Mainstream social taboos
While reading a recent post on the always excellent Friendly Atheist blog, I was interested to see a guest blogger writing about the polyamory lifestyle. The article opens as follows:
As atheists, many of us have faced some level of negative reaction from those around us, on account of our deviation from our culture’s expected norms. I’ve found that atheists, in general, tend to support GLBT rights and other civil rights issues despite opposition by an offended religious majority. After all, atheists have no religious inhibitions that lead them to view certain deviations from the norm as anything immoral or harmful to society. Atheists know what it’s like to be demonized and hated by those who fear us for our differences. I’d like to call your attention to another group of people — a group even deeper in the “closet” than atheists — who could use your support: polyamorists.
The rest of the article can be found here: In Defense of Polyamory
Part of what interested me about this article was that I was unaware polyamory was a lifestyle movement outside religion (e.g. Muslims or Mormons) and hedonistic stereotypes (bored marriages, bohemian students or artists, etc). Another interesting point was the author’s comments about deviations from cultural and social norms, which I suspect is most likely the crux of religious and conservative problems with those who don’t fit into the God-fearing, husband & wife, missionary position, change-is-bad, tradition-is-to-be-trusted, meat & 2 veg pigeonhole.
It seems that most old law-giving religions were borne from tribal groups where certain laws and behaviours were established to keep the (relatively small) tribe fit and healthy, with transgression being met with brutal punishment as the survival of the tribe was at stake. (We still do the same thing: consider the penalty for treason in your country). Hence, non-procreative sexual activity was distrusted and, when it let to same-sex relationships, the tribe had lost two potentially viable sources of children and mates for two other people. No more children means no more tribe, and we recognise that concept today in our perfectly correct “children are our future” mindset. It doesn’t matter that the argument is a false dichotomy.
It’s not inconceivable that the tribal prohibition against same-sex relationships could have, as the law gradually became more conservative over time, been extended to include other relationships outside the “proven to work” formula (choose a mate or have one chosen, betrothal and binding, breeding and offspring; rinse and repeat). This simple linear progression has worked since Prehistory but, when enshrined in law or even cultural expectation, it doesn’t allow for what engineers call a corner case: people who don’t fit into the expected behaviours. We see this in both animals and humans, so it’s not people just “choosing to be different.”
However, what struck me the most about the article was that although I have reassessed my opinion on homosexuality — which has naturally expanded to include the LGBT umbrella — polyamory and polygamy are two concepts that I had not yet reassessed. By reassess I mean the thoughts and opinions that we all gather over time, initially as children through young adulthood and into mental and emotional maturity. Some people are constantly re-evaluating their perspective on things as they encounter them, some reach old age without adjusting many opinions formed in childhood, and I suspect the majority fall somewhere in between — perhaps leaning one way or the other based upon our liberalism and conservatism. But especially pronounced if we are religious.
As I’ve blogged about previously, I had minimal formal religious instruction (though various notable influences) until I was 17, then a few years of intensive fundagelicalism during which everything I knew about just about anything was re-forged and realigned into a specific way of thinking — a kind of mental aquaduct designed to funnel everything along a certain route to a certain outcome. When I was eventually spat out of that homogenous situation, every opinion I had was filtered through that lens and my rational self knew almost none of it could be trusted. These opinions were not mine and they had not been formed through critical analysis; they had been overlaid to match the party line. Deconstructing one’s own mind is no trivial undertaking.
So this article has got me thinking about two aspects of life that I haven’t had cause to reassess in 17 years or more. That’s not to say that I will automatically find a way to accomodate acceptance of it, as that is not the application of critical thinking. The way I have managed the deconstruction of my mind is to treat just about every contentious topic as a blank canvas — I have no opinion on many things, allowing me to consider and think about them properly before forming my own opinions.
Those opinions may turn out to be wrong, but they’re mine. From there it’s relatively straightforward and clear sailing…
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The funny thing is that more of my friends are involved in polyamorous relationships than anything else these days. It’s just something normal for me
“Part of what interested me about this article was that I was unaware polyamory was a lifestyle movement outside religion (e.g. Muslims or Mormons)…etc).”
I think you are confused with the term Polyamory here with Polygamy. Muslims and Mormons certainly do not sanction intimate relationships outside of marriage, let alone with multiple partners simultaneously.
“people who don’t fit into the expected behaviours. We see this in both animals and humans, so it’s not people just “choosing to be different.”
Huh? What animals don’t have expected behaviours?? A female preying mantis that eats the head of her male mate after mating is not ‘unexpected behaviour’ unless you start comparing behaviours between species which is frankly a fruitless undertaking as each different species acts and behaves differently from the other. I can’t see how any animal could choose to be different, they either are different or the are not. A human is not the same as a tiger and a tiger is not the same as an ant.
I had an acquaintance who knew of 6 friends (3 men and 3 woman) who regularly slept with each other unknowingly. The day all of them found out was when they all contracted the same STD. The best argument I can think of not to encourage this type of behaviour.
p.s. There is nothing wrong with the ‘traditional’ set up of husband and wife. Traditional families are the corner stone of society and has proven time and time again to be the best for raising children.
Vanessa
I think you are confused with the term Polyamory here with Polygamy. Muslims and Mormons certainly do not sanction intimate relationships outside of marriage, let alone with multiple partners simultaneously.
I’m aware they don’t sanction it, but in the West they actually live it. Under British civil law it is not possible for any person to be wed to more than one person simultaneously, but members of religions that allow multiple married partners are actually living in polyamorous relationships. The male marries one woman and the other woman (or women) lives as a “girlfriend” (or housemate/lodger should the authorities come knocking). The intent may be polygamy, but it is actually polyamory.
Huh? What animals don’t have expected behaviours??
Is this another deliberate misunderstanding, or did you gloss over the point? In the context of the post and the paragraph, I am clearly referring to homosexuality. Homosexuality as a choice does not explain such behaviour in animals, which is a stumbling block for many who consider same sex relationships as a unique “perversion” to humanity.
The day all of them found out was when they all contracted the same STD. The best argument I can think of not to encourage this type of behaviour.
I know people who have died slow, painful deaths because of their religious convictions — and since 2001 we all know of thousands who have been murdered because of other peoples’ religious convictions. Not the best, but a pretty compelling argument I can think of not to encourage this type of behaviour. (The point there is — be careful of irrelevancies and non-sequiturs).
Finally, I never said there was anything wrong with the traditional mother and father family. Nobody has ever said that. The people on the side of compassion, tolerance, understanding and human awareness never say such things; it’s the self-appointed job of the religious to declare what is and isn’t right or wrong, sinful or blessed, etc.
‘but in the West they actually live it’.
A small minority yes. But in mainstream Islam it is not common practice to have more than 1 wife/girlfriend or anything on the side.
‘I know people who have died slow, painful deaths because of their religious convictions’.
If some chooses to die a slow and painful death than that is their choice, the analogy between choosing a painful death and a group of friends unknowingly contracting a STD is a poor one. Their choice to sleep around was there’s alone but they did not choose to get a STD, whereas the people you know who died a slow and painful deaths choose to do so as much as their choice of religious convictions dictated them.
Please don’t even think for a second that Christians/Jews are exempt from religious persecution.
More have died under Stalin, Lenin and Hitler than any other Religious group to date.