Genes and monogamy/polyamory

[figmo]

This article features a study that says the tendency to be monogamous vs. polyamorous may be genetic.

I would have preferred they use less judgemental language in describing polyamory (why couldn't they just say meadow moles prefer multiple partners?), but the core information in the article is IMHO interesting.

Comments

Re: yeah, right

[figmo.livejournal.com]

Sexually, and IMHO in terms of monogamous/polyamorous orientations, most of the population is somewhere in the middle. Very few people (I think the figure is 10%, but I don't have the facts in front of me) are 100% gay or 100% het; likewise, I suspect the same to be true of polyamory.

Also, just because you try something doesn't mean it's for you. I've been involved in polyamorous relationships and learned it didn't work for me because I tried it. That doesn't make me polyamorous. Similarly, there are folks who have tried different sexual things and found those didn't work for them.

What IMHO is to blame is attitudes some folks place on orientations, making some orientations (and folks with them) automatically "good" or "moral" and those who don't share those orientations "bad" or "amoral." Orientations aren't good or bad; they're just what you are.

Re: yeah, right

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree with anything you said, but I get the feeling that you and I are talking about two different topics. I am trying to point out that "they're just what you are" can have to do with societal pressures and norms (I won't say "as much as" your natural instincts), as witness any number of people who *feel* gay or bisexual, but because of societal or religious pressures, live lives that fall into the social norms of a society that remains highly biased toward monogamous heterosexuals. (I am thinking of one dear woman friend who feels emphatically bisexual, but whose Christianity forbids her to act on the half that involves women; she is married and I am 99% sure she has been "faithful.") I am horrified that society demands this; I would be far more comfortable with a society that gives people free rein to be who they actually are; but I don't think, in the 35 years or so that I've been more-or-less adult (I turn 55 in August) I've ever seen that; in the 1970s, for instance, there was a lot of pressure toward polyamory, at least in the crowd I ran with, that had completely reversed by the 1990s. And given what I've seen, a lot of people are very much affected by societal pressure. I don't consider this "good," "bad," "moral," or "immoral;" I am simply trying very hard to point out that it can be awfully hard to separate out people's genetic predispositions from what society is trying to impose on them, or even (on a case-by-case basis) "lessons they've learned" in the course of living their lives. And I'm not at all sure the "separating out" is ever going to get any easier.