Poly on the Radio

[miss_s_b]

Today's Beyond Belief is talking about poly relationships, and the interview with the poly guy was quite interesting. He didn't make enough of communication for my liking, but he did ok. Unfortunately, they are having a post match discussion and the monogamous Christian guy is making me want to scream and throw things at the radio with his level of Not Getting It. He is going on about how broken promises hurt people and things, and ignoring the fact that in a poly relationship you don't make promises of monogamy by definition. The wanker. There's a very reasonable woman called Lisa who is cheering me up, though.

Anyway, this brings me to a poll:

Poll #2290

Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 32

Is it possible for a person to love more than one person deeply enough to want to spend the rest of their life with them (whether or not you personally could do it)?

Yes
28 (87.5%)

No
0 (0.0%)

Maybe/Don't Know
4 (12.5%)

Marriage should be

Between one man and one woman, for life.
0 (0.0%)

Between any two (previously uncommitted or divorced) people who want to commit to each other, for life
3 (11.1%)

Between any number of people who want to commit to each other, for life
6 (22.2%)

Between one man and one woman, for as long as it lasts
0 (0.0%)

Between any two (previously uncommitted or divorced) people who want to commit to each other, for as long as it lasts
0 (0.0%)

Between any number of people who want to commit to each other, for as long as it lasts.
18 (66.7%)

The state should

Legislate on Marriage, because what happens in people's private relationships affects all of society
4 (13.3%)

Butt out of relationships between consenting adults; as long as there is no coercion, it's nobody's business but the participants.
26 (86.7%)

This poll is faulty!

It should have more ticky boxes
14 (56.0%)

You've worded the questions all wrong!
8 (32.0%)

I can't see how other people have voted and I want to be nosey!
8 (32.0%)

Something else which I will detail at great, mansplanatory length in the comments
3 (12.0%)

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Comments

[ginasketch]

I have a question.

Aren't there poly people who make promises to each other only to sleep with specific people? Okay, so that's not monogamy, but I guess there can still be broken promises.

Don't get me wrong, Monogamous Christian Guy sounds like a twunt (and probably isn't as monogamous as he claims), I'm just curious.

A tough one

[von_geisterhand]

(Proviso: I have not listened to the linked programme yet and may therefore be missing out on some important insights/points.)

Question 1: Personally I am not entirely convinced that this whole "Till Death do us part"-thing works, full stop, but if you have the genuine feeling that you might want to spend the rest of your life with this one person, I don't see why it should not work with more participants, too.

2: (Only in respect to secular marriages/civil partnerships. If the churches want to play their own one-male-one-female-game, that's fine by me.) I like to think of this as true commitment. If two (or more) people decide that they want to spend the foreseeable future with each other and feel so strongly about it that they want to put all of this into an officially sanctioned context, let them. Some legal changes might have to be made in order to take into account the special requirements that might arise from a larger than previously considered number of participants but in theory it should be possible (even if I have to say that I am quite happy not to be the one who would have to figure it all out). Just as long as it remains clear that this is not a step to be taken willy nilly.

3: In the end the State (tm) is giving a form/framework to these unions and therefore it is only logical for it to be write the rules for how these things should look. Though obviously the masses should do some serious "advising".

That's the brief version.

[wildeabandon]

I couldn't really answer the second question as it stands. I dislike the conflation of "a religious or social ceremony in which commitment is expressed" and "a legal contract for the sharing of various rights and responsibilities".

I think people should be able to call the former marriage if they want to and define it pretty much however they like, as long as all the participants agree on the definition.

I think it would be better if the latter had a different name, and in theory I think it should be open to any number of people who want to commit to one another, but in practice the legislation for that will be an absolute nightmare, and I don't think that writing it should be a particularly high priority.

[el_staplador]

Questions answered from my usual idealist why-can't-everybody-be-nice-to-each-other point of view, I should point out. I'm well aware that It's Always More Complicated.

thoughts on yaoi

[telegramsam]

How the hell can you break a promise you haven't actually made? Doesn't make much sense to me. I figure as long as everybody knows what's going on, and are all on the same page, and nobody's being deceived, who gives a fuck? It's not something I could deal with personally, but I'm an emotionally backward recluse anyway, so I'm hardly in a position to say much on human relationships.

As for marriage, I don't think the government has any business saying anything at all about marriage. Why the hell is there even a legal definition for it in the first place? Historically at least it's mostly been a religious or at least cultural institution, so governments getting mucked up in it always seems like mixing church and state to me. Churches, temples, mosques, etc as far as I care can decide for themselves who they are willing to marry or not, as that's really nobody else's business outside of that particular religious body.

"Civil unions" though, frankly anybody should be able to be civilly-union'ed to whoever they want to be civilly-union'ed to and confer such privileges on. I can think of several circumstances where a person might want such a legal union to another person or persons without actually being married to said person(s), especially for child custody and property/inheritance issues.

Don't even get me started on the tax break in the USA that married couples get for no particular reason. Children I understand, because kids are expensive, but just being married? Two incomes under one roof are already better off than one.

That conservo-guy needs to go get a hobby and stop minding other people's business.

TL;DR - My brain hurts today.

[innerbrat]

What I think marriage should be is not the same as what I think the Government has a right to define marriage as.

[po8crg]

My sulk about the questions - the state should legislate on marriage, but not because of what happens in private relationships; instead because if people want to designate someone else as their next of kin then that is a legal change and has to be done through legislation.

[Also divorce is / can be a messy legal process and there need to be laws on unravelling mixed-up finances and also child custody questions]

[pmoodie]

Seems to me that most marriages fail anyway, so what's so special and shiny about the good old fashioned man/women monogamous stuff?

On the other hand, I think I personally would find it very hard to maintain a serious relationship with more than one person at a time. I think it would get very complicated and I crave a simple life. But that's not to say that other people can't make it work.

I suppose it would be ideal for the state to keep it's nose out, but obviously there needs to be some kind of official framework for when the marriage falls apart (or someone dies) and it all gets legal, with people squabbling over money, children and DVD collections.

Slight issue...

[tommybblog.blogspot.com]

I do have a slight issue with the poll, but it is of course an entirely obvious one that everyone's already thought of: The vast majority of participants will be people who regularly read your blog. The vast majority of those people will be people who generally agree with you in most of the more important areas in which your goat is regularly got. With that in mind, the results of your poll will be heavily biased and not at all representative of 'society' (whatever that word may mean).

BUT it acts as a talking point, and I would bet that your primary motive in posting this poll was just that, rather than an actual attempt to collect any sensible, workable data.

Also, I'd like to say that I agree with lots of the things that have been said above, but I don't want to bore everyone to death by repeating them all. One thing I would like to explicitly address, though, is the whole marriage thing: I found your second question difficult to answer because of my views of what 'marriage' actually is, regardless of how many people it involves. Maybe that's just my problem as a cynic.