Opinion of the "Polyamorous community"

[Antonio the Sixth]

If you can sincerely love more than one person, good for you. I know I couldn't.

If you're just looking for an excuse to f**k around, then just say you want to f**k around and don't use fancy words.

[Antonio the Sixth]

How can something be immoral if it's not hurting anyone?

That's probably the most important question, on this issue as on many others. My answer would be that even an action that doesn't hurt any specific individual can have a harmful impact on society as a whole if it promotes norms and values that degrade it. Further, even when the action has no impact on society, it can still encourage those norms and value in the person who does it. Of course, direct harm is a more serious offense than diffuse societal harm, and diffuse societal harm a more serious offense than moral self-harm, but that doesn't mean the latter two should be ignored entirely.

For the record, I voted "other", because as I said I have no issue with genuine polyamory. It's just that I think it's often used as a convenient label by people who don't actually care much about love in and of itself.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Tininess

...seriously? Is that supposed to be a Drumpf-like disparaging nickname or something?

ROFL

[Antonio the Sixth]

Corrected. Now what about the rest of the post?

Actually, insider trading and fraud against the State could examples (although in most cases of insider trading there is a number of specific individuals who are harmed).

For an example closer to the topic at hand, I think producing/selling porn fits pretty well. Assuming the actors aren't being exploited in any way (which they often are, and which is the most serious problem), porn still contributes to degrading social norms about women and sexuality, and, as such, causes harm to society as a whole.

(Note that I never said polyamory causes harm to society. If it's genuine polyamory, I said I have no objection to it. If it doesn't really involve love, it's at worst moral self-harm.)

[Antonio the Sixth]

I mean, from (the easiest, most well-popularized version of) secular liberal first principles it's hard to come to this conclusion through any route that doesn't rely heavily on disgust reactions, but if one presupposes (as I do) that the purpose of human sexuality is expression in mutual reflection and mutual gift (bracketing out for a moment the question of to what extent we should feel bound by the other, more obvious biological 'purpose' of sexuality, a question on which I'm certainly less than impeccably ~traditional~ myself), then it strikes me as fairly reasonable to conclude from that presupposition that that reflection becomes distorted if more than two mirrors are facing each other.

I don't expect you (or most other posters, including many of the ones I like best) to agree with that, but I hope it makes some degree of sense anyway.

I don't think anybody is actually denying that it's possible to love more than one person at a time.

Upon rereading, I'm actually not sure what you mean by your mirrors analogy. When you're saying that the reflection becomes distorted, do you mean that, in such relationships, people tend to lose sight of the others and fail to care for them as they need? If so, you are arguing that it's impossible to (truly) love more than one person at a time, since I'm sure you agree that caring for someone is a fundamental aspect of love. Or did you mean something else?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Did you actually read any of my posts?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I just wish that people would refrain from invoking moral principles when they aren't willing to follow them to their logical conclusion.

Yeah, that's really my problem with the "pro" side in this thread. Even if I happen to more or less agree with them, I really can't stand the sort of arguments they use.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's very possible to feel love for more than one person at once, but not with as ardent and singleminded devotion as a partner in a romantic or marital relationship (as opposed to other types of loving relationship) deserves.

Say a man (or woman) is married but falls deeply in love with a woman other than his (or her) wife. This may mean that he, emotionally, 'loves' his wife less than he did before (or it may not!), but if so he can still communicate practical love to both women by being faithful to the obligations both that marriage means he incurs to his wife and that whatever relationship he has with the other woman means that he incurs to her. In the case of his wife, this means that he doesn't become sexually intimate with the other woman and possibly emotionally distances himself from her somewhat. In the case of the other woman, it means that he continues to treat her solicitously and doesn't blame her for his own emotional conundrum.

That makes sense, thanks for clarifying. Personally I choose to be agnostic as to whether it's possible to love more than one person with all the devotion that they deserve (and as to whether loving devotion necessarily require exclusivity), but if I were forced to take a stance I'd probably agree with you.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If it's between consenting adults, who care

...

[Antonio the Sixth]

It amazes me that anyone could think that what people like BRTD's girlfriend apparently believe is more harmful than the absurd romantic ideals that most of us were raised to hold that have contributed to countless abusive relationships, suicides, physical violence, mental health problems, and other forms of human suffering.

I think that anyone who wants to take polyamorists to task convincingly needs to explain what kind of alternative they believe more thoroughly, and defend why it is the single best way to live, rather than just expounding on why polyamory is bad.

What is that makes being married to and sexually monogamous with a single person for life special when it's not clear that it's less harmful than the alternative? It's pretty obvious that stable families are a good setting in which can children can grow to adulthood, but what is it that makes marriage more than that?

As I said before, I don't want to assert as a fact that monogamy is the only True and Pure form of love. I freely admit there are things I simply don't know.

What I do know is that love, in any reasonable definition of it, is something fundamental to human happiness and moral growth. While I don't believe that any single act of casual sex is inherently immoral, I do believe that casual sex as a lifestyle is degrading because it leads people to lose sight of love. If that makes me a prude, I'll gladly accept the label.

Now, you'll have to explain me how exactly "romantic ideals" are responsible for any of the things you describe, because to me they're all the product of human instincts that are the opposite of love.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It amazes me that anyone could think that what people like BRTD's girlfriend apparently believe is more harmful than the absurd romantic ideals that most of us were raised to hold that have contributed to countless abusive relationships, suicides, physical violence, mental health problems, and other forms of human suffering.

I think that anyone who wants to take polyamorists to task convincingly needs to explain what kind of alternative they believe more thoroughly, and defend why it is the single best way to live, rather than just expounding on why polyamory is bad.

What is that makes being married to and sexually monogamous with a single person for life special when it's not clear that it's less harmful than the alternative? It's pretty obvious that stable families are a good setting in which can children can grow to adulthood, but what is it that makes marriage more than that?

As I said before, I don't want to assert as a fact that monogamy is the only True and Pure form of love. I freely admit there are things I simply don't know.

What I do know is that love, in any reasonable definition of it, is something fundamental to human happiness and moral growth. While I don't believe that any single act of casual sex is inherently immoral, I do believe that casual sex as a lifestyle is degrading because it leads people to lose sight of love. If that makes me a prude, I'll gladly accept the label.

Now, you'll have to explain me how exactly "romantic ideals" are responsible for any of the things you describe, because to me they're all the product of human instincts that are the opposite of love.

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean when you say that "casual sex causes people to lose sight of love."

I believe that someone who spent a good part of their life having sex without emotional connection would eventually develop a purely utilitarian vision of it, a vision incompatible with the idea of sex as one of the (many) manifestations of love. Do you dispute this assumption?

[Antonio the Sixth]

The question was addressed to Averroes, a very thoughtful poster whose opinions I respect even when we disagree - not to some random edgy creep who supports mandatory abortions.