I notice a lot of utilitarians practice polamoury, also known as 'open relationships'. As in we actually believe it's a good thing and/or we live that way.

polyamoury: "the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved.

This is different from swinging (only open sexual relationships), or polygamy (many wives), or polyandry (many husbands).

While wikipedia-surfing today, I came across a new concept: "compersion": "a state of empathetic happiness and joy experienced when an individual's current or former romantic partner experiences happiness and joy through an outside source, including, but not limited to, another romantic interest... often referred to as "the opposite of jealousy". And I thought that this concept links nicely with utilitarianism:
compersion: whenever a partner gains happiness, let's not be jealous that it did not come from our relationship
utilitarianism: whenever anyone gains happiness, it doesn't matter what social relationship you bear to that person or what causal relationship you bear to that happiness, it's still valuable.

What do you think about polyamoury?

Polyamory FTW!
Compersion is a wonderful feeling
I've met several people who have practiced poliamory - they all seemed to have a very healthy attitude towards relationships and other people. Polyamory need not be a life-long commitment, at some time a partner may come along with whom you'd want to be monogamous.
I'd be very surprised if any Felicifia member would have any objection to others having a polyamorous lives. I would not be surprised to learn many Felcifia members would be happy to practice polyamory if their situation in life was different (e.g. different current partner).

yboris wrote:I would not be surprised to learn many Felcifia members would be happy to practice polyamory if their situation in life was different (e.g. different current partner).

I'd be somewhat surprised. There have been powerful selection pressures against these sorts of relationships, so I'd guess that the proportion of the population that could enjoy them is low. If polyamory is common among utilitarians, then belief in utilitarianism is correlated with the incidence of polyamory. I suppose this could be the case.

I personally believe jealousy is a form of emotional blackmail, I've had awful and short partnerships in the past. I am of the opinion that I rather be in no formal partnership than with a partner who will needlessly restrict my freedom of feeling love for others / engaging in sexual relationships with others. Regarding that aspect of life I rather be "alone" than "in bad company". The downside obviously is because of low polyamorous demographic I've imagined myself in my thirties or forties still with no partner. Luckily and against my predictions I've recently partnered with someone. We have many things in common, we're very happy together, and he says he feels more comfortable this way than he has ever felt in previous closed relationships. This is not to say we're promiscuous (which wouldn't be a bad thing anyway), we're just liberal. We take good precautions against STDs / STIs, personally I think we're even safer than regular couples in that regard because we feel no need to hide external relationships. I feel "compersion", I'm happy if he's happy (but it's the first time I hear the word).

I'm happy if you're happy that he's happy. There is some aesthetic appeal to open relationships, but one-to-one is probably the configuration most conducive to well-being for most people. And the curmudgeonly practical utilitarian in me asks whether maintaining multiple intimate relationships is the best use of time.

Pat wrote:... [I wonder if] maintaining multiple intimate relationships is the best use of time.

Managing relationships need not take much time if the partners are not demanding of time - it all depends on the particulars of the situation.

I think part of the appeal of polyamory is that it gives a solution to the less-than-optimal fact that few of us are lucky to find one person who has all the qualities we'd like in a partner. We may find someone who can share the our deep passions about utilitarianism, another person who will go skiing with us, etc. And it's not that you need to have sex with all of them, but if there is sexual attraction and you'd like to spend a few nights together (and other partners are accepting of it), you have fun.

Mike Retriever wrote:I personally believe jealousy is a form of emotional blackmail,...

Do you mean that it's intentional, or that we evolved to have that emotion because it increases our genetic fitness through effects similar to blackmail?

It seems strange to compare an emotion that we don't control to blackmail.

DanielLC wrote:

Mike Retriever wrote:I personally believe jealousy is a form of emotional blackmail,...

Do you mean that it's intentional, or that we evolved to have that emotion because it increases our genetic fitness through effects similar to blackmail?

It seems strange to compare an emotion that we don't control to blackmail.

I mean that's how I feel whenever used against me, and that in many cases jealousy is controllable enough to be considered an intentional choice rather than an excusable instinct. Since childhood we're taught to boost gratitude, and we can make the conscious effort of feeling grateful. Same could be done against jealousy in favour of compersion with some degree of effectiveness. Jealousy is not really an emotion with immunity to criticism or for which a person can't be held accountable negatively, it is popular western culture that makes it so.

Does anyone know if there are any cultures in which polyamoury is widely practiced and in which these polyamorous relationships seem at least as happy as are relationships in a typical non-polyamorous culture (say the US or UK)? A tough question to answer, obviously! But short of that I reckon it's highly speculative to say most people would be capable of being happy in polyamourous relationships.

tog wrote:Does anyone know if there are any cultures in which polyamoury is widely practiced and in which these polyamorous relationships seem at least as happy as are relationships in a typical non-polyamorous culture

Bonobos?

Does anyone know if there are any cultures in which polyamoury is widely practiced and in which these polyamorous relationships seem at least as happy as are relationships in a typical non-polyamorous culture (say the US or UK)? A tough question to answer, obviously! But short of that I reckon it's highly speculative to say most people would be capable of being happy in polyamourous relationships.

How about subculture? It's extremely common in inner city gay communities. I'd go so far as to say some degree of polyamory is the norm, and that strictly 100% monogamous people are seen as a little old-fashioned/strait-laced. (However, this mainly applies to sexual polyamory, not romantic polyamory, which can often seen as "breaking the rules").

Hard to tell if they are happier. Poly people would seem to have more adventure/stimulation,but it could be outweighed by greater exposure to STI's, dramas, etc.

How about subculture? It's extremely common in inner city gay communities. I'd go so far as to say some degree of polyamory is the norm, and that strictly 100% monogamous people are seen as a little old-fashioned/strait-laced. (However, this mainly applies to sexual polyamory, not romantic polyamory, which can often seen as "breaking the rules").

Well that's an interesting example (and news to me). The distinction between sexual and romantic polyamory is also interesting. I can imagine there'd be distinct problems with each.

Some people in the rationalist community claim that you can "hack" or "self-modify" yourself to be polyamorous (if you are not naturally one). I find it hard to believe that such reprogramming is possible, given that evolution clearly hardwired us to experience sexual and romantic jealousy, yet I see no reason to doubt the honesty of these writers.

Interestingly, at least one of these writers (lukeprog) is a utilitarian.

given that evolution clearly hardwired us to experience sexual and romantic jealousy

Evolution hardwired us with lots of emotions. We can't just turn them on and off, but with work, we can control them. I see no reason why controlling jealousy would be any different than controlling anger.

Interestingly, at least one of these writers (lukeprog) is a utilitarian.

I think utilitarianism is pretty big on LessWrong. A lot of the posts seem to assume it. For example, Torture vs. Dust Specks only makes sense from a consequentialist perspective. It's highly controversial, but it seems to be egalitarians that argue against it. They all talk about the consequences, not the decision.

Lukeprog's articles always seem to be good value, Pablo

DanielLC wrote:Evolution hardwired us with lots of emotions. We can't just turn them on and off, but with work, we can control them. I see no reason why controlling jealousy would be any different than controlling anger.

Interesting comparison. We can definitely control anger, but can we "reprogram" ourselves not to experience it? Maybe some people can. In my own experience, controlling anger is something that requires conscious effort. By contrast, the pieces I linked to above seem to suggest that one can attain a state where one simply ceases to experience jealousy. Do other folks here have first-hand experience with polyamorous relationships?

Depends what you count. I'm seeing someone semi-casually who sleeps with other people. I don't envision that if we became serious I would want to ask her to stop.

but can we "reprogram" ourselves not to experience it?

No, but I'm pretty sure we can "reprogram" ourselves to experience it less often and less intensely. It also helps that every time you have a reason to feel jealous about your significant other, you also have a reason to feel happy for him/her. If you can decrease the former and increase the latter to the point that the latter is more significant, you've effectively gotten rid of jealousy.

Also, I think a lot of the whole jealousy thing is self-propagating. You don't want your significant other to feel bad, so you don't sleep with anyone else, unless you either really like the person you're sleeping with, you don't care about your significant other, or both. Because of that, your significant other will assume a breakup is imminent if he/she finds out you're sleeping with anyone else, which makes it even worse. Also, that means that you are likely to try to hide it from them, which brings up trust issues. If you just agree from the beginning that it's okay to sleep with other people, all of that signalling stuff goes away.

Pat wrote:yboris wrote:
I would not be surprised to learn many Felcifia members would be happy to practice polyamory if their situation in life was different (e.g. different current partner).

I'd be somewhat surprised.

This is exactly my situation - if I had my way, I'd be practicing polyamoury

As crude as it may sound, a relationship (platonic or romantic) is an object of pleasure and when you multiply an object of pleasure, you multiply the amount of pleasure it causes. If eating a grape causes 1 point of pleasure then 5 grapes should cause 5 points of pleasure, up until a point when after a certain number of grapes (when you're full, tired of grapes, sick of them etc.), grapes stop being objects of pleasure. The increased pleasure of multiple relationships may not compensate for the increased cost (not even just jealousy, but all of the costs that may come with just one relationship multiplied), but I would expect that utilitarians would have to ideally favor polyamory, like communism, at least in theory. Even if someone really does lack an attraction to anyone other than their partner, it would benefit them to develop and act on an attraction to more than one person (if the cost is necessary and compensated for).

Since two utilitarians in a monogamous relationship have to concede that their partner should cheat on them if they can do so without any cost (like making them jealous, giving them an STD, ), and no other alternative would produce a greater benefit-cost ratio, I don't really see the point in utilitarians agreeing to behave monogamously, I guess this would only apply to hedonistic act-utilitarians, though. If jealousy is in issue, it might be best to have a 'don't ask, don't tell' open relationship.

I'd expect that the amount of happiness you get out of a relationship would be proportional to the amount of time you spend with a partner, not the amount of partners you're with. If you're in a polyamorous relationship, you have more partners to spend time with, but they each have to divide their time among more partners, so it wouldn't make a significant difference.

The amount of happiness you get out of a relationship is proportional both to the amount of time that you spend with a partner and the enjoyment you derive from spending time with that partner. To the extent that polyamorous relationships make those who engage in them happier, it is probably because they increase how much participants enjoy being with a given partner, rather than because they increase the total time they spend in partnership.

DanielLC wrote:I'd expect that the amount of happiness you get out of a relationship would be proportional to the amount of time you spend with a partner, not the amount of partners you're with. If you're in a polyamorous relationship, you have more partners to spend time with, but they each have to divide their time among more partners, so it wouldn't make a significant difference.

I think it might, for example, there are many activities we can't do at the same time (we can't read two novels simultaneously, although we can go back and forth before we've finished either, we can't watch two movies at the same time, listen to two songs at the same time etc.) but most people would gain even more satisfaction from having the option of two pleasurable activities over one. To a point, you can't have meaningful relationships with 100 people because you can't invest that much time in 100 separate people but we're also assuming long-term 'official' relationships and not just any kind of romantic encounter. Repeated exposure to the same stimulation can be desensitizing which is why people prefer not to eat the same meal over and over again, watch the same movies, listen to the same music etc. and I think this is true for romantic relationships as well, since studies have shown that romantic passion tends to wane after a year.

Ubuntu wrote:Repeated exposure to the same stimulation can be desensitizing which is why people prefer not to eat the same meal over and over again, watch the same movies, listen to the same music etc. and I think this is true for romantic relationships as well, since studies have shown that romantic passion tends to wane after a year.

The dopamine system is capable of some pretty amazing things, isn't it?

I love polyamary!

Another sub culture that seems to have polyamory as the norm is the fetish community.