The APA Tackles "Consensual Non-Monogamy"

[smac97]

Wow:

Quote

The American Psychological Association recently announced that it will set up a task force. (Oh goodie!) This one will promote awareness and inclusivity about “consensual non-monogamy.” That is, multiple concurrent sexual partners, also sometimes known as polyamory. What your grandma used to call “cheating.”

This Is Not a Parody

Here is how the task force describes its mission. This description comes directly from the task force website, and is not a parody.

The Task Force on Consensual Non-Monogamy promotes awareness and inclusivity about consensual non-monogamy and diverse expressions of intimate relationships. These include but are not limited to: people who practice polyamory, open relationships, swinging, relationship anarchy and other types of ethical, non-monogamous relationships.

Finding love and/or sexual intimacy is a central part of most people’s life experience. However, the ability to engage in desired intimacy without social and medical stigmatization is not a liberty for all. This task force seeks to address the needs of people who practice consensual non-monogamy, including their intersecting marginalized identities.

Whenever topics along these lines (free love / polyamory / swinging / open relationships, etc.) come up, one of the first thoughts that come to me is "how do the participants address the effects of such behaviors on their children?"

So, it turns out, does the author of the above article.  Read on:

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Children Come from the Stork

Please notice: the task force’s mission has absolutely nothing to say about the well-being of any children. You know, who might result from these “consensual non-monogamous” unions. Indeed, the underlying, but unspoken presumption is that there will be no children. Ever.

At the Ruth Institute’s recent Summit for Survivors of the Sexual Revolution, we heard the testimony of a man whose wife left him for another man. He recounted how his daughter had formerly crawled in bed with her parents when she got scared at night. When her mom acquired a new boyfriend? The little girl no longer felt quite right about it. There was something different about crawling into bed with her mommy and her new sex partner who is not her daddy. Go figure!

Well, yes.

Quote

Are Kids Safe and Happy? Does Anyone Care?

I challenge the APA to consider the outcome of human sex, which (since we are mammals) is human children. Just because all three adults agree to a sexual arrangement, does that make it safe and comfortable for kids? You may swear up and down that biological ties are animalistic primal superstitions. Taboo we should all cast aside in the name of “progress” and “freedom.” But will the little girl feel the same way?

And can any honest person believe that the risk of abuse from a mother’s new love interest is the same as the risk from the child’s biological father? The members of the APA aren’t scared of statistics, are they? Well all the statistics show where the highest risk of abuse for children comes from. A mother’s boyfriend who is unrelated to the child. How much higher a risk? According to one study, twenty times higher. 

The risk of abuse for children from mom's boyfriend is . . .  Twenty.  Times.  Higher.

And the APA is "promote{ing} awareness and inclusivity" of these arrangements.

The mind reels.

Quote

I once had a young law student approach me after a talk. He told me how awful it was for him to find his mother in bed with a parade of strange men. Whether the relationship is “consensual” was not particularly important to this young man. Let’s say Dad knows about it and approves. Will that lessen the emotional trauma? Is anyone asking whether the children consent?

This is a good question.  I've never bought been persuaded by the consent-of-the-participants-is-the-sole-metric-for-sexual-behavior concept.  There are too many variables in play.

But that's not the only good point raised by the author of this piece:

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Let’s Re-Make Human Nature, M’kay?

Maybe “stigma” is the only problem. We can re-engineer opinion so that goes away. People will no longer feel jealous of their sex partner’s other sex partners. Parents will no longer feel any preference for their own children. They will treat their own and their partners’ children interchangeably. Children will no longer care about the identity of their parents. And pigs shall fly.

We already know this is not true. While some stepfamilies get along fine, many have a tough time managing these very issues. Often these families think they are the only ones having problems. “If we were just cool enough and together enough like those people on TV, we could manage this. It must be our fault.”

Sexual revolutionaries like those in the APA seem to believe they can remake human nature. This is a fool’s errand. Even “old, outdated” studies show that we have known from the beginning. Divorce and remarriage and multi-partner fertility and cohabitation and non-marital childbearing are problematic. Why in the world would we think that “consensual non-monogamy” would be any less so? Mental health professionals used to believe that children deserved love and support from their parents. Now the APA is completely ignoring the impact of adult sexual behavior on children.

These are some very good points.

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Twisting the Arms of Weaker Partners

The APA’s position is that as long as sex is consensual, no one should pass negative judgement. In the #MeToo era, we have learned just how thin a reed “consent” can be. This idea has been a recipe for abuse across many sectors of society. Do we really believe that the more financially or socially powerful person in a relationship will not pressure his partner into accepting his sexual will? Including other partners? Is the APA planning to collude with him in describing this as “consensual?”

Well put.  Sexuality on its own is a very challenging aspect to life.  Now the APA is looking to legitimize "polyamory, open relationships, swinging, relationship anarchy and other types...", apparently without regard for the welfare of children who will be affected by such things, or the heightened risks to those children, or the substantial likelihood of some forms of coercion being introduced into marital relationships under the guise of "consent."

The Proclamation seems more relevant by the day.

Thoughts?

-Smac

[stemelbow]

All fairly good points against...the Mormon practice of polygamy, that polygamy that was supposedly not only sanctioned by God but thought to be the more divine of situations, when contrasted with monogamy.  

[smac97]

Just now, stemelbow said:

All fairly good points against...the Mormon practice of polygamy,

Way off topic.  Please take such meanderings elsewhere.

Thanks,

-Smac

[stemelbow]

10 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Way off topic.  Please take such meanderings elsewhere.

Thanks,

-Smac

I don't understand how.  This board is the Mormon Dialogue and Discussion Board and Mormon polygamy seems to be at least some form of Consensual Non-Monogamy (as I've always thought of it, with my Mormon upbringing, polygamy is non-monogamy if ever there was such, and it was always said that Mormon polygamy was consensual).  

Edited July 18, 2019 by stemelbow

[smac97]

8 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I don't understand how. 

It's a pretty easy thing.  I started this thread, so I get to decide it's parameters.  I am saying that polygamy off-topic.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Duncan]

My now former Dr. is into this except he calls it "anti-relationships" the stories he told me about his escapades are unreal and yes his two kids suffer

[Storm Rider]

Dang it! I could have turned this into a good attack on the Church and its history. Party-pooper, party-pooper. 

[Storm Rider]

51 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Wow:

Whenever topics along these lines (free love / polyamory / swinging / open relationships, etc.) come up, one of the first thoughts that come to me is "how do the participants address the effects of such behaviors on their children?"

So, it turns out, does the author of the above article.  Read on:

Well, yes.

The risk of abuse for children from mom's boyfriend is . . .  Twenty.  Times.  Higher.

And the APA is "promote{ing} awareness and inclusivity" of these arrangements.

The mind reels.

This is a good question.  I've never bought been persuaded by the consent-of-the-participants-is-the-sole-metric-for-sexual-behavior concept.  There are too many variables in play.

But that's not the only good point raised by the author of this piece:

These are some very good points.

Well put.  Sexuality on its own is a very challenging aspect to life.  Now the APA is looking to legitimize "polyamory, open relationships, swinging, relationship anarchy and other types...", apparently without regard for the welfare of children who will be affected by such things, or the heightened risks to those children, or the substantial likelihood of some forms of coercion being introduced into marital relationships under the guise of "consent."

The Proclamation seems more relevant by the day.

Thoughts?

-Smac

I concluded a long time ago that if the APA was taking on a stand on anything - then it is a good bet that most folks are going to be against it. They consistently demonstrate how educated individuals can evolve into idiots in a very short time given enough opportunity to study further. 

If the APA is going to put out any declaration of any kind, it should first be run through a group of mothers from the country; those with feet firmly planted in the soil. If it does not pass this group, then the APA would have nothing to say. 

Edited July 18, 2019 by Storm Rider

[smac97]

1 minute ago, Storm Rider said:

I concluded a long time ago that if the APA was taking on a stand on anything - then it is a good bet that most folks are going to be against it. They consistently demonstrate how educated individuals can evolve into idiots in a very short time given enough opportunity to study further. 

I never met my paternal grandfather.  He had a high school education, and spent his career as a rancher and, later, an auto mechanic.  My dad said one of his favorite bits of homespun wisdom was: "Never get so open-minded that your brain falls out."  Alas, I don't think he originated it.  See here:

Quote

Quoteinvestigator did the legwork and also cites another article researching the origin of the quote:

Quote

Let us keep our minds open, by all means, as long as that means keeping our sense of perspective and seeking an understanding of the forces which mould the world. But don’t keep your minds so open that your brains fall out! There are still things in this world which are true and things which are false; acts which are right and acts which are wrong, even if there are statesmen who hide their designs under the cloak of high-sounding phrases.

— Walter Kotschnig November 8, 1939

...

Tim Farley in his article does, however, note an earlier quote in a Yale Law Journal article by law professor Max Radin, “On Legal Scholarship,” http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/791732  ) that may have been a direct inspiration:

Quote

{Practical gentlemen} have a number of bitterly sarcastical comments on persons whose minds are so open that their brains fall out.

 

 

Anyway, the concept is valid, regardless of who first coined the turn of phrase.

And yes, it appears to have first been applied to well-educated but ultimately unwise individuals (that is . . . lawyers).

Thanks,

-Smac

[stemelbow]

21 minutes ago, smac97 said:

It's a pretty easy thing.  I started this thread, so I get to decide it's parameters.  I am saying that polygamy off-topic.

Thanks,

-Smac

Ok, have at it.  I guess I"ll sit back and watch determining whether the rest of the comments pose a good case against Mormon polygamy too.  So far every thing I've seen contributes a good case against it.  It'd be odd to watch faithful Mormons find opposition to something for reasons that most might accept as valid arguments against Mormon polygamy.  

Peace to you, good sir.  

[smac97]

3 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

Ok, have at it.  I guess I"ll sit back and watch determining whether the rest of the comments pose a good case against Mormon polygamy too. 

Thanks.  And feel free to start your own thread to examine that topic if you like.

3 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

So far every thing I've seen contributes a good case against it. 

Again, off topic.

3 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

It'd be odd to watch faithful Mormons find opposition to something for reasons that most might accept as valid arguments against Mormon polygamy.  

And again, off topic.

Thanks,

-Smac

[CV75]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Wow:

Whenever topics along these lines (free love / polyamory / swinging / open relationships, etc.) come up, one of the first thoughts that come to me is "how do the participants address the effects of such behaviors on their children?"

So, it turns out, does the author of the above article.  Read on:

Well, yes.

The risk of abuse for children from mom's boyfriend is . . .  Twenty.  Times.  Higher.

And the APA is "promote{ing} awareness and inclusivity" of these arrangements.

The mind reels.

This is a good question.  I've never bought been persuaded by the consent-of-the-participants-is-the-sole-metric-for-sexual-behavior concept.  There are too many variables in play.

But that's not the only good point raised by the author of this piece:

These are some very good points.

Well put.  Sexuality on its own is a very challenging aspect to life.  Now the APA is looking to legitimize "polyamory, open relationships, swinging, relationship anarchy and other types...", apparently without regard for the welfare of children who will be affected by such things, or the heightened risks to those children, or the substantial likelihood of some forms of coercion being introduced into marital relationships under the guise of "consent."

The Proclamation seems more relevant by the day.

Thoughts?

-Smac

D&C 123:12 comes to mind: "For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it."

Also, covenants trump sexuality for we can keep them no matter our capacity, orientation and choices in expressing it.

[stemelbow]

7 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Thanks.  And feel free to start your own thread to examine that topic if you like.

Again, off topic.

And again, off topic.

Thanks,

-Smac

I can't start a topic.  For some un-spoken reason, for no explained reason at all, I was put on permanent limited status here, years ago.  I can't start a topic, I can only post sometimes and in some threads, I randomly get booted from threads or am not allowed to post (sometimes before I even attempt to post), nor can I give or receive rep points.  

Funny, though, with all that mistreatment I still come around here some times, post and read up on what's happening with you all (normally when my heart is feeling full).  

Edited July 18, 2019 by stemelbow

[blueglass]

Just sharing some humor on this topic:

Official Declaration 1 (2013)

The Bible and the Book of Mormon teach that monogamy is God’s standard for marriage unless He declares otherwise (see 2 Samuel 12:7–8 and Jacob 2:27, 30).

for partii visit the other thread

Edited July 19, 2019 by blueglass

[Rivers]

Does anybody here think that polygamy, even when consensual, is an inherently immoral thing?  

[MustardSeed]

I have a lot of thoughts about this topic.  A whole lot. Some will respond to your specific invitations, some may not.  I will try to stay on topic but am happy to start a new thread if I do not. 

You might be simply shocked to learn how ridiculously common having multiple partners is. Whether consensual or not. We all know it happens but the rate at which it happens is mind boggling to me. 

Is not the APA mostly designed to ensure that Practicioners continue to get paid by insurance companies? It’s certainly no moral compass.  I think we are already deeply corrupt without APA influence.

Esther Perell is one of the foremost leaders of psychology today in this and other sex topics.  Her own open non judgemental attitude (she is European, which likely helps) I’m sure (IMO)has influenced many many others in the psych field to consider that perhaps there is more than one way of having happiness in relationships besides traditional marriage. A therapist’s job after all to a large degree requires the absence of judgement.  

My opinion **of the APA examining this topic** is “yeah, no surprise. It’s everywhere, and you’re only crazy if you do something that most people think is crazy.  So if tons of people are wearing Crocks it can no longer be considered insane.  But it’s still WRONG.”

Which brings me to my second opinion..*** on open relationships themselves**. I believe there’s most often coercion involved in the case of open marriage.  I do NOT have cfr to back this.  That is my own anecdotal opinion from every (there are many) open relationship I’ve known about.   I also don’t know of a case of open marriage that had longevity.  

As for children, nothing is better than stability and consistency for building self esteem for kids.  Having multiple partners, due to affairs, open marriage, serial relationships, you name it leaves kids more exposed to abuse and neglect.  (I do not have cfr for this, I suppose we can call it my opinion.).  I don’t know how other types of poly relationships stack up, I personally don’t know any polygamous families. But I don’t know any open marriages or children of people with multiple partners who are thriving. 

We are experiencing a sexual revolution unmatched by the 60s imo. 

  

Edited July 19, 2019 by MustardSeed

[smac97]

4 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

I have a lot of thoughts about this topic.  A whole lot. Some will respond to your specific invitations, some may not.  I will try to stay on topic but am happy to start a new thread if I do not. 

You might be simply shocked to learn how ridiculously common having multiple partners is. Whether consensual or not. We all know it happens but the rate at which it happens is mind boggling to me. 

Okay.  But frequency of conduct does not, in and of itself, convey legitimacy or morality to that conduct.

4 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

Is not the APA mostly designed to ensure that Practicioners continue to get paid by insurance companies?

See here:

Quote

One of the main roles that the APA plays is to help further psychology as a science. From the APA's official mission statement:

"The mission of the APA is to advance the creation, communication, and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people’s lives."

According to the official website of the American Psychological Association, the "APA seeks to advance psychology as a science, a profession, and as a means of promoting health, education, and human welfare."

I think the APA is off the rails.  Like the SPLC, it has strayed far from its original purpose.

4 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

Which brings me to my second opinion..*** on open relationships themselves**. I believe there’s most often coercion involved in the case of open marriage.  I do NOT have cfr to back this.  That is my own anecdotal opinion from every (there are many) open relationship I’ve known about.   I also don’t know of a case of open marriage that had longevity.  

That is my surmise as well.  Empirical data on this sure would be interesting.  Perhaps it's even worth a master's thesis or doctoral dissertation.

4 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

As for children, nothing is better than stability and consistency for building self esteem for kids.  Having multiple partners, due to affairs, open marriage, serial relationships, you name it leaves kids more exposed to abuse and neglect.  (I do not have cfr for this, I suppose we can call it my opinion.).  

The article quoted in the OP has some links that includes data on this stuff.

4 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

I don’t know how other types of poly relationships stack up, I personally don’t know any polygamous families.

I think there are a lot of factors going on in polygamous families that increase the risk of serious disfunction.

In the main, our pioneer ancestors were a deeply religious people, and strongly devoted to their faith both in thought and in practice.  In othe words, I think they were trying very hard to both "talk the talk" and "walk the walk."  In the aggregate, they were a good and decent people.  And yet they had substantial problems with practicing polygamy, some of which arose from external persecution/prosecution, but some which we must also attribute to the human weaknesses and foibles of the participants themselves.

In other words, even some of the best people around had a hard time making polygamy work.

Thanks,

-Smac

[MustardSeed]

8 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Okay.  But frequency of conduct does not, in and of itself, convey legitimacy or morality to that conduct

APA is not in the business of morality.   

And I agree that we can’t make something immoral , moral by increasing frequency. 

There are some things that were never immoral to begin with that once we admit that it’s totally common we can be ok with (ie. playing a game of p*ker with face cards is innocuous.) But imo this is not one of them. It hurts way too many people. 

[USU78]

4 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

APA is not in the business of morality.   

And I agree that we can’t make something immoral , moral by increasing frequency. 

There are some things that were never immoral to begin with that once we admit that it’s totally common we can be ok with (ie. playing a game of p*ker with face cards is innocuous.) But imo this is not one of them. It hurts way too many people. 

Alas {sigh} https://books.google.com/books/about/Homosexuality_and_American_Psychiatry.html?id=-LNxb_yVY4gC

[clarkgoble]

4 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

APA is not in the business of morality.   

The problem is that much of the APA's decisions are in fact rather heavily indexed to the public morality of the educated elite of America. The reason homosexuality became no longer seen as a mental illness wasn't tied to anything in the science after all. Rather it points directly to how much of their decision making has political roots. The main problem with the APA is that they say they aren't in the business of morality but merely are hiding the essentially moralistic thinking in such matters. If this was purely about objective science then things would be different. (In saying that I'm not saying their early treatment of homosexuality was correct - far from it. I'm saying that fundamentally their approach to the issues hasn't suddenly become scientific.)

[cinepro]

Quote

That is, multiple concurrent sexual partners, also sometimes known as polyamory. What your grandma used to call “cheating.”

As far as I know, "cheating" has always referred to non-consensual non-monogamy (where at least one of the partners doesn't know about the other(s)). 

This article seems to be describing something where everyone involved knows what's going on.

[smac97]

12 minutes ago, cinepro said:

As far as I know, "cheating" has always referred to non-consensual non-monogamy (where at least one of the partners doesn't know about the other(s)). 

A matter of perspective, I suppose.  If a teacher lets a student cheat on an exam, does that mean the student didn't cheat?

If a newspaper reporter consents to publish a false statement of fact given to him by a source, does that mean that the source didn't lie?

I have always looked on my marriage as a covenant involving three parties: me, my wife, and God.  God is, after all, the person to whom marital covenants are made.  Even outside the Church, marital vows appear to be given to both the spouse and to God.  If that's the case, then Spouse A cannot excuse infidelity by pointing to Spouse B's purported consent, since the infidelity is a breach of promises made to God as well (and Spouse B lacks standing to excuse Spouse A's breach to God).

12 minutes ago, cinepro said:

This article seems to be describing something where everyone involved knows what's going on.

The article also addresses the likelihood of "consent" being obtained with some element of coercion.

Jackie Kennedy likely knew about JFK's infidelities, but I don't think that somehow transmutes into her consenting to those infidelities (I'm not aware that she ever consented to JFK's philanderings, but I am open to correction on that point).

Thanks,

-Smac

[Maidservant]

I agree that it is important for a child that their parents remain their parents for their lifetime.  I am not certain this needs to strictly be two parents.  But, stability of who are the guidance and nest for the child--in childhood and beyond are important.  Is it the number (or gender) that is the problem?  Or is the lack of stability of which adults remain?  For example, let's say there were a parenting nest of three men and two women.  They stayed the parents and stayed a defined, concrete family for a lifetime.  Children were raised.  Again--is it the number, really?; or the level of stability?  (Not sure, as I haven't done a scientific study myself, but I tend to the latter.)

I am also wondering if parenting and co-parenting ought to be one consideration; and body intimacy a completely different consideration.  They often have different criteria and what goes well for one does not necessarily go well for another.  (Obviously all children's bodies are conceived from a body reproductive activity NOT necessarily 'intimacy' as such, experience; in fact, that reproduction could be very violative and traumatic.)  Point being, is that the choice to bring a child or children into the world ought to be very pro-active, and one ought to choose one's co-parents in light of the expected lifetime of parenting to be done and the ability to do it in harmony and stability; and one's desire to bed that co-parent is of little or no importance; rather than our current practice of choosing the cute one we are attracted to and barely a parenting conversation taking place; and which leads to multiple co-parents anyway due to divorce yet we insist on those broken households rather than-hey-combining them and making it MORE stable (potentially).  If someone doesn't want children, then that should never take place simply for going with society's flow.  In that case, for those childless, what choices could they make?

No family/parenting structure, and no adult-union structure, can compensate for the level of immaturity of a given individual.  Until all persons approach all relationships at the highest level of maturity will we ever know what will really work.  Versa, a high level of maturity IS what helps to determine structure and the experience within that structure; and the higher the maturity, the more structure options might very well be workable (across the society, but each individual will know what they themselves choose).

What kind of children might we raise if one woman, giving birth to one child, was supported by not one man (because what one man or woman can or ought to be made to support multiple children?) but by several safe, loving, mature men (and women having less children, farther apart, with greater mental emotional physical help from multiple stable family partners)?  We have the mirror image of that currently--where women and men exhaust themselves parenting--one man and one woman; or polygamy, one man with several women and massive amounts of children.  The idea that it is reasonable that two people, and two people only, raise one child much less a passel of them, is ludicrous to me; the only thing on its side is the weight of a thousand years of the scales on our eyes (and really the nuclear family ISN'T the previous model anyway).

Men, be safe for your women and children. And if you are, then it won't matter whose bed a child crawls into.  Men healed and mature and a state of godly love. (Women, too, but some of the earlier posts were worried about the adult man in the bed.)  And there are so many men who are safe.  My stepdad raised us as if we were his own children.  I never felt uncomfortable, body wise anyway (although of course I missed my biological dad).   My happiest moment was when both of my dads went to a cub scout pack meeting with us kids.  Both of the men were invested in their common children. What if that moment could have been a thousand moments? Who cares if my mom slept with both of them? (Serially.)  She's a grown woman and I can come to realize that without too much trauma.  Kids always have a little bit of disillusionment as they leave golden childhoods to realize what adulthood really is.

Maybe if we could really talk about our options--what they could be, what principles they might be based one (i.e. agency, support, freedom, love, etc), and how given options might and might not work, instead of the Great Taboo and fearing getting sidewise of a Grand Morality based in numbers that I don't really think is inherent in humanity.

[Calm]

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

If a teacher lets a student cheat on an exam, does that mean the student didn't cheat?

I think it is more like if a teacher defines the test as " open book", students can engage with references without being labeled a cheat as they have a legal and moral right to if they are keeping to the rules of what are allowed as sources.  As a teacher, they have the right (unless removed by their superiors such as happens with standardized tests) to determine the parameters of the test, just as couples or less traditional couplings have to a certain extent a right to define how they want their marriage(s) to look.

Now from experience, an openbook test is a poor indicator  of what has been learned, so just because something has been defined doesn't mean it works well.

Edited July 20, 2019 by Calm

[The Nehor]

On 7/19/2019 at 1:41 PM, cinepro said:

As far as I know, "cheating" has always referred to non-consensual non-monogamy (where at least one of the partners doesn't know about the other(s)). 

This article seems to be describing something where everyone involved knows what's going on.

I agree that it is not cheating. It is almost always destructive though and rarely ends well. Generally when a marriage is opened one party gets more “action” then the other (usually the reluctant partner) and the relationship explodes in jealousy as the person who opened it now demands monogamy again.

A few only bring in other partners only when together but this almost never works either. Romantic feelings form and jealousy rears it’s head. People want to belong to someone and to have someone belong to them. At its worst this is a codependent hell and at the best creates a powerful support structure that grows everyone into exaltation. Most are somewhere in between. This idea of “ownership” is anathema to our individualistic culture but we seem to crave it. Pretending this desire does not exist is foolish.

 

On a side note I admit I am curious how you can discuss consensual non-monogamy on an LDS board without bringing in polygamy which is textbook consensual non-monogamy and apparently a divinely sanctioned version. What else is left to discuss? Just declaring non-monogamy bad?