Duke Grad's 'Sex Thesis' Flunks Internet 101

reply to post by Wang TangYou're happy with monogamy? Ok. Do you accept that many people aren't & that there's nothing wrong with that?

Where I want to be different from you is where you couldn't keep up a commitment to one woman to raise a child.

I think I mustn't have been clear enough. I was married from age 20-37. I have a daughter(21) & a son(19). I also have a step-ish son(just 22). He's the biological child of a woman my wife & I fell in love with & lived with polyamourously for 4yrs. His bio father is the type of irresponsible flake you seem to be confusing me with. Tragically, aged 8, his bio mum died in an accident. His grandparents got custody until age 18. In the UK, a kid can legally leave their guardian/s at 16. He threatened to do so unless his Gma would allow him to see the 4 of us openly (we had been in clandestine contact for those 8yrs).
A therapist advised me that I should insist the lad call my wife & I by our names, not mum & dad, & that we should gently disengage for his sake. I tried: the lad was having none of it. What would you do? I had my kid on the other end of the phone going, "Dad I, I, blub blub blub..." b/c he'd lost his main mum & just wanted to feel safe with us. Tell him, "Sorry, the law says bla bla bla."? My hole! To compound this, the lad did become good mates with his Gpa, but he died 3yrs ago also.
My wife's parents split when she was 12 & dumped her in a posh boarding school. My parents split when I was 11 &, whilst things were better @home for a while, they went wrong again, so I had to leave aged 15. We could have seriously done with parents we could trust in our early 20s, but all we had was each other. We didn't know the jargon, but we knew that our starts were messed up, so we tried to go to 1st principles & work from there, but we were kids ourselves. We made mistakes.
However, my kids are not going to be left up excrement creek without a paddle.
(TBC)

(Cont)
I have 3 phone numbers: business, casual & loved ones + a phone service that lets me switch numbers on/off independently. Thus my handset is only off during actual sound recording in my job. Otherwise, the ringtone is set to loud & vibrate. No matter whether I'm asleep or whatever I'm doing, if my kids, my g/f, my exes, my family or best friends need me, they'll get me pretty soon.
You sound like a young adult male, so please take this next as experience from 1 man to another; its not intended to patronise:
A 1st time pregnant woman is like a cross between a pre-teen child, a lioness & an alien! By the 8th month, she is sick to the back teeth of waddling around with backache, unable to hold more than a tablespoon of pee, worried about stretchmarks, frightened of knowing that the contents of her bump must exit via her favourite organ &, although she knows this is physically possible, the relative sizes just dont add up! Also, she is subject to some odd impulses that stem from the "nesting instinct", but worse, she has a biological aversion to male pheromones, thus, you can be the most caring, amenable bloke on the planet: the only reason she lets you stay around is social convention. Except... when her inner child needs a hug... up until the point where her biology reasserts itself &, to her, you change from "protector" to "that male that is the cause of her current distress".
There'll be a 5-6 month period, leading up to the final stages before labour, where the only cuddles you get are when she wants reassurance & the only sex you'll get is when she feels sorry for you: unless she's a professional actress, you'll know she just wants to get you off as quickly as possible, to stop you wandering around with your pants on fire. Then, just before the birth, she'll turn to you & expect all the romantic love & a bit of caring sex, just as if she hasn't put you through the wringer, she is so no longer the woman you fell in love with & you are still the same rock solid "dad material" she wanted.
(TBC)

(Cont)
Now this is just the pregnancy part. By the time she's a new mother, the woman you fell in love with no longer exists.
Can you imagine how such a woman would react to being woken up at 3am by the kids of another woman wanting to come round, possibly with friends in-tow, to get a hug, raid the fridge, dump some washing, abuse the furniture & lick their wounds, b/c life gave them a kick in the crotch, then blag some petrol-money to get back out there & give life a reciprocal boot?
See, I know what fatherhood entails, which is why I dont have any unplanned children. There are only so many hours in a day: I have to earn a crust &, despite my best efforts, I do need to get a good sleep occasionally. I also have to take care of my needs, or I end up no use to man, woman or beast (This is particularly important during 1st pregnancy & early motherhood, b/c you have to get your R&R without impinging on her security. If she knows who you're doing, why & that you'll definitely be back, thats the insecurity taken care of. All that's left is simple jealousy. Still, we wouldn't have married in the 1st place unless we had profound trust, so, without insecurity fuelling it, jealousy isn't that hard of an emotion to deal with. Of course, this must also be a reciprocal arrangement: I wont get anyone else pregnant or take stupid risks with STD/Is & you do the same.). Now, my kids all know who their biological fathers are & they know who their dad is. This is why I'm not able to commit to husbanding another woman through the process of producing another child, or be a proper dad to any such offspring, b/c I've already got my hands full.
You seem to be assuming that there is only monogamy or wild irresponsible sex. No. If you wish to be promiscuous & successful, you must be way more responsible than the kind of people who attempt monogamy, but find it doesn't quite suit, but that the stigma of promiscuity suits less, thus find dishonest means to meet their needs, or mad coping mechanisms for the frustration.

Actually, I'm going to underline what I've said above with this:
You know people often say stuff like "That'll make a man of you!" & remember Rudyard Kipling's "If"? Ha!
If you can get through your partner's 1st pregnancy, admit to yourself that you could cheerfully strangle her but stick around, keeping out of her face unless she wants you in it, disappear completely when she really doesn't want you around but remain available to drop everything at a moments notice to return & do/be whatever she wants, without being emotionally needy yourself, & in the full knowledge that as soon as she's happy again, she'd prefer you to make yourself scarce &, in the meantime, work your arse off to pay for the whole enterprise, without complaint or expectation of immediate reward...
Then "you'll be a man, my son." & if anyone tries to tell you different, you'll have every right to laugh in their face.
If, however, you cannot deal with the fact that no matter how good you get at some skill/s, how attractive you can make yourself, how knowledgable or wise you become, how rich you are or how good you are in bed, there will always be someone better in any &/or all these departments than you, then you will remain an emotional child, "my son", & its likely that, in order to defend your childlike ego, you will insist on surrounding yourself with people who either cant grow up themselves, or that you can prevent from doing so & you & yours will end up as the same type of easily manipulated, dysfunctional fools that make up the bulk of western society.
Does this sound harsh? I hope so. Life's like that. Whilst we're taught that lifelong monogamy is the ideal to strive for, in reality, humans just aren't adapted for that & whilst this fact causes many problems which must be anticipated & dealt with, trying to live in a Disney fairytale causes even more grief.

First of all, thank you for describing what a pregnant woman is like, I'll keep that in mind for the future.

Originally posted by Bunken Drum You're happy with monogamy? Ok. Do you accept that many people aren't & that there's nothing wrong with that?

Yes I'm happy with monogamy. It might have to do with the fact that I believe I'm lucky and extremely thankful that I got a girl at all, and an amazing one at that. I'm sure that's how everyone feels at first, or should feel. Do I accept that many people aren't happy with monogamy? Yes I accept that. It's hard not to considering it is the social norm to go against monogamy as shown by this Duke grad's thesis. Do I accept that there's nothing wrong with that? I can't personally accept that going against monogamy is right. But when other people do it, I reluctantly accept it as just something that happens a lot these days, and always has happened, and always will. It's not something I would get into though, I have friends that like to play around and I don't get into their business about it even though I personally don't agree with it. I'll let you believe what you want.

Originally posted by Bunken Drum

You seem to be assuming that there is only monogamy or wild irresponsible sex. No. If you wish to be promiscuous & successful, you must be way more responsible than the kind of people who attempt monogamy, but find it doesn't quite suit, but that the stigma of promiscuity suits less, thus find dishonest means to meet their needs, or mad coping mechanisms for the frustration.

All in all it seems to me like you are proud... proud of how things ended up, proud of how you are more responsible than people who stay faithful to their wives and husbands. But there seems to be a disconnect between you and your children and partners, and it's all a complicated situation that I'm not completely tracking on. Yes you maintain contact with your kids and they call you dad, but that is not much to be proud of, that is the least you can do. I see that the court is trying to separate you from your kids, and you managet to stay by them, but this whole situation could have been avoided. You see, if I just stay faithful, I don't have to deal with the courts separating my kids or maintaining my relationships with multiple partners while keeping up the trust of my kids.

I am assuming that there is monogamy and irresponsible sex. How in the world does not following monogamy make you successful? How can you assume that all people who have sex with multiple partners are more responsible than people who stay faithful? That has got to be the most ridiculous statement I have ever come across. Yes I see what you are saying that maintaining multiple partners is hard, but you ended up having multiple partners because you couldn't completely commit to your primary relationship in the first place.

reply to post by Wang Tang

First of all, thank you for describing what a pregnant woman is like, I'll keep that in mind for the future. ;-)

You're welcome ;-)
I'm gratified that you didn't jump on my parody of "If", as if it were patronising, despite my previously stated intent. Imo, this shows the ability to hold several ideas from someone else in mind at once & still be able to formulate one's own & maturity, both of which are often lacking online, so thank you. With that in mind, I'm hopeful that this debate could lead somewhere interesting, or that we could at least shake some sense out of each other, which we & others may find useful in reconsideration. So, before I continue, I wonder if you've noticed that you've, though not quite contradicted yourself, undermined your position twice now?
1) If we agree that lovemaking is the product of a loving relationship, then it follows that 'extra-marital' sex ought not to impact on the love b/c that already exists, unless the person is, or is looking to be, in love with someone else, which would also be an emotional state that already existed. In which case the 3+ involved could try poly (Tip: its easier said than done! Get a good therapist.). Or, if sex were the main focus of the relationship, which we're agreed it ought not to be, but rather, imo, the combination of respect, trust & affection we call "love". The other negative impact would be if the trust of love were broken by dishonesty. Other than that, its 'just' about managing insecurity, jealousy & other peoples' willingness to poke their noses into your business, all of which an adult ought to be managing regardless of who they're doing.
2) If you accept, as you appear to, that promiscuity is, has always been & probably will remain, common, then to call it "against" monogamy is to place the opposition in the wrong place. Rather, monogamy is "against" demonstrable human nature.

Originally posted by Bunken Drum
1) If we agree that lovemaking is the product of a loving relationship, then it follows that 'extra-marital' sex ought not to impact on the love b/c that already exists, unless the person is, or is looking to be, in love with someone else, which would also be an emotional state that already existed. In which case the 3+ involved could try poly (Tip: its easier said than done! Get a good therapist.). Or, if sex were the main focus of the relationship, which we're agreed it ought not to be, but rather, imo, the combination of respect, trust & affection we call "love". The other negative impact would be if the trust of love were broken by dishonesty. Other than that, its 'just' about managing insecurity, jealousy & other peoples' willingness to poke their noses into your business, all of which an adult ought to be managing regardless of who they're doing.
2) If you accept, as you appear to, that promiscuity is, has always been & probably will remain, common, then to call it "against" monogamy is to place the opposition in the wrong place. Rather, monogamy is "against" demonstrable human nature.

Polygamy is not something I'm entirely against, although our law is against it. I read in the news the other day about an Indonesian guy with 4 wives, I tip my hat to him and say damn you've got some damn good management skills and damn good wives and you're a lucky bastard because that can't be me in America. But again, the culture here is different, women have more opportunities and freedom here, and it seems to me like women in this state of freedom naturally don't want to be just one of four wives, they want to feel like they are the only one. It's possible with a dedicated man and open minded women to make a polygamous relationship work as you seem to have made it work, but that is not the norm.

As for polygamy here in America, it's one thing to have several women when there are no kids involved, but when there are kids involved, it's another, far more serious matter, because this is the type of thing that has led to the rising number of dysfunctional families in this country. Guys tend to have a primary love affair and then a few affairs to the side, and that is not how polygamy is actually supposed to work.

As for me, I'm willing to stay loyal not only out of love for my future wife but also for the kids, becuase more than anything I want to be a good father and raise a good family. Anyways, I'm the type of guy that stays interested in one thing for a very long time, and by interested I mean very interested, and it's the same for everything in my life whether it be a sport or a girl.

But as you said, when only a guy and a girl are involved, as long as the guy can have sex with another girl without losing the trust of the first girl, I don't see any problems.

But if there are kids involved, the wife SHOULD lose some trust in her husband if he has sex with another woman (unless it's Indonesia and polygamy is legal). If she is fine with him going off and doing his own thing then that is a whole other issue, an issue of parents not having their priorities straight. Becuase the way I see it, if a couple wants to raise a family, their goal should be to raise a functional family, and if that is not their goal then they have no business raising a family in the first place.

As for this Indonesian guy who has successfully managed 4 wives, again, I tip my hat to him. Here's a link to the story. As I said before, I'm not entirely against polygamy, I'm more against random hook-ups like the Duke girl and extra-marital affairs that lead to dysfunctional families.

www.independent.co.uk...

reply to post by Wang TangImo, the bloke from your article is using his wealth & culture to take the piss. "Poly"-"Gamy", from its greek roots means "more than 1 woman" which implies only 1 man. Polyamoury however is non-gender-specific. In our case, it was 1 man & 2 women, but this was b/c we were all bi & the girls were as attracted to each other as to me*. We also had other lovers, male & female, but, for various reasons, living together with them wouldn't have worked.
Our 3 kids did have a preference for their bio mums, but I suspect this was b/c our step-ish son was already 4 when we got together. This is un-PC also, but women bond with kids much easier than men. Imo, this is mainly due to the fact that, whoever is 'wearing the trousers', if any crap lands on the situation, its men who're expected to take the brunt of it. Therefore, as relaxed as we might be, in the back of our minds, there's a fear of the consequences of life which makes us a little less emotionally available than women, since we know we may well have to make our loved ones do stuff they really object to.*This train of thought is going to take a few posts before it arrives at its destination, so please bear with me.Also, its a scientifically proven fact that young children have an instinctive fear of adult males. Its hypothesised that this is due to early hominids sharing the same type of instinct that other mammals have, whereby males kill infants in order to make their mothers receptive to become pregnant again.
Horrendous isn't it? Grow a beard, compare how young children react to you as opposed to shaved & come back to tell us if you think this opinion is wrong.
It takes a while for a child to become accustomed to & trust any adult male, but a crucial element of that bond is that the mother trusts the man. Of course, she might trust you if she believes you will never 'stray'. (tbc)

(Cont)
However, if believing a partner will never stray is the basis of trust, something that will undermine it constantly is the simple biological fact that you cannot help being also attracted to other people. Even if you have no intention of ever acting upon it, your partner will notice &, even if they're not a particularly jealous type, cannot help but consider that you may stray. I've seen this lead to some very messed up behaviour that has made people extremely unhappy, without even knowing why.
I believe that a good part of the trust which allowed us 6 to go from simple acquaintances to a loving family within a year was based on knowing that, whatever we might do with others, we would do it responsibly & always come back, ie there was nothing 'casual' about our casual sex. Like I've said, we made mistakes. There was little-to-no applicable literature at the time. Whatever nuggets of gold I now realise our parents had to offer were mixed with so much dross & confusing iron pyrites that they couldn't be trusted & our friends were making it up as they went along also. Still, it simply isn't the case that there's only monogamy or irresponsibility. Just as in so much of life, you merely need to apply the 6Ps rule: proper planning prevents piss poor performance.
You mentioned pride. Indeed I am proud of my successes & why shouldn't I be? I'm also ashamed of my failures, its just that not many of them are relevant to this thread. 2 that are: I think I mentioned having eventually caught Type1 herpes simplex? I'm not ashamed of having it: I manage it the same as I would any infection, eg the flu: I make sure I dont pass it on. I am ashamed of having not done enough research on it to avoid catching it in the 1st place - basically I dont like having to admit that I've been a fool.
Also, remember the asterisk? There was a time during our poly phase that life gave me some hard knocks. I became, imo, more of a liability than an asset to our relationship, but strangely enough, we coped.
(TBC)

(Cont)
The problems I had were mainly work related, but they were severely compounded by my upbringing having convinced me that a man ought to behave like Clint Eastwood in a western movie. I not only wouldn't, but didn't have the communication skills necessary to, properly tell people when I was really upset. I'm not ashamed of that: it wasn't my fault. I am ashamed of my behaviour that resulted from insecurity.
I started feeling like the girls really didn't need me, b/c they loved each other, enjoyed each others bodies, could get sex from men whenever they felt like it & had enough income between them & enough time to bring up the kids. I however had to travel for work, got taken the piss out of whilst doing so & no matter what projects I tried to float to change this, it seemed like I was cursed or something. Now, this is hindsight talking. At the time I just felt bad, didn't know why & whatever I did made it worse.
In order to try to get the attention I later realised I needed, I tried to play 'hard to get', took some pretty rash business chances, boasted like mad when they worked & lied when they didn't, which just isolated me from the girls even more. I should also add that I'm pretty arrogant anyway. I have reason to be: I'm way more intelligent, experienced, knowledgable, taller, faster & braver than most. I accept that arrogance is a fault, but so are suffering fools gladly & false modesty.
How it became a problem was that, the more isolated I became, the more unjustifiable my arrogance got, isolating me further & also leading to emotional cruelty. I hope you can understand that this stuff isn't easy to be honest about, but whatever wisdom I've gained from my experience of the consequences of promiscuity was hard won, so it'd be a shame if only my kids get to try to benefit from it.
The final straw came @a party when the track "You're History" by Shakespear's Sister came on. I jumped into my car, drunk, & drove off into the night sobbing uncontrollably.
(TBC - Yes its long: so's War & Peace!)

(Cont)
After I'd calmed down, I stopped the car to go back. During a 3point turn, I reversed it into a parked car. At that point it struck me: if I didn't find out what was going wrong & do something to fix it, then stupid behaviour would eventually lead to terrible consequences. I left the car & next day got hold of a therapist who'd helped me with some unrelated issues earlier in my life.
Boiled down, here's the best bit:
Being honest about our vulnerabilities isn't weakness, its the strongest position we can take, b/c its the basis of real self-confidence, is extremely difficult for others to manipulate & requires no excuses. This then became the foundation of a new & deeper level of trust between the 3 of us &, imo, an example to our kids, which is probably why they're each intensely popular with their peers.
The obvious comeback to this anecdote is "If you weren't doing something wierd, you'd not have got into a mess.", but, if you're honest with yourself, you'll realise that, if you love an intelligent, successful, beautiful partner, then no matter how 'good' you are, if you get beat down by life, they could easily replace you. It doesn't matter if they already have another lover, someone standing by, or have to start again from scratch: if they're 'good' enough for you, they're a good prospect for anyone who is @least your equal & a dream come true to those that aren't.
So where do we place this "faith" that we're told to be "full" of? In a social convention, which we know is often broken, & also often leads to some atrocious behaviour in order to be enforced, or should we admit that we're not ideals but humans & faithfully conduct ourselves with honesty, having faith that such honesty will be reciprocated? If you dont trust that the mutual respect & affection of your love will be enough to last, WTF are you doing having kids @all?
Ah, but I'm divorced, so it went wrong, eh? Actually, my ex-wife & I got a legal divorce mainly b/c my business owned part of our house, so it was for tax reasons.
(TBC)

Originally posted by Bunken Drum
However, if believing a partner will never stray is the basis of trust, something that will undermine it constantly is the simple biological fact that you cannot help being also attracted to other people. Even if you have no intention of ever acting upon it, your partner will notice &, even if they're not a particularly jealous type, cannot help but consider that you may stray. I've seen this lead to some very messed up behaviour that has made people extremely unhappy, without even knowing why.

This is a good point. The girl I'm dating and I, we don't get to see each other very much at all but we've known each other for years and we completely trust each other... this relationship is different in that we not only like each other, but we were both beat down in life and so we used each other to get back up. But as I said, I don't get to see her much at all so there are other girls I like, and I know there are other guys she likes, and that's definitley something we will talk about more because it can be a touchy subject. I can feel a slight bit jealous if she's close to another guy who I don't know, I think I would be more comfortable if she told me the situation and told me a little about the guy. It's one of those things you gotta deal with when you only get to see a girl once every few months, that you can't be the ONLY one if it's only a once in a while thing. If we lived closer together and saw each other more and weren't so damn busy I'm sure things would be different, but we like each other enough that we are keeping it up from a distance.