Episode 59: Polyamory Is Not Real

This episode discusses polyamory and makes the claim it is ultimately not a real relationship formation by any measure, representing instead a lack of boundaries and disorganised attachment styles, subsequently making it a performance attractive to sexual losers i.e those considered to be 'low-value' within the sexual marketplace. We begin with the early radical feminist critique of monogamy and marriage, before turning to the present day to consider how it is chiefly the absence of sexual ethics on the Left that created a vacuum to be filled by the dominant ideology i.e neoliberalism. This can be seen in how those claiming to by polyamorous treat their sexual partners as consumer products, exchangeable commodities, or purely use-value objects. Existing as a kind of accelerationist infantile utopianism, there's a pretence in the performance of polyamory that the bedroom can somehow by free of ideological chains (it cannot) and that the psychosocial world we are constituted by somehow evaporates in the hallway of our homes. Infantile leftists believe polyamorous arrangements to be 'revolutionary' simply because it differs from trad marriage and the nuclear family (the unit that emerged through the development of capitalism). Polyamory, if it were real, would, like polygamy, be the relationship scenario that is the least equal, least likely to engender trust among participants, and be far less mutual than traditional monogamous marriage. We share some anecdotes of polyamory from our own leftwing circles that demonstrate the attempt to do polyamorous arrangements tends to end quickly and badly, often in violence or humiliation (typically of a woman).We conclude that pretending to be polyamorous is about signalling to anyone and everyone that you are sexually available and desperate for sexual validation, whilst also not being up to the adult task of commitment and all of the responsibility and limitations on freedom that entails. That reality, of not being emotionally mature enough to find and maintain a committed relationship is offered an illustrious cover story by claiming to be doing polyamory, as if existing on a more sophisticated or higher sexual plane, when in actuality it means not being able to manage commitment, or find it from someone worth investing in.