Giant Polygamy Sidetrack!

Because it only took Viking-Sensei three years (and the approaching end of Errant Story) to come up with a better name for "General Discussions"
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ChunLing
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Giant Polygamy Sidetrack!

Post by ChunLing »

Impy Intro: This is pretty much the point at which a discussion about Tsuiraku's sexual politics veered wildly off course and crashed headlong into the twin mountains of marriage and gender identities, with a focus on polygamy. I have now split the topic, and it's a roaring good discussion, so I highly recommend reading all the otherwise TL;DR posts here!

Heck, generally public opinion about women who casually sleep around isn't even that high among populations of men who casually sleep with them. There's a reason that some of us consider porn to be essentially degrading and offensive to women.

I don't know why being a post industrial civilization would mean that the Tsuiraku don't have fairly strict sexual mores, particularly given the limitations of population size/genetics they had to endure over the last couple of thousand years. Sure, some of that has been alleviated by renewed contact with the outside world, but it's still an issue.

Every sexual culture has certain behaviors that are considered taboo. For a significant part of modern "cosmopolitan" culture, it's strictly taboo to engage in "natural" reproduction, just having sex with someone (maybe even in your own home) you'd actually like to have babies with, then having said babies (maybe even in your own home) and taking care of them yourself (maybe even in your own home). Not that there aren't sickos who do that, but generally they don't belong to the cosmopolitan culture.
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Re: 2010-09-02: What the Hell Am I Even Saying?

Post by mindstalk »

ChunLing wrote: I don't know why being a post industrial civilization would mean that the Tsuiraku don't have fairly strict sexual mores, particularly given the limitations of population size/genetics they had to endure over the last couple of thousand years. Sure, some of that has been alleviated by renewed contact with the outside world, but it's still an issue.
Sexual mores have a lot to do with access to birth control, prevalence of STDs, and religion, plus some random cultural factors like inheritance (patrilineal vs. matrilineal vs. nothing much to inherit). Tsuiraku seems to be a bunch of atheists with birth control and magical healing, plus women serving in the combat military, and to have been such for far longer than Western society. I'm not saying they'll all be a bunch of jealousy free swingers or that there won't be some male/female average differences, but there's no particular reason for them to be trying to control women's or sexual behavior.
Every sexual culture has certain behaviors that are considered taboo. For a significant part of modern "cosmopolitan" culture, it's strictly taboo to engage in "natural" reproduction, just having sex with someone (maybe even in your own home) you'd actually like to have babies with, then having said babies (maybe even in your own home) and taking care of them yourself (maybe even in your own home). Not that there aren't sickos who do that, but generally they don't belong to the cosmopolitan culture.
Sorry, that's a bunch of BS.

Our actual taboos are adult/teen sex, incest ("oh no, they're first cousins!"), teacher/student sex, "child porn" (including under-18 but post-age of consent porn), plus of course rape and any/child sex. Some taboos more legal than cultural, but still.
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Re: 2010-09-02: What the Hell Am I Even Saying?

Post by Nell »

You forgot bestiality.
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Re: 2010-09-02: What the Hell Am I Even Saying?

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Well, my (somehow missed) joke aside, there is a great deal of cultural taboo out there of interesting standing. For example, the current debate in the U.S. over same sex marriage. It's interesting to me (in a depressing way) how many people will say that it's alright for homosexuals to be homosexual, but at the same time they feel marriage should only be between a man and a woman. It's okay... but it's also taboo. Similarly, in much of the world polygamy is normal and accepted. But in the U.S. if you even date (let alone have a sexual relationship) with more than one person at a time you're a cheating two timer... even if all the other partners know and approve.
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Re: 2010-09-02: What the Hell Am I Even Saying?

Post by Nell »

In what cultures other than backwards ass middle eastern ones (hi2u Burka) and mormon ones is polygamy accepted?
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Re: 2010-09-02: What the Hell Am I Even Saying?

Post by Forrest »

Sareth wrote:For example, the current debate in the U.S. over same sex marriage. It's interesting to me (in a depressing way) how many people will say that it's alright for homosexuals to be homosexual, but at the same time they feel marriage should only be between a man and a woman. It's okay... but it's also taboo.
I think most of the people who disapprove of same-sex marriage also disapprove of homosexuality in general, and are just consigned to the fact that they can't currently do anything about what consenting adults do to each other in private. "But, GOD," they think, "don't ask us as a society to publicly sanctify that!" Cue bullshit backward rhetorical excuses about separation of church and state and avoiding special rights, trying to find something else to hold against gay marriage other than "it's gross and wrong and even if my government has to let you do that, they shouldn't put their stamp of approval on it".
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I say backwards because those things - separation of church and state, the avoidance of special rights - should imply to a rational person that the law must pay no more attention to people's sexes in marriage contracts than it would any other classification of people (oh oh, no special rights) in any other secular contract (oh oh, separation of church and state).
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Re: 2010-09-02: What the Hell Am I Even Saying?

Post by Imp-Chan »

Sareth wrote:Well, my (somehow missed) joke aside, there is a great deal of cultural taboo out there of interesting standing. For example, the current debate in the U.S. over same sex marriage. It's interesting to me (in a depressing way) how many people will say that it's alright for homosexuals to be homosexual, but at the same time they feel marriage should only be between a man and a woman. It's okay... but it's also taboo. Similarly, in much of the world polygamy is normal and accepted. But in the U.S. if you even date (let alone have a sexual relationship) with more than one person at a time you're a cheating two timer... even if all the other partners know and approve.
Nell wrote:In what cultures other than backwards ass middle eastern ones (hi2u Burka) and mormon ones is polygamy accepted?
Well... in mine, for one. My views of sexuality and marriage are, admittedly, lenient. The only real taboo I have is a matter of consent (which rules out bestiality, pedophilia, necrophilia, and rape), though there are plenty of things I find personally unappealing beyond that. Still, I would wholly support a polygamous society, and even be willing to participate in it should the opportunity present itself. Afterall, it can hardly be called cheating if it it's openly within the rules. I think hard work and a willingness to both trust and care for one's partner should be more than equal to the task of playing by those revised rules... much more so than in a relationship where people are too selfish to give up sex or even just intimate relationships with other people and too broken to actually communicate about it, which appears to be far and away the norm here in the good old USA.

Over the past several years, I've had plenty of opportunities to witness that multiple-member households are generally pretty stable, with what I would call a higher overall quality of life. Part of that is purely financial... multiple contributing adults means more disposable income, more stability in case someone loses a job, more opportunities to reduce costs with bulk purchases (unlike children, who also warrant bulk purchases, but don't tend to contribute financially to offset the additional costs for at least the first twenty years or so). Multiple contributing adults can also be a boon in cases where there are children to be raised, since it allows for greater distribution of that work load. Part of it is also that it opens the door to partners not having to depend solely on each other for meeting all of their emotional needs (which is a silly plan, anyways, since no one can be everything for someone else no matter how much they love them). Person A no longer needs to hold Person B hostage to their interests, they can instead simply share some of them with Person C.

Now, admittedly I may not be the best person to ask about this. I was ten years old when my Meeting for Worship decided to marry two women in the care of our church. I was also there at the threshing session afterwards trying to decide whether or not to leave the larger organization that we'd pissed off by doing so, and I quite clearly recall voicing the opinion that we should stay to give them the opportunity to examine our choice in worship rather than just reacting to it in anger. I was fifteen when I kissed a woman as my first kiss, and sixteen before I figured out that I was bi (sometimes I am slow on the uptake). I was only eighteen when my Evil Twin told me he was polyamorous and what that meant for him, and twenty-one before I stopped dismissing the clues and realized I might be the same way. I've had a long time to think about what sexuality and relationships really mean to me, and being an analytical sort I've put a fair bit of time and attention into doing so... but what I haven't ever brought, because it never even occurred to me to do so, was the idea that the way people feel about each other ought to be inherently invalid. I didn't initially "get" being bisexual, or practicing polyamory, or think those were things I'd be capable of... but that never meant they weren't okay choices for someone else.

Lacking that fundamental willingness to condemn, perhaps my conclusions were the only ones I possibly could reach. I imagine if one IS willing to condemn other people's choices, it changes the reasoning considerably.

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Re: 2010-09-02: What the Hell Am I Even Saying?

Post by mindstalk »

Nell wrote:In what cultures other than backwards ass middle eastern ones (hi2u Burka) and mormon ones is polygamy accepted?
Mainstream Mormon culture isn't polygamous.
I'd imagine there's still some in various tribes. Whether they deserve to be called backwards ass is another matter.

There's a small but strong polyamorous culture in the US. Overlaps with neo-pagan and kink subcultures.

Note these are all actually a bit different:

Mormon subcults: one or a few alpha males, lots of arguably brainwashed wives, other males driven out
Islam, Imperial China: lots of wives/concubines for the leaders, or up to 4 wives for men, sexual inequality
standard low resource tribe: chief or top warrior might have an extra wife, polygyny accepted though not common, sexes might be equal.
Tibet: polyandry, a woman might marry two brothers. No idea about equality.
modern polyamory: ad hoc networks of multiple men and women, sexes equal. When my friend got into practicing polyamory rather than preaching it, he soon had a primary and secondary girlfriend. Primary girlfriend had another boyfriend and girlfriend of her own. Later hee got involved with a married couple... though ended up replacing the husband, and he and she have settled down to raise a kid mostly by themselves. Stable multiple adult households may be stable, as Impy says, but achieving stability is another matter. And my friend has never lived in one, though I do know of others.
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Re: 2010-09-02: What the Hell Am I Even Saying?

Post by ChunLing »

The thing is, that the major factors that establish the reproductive viability of a culture with given sexual mores have all been pretty stable in Tsuiraku for at least a thousand years, with the exception of relatively recent relaxation of restrictions on emigration/immigration. They've had hundreds of generations to sort themselves out into something that gives them a stable population. This situation bears no resemblance whatsoever to most cultures we can use for historical comparison, particularly to modern Western Culture, which has lost reproductive viability and is unlikely to regain it, even absent my assigned duties.
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Re: 2010-09-02: What the Hell Am I Even Saying?

Post by jackfrost »

Imp-Chan wrote:
Nell wrote:In what cultures other than backwards ass middle eastern ones (hi2u Burka) and mormon ones is polygamy accepted?
Well... in mine, for one. My views of sexuality and marriage are, admittedly, lenient. The only real taboo I have is a matter of consent (which rules out bestiality, pedophilia, necrophilia, and rape), though there are plenty of things I find personally unappealing beyond that.
I'm with Imp and Sareth on this one. There is a huge difference between a society of forced relations (what Nell brought up) and a society that practices relations of choice (which is the case for most of the US, crazy religious cults aside... and I consider all organized religion cults, although not necessarily crazy ones).

I've thought pretty hard on stuff like this (and further, other non sex/relationship related philosophy) and my overall idea of the ideal state of society is one where everything is allowed between adults that does not cause unwanted pain (I used to think just pain, but then you have issues with the BDSM and related worlds). Obviously, just like the laws currently today, it takes some interpretation to understand what pain is, given that some people would profess to being "emotionally" pained over the idea of homosexual marriage, etc... and others are caused pain for so long that they don't understand how to get away from it and rise above. Truthfully there are different levels of emotional pain... some of which should be ignored (the former religious example), but some would have to be taken into account, like that girl who committed suicide because of the emotional pain she was caused. But the general ideal is that if something causes someone unwanted pain, its illegal. If it doesn't hurt anyone besides yourself, feel free to do whatever you want.

Of course, this also brings into question the whole idea of being an "adult." Right now the only quantifiable indication of adulthood is age, but it really sucks, because sometimes there are kids under the age of 18 who are far more mature than adults who are over the age of 21. But I don't really see much choice there...

A girl should be able to marry two other women, four other men at the same time, if she wants. Five guys should be able to marry each other if they want. Although, I personally am possessive... if I was in a polygamous relationship, it couldn't involve another man... but thats just me, and how I feel (and only how I feel right now, maybe something will change that in the future, who knows).

People have no right to judge what does not affect themselves or what does not hurt others, but EVERYONE (almost) seems to. Take the situation with Tiger Woods. I personally don't give a damn what he did or didn't do. Not only do we probably have only a tiny piece of the story, its between him and those he was involved with to judge each other, not me. I think its absurd how much attention people gave to it... out of all the news in the world, the horrible things happening all over (I'd include all the good things happening all over, but the news hardly ever shows those anyways)... and the media just keeps slamming that out? Bizarre.

To another point in the thread, I also never understood why a woman who slept around got such a bad reputation, whereas a guy got such a "good" reputation for doing the exact same thing. I personally don't care one way or another, as long as the blood test comes back clean :D, but I'm probably the least judgmental person in existence.

If you made it this far, congratulations. Wall of Text failed to kill you.

TL;DR version: If doing what you want doesn't cause others actual unwanted "pain," it should be legitimate, no matter what.
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