Contra Zvi on Polyamory

If you were making a bad generalization, stop doing so

Zvi does not hate polyamory. You can tell because he says he does not hate polyamory. But he also doesn’t seem to like polyamory very much and he definitely doesn’t think you should try it. From his latest dating roundup:

few people (reading this, anyway) hate polyamory, they simply disagree about expected outcomes on a variety of fronts. I continue to think that there is a time and a place and a person where polyamory is the correct choice, but that the majority of the time someone thinks it is a good idea right here, right now, that they are wrong.

He concludes that “polyamory is generally a deeply bad idea for humans, albeit with notably rare exceptions that are extraordinarily good fits.” His initial reasons are that “there are fewer children, and those children that there are generally end up in worse positions and at more risk, and the whole thing is a giant time sink even when done right without overall looking better even after those costs are paid.”

Do Polyamorous People Have Fewer Children?

His evidence is this Scott Alexander post aggregating comments on his other polyamory post. Zvi doesn’t specify which comments in particular he found convincing, but his source for the “fewer children” claim seems to be this graph from Aella:

This seems accurate, so far as it goes. I would believe that polyamorous people have fewer children, though this establishes correlation, not causation. Speaking as a polyamorous parent, there’s nothing inherent in polyamory that would prevent one from having children, and having more than two adults in the house would actually be extremely helpful when it comes to most childcare needs. But it’s certainly plausible that putting extra resources into relationships leaves less resources for children. For my money, I’m betting on selection effects. Polyamorous people tend to be very liberal, and liberals have fewer children.

If polyamory actually caused people to have fewer children, there would be a reasonable argument that we should discourage it at a societal level. I would, however, disagree with that argument. America can easily solve its fertility issues. There is no reason why we should be discouraging people from having the relationships they want in order to “better society” or whatever, especially when such problems can be resolved by other means.

Zvi isn’t making a societal argument, however. His claim is that most people are wrong if they think polyamory is a good decision for them. The fact that poly people have fewer children overall is not an argument that any individual shouldn’t try it.

Are Children of Polyamorous People at Higher Risk?

Zvi’s evidence that children are at higher risk in poly families seems to be this comment:

I would just refer back to the statistics on the likelihood of abuse when an adult other than a parent is in the home. Why would those be different in a polyamorous situation? That’s my general system level proof of which one of these is likely better for children at the social level of analysis. Also the statistics about the general well-being of children with two parents in the home. That is very clearly more stable, you probably know those statistics better than I do, and while of course not perfect it does seem very hard to argue that if that wasn’t the case for more people (which we know is possible because it was the case for virtually everyone not that long ago) general welfare would be much better.

Scott responded to the original comment:

Hm, this didn't occur to me because I rarely see poly people bring a third person into the home itself. I more often see partners interact with the children the same way as any other close friend.

But also, thinking about this in near mode - does this mean people shouldn't live with their extended families? Shouldn't have nannies? That single moms shouldn't remarry? I think usually people agree that an extra parent-figure is worth this risk, especially if very carefully screened. I haven't thought about this much because I haven't seen this situation, it's not something I have a strong opinion about, but it doesn't seem that different from things which we already acknowledge are good.

I mostly agree with Scott here, and it reflects one of the difficulties with talking about polyamory. “Polyamory” means a lot of things. Sometimes it means a committed couple where one partner hires a sex worker every six months. Other times it means a twelve-person household where everyone is dating everyone else and having orgies every night.

My experience lines up with Scott’s in that most poly people I know live alone or with a single partner. I’ve personally experienced some of the pitfalls of inviting extra people into my home, so it’s always something about which I counsel extreme caution. That goes double when there are children present. So if Zvi’s argument is that people should be very careful about cohabitating children with non-parents, I agree, but I disagree with the suggestion that this means lifelong monogamy is a superior decision most of the time. It’s easy enough to be (as in my case) polyamorous but with boundaries about cohabitation, and the greater dangers of cohabitation don’t mean nobody should ever do it, just that people should be careful.

Is Polyamory Not That Great Anyway?

Zvi claims that “the whole thing is a giant time sink even when done right without overall looking better even after those costs are paid.” I admit that I’m unsure of how to respond to this claim since it mostly just seems like a subjective judgment. I’m happy to concede that dating people does, in fact, take time, and that for Zvi personally, it would not be time well spent.

Again, this is the problem of “polyamory” encompassing an extremely wide array of behaviors. It can take as much or as little time as you choose. Some people have one evening a month where they go on dates. Some people are spending time with partners 24/7. I used to be more of the latter, but now am closer to the former. As with all things, know your limits.

Personally, I find polyamory extremely rewarding despite the fact that I don’t put too much time into it or have any “serious” (for lack of a better term) partners aside from my wife. If you don’t, that’s fine, but I’d ask you to please not make those kind of judgments on behalf of others who feel differently.

Does Polyamory Mean No Boundaries?

Zvi’s next objection is a curious one:

One feature of polyamory is that it means continuous auditions of potential replacements by all parties. You are not trading up in the sense that you can have multiple partners, but one thing leads to another and there are only so many hours in the day.

If you are monogamous, and you meet someone plausibly 25% better, by default what happens is nothing. There is no pressure to explore that possibility, to see if you might be able to upgrade, or even find out if the person is available. It is not an issue.

If you are polyamorous, and you meet someone plausibly 25% better, or even someone 0% better (I mean the person you are with is pretty good, no?) you are honor bound to try and make it happen.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at this argument from a person who seriously believes that choices are bad. If you think choices are bad, then of course having choices in a relationship is bad. I, however, do not think that choices are bad and thus do not buy this argument.

Dating while in a poly relationship is also not about looking for replacements. When I go on a date, I’m not auditioning replacements for my wife. She’s irreplaceable. Meeting friends is not about auditioning replacements for your current friends. Having additional children is not about replacing your current children. This point gets made over and over, and yet this trope won’t die.

Zvi’s attitude seems not to acknowledge how relationships actually work. The whole “25% better” idea was always silly, but let’s say you meet someone you like as much or more as your current partner. There is no real “default” in any interaction, because that’s not how humans work. If there’s any default, it’s that regardless of relationship style, nobody ends up dating, because that takes two people and most people aren’t interested in dating people who are already in serious relationships. Further, nobody is “honor bound” to pursue anything. I know lots of great people who I’m not pursuing for all kinds of reasons.

Beyond that, it’s entirely plausible that a monogamous person would just ignore the new crush and never speak to them again, but it’s also very common for a monogamous person to befriend that person but feel guilty about it and have secret feelings which ultimately manifest in dissatisfaction, anger, or, in many cases, infidelity.

Zvi also quotes Brooke Bowman saying that

I want all of my male friends to be in happy, fulfilling relationships for the entirely selfish reason that it is SO NICE to have friendships where there’s no weirdness around ‘are they into me’ or ‘do they think I’m into them’

Ah this was polyamory erasure sorry everyone.

Tbf I do struggle with feeling anxious around poly friends for this reason, but that’s a skill issue.

Zvi says “a sufficiently difficult skill issue reduces to an issue. If you too are poly then oh boy is the skill threshold here high.” First off, I dispute the idea that interactions between attached monogamous people have no sexual tension. “Are they into me?” or “do they think I’m into them?” are questions you still need to ask even if one or both of you are in monogamous relationships! Just because there is an institutional barrier to you dating doesn’t mean that nobody wants to or will try to. See the above graph about cheating! If you’re having anxiety about poly people but not mono people, your map does not match the territory.

Secondly, if you want to have an institutional barrier to dating polyamorous people, you can just say “I only date monogamous people.” Problem solved! You have erected a barrier and everyone can pretend that it’s an insurmountable barrier.

Personally, I enjoy sexual tension, but if you don’t, then it’s not that difficult to avoid.

Do Polyamorous People Need to be Hyper-Skilled?

Zvi’s next argument against polyamory uses an Aella quote:

yatharth: oh, I see. Societies evolved taboos and rituals around sex, not because they were a morally inferior, irrational species, but because sex routinely fucked social relations up, and the cultures that survived were the ones that had guardrails in place,

Aella: this is partially why people who pull off polyamory successfully are hyper-skilled with communication, emotional regulation and self-awareness. Not saying monogomous people aren't that, only that you don't *have* to be that in order to pull off monogamy.

I'm sure you all know that one couple who have the emotional processing ability of a cantaloupe but have somehow stayed married for 20 years. If they'd tried poly (in today's climate, with zero cultural support or general knowhow), their relationship woulda fallen apart.

Zvi uses this to argue that “(Almost?) nothing successful at a mass scale requires hyper-skill. If your social relational system, or any other product or service, requires hyper-skill, your system is at best for a very small group of people.”

I think Zvi has missed Aella’s point. The parenthetical is doing a lot of work. Polyamory does not inherently require hyper-skill any more than having multiple friends or multiple children requires hyper-skill. It requires extra skills in today’s climate because there is “zero cultural support or general knowhow.” Polyamorous people have very few role models, social scripts, or institutional support and are subject to massive stigma. In that kind of environment, it takes extra skills.

However, that would rapidly change if polyamory were adopted at mass scale. Mass adoption of polyamory doesn’t require everyone to develop superhuman EQ. Mass adoption would obviate the need for the aforementioned hyper-skill. Polyamorous people would have numerous role models, both in real life and in fiction, to show best practices. Our institutions would recognize and support such relationships. If polyamorous relationships got the same social support that monogamous relationships get, it would be much less difficult to pull off. In that environment, it’s monogamy that would take extra skills.