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Comment by hnthrowaway6543 | Hacker News Reader

> How Did Polyamory Become So Popular?

Housing prices. Seriously.

Polyamory is on the rise, and divorces are at a 50-year low[0]. This isn't a coincidence.

Where a couple would have divorced in the past, it now is financially infeasible in many cases. Living with a partner you're no longer compatible sucks, but not being able to afford rent sucks worse. So couples are pulling out all the stops to be not-divorced, including looking for other partners and keeping a marriage-in-name-only.

[0] https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-us-divorce-rate-has-hit-a-50-...

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That's a fairly dark view and I think a misunderstanding of what polyamory is. Couples looking to non-monogamy to solve their relationship issues is not what polyamory is, that's not healthy. Non-monogamy != Polyamory, ethical or otherwise. While polyamory takes many forms, all of them include mutual respect and communication between partners. Polyamory is having love for one or more individuals and actively being in a relationship with those individuals. I don't think you can ever expect one person to be everything, and I think for some polyamory is an alternative to leaving needs unfulfilled.

You're gatekeeping a lot here. I realize that some poly people are much more dedicated to the lifestyle and truly believe in being able to maintain multiple partners. But there's no way to distinguish between that and the "we've been married for 3 years but we're turning poly" case, nor do you or I have the authority to say that's not really polyamory.

You're right, I could have worded that better. I was trying to battle the stigma that polyamory is sanctioned infidelity.

"Sanctioned infidelity" is not a stigma, it's a reality. While a select few may practice as they preach, most would rather a license that enables them to cheat without social consequence. The NYTimes marketed polyamory-as-cheating in a highly visible article way back when: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/magazine/is-an-open-marri...

It drew some backlash from the few happy polyamorous couples who were interviewed and didn't fit that reality: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-representation-worksor-do...

It appears that you're simultaneously admitting that the article excluded information that did not fit the narrative they wanted as well as using it in your own narrative? It sounds like the article has issues like the threads article.

I believe stigma is a function of societal views and norms. In America anything besides the nuclear family with a married male and female parent is still stigmatized. I believe we can largely thank religious influence for that. Stigma is a reality, and the stigma I was referring to was that anything besides that male<->female relationship is often deemed incompatible with "moral" living.

>> Polyamory is having love for one or more individuals and actively being in a relationship with those individuals.

Shouldn’t “one or more” be “more than one”? Or else there’s a whole lot more polyamorous folks out there…

Also childless families. Without children a marriage has very little value. You can experiment as much as you like and the only risk is to what? Loose your appartment? It’s not even remotely comparable to the drama of the divorce with kids

This really reinforces my belief that all social changes, big and small, have economical and technological underpinnings.

I see the correlation but I don’t think I buy the causation on this one. Evidence required.

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