Why is monogamy so common?

[Delirium]

Stop prude shaming me.

This isn't prude shaming, this is "stop bringing westernized romantic ideals into Zalanthas".

Be monogamous if that's your PC's thing. Be straight, gay, bi, asexual, whatever. I, and others in the thread, are arguing that monogamous, committed, "true love" relationships are probably the exception in Zalanthas. Loose-flowing, probably polyamorous, relationships born of practicality, mutual benefit, and personal gain are probably far more common.

And for Ginka's sake, you don't have to roleplay it out if you don't want to. Keep it virtual if you want.

I think it's pretty well established that romantic RP isn't exactly my favorite thing, so I'm hardly one who'd say "romance more!"

As for the "resources are scarce" thing, how do you hold onto resources? You protect them. How do you protect them? By yourself? Hell, no. You protect them by finding people who are willing to help you protect them, for whatever reason (money, friendship, intimidation, employment, family, sex, etc, etc, etc).

Lone wolves only out for themselves would rarely go far before someone stronger comes along.

[KankWhisperer]

The oft quoted text was likely put in to stop slut shaming. Now, as humans are want to do, people have converted it into a strict dogma to the extent that if everyone doesn't have three lovers like the complainers do they are now ruining the immersion and should be shamed.

Is monogamy really limited to 'western' ideals? If you want to say most people are not monogamous in the game that is great, but it is quite amusing that people try and apply logic to a rule that indiscriminately makes every single culture in said world have that same belief because 'reasons'.

[whitt]

The oft quoted text was likely put in to stop slut shaming. Now, as humans are want to do, people have converted it into a strict dogma to the extent that if everyone doesn't have three lovers like the complainers do they are now ruining the immersion and should be shamed.

Is monogamy really limited to 'western' ideals? If you want to say most people are not monogamous in the game that is great, but it is quite amusing that people try and apply logic to a rule that indiscriminately makes every single culture in said world have that same belief because 'reasons'.

In a world where anyone might (allegedly) stab you for your drink of water.  Having enough trust with someone to be in such a vulnerable position with any partner is a pretty big deal.  If that partner is also kanking any number of other folks, then you have to consider so many different things.  Are they talking about things I told them with these other people, are they actually just spying on me for these other people, are these other folks likely to turn my trusted partner against me when I am super vulnerable.  The easy solution is to kank once and never kank again.  Only slightly more difficult is to find an agreement not to kank around until the two of your are done kanking.  To demonstrate trust.  It's a simple business agreement that makes sense in a world where trust is fleeting.

What makes less sense, is any belief that you'll have the same partner for the rest of your life.

[Melkor]

Real life behavior influencing decisions, mostly.

I agree with ShaLeah. Polyamory =/= promiscuity.

Also, a sheer numbers game affects this phenomenon. Zalanthas has many thousands of potential mates available, but only hundreds of players. Deduct the amount of players who do not have an interest in pursuing IG relationships. Deduct the amount of PCs who are irritating/unappealing. Deduct the remaining PCs who do not make sense for your character.

The dating pool is rather minuscule, relatively.

[ghanima]

So, my question is why monogamy among commoners the default? Why isn't polygamy more of a default?

Discuss.

You've got to be joking. The notion of casual sex and sleeping around is so rampant and so much the norm among the player base that if I RPed a character who had their one true love and was devoted to them and them alone, a mob of PCs would arm themselves to the teeth with player complaints and try and pkill me with the request tool. I literally avoid expressing any views in favor of monogamy in game based on how I expect most players to react: with venom and rage.

I really think the idea you're pushing for already exists as part of the overwhelming majority.

[ShaLeah]

So, my question is why monogamy among commoners the default? Why isn't polygamy more of a default?

Discuss.

I really think the idea you're pushing for already exists as part of the overwhelming majority.

Don't quite agree with ghanima.

I think we can do a better job at following the docs on sexual mindset tbh. I don't think that amending the docs to include polyAMORY will result in an increase of polyamory trains roleplay.  It's just rare. I could be wrong.  If it makes people feel free to try it then by all means change the docs to state it wouldn't be abnormal to see these kinds of relationships.

Polyamory is NOT Polygamy/Polyandry (which is having more than one spouse). Polygamy is a legal state of marriage which commoners do not engage in. I'm totally not okay with this changing.  At all. You might all be like "You know what I mean!" and "It's the same thing!" but it's not. Distinctions should be made between those words.
While -I- feel that this would rarely be happening (meaning it's not the NORM) outside people RAISED that way (tribals), I do think we should see more incidences of it.

I'm gonna add that one of the reasons MONOGAMY and the RELATIONSHIP DRAMA Delurium hates go hand in hand and are a HUGE source of storyline catalysts is very very VERY simple:
ONE of the two people involved in this supposed monogamous relationship is a fucking liar. Betrayal.  Tagline.  #winning

So what happens if both parties are honest? Those kinds of stories are less and there'll be a different kind of drama.


Polyamory will make it wayyyyy harder for people to use love against you cause they're gonna have to be rid of however many people you love and I am way into Murder. Tagline. #moarwinning
Imagine all the people that are gonna try and Corruption the shit out of your mates too! Tagline!!!!! #mantishead


Seriously though.  Polyamory,  yes.   Promiscuity, yes. Monogamy,  yes. Philandering, yes. MurderCorruptionBetrayaling, yes.

Polygamy, no. Slutshaming, no. Whoreshaming, no. Frigidshaming, no. Fadetoblackshaming, no. Detailingitoutshaming, no. 

It starts with YOU.

[valeria]

This is Zalanthas. Who cares if Amos is boning Talia and Malik? There are other things to worry about.

+1! I couldn't have agree more!

+2
But who is boning who isn't what's under discussion here.  Monogamy is.

In near 2 decades here I haven't seen a single polyamory relationship.  What does that say?  I've seen lots of pcs banging each other without jealousy but not a single "These are my mates,  Amos, Thalia and Marcos and our children George Forman,  George Foreman the second,  third,  fourth fifth and Georgina".

Be the change.

As a polyamorist, I feel a need to correct a misconception here.  You don't have to have multiple co-primary partners to be polyamorous.  Having your mate and then people you bang on the side is valid polyamory, as long as there is honesty about the outside the relationships.  And you can even love the people you bang on the side without elevating them to a partner status and coparenting children.  Or you can have two coprimary partners and only want to coparent with one.  Or you can have NO primary partners and refuse to label your relationships, which is called being either a solo polyamorist or a relationship anarchist.  You can be polyamorous but only have one relationship at the present time, because you're open to having more relationships, or you can even be polyamorous but be in a closed relationship (a couple of my friends are temporarily closed while they're raising a toddler together).  All of these things (sex, love, the escalator status of the relationship, number of relationships active, and coparenting) are separate and people negotiate all kinds of agreements to cover them.

Polyamory also doesn't mean a lack of jealousy.  Most people who are polyamorous try to recognize that jealousy is an emotion like every other emotion (not inherently negative), and what matters is how you act as a result of that emotion rather than whether you have it.  I've been jealous before and I've dealt with it, sometimes by talking to my partner about hey, this behavior makes me feel insecure, maybe X Y or Z would make me feel more secure.  I've also felt jealousy and recognized it's just a passing thing and ignored it.  I've also sometimes wanted to murder people or drive my car into their cars but I never do these things because anger is just an emotion too.

TLDR; I've seen plenty of polyamory in Zalanthas.

[valeria]

[Oops.  Doubled post, feel free to delete,]

[LucildaHunta]

So, my question is why monogamy among commoners the default? Why isn't polygamy more of a default?

Discuss.

You've got to be joking. The notion of casual sex and sleeping around is so rampant and so much the norm among the player base that if I RPed a character who had their one true love and was devoted to them and them alone, a mob of PCs would arm themselves to the teeth with player complaints and try and pkill me with the request tool. I literally avoid expressing any views in favor of monogamy in game based on how I expect most players to react: with venom and rage.

I really think the idea you're pushing for already exists as part of the overwhelming majority.

I wouldn't go that far, but I was thinking along those lines.

I always took the docs as, it's not unusual to be polyamorous, not a reason to try to shame a character or raise your eyebrows because they have multiple partners. It's a non-issue, but at the same time it's also not an issue to be monogamous either. My experience has been a lot of characters are poly though.

[Refugee]

In an arid world where food and money is scarce, the rarest, most precious commodity is none of those.  It is trust.  When people find something that feels -safe-, some will choose to cling to it and care for it and even hoard it for as long as they can.  More will destroy it, betray it, exploit it.  That's how it works.  Sex is a very vulnerable situation, you're ostensibly alone with someone, maybe unarmored, maybe even unarmed.  If you think (rightly or wrongly) you've found someone who won't poison your wine or slit your throat in your sleep, it's not unlikely that you might find it very precious and keep it close.

Until the inevitable happens anyway.

[Delirium]

I just want to clear something up. Polyamory does not equal "sleeping around" or lots of casual sex. You can be a polyamorous person and be extremely picky.

[Refugee]

I think both choices are valid in the game environment so long as the PC has a rational reason for either.

[Lizzie]

I don't wish we would follow the docs more. I wish we would change the docs, and then follow THOSE docs. New docs:

Amory, whether poly or otherwise, is acceptable. It is not expected. You are not required to play a character interested in ANY intimate/romantic relationship at all. If you want to do that, great. If you don't, that's also great.  Regardless of what happens with the virtual denizens of Zalanthas, the Armageddon staff recognizes that some of you just flat out ain't interested in this kind of roleplay. So go ahead and roll up your "not interested in sex, period" character. That kind of character is acceptable, both OOCly and ICly. No one IC should give a shit one way or another.

That would be my idea of a doc I could follow. Sadly, it isn't. I played a character who had a virtual lover, on purpose because I wanted to avoid the nonsense that comes with roleplay romance. Instead of avoiding it, I ended up tits-deep in the drama because my character was challenged regularly to produce her virtual boyfriend.

I have also played characters who were sexually disinterested - and were constantly hit on by people considering it a challenge to inspire my characters.

I find the entire topic to be very distasteful, because I feel people obsess WAY too much about relationships in this game. It should be a non-issue. Obviously it isn't a non-issue because it keeps coming up in thread after thread on the GDB.

[satine]

This argument just seems to push the idea of a larger functional family unit.

There is also the point of, Amos probably wont sell maliks kid if Amos might be the father. This is a mating strategy used in many species.

in harsh cruel world, having multiple fathers and multiple mothers or either would really only serve to ensure that -more of your offspring- survive. This is an evolutionary system.

[Delirium]

I think both choices are valid in the game environment so long as the PC has a rational reason for either.

Yeah, play what you want. This is more of a push on my part to accept and be aware that there are all kinds of valid romantic relationships (or lack of them) and I personally try and represent that because it is more interesting/unique to me than a+b love story #392753.

[satine]

I just want to clear something up. Polyamory does not equal "sleeping around" or lots of casual sex. You can be a polyamorous person and be extremely picky.

This.

I want to be clear that we are not talking about "sleeping around a lot", we are talking about functional family units larger than x + y. Which includes a sexual side(or a fade to black side).

We are not talking about how jeb likes to bang all the girls in nak.

AS stated before, I also think relationships ig are taken far to seriously.

[The Lonely Hunter]

I don't wish we would follow the docs more.

Following game documentation is rule #1 of Armageddon. Acting the way your character would act in the world of Zalanthas is a requirement. You don't get to pick and choose which docs you want to follow based on your own feelings or opinion.

[Veselka]

I don't wish we would follow the docs more.

Following game documentation is rule #1 of Armageddon. Acting the way your character would act in the world of Zalanthas is a requirement. You don't get to pick and choose which docs you want to follow based on your own feelings or opinion.

I agree with this, though I don't particularly care about the subject matter. I would like to think people could take a hint if you say you have a virtual lover, or virtual prostitutes you pay, or just don't want to pursue the subject matter. People play the game for different reasons, and I think it's complaint worthy if people insist you don't have a virtual lover because they can't see it, just as following only the documentation you agree with is (IMHO) poor form. Suggesting a change to documentation to Staff and the reasoning why in a request makes sense though.

[Dresan]

Monogamy with both parties sleeping around without jealousy is indeed common relationship. However, while some western influences may be at play here,  the overall state of game itself has never encouraged polygamy.

Here are some reason:

• It is hard to find a mate you can trust
• Most mates die/store sooner rather than later
• Only two people can rent and share an apartment

If polygamy was more common, you'd might have mated groups of people that rival the PC population of some clans. Also, I feel the mated groups you would  mostly likely see, would probably be composed of all women. Gay male character are already more rare in game than lesbian character.  This is because there is an obvious group of male players in the community that  play female characters and clearly prefer to make them hardcore lesbians.

In the great scheme of things, monogamy with both parties sleeping around without jealousy is already a pretty good standard and fits the current game environment. We shouldn't feel the need to prude shame it. Mind you I'm not against polygamy in the game/lore, but I just feel its more likely to happen virtually than with PCs.

[Delirium]

Monogamy with both parties sleeping around without jealousy is indeed common relationship.

Erm... that's polygamy.

[Dresan]

Monogamy with both parties sleeping around without jealousy is indeed common relationship.

Erm... that's polygamy.

No. As I think some people have alluded that is a promiscuous couple, perhaps even classified as swingers. You fuck someone, you don't live with, share your life, trust them beyond the bed.  Polygamy would mean you would have two 'husbands', both whom you love and share your life with equally with. That is quite different from loving one, having his children, building a life with him, vs just fucking the other for fun from time to time.     

[650Booger]

I think this (and any other mudsecks behavior) is something that players should decide for themselves, and not have any codified morals thrust upon them.  if you want to be polyamorous, go for it.  if you want to be monogamous, go for it.  it's not anybody else's place to question the players.  if your PC has a problem with monogamy or polygamy, that's fine.  just kill the ones who offend you.

[sleepyhead]

Gay male character are already more rare in game than lesbian character.  This is because there is an obvious group of male players in the community that  play female characters and clearly prefer to make them hardcore lesbians.

This is a tangent, but I want to say that people are pretty open minded in this game, really, and I have received no lack of male attention as my male PCs.

[Veselka]

Gay male character are already more rare in game than lesbian character.  This is because there is an obvious group of male players in the community that  play female characters and clearly prefer to make them hardcore lesbians.

This is a tangent, but I want to say that people are pretty open minded in this game, really, and I have received no lack of male attention as my male PCs.

True for me as well. It seems eternally ambiguous if new male friends are hitting on my PC or just want to be friends.

[sleepyhead]

Gay male character are already more rare in game than lesbian character.  This is because there is an obvious group of male players in the community that  play female characters and clearly prefer to make them hardcore lesbians.

This is a tangent, but I want to say that people are pretty open minded in this game, really, and I have received no lack of male attention as my male PCs.

True for me as well. It seems eternally ambiguous if new male friends are hitting on my PC or just want to be friends.

I am hitting on you.