Maybe I'm missing context that is hidden in the rest of the article behind the paywall, but this seems like a weird angle to me considering (especially working-class) queer people are massively disproportionately polyamorous compared to everyone else...?
"In her paper, published in the Journal of Sex Research this past June, Balzarini compared the demographic backgrounds of 2,428 polyamorous individuals and 539 monogamous ones by asking participants to take an online survey. Her team found that polyamorous people tend to identify more as bisexual/pansexual, are more likely to report being divorced, and make less money yearly than monogamous couples."
"When it came to monogamous relationships, 74 percent of straight respondents reported being monogamous compared to only 17 percent of bi/pan respondents. (The remaining percentage identified as gay/lesbian or other.)"
Also, this is entirely anecdotal, but in the various circles I'm a part of, every single polyamorous person I know is queer to some degree. Granted, a lot of that is because the people in my circles are disproportionately queer, but not nearly so much that it would be the sole reason for that.
Although the statistical methods are dubious, it does show that polyamory is on an upswing. Thankfully. Choosing a single partner for life is one of the most ingrained pieces of rhetoric in the modern era, and most people don’t even know you can choose anything else.
Still a bit sad that this topic is too divisive for HN. Last time I tried bringing it up, a half dozen people chimed in saying it can’t work, that it’s a bad idea, and so on. But maybe in a few more years it’ll get a nice discussion.
It obviously can work, forms of non-monogamy have been long term stable in many societies, there are negative consequences though.
Notably, it invariably results in more single men, more crime/societal instability, generally makes gender inequality more extreme, and results in less people doing parental duties.
From a "natural selection" point of view though it's probably a superior modality to monogamy, and monogamy is only really enforced through oppression in practice.
For what it's worth, polyamory might correlate to higher status within a society, across societies higher levels of polyamory correlate to lower status of that society.
There’s currently a single men epidemic, yet polyamory is a rounding error in terms of popularity. I’d be interested in evidence to the contrary, but it seems doubtful that multiple partners would cause the problems you mention.
That doesn’t address the cause: is the disorder actually caused by being single or do the same traits which are unappealing to potential partners also responsible?
It’s a concept that is challenging. I think adults should do whatever they want without hurting people, but in my experience human relationships get exponentially more complex with volume. It’s a hard lifestyle to sustain.
I’m acquainted with a few people in this world, but am not in it. From what they relate, there’s wide variety of participants with very different approaches and experiences. Everything from pure hedonists to people who can’t or won’t get divorced to various kinksters and fetishists.
I’d imagine with all of the recent media coverage, there’s a mini “eternal September” of dudes dragging their girlfriends into this.
