Polyamory perspective on internet porn?

Of course it's about love. But, you know, I can really love salmon, but it doesn't mean I should only eat salmon. I can also eat some potatoes here and there, even though I only like potatoes, if I want to, without being a bad person.

Also, love can be sort of fluid. If you grow to love someone slowly, then there is a period before that where you don't love them, for instance, and you're not being a horrible person by not loving them right away. What you're doing is enjoying the process of falling in love.

You can't force love, and since love can be intense, you're going to love some things, but not all things, and that's okay.
 
Polyamory IS about love! Isn't it???? Translation: Poly = "many" + amor = "love"

Maybe I'm in the wrong place. :confused:

If I had to guess, I would say Michelle's point was that a system based on loving relationships doesn't get suddenly invalidated just because not everthing you do is motivated by love. Obviously you shouldn't act from a place of cruelty or unthinking greed or dishonesty, but being poly doesn't mean you can't have casual sex (or watch porn, to bring it around to the original topic) from time to time as well.

If I work for a nonprofit I don't get kicked out for going on a purely splurgey shopping spree, and if I'm poly I don't get kicked out for having a sexual encounter that's just for fun.

That's my take on it anyways. There's a big movement out there to take the shame out of the word "slut"... because if you're not harming anyone why should it matter if you have a good time?... and I don't see poly as the same as that by any stretch, but I also certainly don't see it as incompatible with either.
 
I like our complementary metaphors, Michelle. :)

And good point about the fact that sex and love don't always come in a specific order. My relationship with Gia and Eric started as fun, casual sex between friends and has grown into one of the deepest relationships i've ever had.

I think the key thing to understanding the role of casual sex in polyamory, if you should choose to engage in it, is that in, say, swinging, love is expressly "forbidden" (as if you could prevent such a thing), whereas polys tend to acknowledge love not only as a possibility but as something to be embraced if you should find it.
 
I'm sure that if anyone is out of place here, it would be me.

Fortunately for the people who are poly-love purists, i do not identify as "poly", so you need not worry that i am tainting your label. You all go right on having sex only with people you are in love with. I'm not trying to get you to do anything you don't want to do. If you can't stand sharing this forum with folks that do things you do not choose for yourself, then there are choices available to you. Pick one.
 
People are describing situations where they have sex first then fall in love. What about when you have sex and don't even WANT to know the person very well outside of the sex? For example, i used to have sex with this one guy who i am insanely attracted to but get the feeling that if we knew each other better, we wouldn't like each other much, and it would ruin the fun we could have.

This is very very un-poly, but it is also not very "swinger-ish" of me either. Am i just totally hopeless? I may sound like a something-something-whatever-whatever, but i do have 2 long-term relationships with people i "love" that you don't hear me complaining about constantly on here, so i must have figured out how to do something right.
 
Yes, and, to return to the topic of the thread, most of us do watch porn and we're not *in love* with the porn. It's just something fun we do.

I think it's cool to have a mix, and you can call it whatever you want.
 
I don't think it's unpoly of you to have extremely casual, near anonymous sex in the way you described, NK, because it has nothing to do with poly, really.

Not identifying as poly, now that might be "unpoly". :)

I am curious though... if, to your extreme shock, you had somehow fallen in love with hot-but-incompatible-sextoy guy (just imagine with me here)... would it have ruined your life and your other relationships? Or could you have found a way to have him in your life, even if only as an emotionally-close tertiary partner, that didn't screw up everything else and was honest?
 
I don't think it's unpoly of you to have extremely casual, near anonymous sex in the way you described, NK, because it has nothing to do with poly, really.

Not identifying as poly, now that might be "unpoly". :)

I am curious though... if, to your extreme shock, you had somehow fallen in love with hot-but-incompatible-sextoy guy (just imagine with me here)... would it have ruined your life and your other relationships? Or could you have found a way to have him in your life, even if only as an emotionally-close tertiary partner, that didn't screw up everything else and was honest?

I cannot imagine falling in love with this person and having him as a partner without it screwing up my life. I would take responsibility for the choices i'd make, but i cannot imagine being in love with sex toy guy nor imagine him in love with me, at least not without one or both of us being so changed that we might as well not be who we are. On top of that, he is the type who has "monogamous" relationships until the girl gets tired of him chasing other pussy. I already know all this and wouldn't expect it to be any other way.

Right now, the only problem is that i want more and i'm not getting it. That is something i can handle.
 
. . . most of us do watch porn . . .
Most of us? Who is the "us" that you mean? People who are poly? People who frequent this board? How do you know that the majority of whatever group you're referring to watches porn? Because that's quite a statement! I'm not picking on you, I'm just curious if you're basing that on a study or survey or your own observation...

What about when you have sex and don't even WANT to know the person very well outside of the sex? . . . This is very very un-poly, but it is also not very "swinger-ish" of me either. Am i just totally hopeless?
Wouldn't it just be considered Open to have a fuck buddy?

Not identifying as poly, now that might be "unpoly". :)
I don't ID as poly either.
 
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I know this thread has gone into 'off topic' category on the surface, but I think it still relates to the porn-topic, as how we are in our daily interactions, can affect how we view porn. They are connected.

Here is something I discovered over the weekend. The term 'lovers' and its actual meaning :

'Could we go back to having lovers?

The difference between lovers and friends with benefits isn’t that having a lover lasts longer. From what I can glean from all the books, the relationship with a lover was fundamentally doomed, and everyone knew that going in. The difference is that there was supposed to be emotion in the scenario. People were, in fact, supposed to revel in the emotions. Part of the fun of being lovers – whether it’s of The Bridges of Madison County variety or the Paolo and Francesca variety – is that, for the time the relationship was occurring, you were expected to care intensely about the other person.

Of course, that emotion can boil over in negative ways. But at least with a lover you’ll be permitted to share your emotions, even if you’ve both agreed early on that you’re not going to end up together and will continue seeing other people. And besides, in a friends with benefits relationship, where the default emotional setting seems to be “show no emotion for fear of seeming too intense” – well, it all boils over anyway. Eventually, someone is going to show up drunk at your doorstep screaming and crying “why don’t you love me?” You just don’t get to make passionate declarations about how this other person is your sun and moon and stars first. And those declarations seem exciting and cool and something worth reminiscing with your grandchildren about one day.

Saying “then he stood me up for two hours so he could play x-box with his friends and I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to seem ‘crazy’” doesn’t have the same ring to it.

To hell with friends with benefits. Let’s bring back all the emotions. All the emotions that accompany lust with an inappropriate person, anyway.

Or, you could just date.'


- Google ; 'Lets forget friends with benefits'

------------------------------------------------

I do not identify as 'poly' either, and havent for a long while now, but because FWB and FB are seen in various manners, I was looking up other avenues.

We need to remember that 'love' can be NSA too. It`s rare, but you can love someone without wanting anything with them, or from them in a tangible way.

You can also have fwb, a designed relationship, and not want love.

- Love is a choice for some people. While others feel persuaded by it.
- Swingers are not the anti-christ for gawd sakes. There as as many ways to do swinging, as there is poly. Don`t believe me ? head over to the swinger board, and see all the stories of frustration, from people not able to find what they are looking for. They aren`t sexual robots.
- You can have consensual, casual sex, and not be incapable of loving.
- You can be loving, and not want casual sex.

I find a wide variety of relationships interest me. I also find a wide variety of porn interests me. I can get off on vanilla porn, if I think the people are really into each other. I can also get off on the rough, casual, dirty sex. Hell, the Houton 500 ( 620) left me fascinated ! To each their own.

Basically, find what works for you, and then find compatible porn to diddle to.
But stop the holier-then-thou approach to life, love, and porn material.

Nuff said.
 
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Apologies to the swinger community if I misrepresented them. I suppose I should have said that I've heard that in some swinging situations, love is expressly forbidden. I actually know next to nothing about their culture/practices.
 
To hell with friends with benefits. Let’s bring back all the emotions. All the emotions that accompany lust with an inappropriate person, anyway.

I agree with that sentiment :). As to "inappropriate person", why does a lover have to be inappropriate? Anyway, trying to connect this all with porn; would anyone agree with me that you could feel love for someone you've seen in some porn video, never having seen anything of the person other then the video and having no real way of contacting them either (because who knows where the original source of the material is, and ofcourse not really sure if they'd want to be contacted anyway)?

Now, I fully agree that the current 'porn trade' has a lot of dark sides and all of that.. but I do think that it could be improved on.

I think that the porn trade exists in its current form because of society's aversion to being open about their sexuality; there is a high demand for this, atleast from males, and so that's what we get. I think that something like polyamory is a great solution... trying to connect seemingly disparate elements here that I don't think are so disparate.. anyway...
 
porn

my take on internet porn is that it's perfectly fine unless you are replacing sex or time spent with your sweeties with the porn. personally, i find most porn to be tacky and fake, and i don't think it's worth the potential computer worms, but each to their own. i'd certainly watch porn with my sweetie if that's what s/he wanted to do.

i don't see how it could be morally wrong.
 
my take on internet porn is that it's perfectly fine unless you are replacing sex or time spent with your sweeties with the porn.

Makes sense. I've personally found that I've been most interested in it when I'm single (which happens to be most of the time) or when my relationship isn't working (happened near the end of my relationship with my ex girlfriend).

personally, i find most porn to be tacky and fake,

I agree. And as to the rest, it's hard to find something where the people involved don't seem somewhat forced to be there for some reason, whether it's monetary or otherwise.

and i don't think it's worth the potential computer worms, but each to their own.

I think that apple computers are relatively immune to such things; you seem to literally have to say that yes, you -would- like to be infected to get something :p.

i'd certainly watch porn with my sweetie if that's what s/he wanted to do.

Sounds cool.

i don't see how it could be morally wrong.

Man, you should have seen how things got at the previous poly forum I was at, laugh :p. The issue of sex trafficking came up... yes, it exists, yes, it's bad, no, I'm not sure if some of the porn I've seen contains some of this.. but I don't pay for any of the visual kind (I pay for a subscription to a site focusing on erotic literature from time to time).. yes there is click throughs, but as I mentioned to the person who apparently strongly disagreed with me (something I'm fairly sure about now that I've been removed from the group), there is a potential upside to all of this as well; most of the time, when we hear about the poverty of others, it's something that's intangential. I think there's got to be a way of turning this around; I think that in the future, more porn sites will focus on how the porn workers are treated, and people who really care will go to said sites. I was actually agreeing with this person concerning this point but for some reason, I was removed anyway.. oh well.
 
Well, ipso facto, masturbation involves self love, if you're doing it right. It could also involve love for your partner(s), if you think of them while jilling off.

Magdlyn,

Jilling off? That's a term I've never heard, but I guess it makes sense if a female is talking about self-love....

Cindi
 
Magdlyn,

Jilling off? That's a term I've never heard, but I guess it makes sense if a female is talking about self-love....

Cindi

I'd never heard of it before either, but apparently it's well established; just google "jilling off", you'll see it's even got its own entry in the urban dictionary ;-).
 
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