Do you think people are polyamorous/monogamous like they are heterosexual/homosexual, so it's inherent, or is this a choice?

[SuckOnThisOpinion]

As I myself am very much still debating this and science has not yet investigated this properly, I'm very interested in your opinion.

Inherent

Choice

It's not that simple (& I'll explain in the comments)

[mandyfire98]

I've known I was bisexual since I was a child. When it came time to date I was never truly fully happy in a relationship because I always felt something was still missing. If I dated a guy I would miss being with a woman and the energy that comes with that. If I was dating a woman I'd miss being with a man and that energy as well.

It wasn't until I was around 19 or 20 that I realized fully that I absolutely needed both a man and a woman in my life. That's when I was truly happy. I absolutely need both in my life and can't do without one or the other. That's when I fully became Poly. I've had a boyfriend and a girlfriend since.

So for me it was absolutely part of my personality. It was a need

[SuckOnThisOpinion]

Ooooh I love that you found that out for yourself and are embracing the lifestyle that works best for you!! That's amazing girl, and thank you so much for talking about it! I really dream of having 2 partners as well, recently my boyfriend had sex with me while another one of his friends was sleeping next to me and I was in heaven. I wanna have 2 people to cuddle with at night and be able to share all the different sides of my personality with 2 different people, and there I saw similarities to your story! For you it was about craving to be with both a male and a female partner, which you cannot find in one single person. For me it's about certain personality traits/characteristics that I'm really looking for which I think are just not possible for the same person to carry. I'm surely not the only person who can be so different within their character than in order to always have a partner to feel at home with, you kinda need 2 very different partners. But maybe that's also an egoistic though that everybody has and is just unrealistic? That's my worry at least, but I don't imagine your relationships could be described as egoistic at all, since you need to compromise and be so empathic with two partners.. If you have an opinion on these thoughts I'd be super interested!:)

[mandyfire98]

I mean most people can absolutely settle for One person (maybe they actually can't and that's why relationships aren't working so well these days) but as far as society goes the norm is definitely monogamy. I realize and have realized for a while that I'm not the same as everybody else and that, feminine and masculine energy is absolutely needed for me to be happy in any relationship. So I find an arrangement that works for me and I'm truly happy.

It's about being happy after all.

[Ez-Bri-Z_v2]

This one is kind of weird for me. When it came to my preferences I thought I knew exactly who I was, a monogamous lesbian. Right about 40 though my preferences started to change and now I'm a polyamorous pansexual. I'm guessing I was always born that way but never really tried exploring it much so maybe it was a choice after all.

[SuckOnThisOpinion]

That's so interesting to hear! From how you put it though it sounds like you noticed that you feel a different way now though, rather than making a conscious decision to do so right? Could you really call it a choice then?

[Ez-Bri-Z_v2]

Well, in my case my sexuality changed first in a way. For lack of a better term I found myself getting aroused at the sight of one particular guy. My wife told me to then go explore my sexuality. I was completely monogamous and even felt hurt that she suggested it.

After a while of thinking on it and her continuing to encourage me, I eventually tried to date a guy. So I feel that one was kind of a choice.

[SuckOnThisOpinion]

Aaah I understand, thank you so much for sharing! Yeah than I truly understand both ways of arguing, maybe you always were or maybe it changed, but then going for it and actually living that way was a choice. So interesting, and I'm glad your wife was so supportive! How are you doing now?:)

[Ez-Bri-Z_v2]

Doing just fine. Still married and now been dating a guy for a bit over a year and a half. We all live together and take care of the kids

[Kaneki05]

It's all learnt so no not inherent.
No baby is born monogamous they aren't born with marriage or one partner in their mind. Same way no baby is born liking men.
But whether it's your choice or not depends on your understanding of choice in the first place.
Do you have choices? If your brain develops subconsciously based on what you are brought up with and how and then your brain acts and responds because of that?

Fundamentally the idea of choice is an illusional as it's dictated by our own psychology that evolved not at our will.
The best way to describe is your life is a multiple choice questionnaire.
You have 3 choices to the question but the question is already dictated.

[Kaneki05]

by the way if we can ever dictate the questions, which I do hope science allows us to do one day.
We become gods essentially.

[SuckOnThisOpinion]

I'm also rather on the side of Determinism, or Compatibilism at most. However I wonder if we take the latter perspective of Compatibilism, specifically if we assume you have a limited, fixed realm of behavioral choices based on your biology, epigenetics & experiences that shape you thus far, and within those you can exercise some form of free will - would the choice of being poly- or monogamous then be anywhere within your realm of conscious decision-making, even if only through distant means such as self-manipulation? Or is it just completely based on nature & nurture which simply happens to you?

[SuckOnThisOpinion]

But I didn't get what you mean with becoming gods if we can "dictate the questions", could you explain it to me?

[Kaneki05]

Well it's both. Depending how one grows up and evolves determines how much choice they have in that regard.
For some people it's less so for some it's more so. Again think of it as a mulitple choice some have only 2 answers others have 3 or 4. I think that's also determined by the way we grow up. There is also those who grow up to think only one answer makes sense so they close the mind to others so to them it's not really a multiple choice question. It could be but they don't want it to be somewhere in them.

Mental health and psychology show that all the time. If you have someone with a disorder and the symptoms will make them act a certain way, then they will without any treatment. They didn't get that other choice in their brain. Now you give them the right meds or treatment that other choice may become a reality they can do.

So current events can also change the array of the choices, but also if you think there is nothing to fix which certainly would apply to been poly or monogamous as I doubt many are sat there thinking hey this needs to be fixed. Most are just thinking yeah that's the way I do it.
So they are in the type of not looking for another choice in the first place. Which already limits themselves.
But what if you found ploymanous causing problems then you may think twice leading to a 2nd choice. That don't mean one can change it but shows they can think about it.
And then there will be some who can.

But the difference between a person who can and can't is all due to everything that factored into their existence.
In simpler terms you make kid grow up narrow minded they will be, you make a kid open minded. That's a very over simplification tho and not strickly true as something else could factor in to make them different. But it's the basic idea to explain it.

[Kaneki05]

As for gods. It's a film but it's more in line with a real theory aka Lucy. If we had the free will to change factors around us to make us how we want to be then we would become essentially god's.
And while the more extreme example would be changing our physical features at will like hair color. The better and more understandable one that Psychological tries to push for is, if we could at will remove Truama or something that made us the way we are. We could design our own brain to think how we want.

Seems impossible for now. But so did many treatments for mental disorders in the past.
And that's just talking about removing, if we can remove what about add? What if I we could add a question and I say question as more of a memory. As we use memories as questions to answer how we are. That new question could lead to us changing our ideas and very thoughts to what we want.

The even further idea of this, is been able to use this to evolve humans in a direction we want. If we understand creatures evolve because they experience these questions and adapt to survive. Then we could answer our own evolution.

Hopefully you get my point and I don't just come across crazy here lol. But after studying a lot on evolution, psychology and science it makes a lot of sense. And is in line with Hawkings points about how the universe even came to be.
If we think on the wider picture everything exists because it made it's self exist so changing our minds in such way should be possible.

[Berethor]

Nature versus Nurture, it likely both, I believe that I was born Heterosexual, but my Society is also pretty Anti-Gay, on the other hand Lesbians are much more accepted by Society, and there seems to be a lot more Lesbians than Gays in the West.

https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Nature_Versus_Nurture

https://www.youtube.com/embed/688XMcEchFQ

[SuckOnThisOpinion]

Yeah for sure! For homo- and heterosexuality it was already found that they are pretty much fixed, you can discover new things about you during your lifetime or there may be random fluctuations for some, but it's not (yet) possible to willingly change one's sexual preference when it comes to which gender they like. There are pretty stable statistics on adaptive mechanisms that trigger homosexuality in men, eg. that the more older brothers you have, the more likely you are to be born gay, which is linked to preventing scarcity etc. But I don't know of any similar research, or good research at all, when it comes to mono- and polygamy. What's your opinion on the latter?:)

[Berethor]

Polyamory and polygamy clearly seems like a choice, a FFM threesome is very common man's fantasy, part of the reason why westren men are into queer women so much. I used to want only monogamy, likely because of my society, now I am more open minded about polyamory, though really only about FFM one, I do think that men who share his woman is not a real man, women on the other hand, who care if they share a man? but the whole man with multiple women can work only as long as it not too common, there is so many civil wars in muslim countries because of polygamy, that's what happen when rich men steal all the women from poor men, you think that poor men are going to like it? or they going to kill the rich men? naturally there is almost the same number of men and women in a country.

www.idiva.com/.../18004892

www.economist.com/.../why-polygamy-breeds-civil-war

[Syntosi]

People definitely have a personal preference on this with some people being open to polygamy and others are definitely not. I think the evidence is pretty obvious that there are both kinds of people and I dont think this is an environmental thing that you learn but rather something that is inherently part of you.

I think this is also by "design" (if you want to call evolution that), since humans can be very envious in a relationship and other-times not.

[SuckOnThisOpinion]

True!! I also thought evolutionarily speaking, in more dangerous times or places it may have been beneficial or even necessary for a women to have two male partners to protect her, or it may have been adaptive for a women to have a romantic relationship with both a man and a women, so in case the men are often gone for several days when they hunt etc., she has a functioning relationship back home with a women who can help with her kids. Also, if women were truly at home so much caring for the children in a close-knit community, if they're all kinda bi and develop deeper feelings for each other that is surely beneficial. You can kinda argue for all of it!

[Berethor]

Men are naturally more territorial than women, we have more ego, men sharing a woman mainly in bordels, also more women are queer and a bi woman can benefit from a FFM.

[UnusualWeirdo]

You are what you're attracted to, when you're young you don't know what you like thats why children need protection, you can influence someone so easily, so when they grow up they remember and want more or nothing to do with it. It's all very personal.

[SuckOnThisOpinion]

That makes so much sense, I guess the amount of impact that social norms etc. have on a child when growing up can distort their vision so hard that it severely elongates the process of uncovering your real feelings as you grow older. You just notice you're unhappy and things feel wrong, and then it's as if you smell burnt cables in your house - you gotta look around everywhere for the source, could be anything really.

[UnusualWeirdo]

I mean it's not just TV and social media, look at what raises you, you emulate what you see, good family with happy lives, you'll do better than a broken family who is abusive. You see your dad over sexualizing women and talking down to them usually how you get those guys that are assholes, it's not always the case, there are exceptions and some good people who go through bad crap.

[strateguy632]

A man can be tempted to sin... by satan so feel attracted to a man, or think "i am trans" because attracted to men, but realy gay not trans woman,

But actions is a choice , both same because both choice.

[SuckOnThisOpinion]

yeah satan dude

[exitseven]

It is a choice. It is an excuse to cheat.

[SuckOnThisOpinion]

Oh I was referring only to polygamy itself, not to cheating. So if all people included openly communicated & agreed on everything that happens beforehand.