Around the Kinky Kampfire Podcast

Monogamy is a Social Construct, Not Our Biological Destiny | S4 EP95

Julius Season 4 Episode 4

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Evolutionary anthropologist Dr. Anna Machin delivers groundbreaking research revealing monogamy as a social construct rather than our biological destiny, with satisfaction levels being equal between monogamous and polyamorous relationships.

• Monogamy developed as a social control mechanism when civilization became more complex
• Approximately 50% of supposedly monogamous households experience infidelity
• Very few species in nature are truly sexually monogamous, including humans
• Research shows no significant difference in relationship satisfaction between monogamous and consensually non-monogamous partnerships
• Social stigma remains the biggest challenge for polyamorous individuals despite their emphasis on honesty and communication
• Individual factors like attachment style and personality play a bigger role in relationship preference than gender
• Polyamorous people don't "split" their love but expand their capacity for it, similar to loving multiple friends or children

If you want to explore different relationship structures, consider researching relationship anarchy and non-monogamy, and remember that honest communication with partners is essential regardless of your chosen relationship style.


Original video - https://youtu.be/hxsnk90VwCo?si=oS9cSO_ycjPB8bjR


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Around the Kinky Campfire. Grab a seat, pour a drink and let's turn up the heat. This is the podcast where we explore the wild, wonderful and sometimes wicked world of kink, bdsm and alternative lifestyles. Whether you're a seasoned player, a curious newbie or just here for the stories, we've got something for you. Join us on Thursdays on your favorite podcast platform as we share experiences, dive into deep discussions and may even spark a little fire of your own. No shame, no judgment, just real talk around the Kinky Campfire. Let's get lit. Hello campsters, let's get lit. Around noon, eastern time. So we're going to be talking about a reaction. Well, I'm going to be talking about my reaction to a video I saw on a podcast that I like to listen to. On this episode, from a clip from Diary of a CEO, the host, stephen Bartlett, has a conversation with a doctor, anna Machen, an evolutionary anthropologist and relationship scientist. So she really gets into the whole research and test-taking of the whole entire anthropology, anthropological aspect.

Speaker 1:

I can say big words and I just found it very interesting because I'm going to take a particular clip out of that whole 2-hour and 20-minute conversation and talk about it and do my reaction from it. If anybody doesn't know, Diary of a CEO is a podcast. Like I said, it hosts Stephen Bartlett. It talks to not just CEOs, just a random bunch of people, a lot of people that write books and this time talking to an anthropologist about the anthropology and just relationships and all in general. She seems to be very much on the side of fathers and fathers being needing to be in the children's lives, which is very interesting take because, as far as I can see, she is a white lady and taking the side of a of the fathers needing to be in the picture. I found that very interesting. So I ended up listening to the whole podcast and then, lo and behold, she talks about something that is very near and dear to us here on the Kinky Campfire podcast and I thought it would be interesting to do a reaction to it Right now. I know that it's the podcast, I know it's on YouTube, it's a video podcast, but it's on Spotify and all the major platforms. I see the Spotify link here on the thing. I'll post the YouTube link in the description so you guys can check it out for yourself.

Speaker 1:

I'm just going to talk about this one little 20, 30-minute section. Obviously I'm going to cut it down, not listen to the whole entire thing, just give my little opinions about it. But before we get into that, once again it's the ASMR 5 seconds not even that less than a second at this point. Still drinking the Coke Zero Orange Cream in a two-gld bottle. It is delicious and also not sponsored, but it is very tasty. I just now experienced it for myself because I just like to drink the Seltzer waters Like the Walmart brand stuff with the zero sugar and zero caffeine and zero calorie and all that stuff, but Coke Zero branching out with all the different flavors.

Speaker 1:

I just now found out there's a Diet Pepper Diet, dr Pepper, diet Pepper, the short name DD or DP. Dp Diet Pepper. Very interesting. Dr Pepper Zero as well. Oh man, getting all of these zero sugar stuff is like great Awesome. You know, white Claw has a zero alcohol seltzer drink. Now, like what? What's going on right now? It doesn't make any sense. Okay, going on to a little bit of a tangent here, we'll get back into the podcast. Once you start listening to this, you'll understand why, and of course, I agree with her.

Speaker 1:

I'm not even a doctor, but I agree with her. I'm not even a doctor, but I agree with what she's saying. It'll be all come clear once she starts talking. Just going to give my reaction for this episode. Hopefully you guys agree with me. Let me know you hear the introductions in the outros, the intro and the outro for the podcast. So feel free to contact me on the yahoocom, at Yahoo, the Instagrams. If you want a direct message me, go ahead and do that on the socials. Let me know if you have any questions or comments about what she's going to be talking about. Once again, her name is Dr Anna Meachin.

Speaker 3:

I nailed that.

Speaker 1:

And she has a book called why we Love the New Science Behind Our Closest Relationships. Taking an excerpt from the Diary of ceo podcast hosted by steven bartlett guy is great um, not just saying that because we look similar, but it's a lot of stuff he talks about in, uh, the way he asks questions, great interviewer. And of course he gets people from all different all over the place. I mean he has a Shaolin warrior master talking about life philosophies and I agree with that too. I'm in the middle of listening to that one. That's just interesting all the stuff the Shaolin master talks about and it's not just like kung fu, martial arts we'll just go with that, not just talking about martial arts. And you can check out Dr Anna's stuff and I don't know if I want to read the book.

Speaker 1:

That's a lot of stuff, but she has a very strong take on dads needing to be in the relationship. But we're going to go ahead and listen to this here. Hopefully you guys can hear it very well here we go.

Speaker 2:

There must have been someone suitable in that pool of 100 people a year that you've met Very well. Here we go. There must have been someone suitable in that pool of 100 people a year that you've met.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what is going on here? So right now he's asking about dating and, once again, if you are a person as your relationship spotter here, not a certified professional, if you're having to go through a lot of dates, and he's talking about somebody who's going over 100 dates in a year, let's just make it real simple. Okay, least common denominator what is the same about those 100 experiences that you went through? Probably you. Let's see what Dr Anna says.

Speaker 3:

It's two things, I think. First of all, as I've said, it's the low cost of dating app. So in the old days when I was dating, going on a date was a real investment of time and energy. So you would probably meet someone at work, you'd meet someone at a bar, you'd meet someone through a friend, which was a real blind date and you'd, you know, spend your time thinking what am I going to wear? And I've got to go somewhere with this person and spend some time with this person, probably some financial investment as well, get myself all ready, spend an evening with them, and that was how you were going to meet somebody. So you invested time and you weren't going to do that unless you were serious, to be honest, because otherwise I'll stay at home, I'll do something else, I'll go to the pub with my friend, whereas now, because we can do it, we can literally go on a dating app anywhere on the tube, while we're cooking dinner, while watching Netflix, anytime you want. It's low cost, low investment.

Speaker 2:

I read a study that showed it was in a different context, but it essentially showed that the amount you invest in something correlates to the amount that you appreciate the thing Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so this is not the actual thing. This is like a warm up to what he actually asked. That I agree with here, with what Dr Ennis has yeah, just dating in general, because as your relationship spotter, you come to me for your answers and you give me questions and I answer those questions. So, yeah, you have so many choices now, all the different dating apps. But, like, if you're going on a lot of dates and they are not ending up, well, maybe it's you looking to see what you can do to change your situation. This is why we're here. Hopefully you guys are getting into the self-awareness. If I don't teach you anything, please know that I'm all about the self-awareness. Hopefully you will get into it and we will work on that together. I believe in grounding and meditation, that kind of thing, but there's multiple options to figure out what's going on.

Speaker 2:

This is very interesting that they had to talk about this they did this study where they let people into a boring um forum without having to and that was who you chose from, and it was a very small pool.

Speaker 3:

Now you can go anywhere in the world, turn on your dating app and possibly have, you know, hundreds of people to meet, and your brain can't do that I mean, we can all think about it as well in the context of restaurants.

Speaker 2:

If you go to thailand, yeah, they give you, like a, a catalog. Yes, the menu is a catalog. They're like we will make anything yeah, and you sit there for like, yeah, 45 minutes thinking do I want fish, chicken, eggs?

Speaker 3:

but then you go to like a london fancy restaurant and there's, like we do this, this is it so that's why you end up with people who, yes, go on 100 dates and don't actually end up with anybody, because they haven't had that opportunity to filter monogamy and polyamory yes you sprung my trap card yugi moto.

Speaker 1:

Now we get into the real crux of the whole entire thing. I wanted a little bit of lead up with a dating thing because it's like oh boy, yeah, that's a whole different topic right there. But, now we get into it Monogamy versus polyamory. Ding ding, ding Round one fight.

Speaker 2:

Can you define both of those words? And the thing that I found really striking is I think I heard you say that satisfaction in either dynamic there polyamory or monogamy is roughly the same, because I thought people in monogamous relationships were supposed to be way more happy than people that are in polyamorous relationships.

Speaker 1:

No oh, steven, you naive little person that sounded condescending. Yes, oh my gosh, and she's about to get into his doctor and I was about to back up the the the statement that he just made. And it's so to get into it. Dr Anna's about to back up the statement that he just made and it's so good. Right now it's like oh, actually, polyamorous people and monogamous people, or monogamous people and non-monogamous people have very similar satisfactions Fascinating. Go on, talk about it more, dr Anna.

Speaker 3:

So monogamy is a relationship state where there are two people who are we? Okay, we have to find two sorts of monogamy. There's sexual monogamy, that is, you are exclusive to that other person sexually, you have sex with nobody else. And there is social monogamy, and that is you live with that person exclusively. So within the uk most people let's say if they have children are socially monogamous. They live in a household with their children, with two people in it, whereas sexual monogamy you can be socially monogamous and not sexually monogamous. So they're two different things. But monogamy, if we talk about it in sort of lay terms, is two people who are exclusive to each other in terms of love, in terms of sex and in terms of possibly living together. Monogamy itself is a social construct. Mostly we are not.

Speaker 1:

A social construct, fascinating. Oh, looky here she's going to dive deep into this whole entire thing, but as you probably already know, camsters, I definitely keyed in on the specific moments here on this podcast out of all the other ones, and she only talks about it for like 10 minutes and it's fascinating. Monogamy is largely a social construct. Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. Vindication for us non-monogamists here around the kinky campfire. I wonder why Julius wanted to talk about this. Maybe because it backs up everything I've been talking about for three years now Research by a doctor, Somebody that has a degree in this and researches it all Completely, even wrote a book about it. Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. All right, let's listen.

Speaker 3:

To monogamous species. There are, in fact, very few monogamous species. There are, in fact, very few monogamous species in the world, Maybe. I think. I read a book the other day that says something like 0.002% of the animals on this.

Speaker 1:

On the screen. It actually says Dexammonogamy is very rare in the animal kingdom In birds, while approximately 90% form pair bonds. Genetic studies show that many engage in mating outside the pair. And it's going to be funny because she's going to talk about an animal that's closely related to humans and how they are promiscuous. Very interesting. Sexual monogamy is very rare in the animal kingdom. It counts for humans too. We're part of the animal kingdom. Take that conservatives.

Speaker 3:

Because what you will see in the wild and what you see mostly with humans is social monogamy. They live together, but we know that the infidelity rate sits generally at around 50%. So 50% of those households are not sexually monogamous and in fact, from an evolutionary 50%.

Speaker 1:

That's half the people sexually monogamous going around acting like they're actually married and monogamous, and they're out there fucking random people. She won't say it because she's a doctor. I'll say it. We're going around fucking people. Doggone shame. People got to lie like that.

Speaker 1:

Oh, it makes me feel so good. I'm heavily biased, as you can see. I could be more objective if I wanted to, but guess what? Y'all listening to me, so I'm taking a take, I'm taking a stand and taking it and taking it and standing a stand. Okay, I'm going to do what I want to do, because you all listen to me on this podcast in particular, and of course you know well, not really of course, but Stephen doesn't know too much about the non-monogamy part and he kind of ends the whole segment with a very funny joke. But it's also true, so that's a thing as well. But I just like the fact that here a doctor in anthropology been studying for decades just took research. Research means I don't think people understand what happens with research. Ok, you're taking a study, you're asking people questions and putting that into verified facts.

Speaker 1:

Now she names a lot of studies that she does and I will. You know what I'm saying. I'm going to be a little bit objective here. The people that actually do studies are people that want to do studies, so it might not necessarily be a very large grouping of people. Usually you want to have like 10,000 cases or people in the study. That doesn't always happen because, as we know, if you're happy, you're not out there doing studies. That's just not how it is. If you're happily in a relationship, you're not going to be taking the time to fill out a form. I'm not even doing that Me myself. I rarely even fill out forms.

Speaker 1:

And yeah, oh yeah. That whole once a year consensus thing, yeah, totally fill that out every year. He says none somewhat halfway jokingly, but very interesting to hear the facts that she's found from her studies. Once again is very biased as well, because not everybody, not even number of people, are going to be out there completing studies. That's just how it is Okay. If you look at any studies, you need like 10,000 people. They don't have that many people filling out studies. Okay, so that's my objective point, objective point here from Julius.

Speaker 1:

But I will say it's very nice to have a anthropological doctor agreeing with what you've been saying 50%.

Speaker 3:

Good Lord, almighty anthropological doctor.

Speaker 3:

Agreeing with what you've been saying 50, good lord, almighty point of view. Being sexually monogamous is a really quite bad idea because, um, you are limiting yourself to a very narrow gene pool and that's why there are very few creatures in the world that are truly sexually monogamous. I, when I was doing my master's, my professor studied gibbons gibbons at the time were known to be the monogamous ape and and he studied, he did a really longitudinal study, and he was the first to realise that no, they weren't. They were all sneaking off and doing it behind the rock with somebody else, but they were living together. But the female was going to find some better genes somewhere else.

Speaker 3:

This guy, brilliant parent, not great genes I'm going to go behind a rock and mate with this really good looking gibbon over here because I'm gonna get some good juice, and then he's gonna raise the kid and the and the guy is like well, you know, I'm obviously going to have offspring here, but actually, you know, mating with another female is not particularly costly to me, so I'll just go and do that over there and let's hope she can raise them on her own or maybe her partner will raise them for me. So there are very few. So we have monogamy in in mainly in the west um, because it's a socially prescribed form of organization and it was a social monogamy, mainly in the West.

Speaker 1:

Now, once again, I have to put a little caveat in there, julius, I don't want to say I don't believe in marriage and having kids, but I just don't see a point in it right now. So my biases are there.

Speaker 1:

I don't see a point in having a nesting partner, even though I'm not opposed to it. Okay, depending on the partner, I'd be totally down with that. So, outside of that nesting partner, the marriage and the kids part, it's like, yeah, it's like aliens and ghosts Show me that they're real. I want to believe but I just don't yet.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So yes, marriage is like a ghost. I made that comparison right here right now on Around the Kinky Campfire Podcast. New episodes on Thursdays on all major podcasting platforms. So glad that Dr Anna backed this up here that it's a socially prescribed form of organization, for her words. Okay, so the fact that people think you have to get married, I would argue, is social conditioning. That has been peer pressure from ancient people for some time in the West. She'll go into detail why that kind of became a thing in the West and why it's different in other parts of the world.

Speaker 1:

There's a lot of poly stuff going on in different parts of the world compared to here in the. West modernized society. We just want to own things, including people we don't know.

Speaker 3:

Posed because it is a form of control. It mainly sits in terms of rules, particularly in religion, but also the ready legal rules. For example, in Britain you can't have two marriages, you can't be a bigamist and it's about making everybody control, because if we all just gave in constantly to precisely what our drives were saying, there'd be kind of chaos and those in power wouldn't be able to predict what anybody is going to do, because actually I'm just going to go. I feel, you know, sexually attracted to whoever that is over there. I'm going to go maybe then, but I'm going to come back and live here, but then I've got a kid over there and it's. It's all really really confusing. So over time, when civilization first arose, the complex we got, and as we started to live together in cities, those in control were like, okay, I really need to be able to predict what these lesser beings are going to do, so I'm going to impose monogamy. You can only live with one person and basically have sex with one person. Nobody actually ever only had sex with one person.

Speaker 1:

Impose it on the lesser beings. Oh my God, oh my God, this, the lesser beings. Oh my God, oh my God. This is what happened and people think it's.

Speaker 3:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

Listen, listen. There's going to be a point here at the end where it's like if that's what you want to do, that's what you do. I have a big problem Jewish myself, in my humble opinion that people are doing it because you're supposed to. But then yeah you, you're supposed to be only having sex with one person, you're supposed to be only living with one person, yet people are living with one person and having sex with all kinds of people. Once again, 50% promiscuity, that's a thing. It's like why are we doing this? Just have a conversation with your partner, be like hey, I want to try this. There could be classes out there for things like relationship anarchy and non-monogamy in general. Ah, let me go check that out.

Speaker 1:

Ah, drives me crazy. I just can't believe it. That finally vindication once again so good, there's a doctor saying something like that and she's monogamous. That's another thing. She's doing all these tests and finding all this stuff out and she herself is monogamous and has kids. It's like oh wow.

Speaker 3:

Wow, wow, but we're going to look like we do and those are the rules, and that's why we have legitimacy rules about children and inheritance and all that kind of thing, because it maintains control. So monogamy is, yeah, simply a social construct. It's not something that we've biologically evolved to do, and we know that part. You know there are many countries in the world where monogamy isn't.

Speaker 1:

We didn't evolve biologically for monogamy. It where monogamy isn't. We didn't evolve biologically for monogamy. It's a social construct by the higher beings for us lesser beings down here so they can control us. That word I can't think of the phrase but anyways sounds very woo-woo-y, but it's right here. This is a doctor right here. We were not biologically. She's an anthropologist. We were not biologically evolutionalized to be monogamous. It's a social construct.

Speaker 3:

Ah, what is prescribed?

Speaker 2:

It goes against our evolutionary design to be in monogamous relationships. Doesn't that mean that there's a lot of people who are struggling against their Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

I was going to answer it myself.

Speaker 2:

Like yes.

Speaker 1:

Stephen, that is absolutely correct. And back by Dr Anna, once again, proven correct that we are struggling against ourselves. Why don't we just have a conversation? We should probably go and take a class and learn about the different types of things outside of monogamy, so we can learn how to communicate with our partner, get our wants and needs met, so we don to have to keep shoving that down for decades and decades and decades.

Speaker 2:

Ah, such a great question and a great answer.

Speaker 1:

But once again, Julius is biased.

Speaker 3:

And that's why we have a reasonably high rate of people who have extramarital affairs. It's also why people I'm shocked who are polyamorous or indeed have open relationships, say actually it's the more truthful way of being human, because I'm shocked all they're doing is following their drives and they actually believe that it's more moral.

Speaker 3:

Because if you put forward a monogamous front and you have an affair, you are lying to people, you are keeping a secret from people you profess to love, whereas if you're polyamorous or you're in an open relationship, you're actually openly saying this is my drive, this is the reality, I'm being truthful with everybody about it, so you can enter a relationship with me or not on the basis of truth. And that's what a lot of polyamorous people particularly will argue is that they're really representing what is, for most people, an ancestral state. Polyamory is difficult because, unlike open relationships, open relationships such as such as swinging or being actually put the definition of swinging on here to concessional practice.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so we are here at the around the king can't fire podcast no, the difference between polyamory and swinging and monogamy and open relationships. Uh, of course we do, but we will talk about those again at some other point. But it's very interesting here that she points out. Dr Anna points out that people communicating I would say correctly in polyamory and non-monogamy, having a good conversation with their partners and being honest and truthful about it, have very satisfying relationships backed by science. Oh, shocking. Damn you conservatives.

Speaker 3:

Open. We call them consensual non-monogamy that's just based on sex, so you're not spreading your love relationship, that emotional investment, that emotional intimacy amongst more than one person. Polyamory is being open and having several sexual partners and also having several emotionally intimate relationships.

Speaker 1:

One little caveat there, Doctor you don't need the sexual part of it for the polyamory, you just need the emotional part of it. Need, quote-unquote, need, but yes, pretty good definition there. And I like the fact that she says it with a whole lot of judgment in her voice. It almost seems like she agrees with it, just doesn't do it for herself. So it is interesting. And she doesn't specifically say that she is like 100% monogamous. She is in a monogamous relationship, but that's totally fine. But I like her unbiased tone, the way she talks about it.

Speaker 3:

It's like oh yeah, these people are satisfied this is what they're reporting At the same time, and I think people struggle more with that because of the issues of jealousy and the fact that that goes quite strongly against even our social ideas about monogamy.

Speaker 1:

Jealousy and monogamy Social ideas. Sorry, jealousy and social ideas. So once again we have emotions. Okay, campsters, we know this, we have emotions. Does that mean you have to react to?

Speaker 3:

those emotions.

Speaker 1:

You have those emotions and you do stuff in spite of. I mean, I don't want to go to work today. Work sucks a lot of the time, but yet I still do it because why? I need to get paid. So why do I think that emotions are a thing? Because it's like a social construct. Oh, because you make me feel this way. Then you have to stop. No, no, no, no, no, no. We all have emotions. We can all process those emotions and we can do stuff in spite of those emotions. So I can be a well-functioned person in society and still have emotions and still be able to do things that I want to.

Speaker 1:

So jealousy is a big thing and people are like, oh, I'd be jealous, but does that mean your partner's going to leave you? How about I have that conversation with them? This makes me jealous, and if they're respecting of a partner, then they will be doing stuff that will not trigger your jealousy, hopefully. But hopefully they are self-aware enough to realize like, hey, okay, I understand your boundaries and I understand your feelings that you have with certain things, but this is the stuff I need. Hopefully we can negotiate and come to a compromise about getting what we both need without being hurtful to each other and, hopefully, with a lot of respect for each other. It's like jealousy is a thing. Why do people'd be so jealous? All my vanilla friends tell me this all the time. Oh, I'd be so jealous.

Speaker 1:

This is like vanilla friends monogamous friends forgot which one I was talking about. Kink people kink friend, not vanilla friends talk about my kink as well, and I have monogamous friends to talk about my non-monogamous poly stuff. Like I'm just so, oh, I'm just so jealous, I'm like, and we're jealous too. We just learn to process those kind of things and have good communication with our partners, or at least keep trying.

Speaker 3:

Where we all sort of live in pairs.

Speaker 2:

I've got a friend of mine that's secretly in an open polyamorous relationship, basically where there's two couples and they are.

Speaker 1:

I think he means secretly, like they don't put it out in public. I don't think they're in secret with each other, but he'll explain here.

Speaker 2:

Together.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So there's four of them basically, but they don't talk about it publicly because of the judgment. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And I think maybe part of the issue is that judgment that there's For the polyamorous people I've interviewed, particularly for my book. That was the major thing. Is thing is that they were very happy in the relationship. The relationships were going really, really well. But what was difficult was being open about it. Also, we know from studies that have been done looking at people's attitudes to polyamorous people. They are seen as immoral, they are seen as um you put that in the study as well immoral, unlovable.

Speaker 1:

It's like, yeah, you have finite amount of emotions. No, that I will say. That's wrong in my personal opinion. It's a big old bucket. There's no pie chart with emotions. You can have multiple different kinds of love and you can have love for multiple different kinds of people. It's all different kinds. You don't only have just one friend or one family member, but most of us anyways. So why is that any different than partners? I love romantic, loved partners as well. It's like, why are we thinking in these social constructed? As we just saw, the higher beings have bestowed upon us the gift of monogamy, so obviously we can't think outside the box. Oh, I want to go on a rant some more, but I'll stop there because she has studies for this kind of thing and it's like oh yes, the judgments from non-poly, non-monogamous, non-non-monogamous people from monogamous people is also great oh gross loving.

Speaker 3:

They're seen as cold because they have this ability to love lots of money, so they can't truly love anybody because they're splitting their heart between all these different people. Polyamorous people look at it the other way. As I've said, they actually think it's very moral because they're being truthful heart between all these different people. Polyamorous people look at it the other way. As I've said, they actually think it's very moral because they're being truthful. Polyamorous relationships tend to be based on very open communication. That's one of the rules. Is that? Is everybody still happy? Is everybody still happy with where the boundaries are?

Speaker 1:

Has anybody and we know Camsters that's called a check-in and you know, julius really likes the negotiations. Negotiate for everything. Oh, I want that to be my motto for anything that I do Negotiate you can always negotiate. Good old check-in is great. This is what she's talking about here Upset anybody else.

Speaker 3:

So it's very, very open and they also believe that and in some ways, the support from this. You know, we are able to love many friends at once, we're able to love many children at once. They say, actually they don't split their heart. It's not a zero sum game, that you get 50%, and you get 50% Actually, that each time they take somebody into their lives, their heart just gets bigger.

Speaker 2:

Do you think we're all somewhat pretending to be monogamous? Yes, 100%. Yes, stephen, such a great question.

Speaker 1:

And the look on his face. I don't know if I want to make an actual video of this or not, but look on his face. He's very inquisitive and it's like, yes, we are pretending Now, people. I was in general, so backstory is that I was a believer that it's an orientation. You are either born monogamous or predisposed to monogamy and non-monogamy. I know for me myself. I've always felt something was wrong with white picket fence and the kids and the house all that stuff.

Speaker 1:

It's like no, no, no, I don't think I agree with that. So for me, I felt like it was an orientation, but it's also action as well. It's a choice to be monogamous and non-monogamous, and it's like I think some of us are lying. But even if you're not and you're totally fine with monogamy, that's okay too. You're orientated that way. But if you have a choice as a human being, hopefully you're in a place where you can do that Go, seek that information, go to a class, do some research. If nothing else, hopefully you're listening to this podcast and you're becoming more self-aware of the situation. You have options, people.

Speaker 3:

I think some people are happier with monogamy. We know that partly from a genetic point of view. So there are some people no, I don't think struggle with it, but I do think a reasonably significant number of people probably do.

Speaker 1:

Who do you think struggles with it? Good statement and question Significantly significant number of people probably do. Who do you think struggles with it? Good statement and question Significantly large number of people. And then he's going to say Stephen great question who do you think struggles with it?

Speaker 2:

More men or women.

Speaker 3:

It really depends. Do you know something? One of the major misnomers in love research is that there is much difference. There's this major difference between men and women? There really isn't. There really isn't. There really isn't. It's more about who you are at your core, more about attachment. Style, personality, your life experience, your genetics all these sorts of things are much more of a factor in whether or not you will be comfortable with monogamy or any of those aspects, than thinking in the binary again.

Speaker 1:

It's not just men and women, oh god. It's the whole spectrum of people, gross men and women either or not.

Speaker 3:

You're male or female.

Speaker 2:

And again you said that there's not a difference between well-being and satisfaction levels versus monogamous and polyamorous relationships.

Speaker 3:

No, absolutely not how do you know this? Because we've done studies on it, we've asked, we've done. We use the same satisfaction scales about you know how satisfied are you in your relationship with various aspects of that relationship and they come out as being absolutely no different for what it's worth, babe.

Speaker 2:

I'm happy with our relationship. I'm more than happy being monogamous.

Speaker 3:

I find it to be a much, much easier life well, the only thing polyamorous people say is you have to have a cracking google calendar she.

Speaker 1:

That is the. That is the most realist statement you've ever said.

Speaker 1:

You have to have a cracking Google Calendar that is 100% correct If you say you're a polyamorous without saying you're polyamorous. Let me look at that Google Calendar. So good, but yes. Final note is overall satisfaction. And there's not a huge difference between monogamy and non-monogamy. Ah, shocker, we're all in the same boat together, pretty much. Oh no, those evil, evil conservatives can shove it up their assholes. Okay, that's pretty much it, because they move on to babies and those are gross. Crack myself up with that. Okay, that's it for now.

Speaker 1:

This is Around the Kinky Campfire. This is your host, hh Julius Marquise, your relationship spotter. I hope that was very enlightening for you and, of course, is very biased. In my opinion. She's backing up what I've been saying for the last four or five years of my life. Now, once I've gone into the non-monogamous world, specifically polyamory, they kind of confuse the words there together with the swinging in the open. But that's totally fine and check it out. I'll put the link in the description, hopefully I'll remember. For the Diary of a CEO. He has a lot of different people and he asks such great questions. Just that little 10-minute snippet there, 10, 15 minutes, you can hear that he has very inquisitive questions, not very judgmental, and this was so good. Oh, I'm really considering to get this book, but I feel like it's going to be the same thing as what she just said, so we'll see. Maybe I'll do Audible or something like that If you enjoy that?

Speaker 1:

please let me know. Ask questions.

Speaker 3:

Email me at Yahoo and direct message me on.

Speaker 1:

Instagram, all those different things. If you enjoy stuff like this, I will be doing more reviews of that similar to this because I listen to great podcasts. That's just all there is to it this is one of them. And I have a few others that they just really good interviewers and they're very inquisitive people, even though they don't know too much about the different things and you know he's happy with his monogamy and that's good.

Speaker 1:

So there's that. And then there's people like Dr Anna Min nailed it again that do these kind of research things. Even though they're not part of the lifestyle, they do the research, and she was actually very well versed in her terminology. The other ones are kind of like yeah those people say kind of this and it's like no there's actual definitions for this stuff.

Speaker 1:

There's like a million for each word. So get one of them at least be somewhat right some of the time. You very much. Okay, that's it for now. Around the kinky campfire you're uh, hh, julius, new episodes most thursdays and yeah, it's all in the intro and the outro so you hear it again and all that kind of stuff catch us next time.

Speaker 1:

Hello. That's a wrap for this episode of the around the kinky campfire podcast. We love having you by the fire and we'd love to hear from you. Got a kinky question, a steamy story or a topic you want us to cover? Slide into our DMs and send us a message at aroundthekinkycampfire campfire with a K at yahoocom. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review wherever you're listening. Your support helps keep the flames burning and the conversations flowing. Follow us on Twitter Kinky Campfire Campfire with a K. Youtube Around the Kinky Campfire Campfire with a K, or Instagram Campfire Kingsters Campfire with a K To stay in the loop. Join the community and keep the kink alive. Between episodes on Thursdays Until next time, stay safe, stay sexy and keep that fire burning.