from an anti-poly BookFace group that claims to be ML :wtf-am-i-reading:

a lot of things have been ruined by captialism but this is such bad fucking analysis

  • BeamBrain [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I'm guessing this is what the "homosexuality is bourgeoisie decadence" weirdos moved on to after open homophobia stopped being socially acceptable

      • sharedburdens [she/her, comrade/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        It's funny how like every trans person I know irl is reserved and borderline arromantic, myself included, and yet it's automatically assumed that all the trans people who are friends must be in a polycule.

        Never mind how this person is complaining about "neoliberal" capitalism atomizing relationships only to conclude that the problem is essentially the disruption of the "nuclear family," which is itself a relatively anomalous and recent type of family organization.

        • Gosplan14 [any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          It’s funny how like every trans person I know irl is reserved and borderline arromantic, myself included, and yet it’s automatically assumed that all the trans people who are friends must be in a polycule.

          CW: Discussion of Transphobia

          spoiler

          I'd guess it's fetishisation of trans people due to pornography leading people to draw conclusions and further fetishise them, while also creating "trans people are dangerous" narratives.

        • penguin_von_doom [she/her]
          ·
          3 years ago

          It’s funny how like every trans person I know irl is reserved and borderline arromantic, myself included, and yet it’s automatically assumed that all the trans people who are friends must be in a polycule.

          My experience is kind of the opposite. Most of the ones I know are some form of poly, to the point where I feel the odd one out :(

  • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    I agree that modern polyamory, specifically within the working class, is in some ways a consequence of neoliberal capitalism colliding with sexual liberation.

    As rents and cost of living increases, the need for more roommates to cover rent increases steadily, and why not choose roommates that want to fuck?

    3-4 people living in the same apartment/house and sharing fewer beds while actually enjoying being around one another is a fantastic way to cope with the hell of late stage capitalism and the housing insecurity that comes with it.

    This is actually how polyandry started in rural Tibet so there's historical president for labor units becoming sexual units that share the burden of cost of living/labor of social reproduction.

  • penguin_von_doom [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Its not entirely without basis, in the sense that a lot of poly indeed has a lot of neoliberal underpinnings related to individuals being individuals, individuals being replaceable, treating people as commodities, the transient nature of most modern relationships, and the lack of community, which some people try to replace with an inordinate amount of intimate relationships. With all that I don't mean that poly is bad, au contraire, poly can and does work, but it does require you to decolonize your mind.

    • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      It goes either way IMO

      some people really just want to be selfish atomized sex addicts, and polyamory is technically compatible with that

      other people just legitimately want to have more than one actual relationship, and polyamory is compatible with that.

      The first kind is even more alienating than a "trad nuclear family", and the second kind is less alienating.

      • penguin_von_doom [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        To be fair, trad nuclear family is something that I find particularly scary, but yeah.

        • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Well I actually misspoke, I should have said "trad monogamous couple". Multigenerational family would still work

          What do you find scary about nuclear families? Environmental impact/suburbia?

          • penguin_von_doom [she/her]
            ·
            3 years ago

            What do you find scary about nuclear families? Environmental impact/suburbia?

            The neurosis of it. The whole repressed milquetoast suburbian non-existence it offers, the alienation ...

        • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          well, you made me revisit my reason for using that language. The reason I used it was that I've seen instances where a (usually hetero) couple goes poly, and one partner will essentially stop sexually desiring the other.

          Whether this cessation of sexual desire was there to begin with and was the original motivation for the polyamory in the first place, or whether it developed naturally after going poly, is an open question. If the former, I think it qualifies as "selfish". If the latter, then it can't be helped and too bad

          But yea I guess it was harsh and not super accurate language. But I really doubt that there are zero couples who fit that first type

          again this isn't a criticism of polyamory as every other arrangement has its own problems too

    • jabrd [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      It's a lazy, non-materialist take which is extra egregious when you have literal Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries like Kollontai out here doing in depth work on the nature of sex, love, and romantic relationships as superstructural outcomes of the material world. There's so much work to actually be done untangling and understanding these social dynamics from a Marxist perspective and this guy ain't it lol

      • penguin_von_doom [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        no seriously like everything does, imagine thinking this specifically is relevant in any way except if you’re a straight-up theorist writing a book rn

        IDK, when youre drunk at 2 am with your buddies and talking about all kinds of things a lot of stuff becomes relevant.

        my ass has neoliberal underpinnings

        I am really trying to come up with a joke about this that involves "destroyed by privatization" and the free market ...

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    How much free time do you need to have to form an anti-polyamory facebook group?

    • crime [she/her, any]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Well they've got all that free time from neither getting laid nor making the spreadsheets that make polyamory possible I guess

      • jabrd [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I love that there’s largely like two kinds of poly people: those with spreadsheets and those with california king sized beds lol. My partner can have plans every single day of the week meanwhile I’m such a hopeless romantic that I’m still not over this cute goth girl who would talk to me about anthropology and stuff months later

    • penguin_von_doom [she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Probably enough to run a moderately sized polycule if he could get laid in the first place ...

  • mr_world [they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Is "I'm afraid you'll leave me so we need to structure society for compulsory monogamy" a sexual preference?

  • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    i'm not some crusader for poly shit but lmao what a diseased take. like these people really think exclusive marital fidelity was the dominant pre-neoliberal romantic form? like we were just doing the nuclear family for all of human history? never mind that obviously the whole point is you can have a social responsibility to more than one person.

      • jabrd [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        lmao yea the bad takes always come out whenever polyamory gets brought up around here, that’s why I try to never talk about it unless someone else does first. It’s like the only topic that will get me effortposting because everyone else has :brainworms: about it

        • CptKrkIsClmbngThMntn [any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          I kinda have the same response. It's helped remind me that some portion of leftists are very judgmental people and only don't show it because our politics guards against that by default, in most cases. But you can see it itching to come out.

          • jabrd [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            I don’t think anyone’s getting banned here

              • WALLTHERICH [comrade/them]
                ·
                3 years ago

                i don't necessarily think it's fair to jump to "they hate polyamory and are using intentionally harsh language to signal a desire for its destruction" when you could also just like, assume the person was speaking very casually

                sometimes people jokingly refer to a thing in a semi-derogatory manner even when they approve of it or are a part of the in-group in question. for instance i'm trans but i regularly say stuff that i would find highly suspect in your average cis person, but probably not your average leftist (at least here).

          • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
            ·
            edit-2
            3 years ago

            I didn't mean it disparagingly, but I don't treat it as particularly sacred either. I think relationships under the umbrella of polyamory have been commonplace and no more or less stable and fulfilling than monogamous ones for most of human history, and only given a name and the connotations of personal identity relatively recently.

  • Abraxiel
    ·
    3 years ago

    Yep, zero responsibility or bonding with the people I play with. We aren't even friends.

  • jabrd [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Idiots on the internet > actual revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai, evidently

  • MaryBailey [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Terrible analysis but the hot take machine is an insatiable beast. With that said, I get being horny but can't really imagine wanting more than one partner lol :volcel-police: