Is three a crowd or can a relationship between three people work?

[Spintendo]

Many people in these types of relationships view the excessive restrictions on monogomous relationships as less than desirable, as such restrictions can be used to replace trust with a framework of ownership and control. From the standpoint of logic it can be argued that if one person can have love for two parents equally or for two siblings equally then the same should hold for two boyfriends or girlfriends equally.

From my understanding, in those relationships it is preferred to view the third partner in terms of the gain to the first and second, rather than as a threat. This compersion is similar to the joy that parents feel when their children get married, or the happiness felt by a person when one of their best friends finds someone to go out with. In that way, jealousy and possessiveness are viewed not so much as something to avoid or structure the relationship around but as responses to be explored, understood and resolved within each individual, with compersion as a goal. With that kind of detail, i've never been surprised at the level of maturity and confidence needed to pull off such a thing. If being in a relationship is like painting a picture, than these people are the Rembrandt's and DaVinci's of their trade.

:cool2::hug:

[raphjd]

From the standpoint of logic it can be argued that if one person can have love for two parents equally or for two siblings equally then the same should hold for two boyfriends or girlfriends equally.

Umm, my dad was my favorite parent as we had similar interests.  My older brother was my favorite for the same reason, not to mention my younger brother was a massive tattle tale.

This compersion is similar to the joy that parents feel when their children get married

Umm, you mean the evil parents that ridicule their child's partner for every and anything?  I'm sure you know the stereotypes about mother in laws.  If you don't, then you need to watch some movies and/or tv shows.  There are countless ones to choose from.

as such restrictions can be used to replace trust with a framework of ownership and control.

You said that about monogamy, but I'd say it's the complete opposite.

Most of the couples I know that have "open" relationships, one of the partners only grudgingly agreed to it.

One partner wanted to whore, while the other wanted a monogamous relationship, but only gave in to make their slut of a partner happy while making themselves miserable.

[CountAchee]

@raphjd:

You said that about monogamy, but I'd say it's the complete opposite.

Most of the couples I know that have "open" relationships, one of the partners only grudgingly agreed to it.

One partner wanted to whore, while the other wanted a monogamous relationship, but only gave in to make their slut of a partner happy while making themselves miserable.

I agree, I'd never go into an open relationship, you either love me or leave me.

[Spintendo]

@raphjd:

Most of the couples I know that have "open" relationships, one of the partners only grudgingly agreed to it.

A relationship where one of the partners lies about their level of commitment to admit a third ― a choice supposedly made by the three of them together in honesty ― does not meet the definition of an "open" relationship, and should not be counted in any argument against such relationships.

Any problems encountered by that type of relationship are to be attributed to the first person's decision to mislead the other two about their level of commitment, not to any choice itself of being in a relationship of three.

[raphjd]

"Open" relationships are 2 people where one or both can whore around.

This "three" relationship is a hoax.  Humanity tried it in the 1960s, as well as a variety of other times throughout history and it never worked.  Humans, by nature, are jealous.

I'll tell you about one couple I knew in an open relationship.  Chris and Fred decided to open their relationship, meaning they both could fuck whomever they wanted, as long as it wasn't brought home.  Fred didn't want this but grudgingly accepted it to make Chris happy.  On the flip side, Chris never in a million years wanted Fred to have sex with anyone else, that was a NO NO.  After about a year or two, Fred decided what the hell and he started being a man slag and that lead to the downfall of their relationship.

[cumeaternc]

Sorry but 1 + 1 always equals 2.  When a 3rd, 4th etc. is introduced into a relationship it simply means somebody is not totally satisfied.

I am married(to a woman) and my gay escapades always lead to pain even though my girl understands my "urges". I love her more than I love men so I am the one who is hurting not her. When I do give in to my "primal needs" it usually means I am forced to keep a secret.

Even if it's a 3 guy thing with no girls involved I can see it being a recipe for conflict.

Just my opinion.

[Spintendo]

@raphjd:

"Open" relationships are 2 people where one or both can whore around.

This definition is correct. The key word you're using is "can" meaning both have agreed, in honesty, that one or both "can" (without reservations) fool around. One of them being "forced" does not equal a "can."

@raphjd:

This "three" relationship is a hoax.

I can see where the relationship you're describing is a hoax (one of the partners is not being honest about their level of commitment). But what about an open relationship where both partners agree wholeheartedly? What is it about this type of relationship that is a hoax?

@raphjd:

I'll tell you about one couple I knew in an open relationship…..  Fred didn't want this but grudgingly accepted it to make Chris happy.

You've chosen the straw man fallacy:  In place of arguing against a position, construct a similar, more-easily assailed position (the straw man) and attack it instead. Here we have one that's very easy to condemn: a relationship that one of the individuals was coerced into entering (the straw man). What about relationships where coercion isn't an issue?

[raphjd]

It's not a straw man until you prove that all three willingly entered into the "three" relationship.  Just because they say they agree, doesn't mean they actually did, as my point showed.  I'm god.  Does that mean I am really god or believe I am?  Nope, it just means I said it.

If these "three" relationships are so great, then why have they failed to take off considering throughout history they have been cropping up, with the most notable in the communes of the 1960s/70s.  Historically, we know that multiple partners existed, but died out.  If you were right, then "Big Love" would be the norm, not the minuscule exception to the rule.

Humans are by nature very jealous.  This is a primitive biological imperative, to make sure it's our seed that is spread and not every other male's seed.

I don't know of a couple that has lasted that is "open".  My monogamous relationship and those of many of our friends are still going strong.

[Spintendo]

@raphjd:

It's not a straw man until you prove that all three willingly entered into the "three" relationship.  Just because they say they agree, doesn't mean they actually did.

What is it about coercion-free open relationships that is wrong?

@raphjd:

If these "three" relationships are so great, then why have they failed to take off

If the benchmark for a type of relationship's usefulness is that it continues to occur, then open-type relationships are continually useful to some segment of the population.

@raphjd:

Historically, we know that multiple partners existed, but died out.

Multiple partner-type relationships have died out? This is news to me.

@raphjd:

Humans are by nature very jealous.  This is a primitive biological imperative, to make sure it's our seed that is spread and not every other male's seed.

I think you're confusing jealousy with avarice, which is the desire to possess. As long as avarice remains the top goal of humanity, attempts at entering into and sustaining open-type relationships will continue.

[Spintendo]

@raphjd:

Just because they say they agree, doesn't mean they actually did, as my point showed.  I'm god.  Does that mean I am really god or believe I am?  Nope, it just means I said it.

If these same people said that they didn't agree, wouldn't that also mean that pro rata the same people could have just "said" that they didn't really want it, but really did? Couldn't it also mean that they actually did agree and didn't mean it simply because "they just said it"?

[Spintendo]

@raphjd:

"Just because they say they agree, doesn't mean they actually did, as my point showed.  I'm god.  Does that mean I am really god or believe I am?  Nope, it just means I said it. "

I'm going over this last point of yours again because I feel it's a very important one that you've made – one for a suspension of belief -- and it deserves more than just a passing glance from me. Your assertion is that we should suspend our belief of people who say they weren't coerced because they may be "just saying that" and not really meaning it. Thus, (and duly noted by you above to have been shown before) anyone who says they weren't coerced should not be taken at face value - because we cannot know for sure if they're telling the truth. More importantly though, and I suggest overlooked by you, is that this line of reasoning requires us also to "not believe" people who say that they were coerced, and offer this "not-believing you" equally amongst the other people who said that they were coerced - because your line of reasoning requires us not to- and makes mandatory the suspecting of anything that anyone says because they may "just be saying it." In other words, the only knowable thing about a given is that it can never be known, a proposition of yours that I would argue is absolutely correct.

Now if i have followed you correctly (and I hope that I have) is what I've paraphrased above right? Or is it more your point (and I'm guessing that it probably is) that anyone who says that they were coerced should always be believed while anyone who says that they weren't coerced is a liar.

[raphjd]

Wow, multiple posts with multiple points.

It does seem by some of your responses that you are a bit desperate to make this the normal type of relationship.

Multiple partner-type relationships have died out? This is news to me.

For the most part YES, they have.  However, the place they do thrive is relationships such as the middle east where a single male dominates everyone else in the relationship.

Do you think muslim or FLDS/mormon women are empowered enough to disagree with their male owners?

Have you heard of "honor killings"?

So where are all these relationships where people can honestly make the choice freely on their own?!

Read the bible some time and you'll see that 1 man and many women was the normal type of "marriage" in the early days.  Move more to Jesus' day and those types of relationships are in the minority.

If the benchmark for a type of relationship's usefulness is that it continues to occur, then open-type relationships are continually useful to some segment of the population.

Open relationships do happen, but they aren't common or the norm.

I think you're confusing jealousy with avarice, which is the desire to possess. As long as avarice remains the top goal of humanity, attempts at entering into and sustaining open-type relationships will continue.

Because I'm not a whore and don't want a whore for a partner, that means, according to you, that I need to posses my partner?!

Your stance is more than clear on this topic.

I'm going over this last point of yours again because I feel it's a very important one that you've made – one for a suspension of belief -- and it deserves more than just a passing glance from me. Your assertion is that we should suspend our belief of people who say they weren't coerced because they may be "just saying that" and not really meaning it. Thus, (and duly noted by you above to have been shown before) anyone who says they weren't coerced should not be taken at face value - because we cannot know for sure if they're telling the truth. More importantly though, and I suggest overlooked by you, is that this line of reasoning requires us also to "not believe" people who say that they were coerced, and offer this "not-believing you" equally amongst the other people who said that they were coerced - because your line of reasoning requires us not to- and makes mandatory the suspecting of anything that anyone says because they may "just be saying it." In other words, the only knowable thing about a given is that it can never be known, a proposition of yours that I would argue is absolutely correct.

Now if i have followed you correctly (and I hope that I have) is what I've paraphrased above right? Or is it more your point (and I'm guessing that it probably is) that anyone who says that they were coerced should always be believed while anyone who says that they weren't coerced is a liar.

Go back to the hundreds of millions of muslim and FLDS/mormon women and tell me they had an honest say in their situation they found themselves in.

Oddly, you want us to believe all the muslim women that under threat of stoning to death (FLDS/mormons have other ways of dealing with their women) when they say in front of their husband that they are willing partners, but anyone who claims they were coerced/forced is a liar.

Until you can get rid of the billions of women throughout history that were forced into polygamy, then the weight of proof is heavily stacked on my side.

If these same people said that they didn't agree, wouldn't that also mean that pro rata the same people could have just "said" that they didn't really want it, but really did? Couldn't it also mean that they actually did agree and didn't mean it simply because "they just said it"?

People will say and do anything to make their partner happy, even if it makes them miserable.  It's part of human nature and the thing we call love.

A lot of hetero men eat pussy because their women want them to, not because they like it.  Same thing goes with blowjobs.

[Spintendo]

Is three a crowd or can a relationship between three people work? To ensure that it can't, there are certain "requirements" that must be met:

@raphjd:

Read the bible some time and you'll see that 1 man and many women was the normal type of "marriage" in the early days.

A requirement that the previous 250,000 years of human existence and their relationship trends/data cannot be variables which matter in any way.

@raphjd:

Because I'm not a whore and don't want a whore for a partner, that means, according to you, that I need to posses my partner?!

A requirement that you possess something that is, for you, the one-and-only idealized type of relationship. Nothing else will do… and not just for you, but alas! it shouldnt do for anyone else either! Reserved unto you, are the powers of deciding which relationships are worthy, and which ones are trash. Heavy indeed is the head that wears a crown.

@raphjd:

People will say and do anything to make their partner happy, even if it makes them miserable.  It's part of human nature and the thing we call love.

That this requirement of selflessness need not apply to you personally is assumed, if you believe that any misery you would possibly face could never be worth anyone's happiness.

@raphjd:

It does seem by some of your responses that you are a bit desperate to make this the normal type of relationship.

To sustain a desperate argument requires opponent as well as proponent; which without your help would have been impossible.

It can be unsettling at times to have the safe and secure world of what we comprehend placed so closely next to and compared with what others comprehend. The usual response to this upset of our own ethnocentric ideas on a topic such as open gay-relationships is stress, anxiety, and the urge to cling tighter to our own epistemological underpinnings of these views.

But be assured raphjd, that this type of response is patently maladaptive. Your idealized relationship does not lend itself to entertain even for an instant any narrative which is alien to your own. Somehow, instead of exploring other's ideas about these relationships, you've taken to hybridise the topic of open gay relationships with that of plural marriage (or, more accurately, "forced" plural marriage) in a conceptually bizarre manner; probably because framing it to the content and conventions of your own internal relationship-schema is a safer, more familiar, and more appropriate manner for you – and god help anything that readily contravenes this idealized narrative that you've identified with for so long, and with which your chimeric-arguments protect at all costs.

I mean really...what does a woman being stoned in Isfahan have to do with Kyle's wanting to sleep with Derik & Sean together in San jose?

[raphjd]

Again, because I'm not a whore nor do I want a partner that's a whore, you paint me as evil.

A requirement that the previous 250,000 years of human existence and their relationship trends/data cannot be variables which matter in any way.

I have no idea what you mean by that.

A requirement that you possess something that is, for you, the one-and-only idealized type of relationship. Nothing else will do… and not just for you, but alas! it shouldnt do for anyone else either! Reserved unto you, are the powers of deciding which relationships are worthy, and which ones are trash. Heavy indeed is the head that wears a crown.

Didn't you accuse me of creating strawmen arguments?

I never said that any other type of relationship should be under the death penalty or some other form of criminal punishment.

That this requirement of selflessness need not apply to you personally is assumed, if you believe that any misery you would possibly face could never be worth anyone's happiness.

So you are agreeing with me.

Giving in to these whoring relationships means giving up some of your happiness, to make your partnerS happy.

To sustain a desperate argument requires opponent as well as proponent; which without your help would have been impossible. Smiley

It can be unsettling at times to have the safe and secure world of what we comprehend placed so closely next to and compared with what others comprehend. The usual response to this upset of our own ethnocentric ideas on a topic such as open gay-relationships is stress, anxiety, and the urge to cling tighter to our own epistemological underpinnings of these views.

Because you are a whore, I have to be a whore and be in a whoring relationship or I'm evil.  That's your entire rant.  Do you see how screwed up your argument is?  It's extremely hypocritical to say the least.

But be assured raphjd, that this type of response is patently maladaptive. Your idealized relationship does not lend itself to entertain even for an instant any narrative which is alien to your own. Somehow, instead of exploring other's ideas about these relationships, you've taken to hybridise the topic of open gay relationships with that of plural marriage (or, more accurately, "forced" plural marriage) in a conceptually bizarre manner; probably because framing it to the content and conventions of your own internal relationship-schema is a safer, more familiar, and more appropriate manner for you – and god help anything that readily contravenes this idealized narrative that you've identified with for so long, and with which your chimeric-arguments protect at all costs.

Yet again, I'm evil and fucked in the head because I'm not a whore nor do I want a partner who is a whore.

You are quickly running out of any respect I've had for you.

I mean really…what does a woman being stoned in Isfahan have to do with Kyle's wanting to sleep with Derik & Sean together in San jose?

But you said that we have to take their claims at face value.

So the world in a great place and no one has ever been forced into a relationship they didn't want.

[Spintendo]

@raphjd:

I'm evil and fucked in the head because I'm not a whore

No, you're intolerant and pejorative of whores because their lifestyle choices are sub-human in your eyes, worthy of only disdain and disgust ― when in fact those types of relationships and the human beings who are in them are seperate from you, have nothing to do with you, and don't require your pity.

You mentioned that you practice serial monogomy. Would you want perfect strangers to pity this relationship of yours just because it wasn't their type of relationship, before there was understanding of how these two differing types of relationships either work, or don't work, for the people involved in them? If you wouldn't want a whore's pity, it's reasonable to assume they wouldn't want yours, either. A mutual desire for respect may be the only thing you find that you have in common with a whore, but its still something.

[raphjd]

No, you're intolerant and pejorative of whores because their lifestyle choices are sub-human in your eyes, worthy of only disdain and disgust ― when in fact those types of relationships and the human beings who are in them are seperate from you, have nothing to do with you, and don't require your pity.

Again, your entire rant is that I'm evil because I'm not a whore nor will I ever get into a relationship with a whore.  And you call me controlling.

Be the biggest whore you can be with your fellow whores.  Why do you NEED those of us who aren't whores to change to suit you?!

I'll say it now, you are extremely intolerant of anyone who does not worship at the alter of whoredom.  Just look at how you describe people that like monogamy in your various posts.

You mentioned that you practice serial monogomy.

EXCUSE ME?!?!?!?!?!

I have been with the same person my entire adult life.

Maybe you are desperately trying to include the dating I did in high school, in your attempt make me look bad in your eyes.

Would you want perfect strangers to pity this relationship of yours just because it wasn't their type of relationship, before there was understanding of how these two differing types of relationships either work, or don't work, for the people involved in them?

Go ahead and pity my relationship if that makes you feel better about yourself and your "relationships", at least my relationship has lasted more than 2 decades.

[raphjd]

If you only intend to keep insulting me, don't bother posting in this thread again.

[notquiteme]

I think these kinds of discussions are better done in private.  And i don't think anyone is calling anyone else a whore in this case.

Just as different activities are turn ons for different people, other relationships may seem "right" to different people, too.  Now if your religion is "right" for you, then you also don't have any business bashing/criticizing others for their religions.

Plus, there is no "right" religion in general.  Hence, using religion as an argument in this thread doesn't work at all.

[raphjd]

Religion was used because of the historical evidence, not that any religion is right.  Besides, I'm an atheist so I hate all religions.

[Spintendo]

@trentreviso:

I left the other place at the request of a moderator, who felt I was too opinionated.

@raphjd:

We like opinions here.

Glad to hear it. ;D