Why are polyamory and non-monogamy popular now? The Internet.

Gwen Kansen asks, “Why is polyamory so popular now?”, but I could reframe the question as, “Why have numerous once-minority pursuits, beliefs, and interests spread?”, and the answer is the same, “The Internet.” That’s a true but not completely helpful answer, and it’s more specific to say that anyone with niche interests, unusual beliefs, or non-mainstream pursuits had a lot of trouble and friction finding one another before the ubiquitous Internet, and so niche beliefs stayed very niche. We know that plenty of women had group-sex fantasies, even before the Internet, from books like My Secret Garden by Nancy Friday. What people didn’t have back then were ways of finding one another and spreading ideas about niche interests. Niche interests aren’t purely a sex thing: you can view modern versions of political correctness or “woke” politics as a growth in a niche field, and, while I don’t want to activate people’s political identities with this post, it’s hard to imagine the White House of January 2017 – 2021 without the Internet. The Internet facilitates feedback groups in which persons with niche interests find one another and reinforce their beliefs about their niche, and thus drive more extreme versions of that niche.

Humans really like f**king, a point I’m not going to belabor and, if you don’t believe it, why are you reading this? The ones who really really like to f**k a lot, often want novel experiences, but those novel experiences often come with costs, including search costs, danger, reputation costs, and others I’m not imagining right now. Online, anyone who wants to can write about their sex adventures in a way that’s effectively anonymous, barring the interest of the NSA or someone powerful and snoopy. Anyone who wants to can explore the group-sex scene in their city. Anyone who wants to can download Feeld (today), or, back in the day, use other sites to explore non-monogamy domains. Put those things together, and it’s possible for large numbers of people to coordinate in a mostly anonymous fashion. A woman’s family doesn’t have to know that she’s hoping to get drilled by four dicks at a party. A man’s friends don’t have to know some other guy unloaded in his girlfriend, while he was deep in another guy’s girlfriend. It’s possible to take baby steps in these directions. Once a couple or girl get enmeshed in the network, their friends often learn about it. Probably the most powerful impetus that encourages new people trying f**k parties is friends who are already going. You can f**k and still be friends, but many people go to f**k parties and don’t f**k friends.

Why I don’t accept most generalizations about men and women and you shouldn’t either

In a private chat, Red Pill Dad and xbtusd have been talking about their respective experiences and the qualities that might be possessed by different women at different ages. Each of them has stereotypes and generalizations supported by their experiences, yet they’re very different guys who live in different places and have led different social, economic, educational, and dating lives. Their conversation reminds me of the dangers of generalization.

Think about the tiny number of people you’ve interacted with in your life. I have maybe, I don’t know, 2 – 10 people, depending on how you count, who I’m very or pretty close to (know a lot about means I know a lot about them), maybe a couple dozen I know a little bit well, a couple hundred who I vaguely know, somewhat recently, by first name or face (could be 1,000), maybe 10,000 I might conceivably have interacted with since I was a freshman in high school (maybe a bit more, maybe less)… that’s not a lot of people, if you think about it… some of these numbers might be a little low, but even if you assume I’ve had some vague interaction with 30,000 people over the last 30 years, that’d be 1,000 a year, way too many for more than idle passing on the street, that sort of thing… 500 a year is probably too many, even counting schools… point is, however one slices these numbers, I don’t have substantial interactions with that many people, and I haven’t, in my whole life. I checked, the United States has 330 million people in it, and 330 million is a huge number, so huge humans can’t comprehend it.

The network approach and the shotgun approach: why and when girls flake in dating

Consider two Hollywood screenwriters: one is fresh out of school and knows no one, or almost no one, in the business, but he’s written a couple of screenplays and, for the sake of this hypothetical, he’s got some talent. He gets to Hollywood and what’s he going to do? He’s got no connections anywhere in the business, although he’s read lots of those memoirs about how other guys made it, so he sends his screenplays to every single player out there. Writers, directors, agents. The vast majority don’t reply, and he doesn’t get even a rejection. Damien Chazelle, Chris Pratt, Chris Hemsworth, all the Hollywood “Chrises,” Ari Gold, they all say “no” by saying nothing. Somehow, though, someone bites, a little… Jonah Hill let’s say… and Hill or Hill’s people like the SF action pitch—reminds them a little bit of a modern Pitch Black, but could the writer make it funny, too? Maybe they’ll pay him a little bit for this, but, compared to the work he’s doing teaching spoiled brats the SAT and waiting tables, it’s a lot of money. He has no idea how to make it a comedy but he starts work, cause what else is he going to do? His other screenplays go nowhere. He starts a novel at the same time.

Then there’s our other screenwriter. He’s in the business… maybe he got in through family connections, a working writer in a school saw potential in him, he got lucky, whatever. He knows some people in the business, and he’s been working on a screenplay that he knows will be right for someone, let’s say Chazelle for purposes of this hypothetical. He’s already met Chazelle at industry functions, maybe done a little blow with him in a bathroom, whatever. Both of them think T.C. Boyle’s novel DROP CITY would make a great movie but neither has ever been able to get it made. Our screenwriter says, “You know, we could never do DROP CITY right, but I’ve got a kinda similar story, set in the ’80s though, against the AIDS crisis, we should do it.” Chazelle reads it, likes it, has some suggestions, they work on it together for a while. One or both of them know the right actors for it. Their agents like the project. In effect, our screenwriter #2 is never really rejected. He’s a known quantity to others in the business, working with other known quantities. Now, the project may fall apart… maybe Ryan Gosling hates Chazelle now for some reason… but screenwriter #2’s journey is nothing like screenwriter #1’s. If you ask each about the nature of being a screenwriter, they’ll have wildly divergent opinions.

The application of game to this metaphor ought to be obvious, but since this is the Internet let me spell it out: the raw cold approach guys are #1. They often have limited network/friend circles. They don’t do that much cool shit, or “cool shit” as hot chicks would define it. They’re guys I’m talking to in Parties, and Festivals, parties, etc. and the network’s power, and other things like that. I have some things in common with them because I’ve done some cold approach… but for the past ten or twelve years, it’s not really been my modality… I’ve focused more on sex clubs, which are themselves a kind of network. Sex clubs + non-monogamy are also fun cause I can slot new chicks into that network, if I meet the right chicks and such. I also like doing them.