Ray's Opinion On Polyamory

Cloudhands

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I recently emailed Ray to ask his opinion on a metabolic view of dating, with a specific emphasis on the amount of partners involved. He responded and figured it was a gem that others would appreciate.
 

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Collden

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Supposedly, sexual culture in most hunter-gatherer tribes before the advent of agriculture was based on the belief in "Partible Paternity", ie the idea that a child was a product of all the men a woman had sex with prior to and during pregnancy and that it would take on the best traits of each of those men. This belief basically encouraged everyone to have sex with everyone and also feel some kinship and responsibility for every child in the tribe and so promoted a society of sexual abundance and strong loyalty and social support within the tribe.

It seems a pretty utopian way of life for our ancestors, but its also easy to see how a system like that could not be maintained in an agrarian non-egalitarian society.
 

Beastmode

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Great podcast on this topic and then some. Listened to most of it last night:

 
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Cloudhands

Cloudhands

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A bunch of intellectual mumbo jumbo
I suppose if you don't interpret much meaning then it must seem so. For me it makes a lot of sense, I'd happily let you know what meaning I personally extracted from his response if anyone would appreciate
 

Ableton

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well, if you are unattractive you better have a negative view on polyamory, and if you are attractive, you might benefit from a positive view on it (in todays society)
 

lampofred

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I think anything other than serial monogamy is degrading.

RP is saying artificial scarcity is imposed in our culture.

Polyamory implies scarcity of women, polygyny implies scarcity of men, regular marriage implies scarcity of both (the way it's done today in the sense of "settling down", in the past in rich societies marriage was something greater and not related to scarcity or property mentality).
 
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LUH 3417

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I think anything other than serial monogamy is degrading.

RP is saying artificial scarcity is imposed in our culture.

Polyamory implies scarcity of women, polygyny implies scarcity of men, regular marriage implies scarcity of both (the way it's done today in the sense of "settling down", in the past in rich societies marriage was something greater and not related to scarcity or property mentality).
What was it related to in the past?
 

Ableton

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don't forget that today it is also related to social expectations as well as... taxes
i know people who would not have married and literally just stayed a couple if it was not for taxes
 
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Cloudhands

Cloudhands

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Basically do whichever you want as long as the intentions aren't based in fear and lack. If monogamy is our cultures main model of relationship, and it's a result of the institutions imposing artificial scarcity, and animals who are less scarce seem to move toward polyamory, then it's safe to assume monogamy is a result of scarcity, a way to protect and conserve an organisms resources
 

Gone Peating

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Basically do whichever you want as long as the intentions aren't based in fear and lack. If monogamy is our cultures main model of relationship, and it's a result of the institutions imposing artificial scarcity, and animals who are less scarce seem to move toward polyamory, then it's safe to assume monogamy is a result of scarcity, a way to protect and conserve an organisms resources

Not everything about human behavior can be understood from a purely biological perspective about preserving resources.

This kind of neo-darwinian thinking is poisoning everyone's minds IMO
 

Zigzag

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well, if you are unattractive you better have a negative view on polyamory, and if you are attractive, you might benefit from a positive view on it (in todays society)
I don't see what an attractive man gets from polyamory, given he has abundance of sexual contacts. It's definitely beneficial for women.

Edit. Ok, you might have meant something different. If that's what I think then yes, I agree. The more unattractive you are the harder you have to push anti "poly" views and the opposite if you're attractive, so that you get a lot of sexual contacts basically for free, without any stigma.
 

Evgenius

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Basically do whichever you want as long as the intentions aren't based in fear and lack. If monogamy is our cultures main model of relationship, and it's a result of the institutions imposing artificial scarcity, and animals who are less scarce seem to move toward polyamory, then it's safe to assume monogamy is a result of scarcity, a way to protect and conserve an organisms resources

Thanks, I am not a native speaker and this was helpful to understand Ray's response.
 

Ableton

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I don't see what an attractive man gets from polyamory, given he has abundance of sexual contacts. It's definitely beneficial for women.

Edit. Ok, you might have meant something different. If that's what I think then yes, I agree. The more unattractive you are the harder you have to push anti "poly" views and the opposite if you're attractive, so that you get a lot of sexual contacts basically for free, without any stigma.
brutal
 

Astolfo

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Could somebody explain the text? My English is not that good, i can't understand what RP and others said on this topic.
 
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from a biological view, men are much larger than women, and the bigger disparity between the body size of the sexes, the less monogamous.

On the other hand, women have hidden ovulation for a reason. And we have pair bonding strongly. So I think those are all biological and not simply constructs of an oppressive culture, as Dr. Peat seems to think.

Also men have large penises relative to body mass, in comparison to other animals, and small testicles. Penis size is probably there for competition purposes (Dr. Peat doesn't like competition and thinks that nature isn't competitive) with other men's sperm, but small testicles indicate the opposite.

So it is quite confusing and nobody really knows anything.

Edited to add: It is evident to me that men and women are built for sexual pleasure to be fundamental to our lives and our wellbeing. It isn't for reproduction solely, it is for our pleasure and it is one of the great wonderful things about life and I think Dr. Peat does appreciate this!
 

inurendotoxin

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I'm just taking a moment to admire Dr. Peat's mastery of the written word. I think certainly you could extract (or perceive) as much or as little as you prefer from his response.

My 'extraction' would be; monogamy = a perfectly valid preference when not 'institutional' or imposed monogamy. By extension, the structure of a monogamous relationship could by nature be institutional-izing. Polyamory = equally valid as a preference.

Could also be implied here that feelings of jealousy, rejection etc are 'scarcity' based, and thus reinforce associations of safety and structural security with monogamy.

Ftr, I dunno if I 100% concur with the above (particularly on the last part), but it seems like a well-reasoned position.
 
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Cloudhands

Cloudhands

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Not everything about human behavior can be understood from a purely biological perspective about preserving resources.

This kind of neo-darwinian thinking is poisoning everyone's minds IMO
I think it's pretty well known that marriage has cultural roots in preserving family fortunes, dowries, and preserving royalty. Like I said, as long as the intentions are not of lack or scarcity, it doesn't matter whichever one you choose, and I believe ray feels the same way, he never explicitly said that one or the other is more or less optimal, he just said they are strongly influenced by institutions
 

Inaut

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I think it's pretty well known that marriage has cultural roots in preserving family fortunes, dowries, and preserving royalty. Like I said, as long as the intentions are not of lack or scarcity, it doesn't matter whichever one you choose, and I believe ray feels the same way, he never explicitly said that one or the other is more or less optimal, he just said they are strongly influenced by institutions

Does morality or “constructs” of morality fit into Ray’s perspective? I know of a guy (Aleister Crowley) who used to say do what thou wilt. No consequences. Not comparing ray to him by any stretch but we all want to validate our behaviours one way or another. I used to really like the idea of having multiple gfs... Now I don’t think it’s an ideal for my way of life ethically. Jmo
 
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Cloudhands

Cloudhands

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Does morality or “constructs” of morality fit into Ray’s perspective? I know of a guy (Aleister Crowley) who used to say do what thou wilt. No consequences. Not comparing ray to him by any stretch but we all want to validate our behaviours one way or another. I used to really like the idea of having multiple gfs... Now I don’t think it’s an ideal for my way of life ethically. Jmo
Like i said do either as long as it's not because of fear. Polyamory for me is more about exploring love and sensuality and not being possessive of females in the sense that I am okay with them having other partners. There's also a clinical positive correlation between testosterone and polyamory, if that's interesting to anyone. The point being made is that people are afraid to have multiple partners and creating exclusive relationships shut out to others is behavior associated with scarcity. There's a reason it's called an 'open' relationship, seeing as it requires a large amount of openness and security.
 
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