my relationship so long as it is satisfying.

I'm curious, because I feel like I can understand where you are coming from:

  • Does it feel disorienting when dealing with spoken or unspoken rules that go into dealing with a monogamous relationship? Like it is difficult to understand what they want, or that it is irrational and frustrating?
  • Do you have a felt aversion to feeling like your partner (you could use a hypothetical here, or one of your existing or previous partners) is restricting you through expectations that interfere with your freedom of interacting with other people? How intense is this feeling?
  • Do you have a similar felt aversion to feeling like you are restricting your partner in similar ways? How intense is this feeling?
  • What do you think about relationship anarchy?

Oh yeah, also could you mention your gender, sexual orientation and intensity of sexual drive? If you are, say, female asexual romantic, the context of your felt senses for the questions above would probably be quite different compared to that of, say, a male heterosexual heteroromantic.

Roughly 30 year old male, heterosexual, heteroromantic.  Sex drive: the most obvious metric is how often I masturbate, which averaged 8 times a week during 2023; some googling yields an article saying it's 3 times a week for 84% of men aged 18-30, so I guess that's significantly higher than median—interesting, never realized that. Oh, and I figured out back in middle school that my sex drive and romantic drive are distinct: sometimes they overlap, and certainly the activities that fulfill one will likely inflame the other, but also I can definitely feel either one without the other; more detail here.

For background... in high school, I found that, among my social group, it seemed like most of the girls who had boyfriends were comfortable with at least a hug, and a few were comfortable with quite a lot of physical affection.  I benefited from this and appreciated it, and pondered the morality of it... and eventually decided on most of the stuff in the grandparent comment.  Since then, all my relationships have been explicitly poly.

Does it feel disorienting when dealing with spoken or unspoken rules that go into dealing with a monogamous relationship? Like it is difficult to understand what they want, or that it is irrational and frustrating?

It's similar to how I think of religious people (I'm an atheist): generally "I've learned to shrug and not bother people about it", but if I think about it, it becomes "irrational and frustrating"—so I usually avoid thinking about it.

Do you have a felt aversion to feeling like your partner (you could use a hypothetical here, or one of your existing or previous partners) is restricting you through expectations that interfere with your freedom of interacting with other people? How intense is this feeling?

This is hypothetical, but what I would want to do is go through the rationale: exactly why do you have this preference?  Ok, you bring up this reason; is that your true objection, or do you still object to situations where that doesn't apply?  There would likely be a lot of iterations of this, as outlined in the GP comment.  Possible outcomes: (a) she converts to polyamory, (b) she admits it's an irrational preference but nevertheless she holds it, (c) she finds the process some combination of insulting, unpleasant, and lowering her trust in me, and it doesn't lead to a constructive end.  I expect the result would be (c) for most people who aren't, like, >95th percentile devoted to the ideal of "clear rational thought, and getting offended is low-status" [and many of those people seem to already be polyamorous, though my sample is probably biased], which is why this remains mostly hypothetical.  [I did ask one pretty-rational monogamous person where she drew the line in terms of what forms of touch counted as cheating, and it was from her that I got the "If you're asking this question then we're not compatible".]

I might be able to work with (b), depending on the details of the arrangement.  To answer your question... The thing that I feel is, if you're imposing a significant restriction on your partner, you should do your best to factor it down—do I really need all that, or is it just a subset?  If you haven't factored it down, and aren't willing to when asked, then you might be unnecessarily harming your partner's happiness, just because you don't want to deal with thinking it through.  This strikes me as inconsiderate, and quite odd if you also claim to love your partner.  Or maybe there's something else going on, and if they aren't able to articulate it, that's a mark against their capabilities of introspection and communication.

If I take that person's word—that it's not about having preferences about my behavior, it's about wanting someone who has the entire monogamy ethos and psychology built into their brain (one consequence of which is that I wouldn't be asking such questions)... Well, ok, I can treat that as like wanting someone who subscribes to the same religion as you.  (I believe she's also religious.)  If that's really the story, it would be nice if more people, on all sides, were aware of it.

Do you have a similar felt aversion to feeling like you are restricting your partner in similar ways? How intense is this feeling?

Well, I don't think I feel the urge to impose such a restriction.  I've been in various poly relationships, and I don't think I've felt anything I'd call "jealousy".  When she's being affectionate with her primary boyfriend or husband, my reaction is "Ah, good."  If she's experimenting with a new partner, and I imagine that she likes him more than me—well, then I might want to figure out why.  Depending on the scenario, it might be "He is in fact better than me on certain dimensions she cares about", or "This looks like a short-term thing", or "He's treating her in a way she likes a lot, and perhaps I should understand better the difference between that and how I normally treat her".  At worst it might lead to self-doubt or something; but being angry at either of them seems stupid.  (Or, I guess, in context, it could constitute a broken promise [like if she's not using protection with a new partner] or a lie or something—that would probably be the worst, and being angry at that is reasonable.)  But jealousy, as an inherent "I'm offended at the idea of her being with someone else", doesn't seem to be a thing for me.  Perhaps I'm better at factoring down my responses. :-P

If I imagine wanting to impose other kinds of restrictions, like "Don't go get addicted to drugs" (although that seems like a sufficiently impulsive and stupid thing to do that I'm unlikely to get involved with anyone who would do it absent any restriction)... Anyway, ethically speaking, I think the way it works is, if it affects me, then I have a right to complain about it, proportional to how much it affects me.  "Don't go spending all your time elsewhere and have no time for me"—that is reasonable to the extent that it means I get a less-than-reasonable (or less-than-negotiated) amount of time with her.  My ethics dictate what I have standing to complain about (if anything), and I let my emotions follow.  I think that has worked reasonably well.  Incidentally, I'm a libertarian and generally don't want to restrict other people's behavior in any circumstance.

What do you think about relationship anarchy?

Depending on exactly what it means... Looking through the original post... There's various fuzzy stuff I'm not sure about, and some stuff I dislike.  Things I would agree with, with some editing (including reordering the paragraphs because I think this order is more sensible):

Customize your commitments

Life would not have much structure or meaning without joining together with other people to achieve things - constructing a life together, raising children, owning a house or growing together through thick and thin. Such endeavors usually need lots of trust and commitment between people to work. Relationship anarchy is not about never committing to anything - it’s about designing your own commitments with the people around you, and freeing them from norms dictating that certain types of commitments are a requirement for love to be real, or that some commitments like raising children or moving in together have to be driven by certain kinds of feelings. Start your designs from scratch and be explicit about what kind of commitments you want to make with other people! 

Change through communication

For most human activities, there is some form of norm in place for how it is supposed to work. If you want to deviate from this pattern, you need to communicate - otherwise things tend to end up just following the norm, as others behave according to it. Communication and joint actions for change is the only way to break away. Radical relationships must have probably need conversation and communication at the heart - not as a state of emergency only brought out to solve “problems”. Communicate in a context of trust. We are so used to people never really saying what they think and feel - that we have to read between the lines and extrapolate to find what they really mean. But such interpretations can only build on previous experiences - usually based on the norms you want to escape. Ask each other about stuff, and be explicit!

I do think having preexisting norms for what a "relationship agreement" usually looks like is useful, but I also think any single norm applied to everyone is going to be suboptimal in many cases, particularly to people who aren't typical (like me); and it seems obviously a good idea for people to alter their agreements to fit them better.  In theory, you should be able to negotiate any mutually positive relationship into existence, barring transaction costs (and the more unusual the terms, the longer it takes to negotiate them, so that's a cost one should consider, but it's finite).  A potential danger is if one person is much better at negotiating than the other... but, well, there are plenty of other ways for people to be abusive, and I don't think this significantly increases that risk.  There's a potential awkwardness if other people don't know what words to use when talking about your relationship, but that seems a trivial concern.  And yeah, communication, and therefore introspection, seems obviously very important.

I notice that you go 'principles / ethics first, then emotions' in the way you seem to reason about things in your comment. I find that I endorse the opposite: 'emotions first, then principles / ethics'. That is, I trust that my emotional core informs what I care about, and why and how I care about something, significantly more than whatever I believe or claim my principles are. And then I investigate my emotions, after putting a high importance on them making sense. (You can interpret this extremely uncharitably and claim that I have no principles whatsoever, but this is a low-effort attempt by me to elicit something I notice and am trying to point at, that is deeper than words and involves cognitive algorithms that mostly aren't verbal.) This is kind of why I asked the questions from an emotions-first perspective.

This is hypothetical, but what I would want to do is go through the rationale: exactly why do you have this preference? Ok, you bring up this reason; is that your true objection, or do you still object to situations where that doesn’t apply? There would likely be a lot of iterations of this, as outlined in the GP comment. Possible outcomes: (a) she converts to polyamory, (b) she admits it’s an irrational preference but nevertheless she holds it, (c) she finds the process some combination of insulting, unpleasant, and lowering her trust in me, and it doesn’t lead to a constructive end. I expect the result would be (c) for most people who aren’t, like, >95th percentile devoted to the ideal of “clear rational thought, and getting offended is low-status”

I expect people on the other end of this conversation would feel pressured and uncomfortable and forced to accept some logically reasoned argument for something that they don't feel comfortable about. I wouldn't want to subject people to such conversations, because I don't expect this would actually change their opinion or result in outcomes they would reflectively endorse. I think this is downstream of you believing your way of reasoning about things might help or apply to other people -- because I do the exact same thing when trying to help people or even elicit a more accurate model of their beliefs (see the questions I asked you for example).

At worst it might lead to self-doubt or something; but being angry at either of them seems stupid.

Yeah, I don't think anger is the emotion most often associated with the emotional distress one would experience if they see someone they consider their partner having romantic or sexual interactions with another person. I don't think most people in the rationalist community who seem to be more comfortable in monogamous relationships would agree with that statement, and this IMO is an uncharitable interpretation of what goes on in their heads.

Or, I guess, in context, it could constitute a broken promise [like if she’s not using protection with a new partner] or a lie or something—that would probably be the worst, and being angry at that is reasonable.

It seems like you police your emotions, and dislike feeling emotions that seems 'unreasonable' to you. This is interesting. I think ymeskhout accepts and seems to endorse all emotions he feels, and I try to do similar. I think that is genuinely a better way of doing things than the opposite.

I don't think I have a better mechanistic understanding of my friends who seem to have similar romantic and sexual orientations due to this conversation, partially because most of them seem to also follow a significant amount of 'emotions first' decision-making, and therefore I think it is unlikely that your mindspace is close enough to theirs that I understand them better. I've tried hard to understand them though, and I'm glad I feel like I understand better where you are coming from.

Sometimes I look at what I want based on my emotions, then see if there's anything nearby that ethics allows.  Sometimes I use ethics to see what's permissible, then use my emotions to decide if I'm satisfied with any of them.  Both strategies have their place.  Shrug.

Yeah, I don't think anger is the emotion most often associated with the emotional distress one would experience if they see someone they consider their partner having romantic or sexual interactions with another person. I don't think most people in the rationalist community who seem to be more comfortable in monogamous relationships would agree with that statement, and this IMO is an uncharitable interpretation of what goes on in their heads.

That take surprises me.  Erm... After a bit of googling:

In a recent community study of jealousy 15% of both men and women reported that they had, at some time, been subjected to physical violence at the hands of a jealous partner (Mullen & Martin 1994). The role played by jealousy in both initiating domestic violence and in attempts by perpetrators to justify their violence cannot be overstated. [...]

Gibbens (1958) in his study of 195 homicide cases reported that jealousy was the prime motivation in 22% of the killings. In Wolfgang's (1958) study of 588 homicides and in West's (1968) study, jealousy was the third most common motivation. In a more detailed study of homicide in Detroit, jealousy emerged as the leading cause of domestic killing while among the male killers the violence emerged both in response to apprehended infidelity and to desertion.

I think suspecting anger is a reasonable prior to have, and especially if you weight by what emotion / reaction is most dangerous (especially in a man), I stand by the idea that worrying first about anger is reasonable.  (Maybe I should adjust for rationalists being n standard deviations less violent than the general population?  Though we do have our Ziz people.  At any rate, I didn't say who I was comparing to, and intended the general population of monogamists.)

That aside, the point is that, from what I can tell, it doesn't look like I have any hardcoded negative reaction due to jealousy (i.e. one that isn't rationally explained by other context), or if I do it's too small for me to detect it.  I haven't gone as far as witnessing sex acts by my partner, so I can't completely rule out some primal reaction... but, well, I'll note that "Exhibitionism/Voyeurism" is historically one of my favorite categories on Literotica, and it is plausible that my net reaction would be positive.

It seems like you police your emotions, and dislike feeling emotions that seems 'unreasonable' to you. This is interesting. I think ymeskhout accepts and seems to endorse all emotions he feels, and I try to do similar. I think that is genuinely a better way of doing things than the opposite.

Let's think about another sense of the term "jealousy".  (Or maybe "envy" is the right word; some people draw a distinction between the two, and I'm not sure if people agree on what the distinction is.)  I mean the scenario where something good happens to one of your friends, and you have a negative emotional reaction to this.

If that means you punish your friends anytime they do well ("crabs in a bucket" syndrome), that seems absolutely awful; I certainly would not want my friends to do that to me, and therefore I shouldn't do that to them.  Still, it seems that something resembling it is a reaction some people have.  Is there anything potentially legitimate in it?  Why, yes:

  • If there is some allegedly fair judge or other process that's supposed to hand out windfalls, and your friend gets much more than you do despite you thinking you're entitled to the same, then it may be that the judge is unfair and someone is lying to you.  Then it makes sense to get mad—at the judge.  It only makes sense to get mad at your friend if your friend is in cahoots with the judge, or is otherwise contributing to the unfairness of the process.

To my mind, if your emotions seem to propel you in a dangerous or unethical direction, then usually there's something adjacent to it or a version of it that's safe and good, and if you discover that, and imagine the variations on situations, you often find that the "good" reaction is emotionally satisfying.  (I went through the above reasoning sometime during high school, and since then I think I've had appropriate reactions to any windfalls my friends have received.)  Whereas if you act badly on those emotions before figuring that out, in retrospect it's childish and stupid and regrettable.  So if my emotions push me in a direction I know is bad, I would tend to hold them in abeyance, avoid acting on them, until I understand the situation better.

Oh, and on a general note, I don't assign ethical valence to having emotions, only to the actions you take.  Yes, that includes e.g. wanting to murder someone; as long as you don't act on it, there's nothing immoral or unethical about having the emotion.  (It seems to be received wisdom that feeling guilt or otherwise punishing yourself for emotions is counterproductive.)  Better to think through "These are the situations in which killing someone is appropriate (e.g. self-defense), those are the ones where it's not", and be done with it.

I'm not sure exactly what qualifies as "policing" my emotions.  But the above probably has enough to decide that.

I did ask one pretty-rational monogamous person where she drew the line in terms of what forms of touch counted as cheating, and it was from her that I got the "If you're asking this question then we're not compatible"

 

I think this is evidence in favor of the hypothesis that she wanted someone who was conceptually committed to monogamy, not just committed to monogamous behavior. For such a person, that question sounds like "I want to be as non-monogamous as possible up to some arbitrary line, and then stop, so as to avoid breaking my commitment to you. Please tell me where that line is." I think if you imagine all potentially non-monogamous-ish behaviors on a one-dimensional X axis, with some kind of intimacy-weighted frequency on the Y axis, then this question implies that your frequency graph might be flat or even increasing up until the "policy line", and then down to (hopefully) zero.

I would submit that the behavior of an actually-monogamous person would look more like exponential decay as you move right on the X-axis, and that you may not want or need a "policy line" except that, because the Y-axis is intimacy-weighted, you likely reach a point where it's not possible to engage in more than zero of that behavior while continuing the exponential decay curve.

I think this is correct. A parallel scenario could be agreeing to go vegetarian but then asking for an upper limit for how much meat you can eat second-hand from your friends (since they were going to throw it away anyways). You would be revealing a frequency graph that is similarly increasing up to the policy line, indicating serious reluctance to be a vegetarian. There's nothing wrong with this necessarily, but if someone is screening you for how much you really care about being vegetarian, it's reasonable for them to harbor suspicion.