New Polyamory Study

Al99

Well-known member
A FB post on a relatively new poly study led me to this link on a brief article on the study. While the study was reasonably large scale (3000+) and seems to have followed standard scientific study models, one can suspect the results are somewhat skewed just by the fact that the study interviewed self identifying polyamorists.

https://www.inverse.com/article/33981-polyamory-swingers-survey-better-sex-commitment-relationship

Here is a key quote from the article - pointing out that the study suggests that polyamory strengthens the primary relationship (the study seemed to focus on the hierarchical model of poly where the couple were married). On a personal note - even though I have posted more than once that poly would not have been my first choice (we were a mono married couple that opened up to poly around the first of the year) - I will have to admit that at this point (9 months in) our marriage does seem to be stronger and with decidedly better communication, candor, and honesty.

But as of late, polyamorous relationships — sometimes referred to among married people as “open relationships” — have gotten a boost of recognition as a viable, healthy way to maintain commitment. And a study published earlier this summer in PLOS One suggests that polyamory actually forms the foundation of stronger primary relationships.

Curious, I Googled the study itself. Here is the link for those interested -
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0177841

The Google search also led me to this article that summarized the study:
https://www.attn.com/stories/18390/4-surprising-results-depth-study-polyamorous-people -which offered the following quote:

As Lehmiller summed it up:

“In our study, we found that people were highly satisfied with all of their relationships, but even more interesting was the fact that the more satisfied people were with their secondary partners, the more committed they were to their primary partners. Put another way, our results suggest that secondary relationships appear to have the potential to make primary relationships even stronger. The fact that polyamorists don't put pressure on a single partner to meet all of their needs might make everyone happier in the end.”

The study itself, as to be expected, is on the scholarly side, but the conclusions are interesting. Al
 
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The only interesting part is that only 37% of the participants indicated they did hierarchical poly, yet that is what they focused on. I'm a little disappointed that I wasted my time taking that survey.
 
Well, isn't THAT special -- I'd started a brief critique of that "study" here, & the trackers & adware on the referenced sites caused my browser to lock up. :mad: Not exactly a recommendation for reading it.

I'll maybe get back to it later. In sum, the "researchers" suck. :D They allowed anyone to participate who claimed to be polyamorous, rather than at least flagging those who would claim to have had experience successfully maintaining more than one intimate relationship concurrently.

They pivoted neatly from "primary/secondary" being "regularly discussed" to being a common phenomenon & perhaps even MOST common.

A presupposition agrees that since marriage & children are both optional, therefore the ONLY indicators of "primacy" are whether they live together & have commingled finances. :eek:

And (as the "4 Insights" article clarifies) the study left off anyone who DIDN'T self-identify (there's that word again) as "primary/secondary."

I hope that people will give this a close reading, & avoid doing the excited "look, look, they're talking about ME!!" happy-dance.

Maybe someone ought to start a discussion as to how fools (possibly well-intentioned) are going to mess around with the definition of "polyamory" unless we the polyamorous take steps to nail down the term AND point out self-serving hype... :D
 
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