Polyamory and Blank Slatism
Is jealousy socially constructed or an inherent part of being human?
I. Happiness in Polyamory and Monogamy
In discussions of polyamory, participants frequently suffer from typical mind fallacy, the tendency to believe that other people have a psychological profile similar to one’s own. Some monogamists likely believe that polyamorists have feelings of romantic jealousy as they do and are miserable. Some polyamorists believe that monogamists are suffering from restrictive socially constructed norms regarding what a relationship is supposed to be like and they have overcome the social influence by using reason. While some polyamorists would acknowledge that being poly may not be for everyone. A balanced approach would probably be to say that:
Some monogamists would be happier as polyamorous but social stigma is playing a non-trivial role in preventing them from becoming polyamorous or they are deluding themselves about the harms of being polyamorous.
Some monogamists would not be happier as polyamorous and social stigma is not playing a significant role in their decision.
Some polyamorous people would be happier as monogamous but they do not become monogamous because of pressure from a partner or because they are delusional.
Some polyamorous people would not be happier as monogamous and the social stigma is annoying at best and makes life really difficult at worst.
The difficult part about this is that these things are nearly trivially true. Yes, some people fall into all of these categories. I think that the argument is usually that polyamorous people think there are a lot of people in category 1 because of social norms and anti-polyamorous people think that a lot of people are in category 3 because they are deluding themself or a partner is pressuring them or some other factor.
II. Blank Slatism
Blank Slatism is the idea that human psychology is entirely a product of environmental forces and not influenced by genetics. Hardly anyone is blank slastist about all psychological traits but many have blank slatist positions or sympathies with regard to some traits. Blank slate arguments are not made explicitly but can be seen through implication; no one will say “that is entirely environmental” but their argument will hinge on the trait being entirely or at least mostly environmental without acknowledging the potential for a genetic cause.
I believe that some polyamorists believe or behave as if sexual and romantic jealousy are socially constructed and can be overcome through reasoning. In a recent substack post by Scott Alexander, he made mentioned that the argument “you wouldn’t be jealous if your friend had other friends” was commonly raised as an argument by polyamorous people. I commented on this that it would be difficult for me to imagine someone persuaded by this analogy. What would be a possible response: “You are right. This emotion of jealousy that I have has ceased.” I can’t imagine that happening.
In other contexts, if I wanted to convince someone to stop being jealous, I would argue that their partner is faithful and loyal. I would make the point that it is unlikely that the attractive female intern at work is going to sleep with your husband because he is a good man. This would be an argument that you need not be worried because the actual act of unfaithfulness would not take place. This could make someone cease feeling jealous. But saying something like “Why are you sad that your husband is spending time with the intern. You wouldn’t mind him spending time with his buddies” seems unconvincing because the point of concern is the love, affection of sexual intimacy being shared with someone else. This feeling does not seem so mutable to me.
It is not so mutable in my view because it is not a product of social influence but is likely a product of evolution. Jealousy is coded in our genes. Across the world, there are concerns about sexual female loyalty likely due to cuckoldry preventing one’s genes from being passed on. In the Blank Slate, Steven Pinker argues that female jealousy is more focused on a psychological connection because women would be concerned that their husband would leave them. Women that did not care if their husbands fell in love and ran off with other women likely did not succeed in passing their genes on just as men who let their wives sleep around did not either. I’ll note that there would be extremely strong selection against things like compersion, positive feelings from a partner enjoying someone else romantically or sexually. That is not to say that it does not exist.
Even if jealousy were not an emotional issue, wanting ones partner to remain faithful makes sense if you are concerned about them leaving you. While being polyamorous allows one’s partner to having the best of both worlds, they may soon find that they do not need you. If this is a concern, then not wanting polyamory may be rational in some sense even if jealousy is not experienced.
III. Moral Concerns
There is likely some moral concerns that are intertwined with disgust. To some, the idea of one’s spouse having sex with another person is quite revolting. This emotion likely carries over to seeing other couples engage in this behavior. Love is regarded as a high value and sexual novelty is regarded as a low value. Trading off between these two can be seen as something that is immoral. This feeling of moral disgust is very hard to shake for people. I do not think these things can be argued away very easily.
One other concern would be societal instability. One form of this argument would be a bunch of men who cannot get women and they resort to anti-social behavior. I feel this may be a problem but someone is not obligated to pair off with a man because he may engage in anti-social behavior. However, it might be good to encourage more stabilizing social norms but perhaps not use negative stigma to achieve them. Another form of this argument would be that this does not provide children with a stable upbringing. A man could get one girlfriend pregnant and then not commit to her or provide resources because this man does not care about her much or likes his other girlfriend more. Children could be exposed to weird social arrangements and we do not know how that would affect their development. In order to evaluate these arguments, it would take a lot more data. Usually, I just see people use hypotheticals. But it is easy to imagine someone would weigh moral concern for this sort of thing higher than they do sexual or romantic jealousy. Again, something that is hard to shake off.
Another concern is that polyamory is imposed on one partner because another partner wants more novelty. The objection would be that the partner who nominally consents but really wish it was not happening just wants to not lose their partner or the objection could be that this hastens the downfall of relationships. Usually, I just see this supported with anecdotes. I do not know if this is the typical form of a poly relationship. A poly person could always say they do not support this but this would probably be a side-effect of normalization. That poly person is not responsible for other people’s relationship disfunction but it is worth noting that many relationships would not achieve the platonic ideal of what being poly would look like.
Scott Alexander's reply:
"I'm hesitant to reply because I don't want to come off as an annoying poly evangelist. I think people should be whatever they want, and nobody should have to poly unless they're enthusiastic about it. But responding to the post in the spirit in which it was intended:
I didn't intend for the "you can have more than one friend" argument to invalidate anyone's jealousy. I see it brought up to counter a certain annoying tendency where people are like "but how can you possibly love two people at the same time, that's not what love is, you're insulting one of them by not making them your sole priority!" People seem really committed to this deep philosophical principle that they just made up, and that they would abandon instantly if it conflicted with anything socially acceptable, eg having two children who you both love equally. I agree that once you have abandoned this fake principle, you can still feel normal jealousy.
I agree that some ingredients for jealousy are genetic, but like every genetic thing they're heavily modulated by culture. In ancient Greece, men wouldn't let their wives out of the house because it would be considered some kind of insane provocation; in Saudi Arabia, men won't let other men see their wives' faces; in modern America, most men don't really mind their wives going out partying with their male coworkers. In medieval Arabia it was considered normal for women to share their husbands with other wives; in Renaissance France it was considered normal for women to let their husbands have mistresses; in parts of the deep South it would be scandalous to learn your husband was looking at another woman. In polygynous cultures most people get along fine being polygynous; in polyandrous cultures most people get along fine being polyandrous; in those tribes where everyone sleeps with each other and raises children together, most people get along just fine with that. In evangelical subcultures everyone agrees that porn is "cheating" and women get really jealous and betrayed if they learn their husband looked at porn; in more liberal subcultures, everyone agrees porn doesn't matter and women don't care. If you scratch the surface, you can find jealousy-shaped things in the most poly relationships - there are a lot of men who eg might be fine with their wife going on dates with other people, but would be really jealous if they heard she'd fallen in love with them. I think the same malleability of the genetic jealousy impulse which allows Saudi Arabia and liberal America to both be stable equilibria allows polyamory to be a stable equilibrium too. That doesn't mean everyone will like it, anymore than everyone likes Saudi or liberal American norms, but I don't think it violates human nature.
When a poly person says something like "I think if you were more open-minded you'd find you were able to tolerate poly just fine" (which I agree is annoying if unsolicited), I think a good analogy would be an American saying this to a Saudi. They're not claiming the Saudi wouldn't feel immediate repulsion at the thought of a bunch of other men staring at his wife's face, get upset, and want to go back to Saudi Arabia. They're saying that if they managed to really assimilate into a culture where that kind of thing is normal, it will feel normal, at least for most people (I think there are some American men who are sad that people can constantly stare at their wives, and American norms are a genuine sacrifice for them, but I think this is less common than a Saudi person would expect. Americans shouldn't claim that their cultural expectations eliminate Saudi-level jealousy, just that they make it much less common.)
Another way to look at this might be: jealousy is a natural human urge (pretend I included all the appropriate caveats here). Wanting to have sex with lots of people is also a natural human urge (ibid). Different relationship styles balance these urges in different ways, and no style is going to be able to allow both of them for everybody, so you use your culture to set expectations, and as long as those expectations are clear most people usually do pretty well, except a small minority who will hopefully be able to go off and start a subculture which is friendlier toward their own needs."
I use the "jealousy and friendship" analogy simply to explain polyamory to monogamists who can't fathom the mindset. I never assume it's going to cause someone to reorient their own relationship style since I suspect much of that is hardwired. I recently met some distant relatives on my mom's side (through Ancestry) and discovered that many of them are polyamorous like me. What could explain this correlation? Whatever genes are responsible for jealousy may be less expressive in our family line so traits like compersion end up becoming dominant. I do think the reality is some complex interplay of genes and environment determining relationship orientation and not that different from sexual orientation.
The fact that many people who identify as monogamous still highly value sexual novelty but also have high jealousy quotients are then often either 1) cheaters or 2) serial monogamists indicates there is a spectrum rather than a binary on this.
On sexual selectivity: At first glance, it may seem that low jealousy levels would be evolutionarily disadvantageous, but that's only the stick side of things. The carrot of valuing sexual novelty means that greater opportunities for more sexually successful types (such as alpha males) means their genes get passed on to a greater degree while less sexually successful types lose out. If a social structure evolves that supports that (such as polygamous societies), then the carrot doesn't ever get slowed down by the stick.