Couples Transitioning From Monogamy to Polyamory - Jessica Fern

[BiblicalLiteralist]

While surfing the tubes, I came across this interesting tid bit. It is tailored toward polyamory however the principals should also apply to the monogamy-polygyny transition as well. Some very good psychological points in here for dealing with and understanding the perspective of a hesitant or on the fence spouse.

 

[frederick]

Thanks for the link. I enjoyed listening to what she had to say, not that I agree with it all but it is interesting.

 

[The Revolting Man]

Wow, there’s some really useful stuff in there. She really is talking about some practical, brass tacks kind of things.

I’ve said before and this reinforces it, there are decades of polyamory resources that probably contain some stuff relevant and usable for us if we had the time to ease through it, edit out the most egregiously garbage and catalog it.

This one had a lot of really good points.

 

[The Revolting Man]

The poly lifestyle versus orientation distinction she makes is solid gold. I’d be fascinated in @Keith Martin ‘s opinion on it.

 

[BiblicalLiteralist]

The poly lifestyle versus orientation distinction she makes is solid gold. I’d be fascinated in @Keith Martin ‘s opinion on it.

I thought so as well

 

[Keith Martin]

The poly lifestyle versus orientation distinction she makes is solid gold. I’d be fascinated in @Keith Martin ‘s opinion on it.

OK, my original reaction to seeing the post was to Like it simply because I was heartened to read someone avoiding having a completely-dismissive reaction to the possibility of polygyny folks having anything to learn from the polyamorists. But I wasn't going to actually watch the video, mainly out of a been-there-done-that reaction, but when my most-unlikely-brother-from-a-different-mother Zec makes the request, it's extremely difficult for me to deny him.

I thought so as well

. . . and then when the stranger-to-me-as-far-as-I'm-aware @RemnantResilience so-respectfully-to-his-or-her-elders chimes in . . . I guess I'll put myself on this.

Please be patient, though; I have many irons in the fire.

 

[Keith Martin]

Preface: I'll start with some things I've shared in various places in these forums over the years, just to be transparent about my biases:

• Over the last 5 decades -- and especially while living in the Atlanta GA area for extended periods of time in the 70s and 90s-to-00s -- I've known large numbers of polygamous individuals, most of whom were one form or another of polyamorists. I was also in an ostensibly-open-marriage between 1976 and 1982. I'm consistently politically more libertarian than anything else, so I fully support the right of everyone to choose their relationship structures.
• However, my personal experience combined with my observations and eventually-sufficient self-knowledge led me to conclude probably 30 years ago that I would never be fit for polyamory. I'm pretty much incapable of casual sex, and I also observed that most people who enter into polyamory who don't have emotional distancing as an arrow in their skill-set quiver are destined to watch the relationship they take into it crash and burn, which also almost always involves some tremendous extended internal upheaval for at least one of the two involved.
• Putting these two things together, I remain tolerant of polyamory but am decidedly not a fan.

My impressions:

• I was troubled by the first presented premise. I believe Jessica Fern Cooley is correct that the paradigm/mindset with which a couple enters polyamory has a significant level of determination about how things will go, but I wouldn't place that at the top of the pyramid. Instead, I'd put #2 as being the fact that most people who choose that route aren't particularly adept at self-analysis and end up choosing fucking around as a fun panacea that will make a lackluster life more rewarding; and #1, though, is that, while some women are hip to what's coming up, women go into the experience with more trepidation and men enthusiastically anticipate getting themselves a bunch of 'strange' (sound familiar?), generally speaking both partners are blindsided by the fact that the woman of the couple will have far more sexual encounters than will the man. Open Marriage is the worst deal for a husband, because her end is wide open while his is nearly closed, but Polyamory is the next most imbalanced sexual dynamic: the woman's potential sexual encounters when they go to polyamory meet-ups is pretty much only limited by the number of penises-with-men-attached who show up, whereas the men's fun is restricted to the minority of women there who open their legs to anyone who's breathing -- and, even then, they have to do a lot of waiting in line. Essentially polyamory is just Cuckoldry on Steroids. For masochistic dudes, this has the potential to be rewarding, but for everyone else it's just a stubborn endurance contest that inevitably leads to not even being able to perform with the wifey-poo. Eventually, the man exits either the relationship or even life itself (the suicide rate has to be higher than average), whereas the woman has accomplished test-drives with so many men that a large enough percentage of them will provide her multiple monkey-branching opportunities as the original core relationship discombobulates. I watched this happen with the social set my 1st wife (1976-1983) runs with to this day; the women are near-constant in their midst, whereas a significant percentage of men come and go, and those who survive do so because they actually prefer the general solution provided for everyone to 'handle' the trust-and-comfort issues that regularly rear their ugly heads: almost everyone in that East Texas subculture that averages around 200 people drops their primary partner about once every 6 months, plays musical chairs for a weekend or two, and then they all pair up with new counterparts for the next half year.
• Cooley is also correct that preexisting problems in the marriage (or in the individuals in the marriage) are dragged into and magnified by shifting to any new relationship structure. I would label this as #3 determination of success (which, by the way, further argues for fully establishing headship before changing the relationship structure to polygyny).
• In a significant sense, the paradigm shift Cooley points to is more a matter of viewing the world differently than it is a matter of adapting to the actual nuts and bolts of handling who's being sexually intimate with whom -- more mental than physical. Again, further justification for focusing less on self-improvement than on self-preparation: becoming self-honest about the distinction between male and female jealousy; addressing what one's emotions are about opening up to sharing at that depth; game-planning how to handle the challenges involved as they inevitably come up; etc.
• Amen to the advice to avoid changing to poly in an attempt to fix problems in the relationship.
• Love what she says about change. Resistance to change, though, is a problem even if one isn't transforming from monogamy to some kind of poly. Resistance to change is resistance to the vibrancy of life.
• I share The Revolting Sigma's appreciation for what Ms. Cooley wrote about the distinction between people for whom poly is a lifestyle choice and those for whom it's an orientation. [I'm most definitely a Poly as Orientation person; that has been abundantly clear to me every time in my life when presented with an opportunity to be shared by two females with whom I've experienced reciprocal desire, going all the way back to a non-sexual relationship with twins in 3rd grade back in 1962 (the same year my father demanded that the school system's psychologist test me for schizophrenia -- thankfully that's not the results they came up with, although I'm sure many over the course of my life wouldn't mind believing I'm psychotic!), all the way through to the triad Kristin and I had with Claire in the early 1990s that lasted until Kristin got pregnant with our first son. In every set of circumstances, I felt something along the lines of the planets being in alignment or being in tune with God's purpose for me. Consequently, after I inappropriately caved in to Kristin's 'Sophie's Choice' between giving up Claire or giving up being a father to my upcoming child, I spent years feeling like a Ghost, like I was living someone else's life -- and, subsequent to returning a decade and a half later to an intention to implement polygyny in my family, I've renewed a state of being true to myself, so despite the disappointment of recognizing that it's more unlikely than not that it will ever actually happen again, I'd rather be authentic in regard to what Ms. Cooley would call my orientation and never implement it than retreat back into that "Once in a Lifetime" posture (those familiar with Talking Heads will get the reference).]
• The video, though, reminds me of one major aspect of what repels me, personally, about polyamory, as opposed to polygyny or even the polyandry practiced by a number of throuples I've known through the years: the open-on-my-end, open-on-your-end structure of polyamory leads to one of two possible substructures determined by the typical original intention for the initially-monogamous couple to retain its primacy in the face of the inevitability of chain-link sexual associations (you don't just risk STDs from unknown 3rd parties; you also subject yourself to emotional dramas passed along from people who are sleeping with people who have sex with other people sleeping with people you're having casual sex with):
  • Either you both attempt to treat everyone you have sex with like there's a special connection, which leads to its own potential complications; or
  • You end up to one significant degree or another treating your temporary lovers as if they're disposable; this is something I find almost all "ethically-nonmonogamous" proponents gloss right over -- but many who regularly practice the lifestyle have disclosed to me that they're heartbroken about how much of a problem it is.
• And that leads me to a comment about Cooley's section about Self-Discovery: some of this, to me, is psychobabble that is all too common among social services people. Alfred Adler probably put it best when he insisted that any freedom worth having can only thrive when it's placed within clear limits. Not every aspect of one's self has to be explored, and that goes double or quadruple for joint self-discovery within a relationship. The self needs inner and outer boundaries in order to remain functionally intact, and all relationships risk individual and collective destruction if the expectation becomes that partners aren't fully actualized unless they have no boundaries with each other. This isn't just dangerous in poly relationships but in monogamous ones as well. In particular, when a person starts asking himself or herself, "What do I really want to experience?," that's all well and good, as long as it isn't accompanied by an expectation that the other person or persons in the relationship are required to be totally cool with whatever answer one comes up with to such an open-ended question. Boundaries are needed there, as well, and a partner isn't inadequate because s/he doesn't exhibit unlimited acceptance. That point is easy to see when we utilize the example of someone deciding what they really want is to bring a zebra into the relationship but may be a bone of contention if a man comes to the conclusion that anything he demands in the bedroom is part of his patriarchal privilege.
• Which leads me to 'deconstruction,' because that's a very common occurrence among those who do a lot of navel-gazing. Ms. Cooley sees it as a "healthy process" that can lead to "beautiful things," but that's likely because she's a fan of seeing things through a leftist lens -- also even more common among polyamorists than among the general population, a sort of shared virtue-signaling enmity toward anyone who doesn't fully embrace one's lifestyle choices. Deconstruction, however, doesn't just pump up the egos of leftists; it leads to fraying the aspects of society that keep things glued together, so I'm no fan. That whole "reclaiming parts of you that were lost" narrative plays a big role in these freak-show bizarre sexual-orientation and 'identification' dramas like recreational transgenderism. Some inclinations should be lost or denied. Sorry but not sorry. If you find yourself with a partner who wants to embark on such a solipsistic indulgence, it's not inappropriate to discourage this; above all things, though, don't take him or her to a psychotherapist, because that's almost certain to make everything worse.
• Attachment styles: some psychobabble here, too, and unnecessary assumptions about what caused them. I tend to assert that we should all recognize that everyone is inescapably broken in one way or another -- or maybe even in a variety of ways -- so rather than expecting that people transcend their brokenness (which can only potentially occur when an individual becomes committed to such transformation), the most effective approach during the shift from monogamy to poly is to assume that brokennesses will rear their ugly heads and will be worthy of taking pauses (not full escapes) from transitioning in order to respectfully address how brokenness is exacerbating the challenges at hand. That's what people who love each other will do. Again, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

 

[The Revolting Man]

Preface: I'll start with some things I've shared in various places in these forums over the years, just to be transparent about my biases:

• Over the last 5 decades -- and especially while living in the Atlanta GA area for extended periods of time in the 70s and 90s-to-00s -- I've known large numbers of polygamous individuals, most of whom were one form or another of polyamorists. I was also in an ostensibly-open-marriage between 1976 and 1982. I'm consistently politically more libertarian than anything else, so I fully support the right of everyone to choose their relationship structures.
• However, my personal experience combined with my observations and eventually-sufficient self-knowledge led me to conclude probably 30 years ago that I would never be fit for polyamory. I'm pretty much incapable of casual sex, and I also observed that most people who enter into polyamory who don't have emotional distancing as an arrow in their skill-set quiver are destined to watch the relationship they take into it crash and burn, which also almost always involves some tremendous extended internal upheaval for at least one of the two involved.
• Putting these two things together, I remain tolerant of polyamory but am decidedly not a fan.

My impressions:

• I was troubled by the first presented premise. I believe Jessica Fern Cooley is correct that the paradigm/mindset with which a couple enters polyamory has a significant level of determination about how things will go, but I wouldn't place that at the top of the pyramid. Instead, I'd put #2 as being the fact that most people who choose that route aren't particularly adept at self-analysis and end up choosing fucking around as a fun panacea that will make a lackluster life more rewarding; and #1, though, is that, while some women are hip to what's coming up, women go into the experience with more trepidation and men enthusiastically anticipate getting themselves a bunch of 'strange' (sound familiar?), generally speaking both partners are blindsided by the fact that the woman of the couple will have far more sexual encounters than will the man. Open Marriage is the worst deal for a husband, because her end is wide open while his is nearly closed, but Polyamory is the next most imbalanced sexual dynamic: the woman's potential sexual encounters when they go to polyamory meet-ups is pretty much only limited by the number of penises-with-men-attached who show up, whereas the men's fun is restricted to the minority of women there who open their legs to anyone who's breathing -- and, even then, they have to do a lot of waiting in line. Essentially polyamory is just Cuckoldry on Steroids. For masochistic dudes, this has the potential to be rewarding, but for everyone else it's just a stubborn endurance contest that inevitably leads to not even being able to perform with the wifey-poo. Eventually, the man exits either the relationship or even life itself (the suicide rate has to be higher than average), whereas the woman has accomplished test-drives with so many men that a large enough percentage of them will provide her multiple monkey-branching opportunities as the original core relationship discombobulates. I watched this happen with the social set my 1st wife (1976-1983) runs with to this day; the women are near-constant in their midst, whereas a significant percentage of men come and go, and those who survive do so because they actually prefer the general solution provided for everyone to 'handle' the trust-and-comfort issues that regularly rear their ugly heads: almost everyone in that East Texas subculture that averages around 200 people drops their primary partner about once every 6 months, plays musical chairs for a weekend or two, and then they all pair up with new counterparts for the next half year.
• Cooley is also correct that preexisting problems in the marriage (or in the individuals in the marriage) are dragged into and magnified by shifting to any new relationship structure. I would label this as #3 determination of success (which, by the way, further argues for fully establishing headship before changing the relationship structure to polygyny).
• In a significant sense, the paradigm shift Cooley points to is more a matter of viewing the world differently than it is a matter of adapting to the actual nuts and bolts of handling who's being sexually intimate with whom -- more mental than physical. Again, further justification for focusing less on self-improvement than on self-preparation: becoming self-honest about the distinction between male and female jealousy; addressing what one's emotions are about opening up to sharing at that depth; game-planning how to handle the challenges involved as they inevitably come up; etc.
• Amen to the advice to avoid changing to poly in an attempt to fix problems in the relationship.
• Love what she says about change. Resistance to change, though, is a problem even if one isn't transforming from monogamy to some kind of poly. Resistance to change is resistance to the vibrancy of life.
• I share The Revolting Sigma's appreciation for what Ms. Cooley wrote about the distinction between people for whom poly is a lifestyle choice and those for whom it's an orientation. [I'm most definitely a Poly as Orientation person; that has been abundantly clear to me every time in my life when presented with an opportunity to be shared by two females with whom I've experienced reciprocal desire, going all the way back to a non-sexual relationship with twins in 3rd grade back in 1962 (the same year my father demanded that the school system's psychologist test me for schizophrenia -- thankfully that's not the results they came up with, although I'm sure many over the course of my life wouldn't mind believing I'm psychotic!), all the way through to the triad Kristin and I had with Claire in the early 1990s that lasted until Kristin got pregnant with our first son. In every set of circumstances, I felt something along the lines of the planets being in alignment or being in tune with God's purpose for me. Consequently, after I inappropriately caved in to Kristin's 'Sophie's Choice' between giving up Claire or giving up being a father to my upcoming child, I spent years feeling like a Ghost, like I was living someone else's life -- and, subsequent to returning a decade and a half later to an intention to implement polygyny in my family, I've renewed a state of being true to myself, so despite the disappointment of recognizing that it's more unlikely than not that it will ever actually happen again, I'd rather be authentic in regard to what Ms. Cooley would call my orientation and never implement it than retreat back into that "Once in a Lifetime" posture (those familiar with Talking Heads will get the reference).]
• The video, though, reminds me of one major aspect of what repels me, personally, about polyamory, as opposed to polygyny or even the polyandry practiced by a number of throuples I've known through the years: the open-on-my-end, open-on-your-end structure of polyamory leads to one of two possible substructures determined by the typical original intention for the initially-monogamous couple to retain its primacy in the face of the inevitability of chain-link sexual associations (you don't just risk STDs from unknown 3rd parties; you also subject yourself to emotional dramas passed along from people who are sleeping with people who have sex with other people sleeping with people you're having casual sex with):
  • Either you both attempt to treat everyone you have sex with like there's a special connection, which leads to its own potential complications; or
  • You end up to one significant degree or another treating your temporary lovers as if they're disposable; this is something I find almost all "ethically-nonmonogamous" proponents gloss right over -- but many who regularly practice the lifestyle have disclosed to me that they're heartbroken about how much of a problem it is.
• And that leads me to a comment about Cooley's section about Self-Discovery: some of this, to me, is psychobabble that is all too common among social services people. Alfred Adler probably put it best when he insisted that any freedom worth having can only thrive when it's placed within clear limits. Not every aspect of one's self has to be explored, and that goes double or quadruple for joint self-discovery within a relationship. The self needs inner and outer boundaries in order to remain functionally intact, and all relationships risk individual and collective destruction if the expectation becomes that partners aren't fully actualized unless they have no boundaries with each other. This isn't just dangerous in poly relationships but in monogamous ones as well. In particular, when a person starts asking himself or herself, "What do I really want to experience?," that's all well and good, as long as it isn't accompanied by an expectation that the other person or persons in the relationship are required to be totally cool with whatever answer one comes up with to such an open-ended question. Boundaries are needed there, as well, and a partner isn't inadequate because s/he doesn't exhibit unlimited acceptance. That point is easy to see when we utilize the example of someone deciding what they really want is to bring a zebra into the relationship but may be a bone of contention if a man comes to the conclusion that anything he demands in the bedroom is part of his patriarchal privilege.
• Which leads me to 'deconstruction,' because that's a very common occurrence among those who do a lot of navel-gazing. Ms. Cooley sees it as a "healthy process" that can lead to "beautiful things," but that's likely because she's a fan of seeing things through a leftist lens -- also even more common among polyamorists than among the general population, a sort of shared virtue-signaling enmity toward anyone who doesn't fully embrace one's lifestyle choices. Deconstruction, however, doesn't just pump up the egos of leftists; it leads to fraying the aspects of society that keep things glued together, so I'm no fan. That whole "reclaiming parts of you that were lost" narrative plays a big role in these freak-show bizarre sexual-orientation and 'identification' dramas like recreational transgenderism. Some inclinations should be lost or denied. Sorry but not sorry. If you find yourself with a partner who wants to embark on such a solipsistic indulgence, it's not inappropriate to discourage this; above all things, though, don't take him or her to a psychotherapist, because that's almost certain to make everything worse.
• Attachment styles: some psychobabble here, too, and unnecessary assumptions about what caused them. I tend to assert that we should all recognize that everyone is inescapably broken in one way or another -- or maybe even in a variety of ways -- so rather than expecting that people transcend their brokenness (which can only potentially occur when an individual becomes committed to such transformation), the most effective approach during the shift from monogamy to poly is to assume that brokennesses will rear their ugly heads and will be worthy of taking pauses (not full escapes) from transitioning in order to respectfully address how brokenness is exacerbating the challenges at hand. That's what people who love each other will do. Again, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

I knew you’d hit that softball out of the park.

It seems to me that in decades of trying to force this unnatural arrangement, polyamory, to work, it’s practitioners have compiled a large body of structures that, if shifted over to the firm foundation of polygyny, would be the framework for some highly effective infrastructure.

Of course polyamory is a raging lie, but so is enforced monogamy and to be honest I’m not sure that they’re not just parallel lies along either side of the truth, twin ditches attempting to trip up anyone walking the path of truth.

I think we’re insane for not availing ourselves of all the legal work they’ve put in over the years. They’ve been to the Supreme Court on a host of issues.

 

[MemeFan]

It seems to me that in decades of trying to force this unnatural arrangement, polyamory, to work, it’s practitioners have compiled a large body of structures that, if shifted over to the firm foundation of polygyny, would be the framework for some highly effective infrastructure.

Leftist believe they can change the reality.

What else is fat-acceptance movement? You can be fat and healthy?

 

[Keith Martin]

I knew you’d hit that softball out of the park.

Ah, my brother, leave it to you to damn me with faint praise!

It seems to me that in decades of trying to force this unnatural arrangement, polyamory, to work, it’s practitioners have compiled a large body of structures that, if shifted over to the firm foundation of polygyny, would be the framework for some highly effective infrastructure.

Which reminds me, I forgot to mention one of the biggest pitfalls of polyamory: at its best, family leadership is muddled; more often, it's either fractured or reversed. Even polyandry, while prohibited by our Scripture, at least has someone in charge -- it's a woman, but chain of command is clear. I've known multiple polyandrous throuples in my past, and in every case they were composed of an alpha female and two weak males, usually more gay than straight.

I think we’re insane for not availing ourselves of all the legal work they’ve put in over the years. They’ve been to the Supreme Court on a host of issues.

Of course they have, because in our gynocentric culture women lead the way. I haven't been silent about my opinion that our corner of the polygyny universe is dominated by PINOs. Generally speaking -- as was demonstrated by the analysis I did of how MBTI results dovetail with male archetypes, which demonstrated that Biblical Families is almost bereft of alpha males despite the common assumption that that's almost all there is around here (found in a Meat thread entitled "WHY SOME PEOPLE GET MORE SEXUAL PRACTICE THAN OTHERS, or What the H E Double Hockey Sticks Kind of Alpha Males Are These Biblical Families Patriarchs?," which, oddly enough, doesn't show up in results anymore when I search for it) -- both practitioners and supporters of polygyny tend to be highly fearful of getting in trouble, so they hide in the shadows.

This is exacerbated by the fact that, in each instance of polygynists attempting to challenge laws through U.S. courts, those cases have been very legitimately dismissed for lack of standing, which just means that there is no case because no one has been harmed. Ordinances against polygyny exist, but no one is now enforcing them, which means that the vast amount of tangible enforcement is actually self-suppression enforcement. I'm not saying no one is ever punished for promoting, seeking or practicing polygyny (we know people have lost jobs over it, and plenty of family members have been tackily tacky), but those who are punished have demonstrated a preference for tucking their tails between their legs rather than standing tall against the systems. Esteemed constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley represented the last case that made it to the Supreme Court before being thrown out for lack of standing, and he's stated that he's just waiting for a family that has actually been punished by a government authority for polygamy to mount another challenge. If such a thing has occurred in the last 10 years, no one has stepped forward to identify the situation, but it's probably pretty safe to say that polygyny was de facto decriminalized by Lawrence v Texas, which prohibits government entities from discriminating -- much less prosecuting -- based on cohabitation status. Secular shacker-uppers have taken full advantage of this ruling, but polygynists as a group remain too attached to social approval to behave like patriarchs, at least in my not-so-humble opinion.

This is my verbose way of agreeing with you, @The Revolting Man, but what I think you're pointing to aligns with what has been the theme of the forefront of my mind for the past 3 years: the time for complaining about how the world is disintegrating is long past. We know what the problems are, but mouth gas (or even paper gas) isn't going to change too many more hearts and minds. Hearts and minds are important, but actions speak far louder than words -- and my conviction is that the specific set of actions most required in these times and that has the greatest potential to turn around everything from marital discrimination to further family decay to government entities acting like tin-pot tyrants is for men to not only stand tall against tyranny but become actively disobedient in the face of it. The first step in such a process is, not evangelizing, but witnessing the truth, forcefully and consistently. Speaking truth perhaps even especially when one is afraid of ramifications -- standing tall even while fully conscious of fear. Being willing to do so despite the risks entailed -- or providing safe havens for those who voice their support for polygyny, or for those who take other principled stands that align with our own. In the last 2 years Kristin and I have offered to probably 40 families and individuals -- some of whom are here in this organization -- the back-up plan of coming to live with us if jobs or family support disappears for taking such stands or refusing to take the Poison Death Shot.

And I don't care who knows that I'm a proponent of polygyny or that I'd be honored to practice it again. Anyone who doubts that can check me out on Truth Social, X: @nuclearheart169, or Substack: @imnhvn. The irony is that I'm far, far less likely to be suppressed or punished for my open stands on any of those platforms than I am around here.

All manner of disobedience is called for, and, as tyrants are increasingly called to task, they will only get desperate, just like cornered dogs, which will likely bring out increased tyranny -- for a time -- but, as Tore Maras regularly asks, "How are we the underdog?." The tyrants are overwhelmingly outnumbered by those who value freedom, so their days are numbered. I know I'm preaching now, but I'm absolutely confident that YHWH wins in the end, as well as that we may as well be inviting the Adversary to guide our steps if we kowtow to those who demand we disavow our alignment with our God, which includes his plans for how widows and orphans are to be properly covered. On an individual basis, it's convenient to excuse abdication by citing the worry we have for the ramifications to our existing family if we disobey illegitimate authority, but I assert with full confidence that what we're watching all around us is incrementally-degrading human conditions brought on by a collective unwillingness to stand tall.

 

[The Revolting Man]

Ah, my brother, leave it to you to damn me with faint praise!




Which reminds me, I forgot to mention one of the biggest pitfalls of polyamory: at its best, family leadership is muddled; more often, it's either fractured or reversed. Even polyandry, while prohibited by our Scripture, at least has someone in charge -- it's a woman, but chain of command is clear. I've known multiple polyandrous throuples in my past, and in every case they were composed of an alpha female and two weak males, usually more gay than straight.

Of course they have, because in our gynocentric culture women lead the way. I haven't been silent about my opinion that our corner of the polygyny universe is dominated by PINOs. Generally speaking -- as was demonstrated by the analysis I did of how MBTI results dovetail with male archetypes, which demonstrated that Biblical Families is almost bereft of alpha males despite the common assumption that that's almost all there is around here (found in a Meat thread entitled "WHY SOME PEOPLE GET MORE SEXUAL PRACTICE THAN OTHERS, or What the H E Double Hockey Sticks Kind of Alpha Males Are These Biblical Families Patriarchs?," which, oddly enough, doesn't show up in results anymore when I search for it) -- both practitioners and supporters of polygyny tend to be highly fearful of getting in trouble, so they hide in the shadows.

This is exacerbated by the fact that, in each instance of polygynists attempting to challenge laws through U.S. courts, those cases have been very legitimately dismissed for lack of standing, which just means that there is no case because no one has been harmed. Ordinances against polygyny exist, but no one is now enforcing them, which means that the vast amount of tangible enforcement is actually self-suppression enforcement. I'm not saying no one is ever punished for promoting, seeking or practicing polygyny (we know people have lost jobs over it, and plenty of family members have been tackily tacky), but those who are punished have demonstrated a preference for tucking their tails between their legs rather than standing tall against the systems. Esteemed constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley represented the last case that made it to the Supreme Court before being thrown out for lack of standing, and he's stated that he's just waiting for a family that has actually been punished by a government authority for polygamy to mount another challenge. If such a thing has occurred in the last 10 years, no one has stepped forward to identify the situation, but it's probably pretty safe to say that polygyny was de facto decriminalized by Lawrence v Texas, which prohibits government entities from discriminating -- much less prosecuting -- based on cohabitation status. Secular shacker-uppers have taken full advantage of this ruling, but polygynists as a group remain too attached to social approval to behave like patriarchs, at least in my not-so-humble opinion.

This is my verbose way of agreeing with you, @The Revolting Man, but what I think you're pointing to aligns with what has been the theme of the forefront of my mind for the past 3 years: the time for complaining about how the world is disintegrating is long past. We know what the problems are, but mouth gas (or even paper gas) isn't going to change too many more hearts and minds. Hearts and minds are important, but actions speak far louder than words -- and my conviction is that the specific set of actions most required in these times and that has the greatest potential to turn around everything from marital discrimination to further family decay to government entities acting like tin-pot tyrants is for men to not only stand tall against tyranny but become actively disobedient in the face of it. The first step in such a process is, not evangelizing, but witnessing the truth, forcefully and consistently. Speaking truth perhaps even especially when one is afraid of ramifications -- standing tall even while fully conscious of fear. Being willing to do so despite the risks entailed -- or providing safe havens for those who voice their support for polygyny, or for those who take other principled stands that align with our own. In the last 2 years Kristin and I have offered to probably 40 families and individuals -- some of whom are here in this organization -- the back-up plan of coming to live with us if jobs or family support disappears for taking such stands or refusing to take the Poison Death Shot.

And I don't care who knows that I'm a proponent of polygyny or that I'd be honored to practice it again. Anyone who doubts that can check me out on Truth Social, X: @nuclearheart169, or Substack: @imnhvn. The irony is that I'm far, far less likely to be suppressed or punished for my open stands on any of those platforms than I am around here.

All manner of disobedience is called for, and, as tyrants are increasingly called to task, they will only get desperate, just like cornered dogs, which will likely bring out increased tyranny -- for a time -- but, as Tore Maras regularly asks, "How are we the underdog?." The tyrants are overwhelmingly outnumbered by those who value freedom, so their days are numbered. I know I'm preaching now, but I'm absolutely confident that YHWH wins in the end, as well as that we may as well be inviting the Adversary to guide our steps if we kowtow to those who demand we disavow our alignment with our God, which includes his plans for how widows and orphans are to be properly covered. On an individual basis, it's convenient to excuse abdication by citing the worry we have for the ramifications to our existing family if we disobey illegitimate authority, but I assert with full confidence that what we're watching all around us is incrementally-degrading human conditions brought on by a collective unwillingness to stand tall.

We have to become ungovernable. I understand that 20 plus years ago things were different and the social costs were very high. Conservatives like to conserve things, even things they don’t agree with. They saw a value (as I do) in societal recognition of what was right and societal rejection of what was wrong.

In the post-Obergerfell world though that is a no longer a tenable position. We can not pretend that there is any value left in society, at least not enough to off set the malignancies. People who won’t accept truth will accept lies. This is what @PeteR means when he says that polygyny is a line of separation for him (don’t mean to speak for you Pete, just paraphrasing my understanding of your teaching!). We can no longer pretend like even Christians have enough of the truth to let them keep drinking their milk. I’m not saying we have to force every spiritual baby to choke down steak but they damn sure need to know that there is at least a meat for them to be eating one day!

As far as is having “alpha” males in BibFam, I know that @Keith Martin has a much more nuanced definition of that than most do. It doesn’t mean what we think of when we hear the term. I’m not sure if so called alphas would be attracted to a countercultural movement would they Keith? Aren’t they being served very well by the dominant culture?

 

[Keith Martin]

Well, you brought it up; therefore I will respond.

So many needed distinctions, so little time . . .

[*please note edits if this is your second read]

We have to become ungovernable.

You have in many ways been certain of this longer than I have, Revolting Man -- which is why I count you as a significant influence in my life -- but it's also the case that I embarked on that path far earlier than you did, because I started being ungovernable close to 69 years ago (my father's still alive just one state away from you if you want him to grumpily confirm this). I write this not in any competitive sense but just to indicate that recognizing the necessity of rejecting certain types of exercised authority is apparently coded in my DNA.

But I have little doubt that, in our country, we're approaching a watershed moment at which we will collectively fail if sufficient numbers of men aren't prepared to be ungovernable. No amount of "having the right stuff" will suffice if that right stuff isn't combined with forethought. You've inspired me on the tactical masculinity end of things: firearms, further competence when divorced from tech and other conveniences, etc. I once asked you when we were discussing the bug-out topic what possible value I could bring to you in such circumstances, and your reply was, "Another body behind a firearm." Point well taken, but I'll be bold here and assert that something else I bring to that and many other tables is a visceral recognition of unjustified tyranny -- a vision required, if one is to be of clear mind, that recognizes that battle lines are not at all drawn the way many seemingly-laudable clubs, parties, organizations, churches or even to some extent countries to which we 'belong' (but do not belong, even though they treat us like property) present them as being drawn. It also requires further awareness that even our enemies are not necessarily our enemies. An example:

In the post-Obergerfell world though that is a no longer a tenable position.

Gays are not -- and even the impulse to permit gay marriage is not -- monolithic. In the wake of Obergefell v Hodges and other relevant court decisions, we should not only learn from the paths they've paved for us, we should recognize that not all 'freaks' are our enemies; moreover, many of them are our allies. I was wrong when I initially dismissed the "We're Coming For Your Children" from the SF Queer Choir, but that was because I failed to see how purposeful-societal-destruction advocates had already hijacked the Rainbow Coalition. Go check out Gays Against Groomers on X if you doubt that mainstream gays aren't as disturbed by childhood transgenderism as you and I are. And even gay marriage itself predominantly comes from within the more conservative aspects of the so-called gay community: aren't the desires to make commitments, plan for the future, and be stable members of the community who eschew promiscuity all conservative impulses? I started a gay/lesbian support group for students at one university where I was employed and was advisor to such groups at every other university where I worked. Transvestites were always welcome in those groups, and drag shows were a big hit for the entertainment of adults who had more reason to segregate in secret than polygynists have ever had -- but it would have been unthinkable to put on such a show for any children, much less for 1st graders. Those college students -- and the homosexual adults I worked with in other organizations -- were historically averse to having the transgender folks lumped in with them, generally convinced that most such individuals were gays who for one reason or another weren't ready to acknowledge their actual sexual orientation. Adding the alphabet soup onto LGB or GLAAD was just as much coerced upon the gay community as it has been on the rest of us. Everyone fears being labeled a bigot.

Personally, I don't know if being gay is just a matter of DNA or actually evidence of mental illness as was assumed to be the case by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual until the 1980s. But I don't think it matters, because none among us escape being broken, and what I see is an actual conspiracy that is subjugating and manipulating that community just like it is every community. We're staring down the barrel of totalitarianism, and every time that has been brought to fruition the first purposeful casualties have always been those who've been weak enough to be useful idiots. They are just being used, as were the gays and Jews leading up to WWII (there was no more gay place in the world in 1939 than Berlin, and yet they were rounded up for the concentration camps right along with the Jews and Gypsies -- but were not initially liberated when the Jews were.

I haven't forgotten . . .

We have to become ungovernable.

You are right on point. We have to become ungovernable, and you have your arsenal and survival skills all lined up and ready to implement like an artful science. However, there's another aspect of preparedness that I believe you have an appreciation for but don't discuss as frequently: it's not just essential that men become prepared for the worst or even that men begin preparing to be disobedient; it's perhaps even more essential that tough guys learn to engage in the kind of interdependence-among-real-men that doesn't come naturally to the kind of independent men who gravitate toward implementation of patriarchy. Forget Mike Pence; what I'm saying is crucial: we have to learn how to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, metaphorically even more so than physically, with fellow men who are also determined to stand tall (the relative absence of that can be blamed for most all of society's ills). And to be prepared to do that, we have to learn how to properly, clearly assess which men are standing tall and which men are only talking a good game, because those talkers have a real tendency in life to be worse than useless when the chips are down, even compared to totally-unprepared doofuses who at least are well-practiced being genuine.

Which is why I don't consider that discussion about male archetypes to have been at all superfluous. Incorrect self-assessments and incorrect organizational assessments are both dangerous in difficult times. I know many like the short-attention-span version that declares men are either alpha or beta, but I think its value is little more than skin deep. Who knows where my old thread disappeared to, but anyone can look up Vox Day and his septa Socio-Sexual Hierarchy, which I find to be much more useful in comprehending men to the point of having a much better idea of who one can and can't trust and/or cooperate with.

As far as is having “alpha” males in BibFam, I know that @Keith Martin has a much more nuanced definition of that than most do. It doesn’t mean what we think of when we hear the term.

If one thinks there are just alphas and betas, one will believe there are just slightly more than there really are. In the strict alpha/beta dichotomy, the vast majority of men are betas, but it becomes an amorphous term wherein 'beta' just means 'not-alpha.'

Generally, people know what alphas are, but many men incorrectly assume they're alphas. Maybe things have changed; I've been banished from being in the loop during the past year, but prior to that the results of all those who took the test and shared their MBTI results demonstrated that the number of true alpha males in all of Biblical Families could probably be counted on one hand, which indicates to me that a lot of men who assume they're alphas in actuality are not; this was further confirmed for me over time as, against almost all my previous inclinations, I finally took charge of my marriage and family -- and began to wake up to just how many men among us are operating under the illusion that they're patriarchal alphas, when they're neither.

[Edits here:] I'm very mindful of the fact that, other than an exhortation in Scripture from Yah, no imperative exists for any individual man to practice patriarchy, and to be an alpha requires either being born into that skin or what amounts to monumental effort, so it's just not an imperative to be an alpha -- in fact, it's demonstrably the fact that the world works better with a smaller rather than larger number of alphas, but when we start talking about the necessity of becoming ungovernable, what immediately kicks in for me related to that is looking on all sides of me -- physically, online, wherever -- to assess which men it is that I would be able to count on to have my back and to accept me having their backs in the event that it's time for tangible civil disobedience. The baseline importance of that is what motivated me last year to risk getting jettisoned from the very organization that had for years provided me with the majority of my fellowship. I know one thing is certain: no man who claims to be patriarchal and/or alpha who continues to permit his wife to prevent him from making any significant decision or elevates her desire for social approval over strict loyalty to following her husband can be counted on when it's time to become ungovernable -- I'm no military man but have been in numerous life-or-death situations during my 13 lives, and I'm certain of one thing: there is no time for consulting with the followers or sensitively establishing obedience when lives are at stake. Mutual submission is a Fantasyland luxury. The point I failed to drill home before I first posted this is that degree of implementing patriarchy is not the primary issue. The issue is congruency. Is a man who he says he is (or even who he believes he is), or is he in fact something else altogether, because if he's the latter he will more likely destroy you than enhance your ability to prevail. Accuracy of self-assessment trumps personality or skill sets when it comes to interdependent survival.

That is the importance of a man knowing his own soul while also being able to count on knowing the souls of the men around him. Especially in Vox Day's way of looking at things, it's entirely unnecessary for all men to be alphas -- or even for all men with whom alphas stand shoulder-to-shoulder to be alphas (that's a damn good thing for me, given that I'm a just-slightly-leaning-toward-alpha sigma!) -- but it's essential that men be transparent and self-aware in that regard. Like everyone else, I'll continue to pray that I end up being wrong about where the world is headed, but if I'm not wrong I don't want my closest allies to be men who are just Playing House with Patriarchy. Being a solitary soul who has a gut-level aversion to forming tangible alliances with fellow men is a rough road for a man to travel, but even doing that is probably preferable to being interdependent with those who remain on the Fantasyland board.

I’m not sure if so called alphas would be attracted to a countercultural movement would they Keith? Aren’t they being served very well by the dominant culture?

Ooh, many answers to those questions! Thanks for asking.

• Alphas do tend to be served well within any dominant culture, if for no other reason than that they possess traits that inspire other men to want to associate with and women to want to reproduce with. They get rewarded wherever they go, and alphas tend to be some of the best leaders of other men, but at the same time alphas are notorious for never being able to accomplish anything on their own.
• Currently, the dominant culture is being run mostly by societal misfit outliers from the Baby Boom (Rush Limbaugh got that one right: politics is show business for the ugly). Relatively speaking, alpha males are thus being mistreated by being expected to provide both (a) muscle, and (b) bread & circuses, to further expedite the agendas of the ruling class. Given that true betas are solid wingmen for alphas, our dominant culture and its ruling class which the culture more and more resembles aren't even betas. My assessment is that our culture is now dominated by mostly Gammas on top (faceless leftist deep-staters and the forgettable legion of neo-cons) accompanied by some Omegas-with-trust-funds (think John Kerry) and a smattering of Lambdas (think Obama) and outright vacuous criminals and sociopaths (think Biden). [If I have to re-post the whole male-type analysis and am permitted to do so, I will.] So, no, alphas are probably less well served than at any time in our nation's history. Online, one thing is very obvious: there aren't a lot of liberals in the manosphere.
• Perhaps my earlier statement (about how there's another dimension of preparedness for being ungovernable that explains why you and I complement each other so well) is relevant in regard to alphas and countercultural movements. Would you or would you not consider George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, Sam Houston or perhaps even Donald Trump members of countercultural movements? I would and without hesitation. Certainly Washington, Houston and Trump are all alpha males. Further reflective evidence that no contradiction exists with alpha males being involved in countercultural movements is that freak-show type men like Saul Alinsky, Hillary Clinton, George Soros and Barack Obama are all proponents of counter-countercultural movements. Not one of the four has ever worked to implement counterculture; they've just been dedicated to destroying the emerging truly-hopeful counterculture that emerged in the early 1960s and would have just by sheer force of numbers replaced the previous one.
• Countercultures have always had alphas. You, Mr. Revolting Man, who straddles the alpha and sigma categories if I remember correctly, are decidedly countercultural -- and the other Biblical Families men who truly qualify as alphas are all not just separating themselves from but bucking the current dominant culture in their own ways, because they're the minority who tend to be those who boldly stand athwart history where polygyny is concerned.
• So, yes, alphas would be attracted to countercultural movements -- and, no, they're not at all being served well by the current dominant culture.

What it may take to see this is to recognize that labeling the countercultural movement of the 1960s as just a bunch of maggot-infested, dope-smoking, loser hippies was just one in the ongoing series of psy-ops meant to invalidate the very people who were starting to see things very, very clearly way back then.

 

[The Revolting Man]

Well, you brought it up; therefore I will respond.

So many needed distinctions, so little time . . .

You have in many ways been certain of this longer than I have, Revolting Man -- which is why I count you as a significant influence in my life -- but it's also the case that I embarked on that path far earlier than you did, because I started being ungovernable close to 69 years ago (my father's still alive just one state away from you if you want him to grumpily confirm this). I write this not in any competitive sense but just to indicate that recognizing the necessity of rejecting certain types of exercised authority is apparently coded in my DNA.

But I have little doubt that, in our country, we're approaching a watershed moment at which we will collectively fail if sufficient numbers of men aren't prepared to be ungovernable. No amount of "having the right stuff" will suffice if that right stuff isn't combined with forethought. You've inspired me on the tactical masculinity end of things: firearms, further competence when divorced from tech and other conveniences, etc. I once asked you when we were discussing the bug-out topic what possible value I could bring to you in such circumstances, and your reply was, "Another body behind a firearm." Point well taken, but I'll be bold here and assert that something else I bring to that and many other tables is a visceral recognition of unjustified tyranny -- a vision required, if one is to be of clear mind, that recognizes that battle lines are not at all drawn the way many seemingly-laudable clubs, parties, organizations, churches or even to some extent countries to which we 'belong' (but do not belong, even though they treat us like property) present them as being drawn. It also requires further awareness that even our enemies are not necessarily our enemies. An example:

Gays are not -- and even the impulse to permit gay marriage is not -- monolithic. In the wake of Obergefell v Hodges and other relevant court decisions, we should not only learn from the paths they've paved for us, we should recognize that not all 'freaks' are our enemies; moreover, many of them are our allies. I was wrong when I initially dismissed the "We're Coming For Your Children" from the SF Queer Choir, but that was because I failed to see how purposeful-societal-destruction advocates had already hijacked the Rainbow Coalition. Go check out Gays Against Groomers on X if you doubt that mainstream gays aren't as disturbed by childhood transgenderism as you and I are. And even gay marriage itself predominantly comes from within the more conservative aspects of the so-called gay community: aren't the desires to make commitments, plan for the future, and be stable members of the community who eschew promiscuity all conservative impulses? I started a gay/lesbian support group for students at one university where I was employed and was advisor to such groups at every other university where I worked. Transvestites were always welcome in those groups, and drag shows were a big hit for the entertainment of adults who had more reason to segregate in secret than polygynists have ever had -- but it would have been unthinkable to put on such a show for any children, much less for 1st graders. Those college students -- and the homosexual adults I worked with in other organizations -- were historically averse to having the transgender folks lumped in with them, generally convinced that most such individuals were gays who for one reason or another weren't ready to acknowledge their actual sexual orientation. Adding the alphabet soup onto LGB or GLAAD was just as much coerced upon the gay community as it has been on the rest of us. Everyone fears being labeled a bigot.

Personally, I don't know if being gay is just a matter of DNA or actually evidence of mental illness as was assumed to be the case by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual until the 1980s. But I don't think it matters, because none among us escape being broken, and what I see is an actual conspiracy that is subjugating and manipulating that community just like it is every community. We're staring down the barrel of totalitarianism, and every time that has been brought to fruition the first purposeful casualties have always been those who've been weak enough to be useful idiots. They are just being used, as were the gays and Jews leading up to WWII (there was no more gay place in the world in 1939 than Berlin, and yet they were rounded up for the concentration camps right along with the Jews and Gypsies -- but were not initially liberated when the Jews were.

I haven't forgotten . . .

You are right on point. We have to become ungovernable, and you have your arsenal and survival skills all lined up and ready to implement like an artful science. However, there's another aspect of preparedness that I believe you have an appreciation for but don't discuss as frequently: it's not just essential that men become prepared for the worst or even that men begin preparing to be disobedient; it's perhaps even more essential that tough guys learn to engage in the kind of interdependence-among-real-men that doesn't come naturally to the kind of independent men who gravitate toward implementation of patriarchy. Forget Mike Pence; what I'm saying is crucial: we have to learn how to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, metaphorically even more so than physically, with fellow men who are also determined to stand tall (the relative absence of that can be blamed for most all of society's ills). And to be prepared to do that, we have to learn how to properly, clearly assess which men are standing tall and which men are only talking a good game, because those talkers have a real tendency in life to be worse than useless when the chips are down, even compared to totally-unprepared doofuses who at least are well-practiced being genuine.

Which is why I don't consider that discussion about male archetypes to have been at all superfluous. Incorrect self-assessments and incorrect organizational assessments are both dangerous in difficult times. I know many like the short-attention-span version that declares men are either alpha or beta, but I think its value is little more than skin deep. Who knows where my old thread disappeared to, but anyone can look up Vox Day and his septa Socio-Sexual Hierarchy, which I find to be much more useful in comprehending men to the point of having a much better idea of who one can and can't trust and/or cooperate with.

If one thinks there are just alphas and betas, one will believe there are just slightly more than there really are. In the strict alpha/beta dichotomy, the vast majority of men are betas, but it becomes an amorphous term wherein 'beta' just means 'not-alpha.'

Generally, people know what alphas are, but many men incorrectly assume they're alphas. Maybe things have changed; I've been banished from being in the loop during the past year, but prior to that the results of all those who took the test and shared their MBTI results demonstrated that the number of true alpha males in all of Biblical Families could probably be counted on one hand, which indicates to me that a lot of men who assume they're alphas in actuality are not; this was further confirmed for me over time as, against almost all my previous inclinations, I finally took charge of my marriage and family -- and began to wake up to just how many men among us are operating under the illusion that they're patriarchal alphas, when they're neither.

So, when we start talking about the necessity of becoming ungovernable, what immediately kicks in for me related to that is looking on all sides of me -- physically, online, wherever -- to assess which men it is that I would be able to count on to have my back and to accept me having their backs in the event that it's time for tangible civil disobedience. The baseline importance of that is what motivated me last year to risk getting jettisoned from the very organization that had for years provided me with the majority of my fellowship. I know one thing is certain: no man who continues to permit his wife to prevent him from making any significant decision or elevates her desire for social approval over strict loyalty to following her husband can be counted on when it's time to become ungovernable.

That is the importance of a man knowing his own soul while also being able to count on knowing the souls of the men around him. Especially in Vox Day's way of looking at things, it's entirely unnecessary for all men to be alphas -- or even for all men with whom alphas stand shoulder-to-shoulder to be alphas (that's a damn good thing for me, given that I'm a just-slightly-leaning-toward-alpha sigma!) -- but it's essential that men be transparent and self-aware in that regard. Like everyone else, I'll continue to pray that I end up being wrong about where the world is headed, but if I'm not wrong I don't want my closest allies to be men who are just Playing House with Patriarchy.

Ooh, many answers to those questions! Thanks for asking.

• Alphas do tend to be served well within any dominant culture, if for no other reason than that they possess traits that inspire other men to want to associate with and women to want to reproduce with. They get rewarded wherever they go, and alphas tend to be some of the best leaders of other men, but at the same time alphas are notorious for never being able to accomplish anything on their own.
• Currently, the dominant culture is being run mostly by societal misfit outliers from the Baby Boom (Rush Limbaugh got that one right: politics is show business for the ugly). Relatively speaking, alpha males are thus being mistreated by being expected to provide both (a) muscle, and (b) bread & circuses, to further expedite the agendas of the ruling class. Given that true betas are solid wingmen for alphas, our dominant culture and its ruling class which the culture more and more resembles aren't even betas. My assessment is that our culture is now dominated by mostly Gammas on top (faceless leftist deep-staters and the forgettable legion of neo-cons) accompanied by some Omegas-with-trust-funds (think John Kerry) and a smattering of Lambdas (think Obama) and outright vacuous criminals and sociopaths (think Biden). [If I have to re-post the whole male-type analysis and am permitted to do so, I will.] So, no, alphas are probably less well served than at any time in our nation's history. Online, one thing is very obvious: there aren't a lot of liberals in the manosphere.
• Perhaps my earlier statement (about how there's another dimension of preparedness for being ungovernable that explains why you and I complement each other so well) is relevant in regard to alphas and countercultural movements. Would you or would you not consider George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, Sam Houston or perhaps even Donald Trump members of countercultural movements? I would and without hesitation. Certainly Washington, Houston and Trump are all alpha males. Further reflective evidence that no contradiction exists with alpha males being involved in countercultural movements is that freak-show type men like Saul Alinsky, Hillary Clinton, George Soros and Barack Obama are all proponents of counter-countercultural movements. Not one of the four has ever worked to implement counterculture; they've just been dedicated to destroying the emerging truly-hopeful counterculture that emerged in the early 1960s and would have just by sheer force of numbers replaced the previous one.
• Countercultures have always had alphas. You, Mr. Revolting Man, who straddles the alpha and sigma categories if I remember correctly, are decidedly countercultural -- and the other Biblical Families men who truly qualify as alphas are all not just separating themselves from but bucking the current dominant culture in their own ways, because they're the minority who tend to be those who boldly stand athwart history where polygyny is concerned.
• So, yes, alphas would be attracted to countercultural movements -- and, no, they're not at all being served well by the current dominant culture.

What it may take to see this is to recognize that labeling the countercultural movement of the 1960s as just a bunch of maggot-infested, dope-smoking, loser hippies was just one in the ongoing series of psy-ops meant to invalidate the very people who were starting to see things very, very clearly way back then.

It’s a sign of my immaturity that the most pressing thing I took from that is that you called Hillary Clinton a freak show man! More reactions to follow. Need time to digest.

 

[Keith Martin]

It’s a sign of my immaturity that the most pressing thing I took from that is that you called Hillary Clinton a freak show man! More reactions to follow. Need time to digest.

Digest away. Apparently, I had to do some of my own breaking down of fatty acids, because I woke up convicted that I had failed to follow my own guidelines for participation, and in the process of editing I discovered further holes in what I would assert is the most important section.

 

[Sam Speaks]

Wow, there’s some really useful stuff in there. She really is talking about some practical, brass tacks kind of things.

I’ve said before and this reinforces it, there are decades of polyamory resources that probably contain some stuff relevant and usable for us if we had the time to ease through it, edit out the most egregiously garbage and catalog it.

This one had a lot of really good points.

I'd say the same is true for BDSM resources when it comes to owning our role as head of home. Lot's of stuff to throw out, lots of stuff to keep.

 

[MemeFan]

I'd say the same is true for BDSM resources when it comes to owning our role as head of home. Lot's of stuff to throw out, lots of stuff to keep.

Strange how BSDM (master-slave part) is independent figuring of patriarchy in bed.