Does poly belong only to the wealthy and well educated? Find out…
with Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com and Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Cathy: In regards to the interview you did with Diane Adams, which was really good-
Reid: Thank you.
Cathy: About polyamory, someone said, “Would these academic people think differently if they lost their prosperity? I’m convinced they would. These are results of excess. Prosperity is based on building blocks of a stable and monogamous marriage based family. When a man passes away, which of his 8 females gets the deeds to his house and what does that fight look like. The son of which of his wives takes over the family business? Prosperity drives in part from one generation building upon the prior generation’s prosperity.
Lower income families’ prosperity derives in part from multiple people working, having only one set of bills for the expenses. These people take excess from their cushy prosperity and way of leaving and confuse that wealth with not having to be responsible for nurturing our prosperity, instilling stability and preparing our youth and cultivating our culture through the means of tradition.
Reid: Cool.
Cathy: It was a thoughtful comment.
Reid: Yeah. Super thoughtful. I’m Reid Mihalko, by the way, ReidAboutSex.com.
Cathy: I’m Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Reid: Everybody that wrote in, thank you. Very thoughtful. Now we will discuss.
Cathy: Yes. To me some of that thought comes from the assumption that if there’s multiple women in the relationship, that they won’t support each other or support themselves. I don’t assume that if I’m dating a male, that he’s going to view me as property or he’s going to take care of me. Because I actually can take care of myself.
Some of that is, I’m very privileged. I have a good job. I have a good education that lets me bring in an income that is comfortable to do that. I think that basing the assumption on a male must bring in the money and leave things to his wives, or his partners, for them to be self-sufficient, is assuming that women can’t take care of themselves when there’s a lot of single moms kicking butts and taking names. They’re working really hard.
In order to have a stable relationship, a stable livelihood, I don’t think that you need to have one man, one woman, and the woman relying on the male.
Reid: From that thoughtful comment I can’t tell what culture or what part of the world that person’s from and acknowledge that there are places in the world where non-monogamy isn’t cool and that old world versions of how to survive are still in place.
Cathy: They worked pretty well for most people.
Reid: If you happen to be monogamous and heteronormative, then these things can work out great. If you can bear children, all these things can work really well. I think there might be better ways of looking at things. At the same time if the idea is the passing on of wealth, then ideally a man and a woman should only have a son child. Having more children-
Cathy: Spreads it out.
Reid: Screws it up, and then the children are fighting over things. We don’t think that’s bad. If you raise people to be able to be great communicators and fair and just and have high emotional IQ’s, which I think would tend to be compassionate and loving, which I think most people wouldn’t disagree with as, “These are things that seem to make people good people.”
If everybody had that kind of self-awareness and compassion and emotional IQ, then the complexity of a family can be worked through by people asking for what they want and negotiating and making efforts and compromises, which further the family unit… When you’re looking at it from a family unit perspective and you actually focus on training people and teaching people to be good people, I think really what we’re back to now is what’s your self-expression in family, in love, in relationships and the prosperity piece then gets handled because the lineage can be worked through.
The challenge is most people, a lot of people, don’t have high emotional IQ’s, are very scarce-
Cathy: Whether they’re monogamous or polyamorous.
Reid: Very scarcity driven. Unevolved people, monogamous or poly, tend to have a fucking hard time with things, maybe even amassing health. That would be my answer. I hope that was thoughtful.
Cathy: I know a number of poly families, or poly groups, that have different formations. It’s not always one man and several women. It’s a mixture of things. Some of them don’t have a very high income but they actually can support each other. There’re times when they choose to live together in a single house. You can have more incomes with still that’s single home. It’s just a different way of looking at it.
If you’re sole goal is to amass wealth and stability, then that might fit in there too, but there’s other things that people look for for happiness and fulfillment in life.
Reid: What do you think?
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: Leave some comments below. Write in. We love answering.
Cathy: Thanks, guys.