Broody men, Jealousy, and Poly

trueRiver

New member
I am a little confused by the interaction of two parts of me.

I am broody: I want to have children, I want to be part of my children's upbringing, and it is irrationally important to me to know that some/all of the children I am bringing up are related to me genetically.

On the other hand, I have never really been jealous of partners wanting to be with other partners or (in the few times it has actually happened) of them actually being with other partners.

But where these two points collide is where children are concerned. Suppose (and there is nobody specific in mind when I say this) suppose I get together with XX, (XX is the genetic code for female, of course), and we agree to have children, and we agree to be poly, and suppose she wants relationships with other blokes....

Thinking of this, I start to get where the whole monogamous culture comes from. Like, to be sure who my kids are, I will just enslave half the human race and make sure other blokes don't sleep with 'my' breeding partners. Seems like overkill, and more than a little unfair, but I do see the motivation.

I am sure monogamy is not the answer, but...

Like, OK, so we adopt fluid boundaries, the idea being XX can have sex with other guys without getting pregnant... Yes, but then what if the contraceptive fails... Automatic abortion? that sounds really icky to me...

Or do we say that XX can't have sex with fertile blokes while we are trying for a baby? Is that a fair thing for me to insist on?

How would some of you poly ladies here feel if your bf asked that in those circumstances? You can have sex with other fellas but not risk pregnancy?

Is this horrible and sexist to want the kind of certaintly over who my children are that women get automatically (IVF and other artificial aids excepted) ? Or is it anti-sexist as it undermines patriarchy right at its roots?

Ultimately, this is one of those poly-specific questions that do not arise for monos, but that I will need to discuss with someone one day (at least, that I very much *hope* to have the need to discuss with someone ...), but I'd appreciate any thoughts, theories, ideas, and experiences anyone else has on this.
 
You may want to read about the Na of China. Very interesting people. I discovered them through a scholarly review on JStor of the book, A Society without Fathers or Husbands: The Na of China (I have not bought the book yet). Here are some tidbits from the review (publication is American Ethnologist):

The Na have shocked Han Chinese ethnologists
by not having marriage; rather, they practice
visiting relations -- consensual sexual relations
in which both partners remain members
of their natal households and never form an
economic or social union recognizable as
marriage. Na men visit their partners in the
evening and return home by morning to mothers,
aunts, uncles, and siblings, to join in their
own household's work. Either partner can end
a relationship at any time, and both can take
other lovers during or between longer-term
relationships.

In Na matrilineal households, the father is
considered socially unimportant, and, prior to
the Na's inclusion in the communist state, his
identity was often unknown.

The Na share an understanding, albeit flexible,
of the family as the blood or adopted members
of the household; they see the family as central
to their emotional, economic, and social existence
. . . it is because the Na believe that families should
be stable and harmonious that they do not base
family structure on romantic relationships. These
Na say that love for family members is enduring,
whereas passion is fleeting.​

Just makes one think a bit about what's important.


PS - I think of the word "broody" as meaning moody, gloomy, sullen, etc., as in someone who's constantly brooding and occupied with dark thoughts. I didn't realize there was a second meaning to the word until your post prompted me to look it up. But then, I don't know anything about chickens!
 
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I can answer this very directly, because it relates to my recent life experience.

I have a husband and a thing going on the side with another man, Sven.

My husband and I were trying to conceive when things got hot and heavy with Sven. I immediately started using birth control with both men for safety reasons, so procreative sex was put on hold. That went on for a few months, and then I stopped having sex with the Sven temporarily. At that point, I began having unprotected sex with my husband again. That way, there was no question of paternity, because on the cycle I conceived, I had sex only with one man. After I became pregnant, I resumed having sex with both men.

If your potential XX partner is poly, she'll probably be having sex with other men. But it probably won't be too much to ask for her to hold off for a few months while you try to conceive. In fact, you could do it like me: a few months of trying, a few months of break, and a few months of trying again. That way, she could even maintain her current partners, who probably won't mind taking just a month off here and there. If you and your potential XX partner have fertility problems, however, and it takes many months or years to conceive, this approach may cause strain on your poly arrangements eventually.

In fact, she need not even take the whole month off. I have irregular cycles, so it is not possible for me to pinpoint ovulation. That meant that I nixed outside sex for entire cycles at a time. But if your future XX has regular cycles and charts them, she will be able to pinpoint ovulation. She can have sex only with you until she ovulates, then give it a nice wide safety window of, say, a week after that. That still leaves her one week at the end of her cycle each month where it is not possible for her to become pregnant, and she could pursue outside sexual contact in that last week.
 
You may want to read about the Na of China.
...
Very interesting people. I discovered them through a scholarly review on JStor of the book, A Society without Fathers or Husbands: The Na of China

er, no thanks. The review snippets you quoted suggest that their culture totally invalidates men who feel as I do.

I do not feel that my gender should prevent me having a parental relationship with the children who carry my genes: the idea that this privelege only extends to women stikes me as profundly androphobic, shades of the 'utopian' ideas Sarah Gearhart was writing in the 70s/80s, ideas that to me are profoundly distopian.

... I think of the word "broody" as meaning moody, gloomy, sullen, etc., as in someone who's constantly brooding and occupied with dark thoughts. I didn't realize there was a second meaning to the word until your post prompted me to look it up. But then, I don't know anything about chickens!

It is quite common in the UK to refer to women who are suddenly facing 'the biological clock' and desperate to have children. Using the phrase 'broody men' is less common, but not unique to me.

Met a man on the tube [subway] the other day, five month baby in snuggle carrier. Said 'i'm so envious, i'm the original broody man' and he replied 'me too'. He does most of the childcare, as his wife is more career focussed.

I am curious, nycindie, as to why you think the contribution to childcare by men like him (and hopefully in future by me) is less important than matrilineal care? I see this as a reverse-sexist mistake by another culture, not as an idea to emulate.
 
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The quote leaves out one important part of the equation... since the men are residing in their mother's houses along with their siblings, a man becomes the "father" to his sister's children, sharing in childcare and being a family. They are not cut off from the next generation.

He still gets to bring up kids. Just not his own (because who knows which are his own?). In terms of genetics, though, he is guaranteed to share genes with his sister's children.
 
er, no thanks. The review snippets you quoted suggest that their culture totally invalidates men who feel as I do.

"Totally invalidates?" It's just a different and older world-view. I think it has a lot of value and interest, given the high divorce rate and all the dead beat dads out there in our Western culture. Certainly in some groupings we have today, where baby daddies are common (spread their seed and split), the mother, her mother and father, her sisters and brothers, hired daycare workers, school teachers, etc., are doing this anyway! I'm sure you've heard the saying, it takes a village.

I do not feel that my gender should prevent me having a parental relationship with the children who carry my genes:

If you were Na, you'd have a relationship with your sisters' kids, who also carry the family genes.

... the idea that this privelege only extends to women stikes me as profundly androphobic, shades of the 'utopian' ideas Sarah Gearhart was writing in the 70s/80s, ideas that to me are profoundly distopian.

You're looking at it backwards, man. Matrilineal groupings are an older idea and practice than patriarchal ones.

I am curious, nycindie, as to why you think the contribution to childcare by men like him (and hopefully in future by me) is less important than matrilineal care? I see this as a reverse-sexist mistake by another culture, not as an idea to emulate.

Again, Na men (and others in similar communities) would have plenty of opportunity for childcare, with their nieces, nephews and grandchildren. There would be no worries about caring for "another man's child" as the children would be seen as members of the tribe, not members of a small nuclear family. You could also look at it this way, were your SO to get pregnant by another man in your poly tangle.
 
The quote leaves out one important part of the equation... since the men are residing in their mother's houses along with their siblings, a man becomes the "father" to his sister's children, sharing in childcare and being a family. They are not cut off from the next generation.

He still gets to bring up kids. Just not his own (because who knows which are his own?). In terms of genetics, though, he is guaranteed to share genes with his sister's children.

That was the point I was making -- that it isn't important whose seed the children come from (that doesn't mean the men are not important to the culture, mind you, just that it doesn't matter which children are theirs). In that communal culture, the men don't rule the households nor have any ownership over the women or their offspring, because they don't even know who they've fathered, and that information is not integral for the community to thrive and function well. The women who have children raise them with the help of their siblings, including the men, and family is preserved that way. That enables a separation between familial love and sexual love/passion, which frees the adults to take on as many lovers as they wish without recrimination. A rather inspiring and interesting correlation, I think!

I think it is a lesson for many people in contemporary so-called "advanced" society who are so focused on paternity issues that millions of children are waiting to be adopted, yet couples will focus (and spend tens of thousands of dollars) on fertility drugs and artificial insemination just to make sure their bloodline continues. If I wanted to love and raise a child, I don't need to limit that love to only my own.
 
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...it isn't important whose seed the children come from (that doesn't mean the men are not important to the culture, mind you, just that it doesn't matter which children are theirs).

it matters to me, and to many men. The fact that it "doesn't matter" to the culture is a way of denying men in that culture the possibility of even thinking whether this is something that matters to them (like making Gay people or Poly people invisible in our culture)

The fact that some cultures make that unattainable is as unacceptable to me as the way our culture tries to make poly unacceptable. In my view, when a culture forces ideas that are unacceptable to a significant proportion of its people (even if that is a minority) then it is the culture that should change, not the individuals.

Does a particular culture exist to serve its people, or do the people exist to serve the culture? The answer to that question determines, for me, whether the culture is oppressive or empowering.

"Totally invalidates?" It's just a different and older world-view. ...

It is an older world view, certainly. It is not a "just different" view, any more than black slavery could be described as a "just different" way of looking at race. It is an unfair view from the past.

It does matter to me to know who my children are.

Please accept that. What I do with that feeling is up for discussion, and I am open to suggestions, that is why |I posted the thread.

I am not open to the idea that I am wrong to feel what I feel. I am not open to the suggestion that I should think about what is more important to you, rather than what feels immensely important to me.

And if you criticise "dead beat dads" who don't care about their kids (and yes there are too many of them), why are you reluctant to understand what motivates those of us who very much do want to be involved: why do you prefer to tell us what we should want, rather than building from what we do want?
 
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Or do we say that XX can't have sex with fertile blokes while we are trying for a baby? Is that a fair thing for me to insist on?

How would some of you poly ladies here feel if your bf asked that in those circumstances? You can have sex with other fellas but not risk pregnancy?

You can state your preferences but, ultimately, it's up to the woman what she does with her body. All you can do is be prepared financially and legally to handle whatever occurs.

I have some questions: If you had two girlfriends, how would you handle it if they both became pregnant? What if one of them was married? What kind of control could you expect to exert over that situation?
 
it matters to me, and to many men.
Because you've been taught to believe that it matters by patriarchal society. A child needs love to thrive, and a loving community meets that need.

I would suspect that, if not for the fact that the Na know which bellies children pop out of, it probably wouldn't matter who the mothers are either. This is about creating family and caring for all the children communally, not just the ones who came out of a particular man's seed.
 
I would suggest that when you try she uses physical contraception with any other partners, and none with you. When she gets pregnant, assume it is your kid. If you really want to make sure, get a paternity test done at birth.
Since you said you want some of the kids you raise to be yours biologically but not necessarily all of them, if the kid happens to be genetically someone else's, rince and repeat. At least one of your kids should be yours biologically, and the chances of her getting pregnant from someone else when trying with you and trying to avoid with others are very low.

Other ways to limit the chances are to avoid reproductive sex with other partners while trying to get pregnant with you. So, oral sex, manual sex, anal sex, but no intercourse. That could be a middle ground that would allow for sexual satisfaction, especially if you try for a long time, and would negate the risks of getting pregnant. As to whether it's fair, I don't know, ask them what they think. It's the kind of decision that should be made with everyone involved, after all.

I can't pretend to understand why it matters to you to share genes with the children you raise, after all, I don't want any biological children, but since it's important to you, I think you should make sure to let the other people in your poly circle know right away, because it's probably important. I think another option would be to just let things happen and then take paternity tests if you and another man both want kids, because if the women who are part of the circle want several children, chances are one would be yours. But it seems to be something you really, really care about and don't want to take chances on, so...

Either way, good luck.
 
...
I have some questions: If you had two girlfriends, how would you handle it if they both became pregnant? What if one of them was married?

Firstly, I'd be delighted. I'd spend time with both kids, sometimes both together, sometimes apart. I'd *want* to be contributing around 50% of the childcare for each child.

Secondly, what would I expect? In an ideal world, do you mean? Or in our current disfunctional anti-poly world?

In an ideal world, I'd expect all fathers to have the right to share their children's upbringing, irrespective of who else the mother was in a relationship with. Fathers who refused to do so would (after a reasonable time) lose those rights, or need court process to retrieve the situation later. If there was an ongoing reasonably permanent polyfamily, then I'd expect all the polyparents to have rights too.

In our world, if I had another child with a married woman, I know what would happen, I have been there (thouigh not in a two pregancies at once scenario)

Secondary in a vee, planned pregnancy, when mum changes mind about my involvement in our child's regular care, and just limit me to a few houirs a week, I had no rights at all beyond those few hours. Because mum is married, husband has more rights than I do because that is the relationship the English state wants to encourage. He had "parental responsibility", I did not.

What kind of control could you expect to exert over that situation?
My question here is about what the parties negotiate to happen up front, what is reasonable to ask for, what is unreasonable. It is not about "control" or "ownership". I would, however, assume that everyone was negotiating in good faith, not just figuring that they can agree to anything becasue the law will not enforce it.

I am not sure what you meant by "control" - but I am not going to discuss this further with someone who just wants to tell me what they think I should want

All you can do is be prepared financially and legally to handle whatever occurs.
an accurate statement of English law.

I do not want to sidetrack my own thread any further here, but if you want to start a new thread to discuss whether that legal approach situation is right or just, I will likely join in.

I am not asking for legal advice here, but advice on the human, relationshippy side of the question.

I would like to think that I could trust fellow polys to keep to agreements that have been made. Maybe that is naive.... but I reckon there must be a better chance with polys than with the mainstream.
 
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Because you've been taught to believe that it matters by patriarchal society.

nycyndie, I find your persistence with this personally offensive. It is not the topic of this thread to discuss whether men *should* be broody, but how those of us who actually *are* can combine that with being poly. You are of course welcome to start a new thread, but please stop hijacking mine.

But in fact, to correct your incorrect and very presumptious assumption: I was taught to believe that by my feminist mother who believed that equality meant men could take an equal role in parenting, and should do so whenever possible, who encouraged by broody tendencies from around age 3 when she first identified them, and with some delight I think.

She was, of course, from a different generation of feminists from those who subsequently sought to exclude men from childcare.
 
...I can't pretend to understand why it matters to you to share genes with the children you raise, ...

I don't understand it myself, just like I don't understand why I like chocolate, to take a trivial example. But it is a fact about me. Thank you for accepting this and not trying to change it.
 
It seems to me that ideally you will find partners who share your ideals. The way your original post was worded gave me the knee-jerk reaction of "it's her body and her life and pretty much up to her what she does". You speak a lot of control of who she is allowed to see and what she is allowed to do.

I assume that you're not going to meet someone and immediately work on impregnating them. So there's some time to see if your goals match. There are ways to prevent pregnancy. If you and the woman who you are with have agreed that the 2 of you will be the biological parents of a child I would suggest barrier methods with other partners as well as charting her basal body temperature. That way she can have sex with the apropriate partner on the days that she is fertile.
 
It seems to me that ideally you will find partners who share your ideals. The way your original post was worded gave me the knee-jerk reaction of "it's her body and her life and pretty much up to her what she does". You speak a lot of control of who she is allowed to see and what she is allowed to do. ...

hi Derbylicious,

This is very helpful feedback.

What was it about my original post that gave you that reaction?

If you can say more I'd appreciate it because that is exactly what I do *not* want, that is I neither want to *be* controlling, nor do I want to *come* *across* as controlling (two overlapping issues).

I can understand the pull towards being controlling in this kind of situation, and can find those tendencies in myself, and part of my self-perplexity at present is how to remain true to what I want, without at the same time becoming a control freak in order to (try to) get it.

Does that make sense to you?
 
Like, OK, so we adopt fluid boundaries, the idea being XX can have sex with other guys without getting pregnant... Yes, but then what if the contraceptive fails... Automatic abortion? that sounds really icky to me...

Or do we say that XX can't have sex with fertile blokes while we are trying for a baby? Is that a fair thing for me to insist on?

How would some of you poly ladies here feel if your bf asked that in those circumstances? You can have sex with other fellas but not risk pregnancy?

This is the part that came across as sounding controlling. Like I said it was my knee-jerk reaction. Especially the part with the agreement of not having sex with fertile men, that would really cut down on her potential dating pool and the potential to let love develop where it will.
 
This is the part that came across as sounding controlling.... Especially the part with the agreement of not having sex with fertile men, that would really cut down on her potential dating pool and the potential to let love develop where it will.

Thanks for your clarity. My thinking here is that it would only be for a time, not for ever, of course. Does that make it feel less controlling?

Do you have any suggestions about how to raise these kind of ideas, or the ones that Tonberry made earlier, so it comes over as 'this is what I would really like' (negotiation) rather than 'this is what you must do' (control).

I have had experience in the past (not on this issue) of attempts at equal negotiation being received as controlling demands, so any more hints you can give me will be useful.
 
nycyndie, I find your persistence with this personally offensive. It is not the topic of this thread to discuss whether men *should* be broody, but how those of us who actually *are* can combine that with being poly. You are of course welcome to start a new thread, but please stop hijacking mine.

River~~, your thread is in the General Discussions area, and as such is open for discussion, which may meander from the subject on occasion. If you want a thread protected from opinions counter to your own, then there's the blogs & stories section. As it stands, NYC's comments of patriarchal upbringing are quite relevant to your question if you take the time to look at the root of your feelings and the society around you that reinforces them. You started talking about your confusion, and asked for thoughts and opinions, and NYC's been offering some of what you asked for...maybe just not the ones you were expecting. If you're feeling offended, perhaps ask yourself what's causing that instead of accusing another of hijacking.

I have had experience in the past (not on this issue) of attempts at equal negotiation being received as controlling demands, so any more hints you can give me will be useful.
NYC's example of the Na provides a matriarchal example for comparison, and an alternative view of how the broody need for men to raise children who are genetically related to them can be fulfilled, and with a greater degree of certainty than trying to figure out paternity.

Regardless of the way the Na live, western society is still a Patriarchal Hierarchy, with the passing of property, names, etc, running along paternal lines. The problem being is that up to recently paternity is impossible to determine with absolute certainty, so there's a history of several thousand years of various attempts to control the reproductive capacities of women in the vain attempts of men to ensure their progeny was genetically their own.
Burka's, chastity belts, female circumcision, religiously mandated monogamy, double standards surround adulters vs adultresses, are just a few examples.

I posted links to a Gwynne Dyer documentary here, which is a good backgrounder on where all this patriarchal nonsense comes from, and the consequences of which surround almost everything we do in this society.

So, if you're wondering why your negotiations about ensure paternity take a turn towards accusations of control, it's probably because men have been trying to do as you have for a few millenia, and it's not always appreciated by the women who do the heavy lifting of carrying the baby's to term, give up their bodies to breastfeeding, etc...no matter how politely you may be about asking compared to some ancestors...like say Henry VIII.
 
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