Non-Monogamy, Exclusivity Agreements & Regulating Sexual Jealousy - Justin Mogiliski

Chris Williamson 0:00 Just how popular is consensual non-monogamy getting at the moment?

Justin Mogilski 0:05 Well, it's much... I think in some ways it's much more popular than it was before. If you look at some of the stats that exist, looking at, um, large national samples, uh, we have the best data for the United States. It's something about one in five people are at least going to try it, and then those who stick with it, something like 5 to 10%. So it's, um, it's getting up there.

Chris Williamson 0:25 What do you attribute this surgence or resurgence of a different monogamy strategy to?

Justin Mogilski 0:33 Well, I think... Uh, I mean, I think there are a lot of factors. One thing is, I think that, of course, within the past several hundred years, we've been developing more of... You know, individualistic societies, of course, have taken foot, people have more equal opportunities. And I think for a very long time, marriage was a system for, uh, you know, unifying families for... And marrying men to w- to women, and women may not have had many other options. Um, and so now that I think people have more options, uh, they can perhaps pursue something that's a little more, um... That may match their current motives in life. And so to the degree that people are putting off family, marriage, et cetera, to pursue, um, you know, individual pursuits, furthering your career, whatever it happens to be, I think that those motivations are more present than they've ever been, and so people may want an option to... That, that, that fits that mo- those motivations.

Chris Williamson 1:31 Mm. You mentioned there that, uh, there was some sexed differences in the freedoms that we had, at least in the recent past when it comes to-

Justin Mogilski 1:39 Mm.

Chris Williamson 1:39 ... relationships, dating, marriage, et cetera. Is there a sexed difference in preference for consensual non-monogamous relationships?

Justin Mogilski 1:49 There is to some degree. So men are more likely to say that they want to be in a consensually non-monogamous relationships, uh, relationship, probably because the first thing you think about is more sexual opportunities, men are more likely to be thinking about sex, pursue s-, uh, at least casual sex. Um, and women tend to report less of an interest, but it's not a huge... As huge of a difference as you might guess. So there are still plenty of women who are, um... Who I think pursue consensual non-monogamy, but the motives, again, may differ between men and women.

Chris Williamson 2:19 Talk to me about the motives.

Justin Mogilski 2:21 Yeah, so, uh, to the degree... So I, I know that you've had a few people on this show before looking at, um, uh, kind of the evolutionary roots of some sex differences, and one that seems to pop up is, again, men are looking for more, uh, um, casual term, casual, you know, short-term sexual relationships. And so to the degree that that is seen as, uh, an opportunity, if you ha- if you can have multiple partners, I think men are at least seeking it out. Now, whether they're having success in finding that number of partners that consensual non-monogamy could offer, that's an open question. Uh, versus women, I... Again, this is... And of course everyone's an individual, but the tendency, uh, is that women, um, are a little bit more picky. They're, they're a little more, um, interested in commitment from a partner, or at least are kind of oriented that way. And so, um, uh, to the degree that they kind of act on that, uh, y- you might find that they're less interested in this, "Well, if you have multiple partners, are you really going to be sticking around and investing in me as much as, say, um, other in- other people?" But at the same time, I think women have a lot to potentially gain from something like consensual non-monogamy, especially polyamory, uh, where there's an emphasis on multiple emotional close bonds. And so to the degree that having multiple partnerships could, um, you know, provide opportunities for, for, uh, kind of emotional connections, support, uh, uh, you know, a, a support network, um, as well as, you know, down the line perhaps childcare, um, I think that it can be attractive. But at the get-go, at least those who report they're interested in it, we're seeing that sex difference, and I think that's why.

Chris Williamson 4:01 Yeah. It, it's, it's interesting, the, the motives, and obviously the sexed difference here is, is one of the sort of big, um, battlegrounds for exactly what's going on with consensual non-monogamy. Yes, men have more sexual fantasies. They have a higher frequency of partner changes within sexual fantasies. They desire more casual sex, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm going to guess that men also experience more jealousy from their partner being physically intimate with somebody else, which means that men... It's a double-edged sword in some regards, that men both perhaps get something that they want a lot, but also have to deal with something that they fear a lot, and then the same for women. You know, it might be nice for a woman to have multiple people that she's got an emotional connection with, but also there is a higher bar for her to get over to get this arousal and to be able to get into a casual relationship with somebody, especially if she's managed to find a partner she's prepared to settle down with. Presumably-

Justin Mogilski 5:05 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 5:05 ... if hypergamy's kicked in a little bit, you know, she might be dating close to the asymptote of whatever her potential mating pool is, so she's, like, dating down casually. Maybe she's aware of this sort of second order, "If I do a thing, that might make him jealous, that might make the person that I care about leave me." So yeah, uh, like a double-edged sword or a quadruple edged sword, uh, for, uh, both sexes doing non-monogamy.

Justin Mogilski 5:32 I think so, yeah. What you'll see is that a lot of people do struggle with jealousy and consensual non-monogamy, and something that hasn't been studied as, as deeply are these sex differences. And so I would guess that you're right. So what we find, at least within monogamous relationships, is that men tend to be more, uh, sexually jealous than women. Men... Women tend to be more what's called emotionally jealous or, or jealous of their partner spending times, um, uh, spending their attention, et cetera, on somebody else. And so I think where that leads is, as men and women...... -approach these types of relationships, they're going to run into different issues, different problems, different concerns, that are going to make their life perhaps worse (laughs) for- for- for trying it. And so to make it work, I think men and women will have to kind of resolve different chap- resolve those different challenges for themselves. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 6:24 Why does non-monogamy most often fail?

Justin Mogilski 6:30 So it tends to fail m- One of the reasons that it tends to fail is that if you are at- if you only have two individuals, those relationships are going to be- and it's just- it's monogamy. That's gonna be easier to maintain in some sense because you're only having to coordinate two individuals, right? And so I know if- if I'm just with one other person, I know what you're thinking and feeling, I know what our plan- we can- we can talk about our shared plans for the future, you know, whether we purchase a house together, how we're gonna have children. And when you add in a third person or more, there's a unique dynamic that opens up where now you have to take into account how this third person is going to contribute perhaps to each person's life, and how that third person might impact, say, another per- the other partner who maybe they're not dating this individual. And so I think these relationships tend to fail when we don't account for that, or when we don't, um, take into account how that third person is going to potentially introduce new relationship demands, competition between partners. Um, I think, and- and this is an argument that, uh, people like Joe Henrich make about the value of monogamy is, when you take out that third party, and when you just- when your solution is, "Well, let's just essentially abstain from having other relationships," what you're doing is you're taking out the potential for rivalry between partners. You're taking out the potential for rivalry for- for resources and experiences of jealousy. Um, so it tends to fail, at least in my opinion, when these concerns are not taken into account. Um, I think the- the default strategy is just kind of get your own and don't- don't worry potentially about other- how- how- how say a- the person that you s- If you're married with someone else and now you start dating someone else, you may not consider how dating that third person's going to affect your partner, the current dynamic that you have with your established partner, et cetera.

Chris Williamson 8:30 Mm. Yeah, jealousy to

Chris Williamson 8:33 me from the outside, even though we've both got mutual friends, a number of mutual friends who are in the, uh, varying depths of the world-

Justin Mogilski 8:40 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 8:40 ... of non-monogamy-

Justin Mogilski 8:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:41 ... um, jealousy must be a huge part of this. I know, for instance, Geoffrey Miller, um, has, you know, done entire articles, entire studies trying to explain how to cope with mate jealousy.

Justin Mogilski 8:56 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 8:56 Jealousy within relationships and stuff like that. Have you got any idea whether disparities in mate value influence jealousy in non-monogamous relationships?

Justin Mogilski 9:07 So I actually have that data. I have not analyzed it, um, but that is one of the earlier-

Chris Williamson 9:12 Come on, what have you just said? What are you doing?

Justin Mogilski 9:13 I know, I know. (laughs) I'm teaching. No. (laughs) There's- there's a lot. We actually have a lot of data. But that, um ... So I looked at this in a smaller sample of predominantly monogamous people who are looking to get into consensually non-monogamous relationships, or who were asked to ima- to imagine getting into one, and there were differences such that those who were of relatively higher mate value had a greater interest in, uh, being in a consensually non-monogamous relat- relative to their partner, interest in being in a non- non-monogamous relationship and they fu- they projected that they might experience less jealousy than the person-

Chris Williamson 9:46 Hmm.

Justin Mogilski 9:46 ... who was relatively lower mate value. Now, whether that's actually the case, uh, I couldn't tell you. But, uh, I would ge- the- the prediction is that as much as people in monogamous or consensually non-monogamous relationships are tuned into w- you know, the value of their partner and potentially making kind of calculations of, "Well, is this some- could I find someone who maybe- maybe better meets certain needs?" Um, they might be tempted to say, um, uh, they- they- they'll- they might feel less jealousy if they're of higher mate value because they're- i- in one, they're interested in finding another partner, but in two, they may feel that their current partner is unlikely to leave them or perhaps find someone better. It's kind of a darker way to think about these things, but, um, i- it is a pattern that we see. So, I would predict that yes, you'd see that.

Chris Williamson 10:41 Yeah, I think so too. Uh, I spoke to this guy Chris Bumstead, he's a bodybuilder type dude. He's Mr. Olympia three or four times and just like the biggest alpha chad on the planet by the way that he looks.

Justin Mogilski 10:54 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 10:54 And he told me the story about how a few weeks before one of the big competitions he was doing, he broke down and cried in his girlfriend's arms on the bathroom floor and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. And I made a point that he is kind of the face of the sigma male meme on the internet. A lot of these, like, cool hardcore orchestral music over the top of a dude looking really buff and lean-

Justin Mogilski 11:17 Mm.

Chris Williamson 11:17 ... like, he's literally the face of the sigma male, you don't need to give a fuck, like, you know, stoicism, Ryan Holiday quotes, all this bullshit. Um, and I- I fi- I was like, "Look, this is interesting." Like, the guy that is the face of this movement is also somebody who is incredibly open and vulnerable with his partner, and the internet, uh, mentioned the only reason that he was able to be so vulnerable is he has so much excess mate value from being this guy that he basically has a- a- a bank account, a- an overdraft limit-

Justin Mogilski 11:48 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 11:48 ... into which he can withdraw. And-

Justin Mogilski 11:51 Right.

Chris Williamson 11:51 ... um, it kind of feels a little bit similar to what we're talking about here with if there's a disparity in mate value, if one mate is more attractive or more desirable than the other one, or at least that's the way that they're perceived, they kind of get this sense that they can fuck about a little bit more, that they can make more errors, that there's less risk of their partner leaving because, well-... how are they going to beat this, and yeah, there's just, it's like a buffer, right? It's like a, like an overdraft limit.

Justin Mogilski 12:15 Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, I, I think that's absolutely right. I think to the degree that you feel almost more secure really in your attachment to another partner, and to, to your partner, but also secure in your ability to attract other people, you're right, that you're gonna be more willing to take a risk. And I think that's a principle that you see even outside the mating market, right? Is if you have the, the, the excess value to kind of take risk, you're more likely to take risk. And I would say that that is a risk.

Chris Williamson 12:43 Yeah, that's interesting. Interesting to think that, uh, your, i- it's kind of like, um, women's bodies are more fragile than men's, therefore they take less risky behavior.

Justin Mogilski 12:54 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 12:54 They do indirect aggression instead of direct aggression, uh, and the same mate that is presumably, uh, they've just got more room. They've got more room to fuck about. So talk

Chris Williamson 13:05 to me about what sorts of people get into non-monogamous relationships. Can you predict this? Is there a personality profile of the classic non-monogamist?

Justin Mogilski 13:15 So the personality profiles don't tend to vary much, except on one dimension, which is openness to experience. And for those who are unfamiliar with personality psychology, this is, um, kind of your tendency to be open to new ideas, new experiences. Uh, people tend to be less judgemental, et cetera. So that's the big personality difference. The other predictor tends to be, so people who are LGBTQ+ are more likely to be in consensually non-monogamous relationships, and then also people who are more, um, what's known as they have an unrestricted sociosexuality. So they have a greater interest in, um, casual sex. They think about casual sex more often. Though I do wanna note that, you know, much of consensual non-monogamy is, is not only just about the sex. A lot of people are looking for multiple attachments as well. So I think if we were to break apart, which you don't see this much in the research, people who tend to pursue it for sexual reasons versus other reasons, um, maybe you wouldn't see that, that predictor, or maybe there would be other unique predictors. So what, that, all of that is to say that if you just lump everyone together, those are the predictors that kind of pop, the, the demographic variables that, that, that pop out. But, um, I, I think if we were to look at a more fine-grain analysis, we'd see others.

Chris Williamson 14:30 Yeah, that's so interesting. You know, you, the world of non-monogamy is, you know, on the outskirts of kink. It's like orbiting kink culture, and it's orbiting a bunch of other... I think a lot of people kinda see it as a, it's a sex thing, right? It's a sex thing-

Justin Mogilski 14:47 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 14:47 ... because people want to have more partners, and they want to have multiple partners that may be in one bed at the same time, and so on and so forth. I totally didn't consider that, um, someone who has unrestricted like, um, socio-... uh,

Justin Mogilski 15:06 Emotional or something, yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:07 Yeah, emotionality or something, something-

Justin Mogilski 15:09 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 15:09 ... like that, you know, like-

Justin Mogilski 15:10 Right.

Chris Williamson 15:10 ... affectionality perhaps, that you know, someone just needs to be cuddled twice as much as the next normal person.

Justin Mogilski 15:15 Sure.

Chris Williamson 15:16 Um, and they're leaning on this very different sort of dynamic that is afforded by being non-monogamous. Scott Alexander that does Slate Star Codex, now Astral Codex 10, um, he, I'm pretty sure, I might be throwing him under the bus here, I'm pretty sure that he says that he's asexual, that he's not interested in sex, or at least I've heard that some of the guys that are in his crew are, but I also know that he lived in a polycule for a while.

Justin Mogilski 15:43 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 15:44 So y- you have, and this is the perfect control. Like you have somebody who is largely not interested in sex-

Justin Mogilski 15:51 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 15:51 ... and yet is in an environment that has multiple intimate relationships. Uh, and you know, th- there you go. Like, that's, that's precisely the situation.

Justin Mogilski 16:03 And this is what you see a lot, is people say, you know, "I..." A lot of people feel they can't get everything that they need from just one partner. And so the idea is that you could have multiple relationships that are emotionally deep. They're intimate. You get something different from each person. The relationship is, is, uh, it affords, it affor- there are different affordances to each relationship. And so I think that that is the correct way to, to look at... I mean, clearly the difference between a romantic relationship and a platonic one is that you're usually having sex with someone, right? But I think there's also the lov- the depth of how much love you feel for them, how much interdepent- how interdependent you are with them, whether you build a life around them, um, and I think that those are factors to not ignore. There's, I think there are, um, I, I would also expect there's a, there's a sex difference there, again, to the degree that men and women seek out sex versus emotional connection, uh,

Justin Mogilski 16:59 differently.

Chris Williamson 16:59 Have you got any idea what the most popular non-monogamy setups are, how many people are doing it one way versus doing it another way?

Justin Mogilski 17:10 So only because of the classic, so i- if you look at the research, they tend to differentiate people who are polyamorous, swinging, and then people who are in open relationships. There tend to be a lot of people in open relationships, just because it's a broader category. If you just say you're open, that could mean a lot of things. When you look at the exact practices, my intuition is publicly, uh, polyamorous people are in the greatest quantity, though that also depends where you are in the country.

Chris Williamson 17:36 Wh- when you say polyamorous, what do you mean?

Justin Mogilski 17:38 So polyamorous, specifically these are when you have, uh, multiple relationships that tend to, that are se- that can be sexual, but then also tend to include emotional attachment. So that is, that- that's kinda baked into the definition. You are, you know, multiple loves, right, polyamorous. Versus something like swingers. Uh, swingers, they tend to be far more secretive about the fact that they're swingers, and the relationships tend to focus more on sex, and they might not include these long-lasting kind of webs of partners. Um, so the ac- th- there's the funny thing, the ex- the, the exact frequency of these different relationships is hard to nail down, because...It is, uh, many of my coauthors, k- kind of colleagues would argue this, it- they- it's a s- it's a stigmatized type of relationship, right? If you say that you're polyamorous, you say that you're a swinger, people start to believe. You know, they think, they assume cert- certain things about you.

Chris Williamson 18:32 Yeah.

Justin Mogilski 18:32 They make assumptions and it's, it's, to some degree, it tends to be negative. And there's, there's good research showing that, um, people do tend to at least have that first impression.

Chris Williamson 18:40 I asked a female non-monogamous friend whether or not she was hit on, but she's in a relationship, uh, whether or not she was hit on more when she was single or when people found out that she was non-monogamous, and it was like, she said, by far, when they found out that I was non-monogamous because that's a signal, like she's hot trot.

Justin Mogilski 19:00 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 19:00 She's just, like, ready to go at all times.

Justin Mogilski 19:03 Right.

Chris Williamson 19:03 Like, she's just in it because she's kind of a sex fiend.

Justin Mogilski 19:05 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:05 Um, and, uh, yeah, it, you're right, the, the non-monogamy world has, uh, a branding problem, to say the least. If it w- it depends on, like, unless that's how it wants to be viewed, but-

Justin Mogilski 19:15 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 19:15 ... you know, if it wants to just be another, uh, sexual proclivity, there's an awful lot of baggage, I guess, that comes along with it. What about the most popular of manosphere talking points from 2023, the one-sided non-monogamous relationship? How rare or common is that?

Justin Mogilski 19:33 I don't know the answer to that. I don't know if anyone's recorded that particular configuration. Um, usually, we ask questions about how people self-identify, the label that they give themselves, and then also the number of partners that they have. Now, whether that's equal or not, tough to parse out.

Chris Williamson 19:52 Would be interesting to ask, uh, I guess you'd have to fight with stated and revealed preferences here, but I would certainly be interested in questions along the line of, um, would you be happy with your partner being non-monogamous as long as you knew that they were going to stay committed to you long term if you were entirely monogamous to them?

Justin Mogilski 20:12 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 20:12 Um, and I would be very interested to see the sex difference because the, the kind of broscience on the internet would say, um, if it's a sufficiently high value man, the woman will be prepared to let him sleep around because she knows that she's captured, like, the dude that's got all of the resources and the status and stuff like that. Um, from just my anecdotal evidence, almost all of the relationships, in fact, all of them except for Dan Bilzerian-

Justin Mogilski 20:38 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 20:39 ... all of them are two-sided open relationships.

Justin Mogilski 20:43 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 20:44 I know one where the, it's, it's open on both sides, but it's only girls.

Justin Mogilski 20:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 20:52 So it's like a, it's like a-

Justin Mogilski 20:54 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 20:54 ... lesbian for the girl and it's a straight non-monogamy for the guy. Uh, I think if I was to, again, pull more broscience out of my ass that, uh, that helps to mitigate some of the jealousy feelings from the male side, uh-

Justin Mogilski 21:10 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:10 ... that, there's a great Joe Rogan bit where he talks about how, um, if his wife came home and said that she'd, like, ended up getting with one of her friends, he would have absolutely no problems at all. Mm-hmm.

Justin Mogilski 21:21 Uh, whereas, obviously the reverse wouldn't be true if it had been a guy, and also, I'm not convinced that the reverse would be quite as true (laughs) if he'd come home and said, like, "I accidentally sucked my friend's dick." Like, you know, there's-

Chris Williamson 21:32 Right.

Justin Mogilski 21:32 ... there's a mi-

Chris Williamson 21:32 Right, yeah, yeah.

Justin Mogilski 21:33 ... there's a mixed bag of a one-way street going on here. Um, but yeah, this, this one-sided non-monogamy thing, it seems to be, uh, at least hypothetically being, uh, touted as a potential solution. Yeah, so I- I- I- I take your point that... So, uh, so I think that would be called a one penis policy, right?

Chris Williamson 21:52 (laughs)

Justin Mogilski 21:52 Where it's actually, there just needs to be one penis, yeah, within the relationship.

Chris Williamson 21:56 (laughs)

Justin Mogilski 21:56 And, and that tends to be common. I mean, if you look at (laughs) if you look at really traditional instantiations of, of this kind of thing, so polyamory is a very modern thing, but if you can look at any societies that practice pl- plural marriage, the vast majority of relationships tend to be polygyny, where there's one man and multiple women.

Chris Williamson 22:14 Mm-hmm.

Justin Mogilski 22:14 And I think that's precisely why, is, is men have had this recurrent adaptive issue of avoiding cuckoldry, of making sure that their children are genetically related to them, and so yeah. That is a solution, just don't let, y- y- you know, try to reach an agreement with your partner where they don't have sex with, where a woman doesn't have sex with other men. The problem with that and what you see complaints about usually, you know, when, when people are, are, are talking about, um, issues with one penis policies is that women are feeling restricted, right? Is, is, you know, they may find, they may be attracted to more than just other women. And so in those situations where maybe the man is kind of alleviating his anxieties because there are no other penises, um, women may be accumulating anxieties because now they have to hold back, whereas their male partner does not need to hold back. And so that can create its own tension. So you may be placating one partner while actually making things more difficult for the other.

Chris Williamson 23:10 Are there differences in where conflict comes from in monogamous versus non-monogamous relationships?

Justin Mogilski 23:17 Well, they both have many of the same conflicts, right? To the degree that you need to negotiate, you know, where you're gonna be going in the future, where you're gonna be living, how to manage just, you know, when you get into fights about X, Y, and Z, all of that's basically the same. The big difference is, again, you're adding in this third person. And so once you add in the third person, some unique issues pop up. I mean, you have, um, I think people w- may worry, depending on how they handle it, they worry more about losing their partner and so that attachment issue, the anxiety that comes with-

Chris Williamson 23:52 Mm-hmm.

Justin Mogilski 23:52 ... with, with fear of losing your partner's there. I mean, you've, you need to manage potential, um, you know, S- STI transmissions, sexually transmitted infections. Uh, you need to, you know, if you have children, you need to coordinate childcare in some way that, 'cause it's already sometimes hard enough to get two parents to agree on how to raise a child, so if you're adding a third person, that's a whole other layer. Um, and I think that people in consensually non-monogamous relationships also need to deal with, uh, their reputation more, right? It's, it's, if you say you're monogamous, oh great.... congratulations. If you say that you're- you're non-monogamous, um, you need to hide that. And secrecy is associated with- with all kinds of, uh, negative relationship outcomes. So, I think that those are the predominant issues you're gonna see more often-

Chris Williamson 24:39 Again-

Justin Mogilski 24:39 ... in non-monogamy.

Chris Williamson 24:40 ... uh, thinking about my friends that I've spoken to about their successes and many failures of trying to get non-monogamy to work, um, their ability to be completely open and truthful seems to be a huge mediating factor here. That if little white lies turn into little white lies, turn into a little bit more, turn into a little bit more, and then it spirals out of control.

Justin Mogilski 25:03 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 25:03 Um, so if you speak to anybody about non- that's in a non-monogamous relationship or has tried it and you were to say, "Well, what are some of the things that you need to do in order to make it work?" Like, absolute 100% transparency would be maybe the first thing they'd say?

Justin Mogilski 25:20 I- I imagine the first. Uh, you hear that all the time, communication, right? And I- I think it's because what communication does is it gets you into the other person's head, and so you can make a better prediction. For example, if- if- if my partner gets involved with somebody else, I may not know that person. I may not know what their motivations are for the relationship- the relationship. I may not know how my partner thinks about this partner, this new person. Are they going to be just someone who's a sexual fling? Is it gonna be someone who's sticking around? And so the more that you communicate with your partner about these things, and the more open you are, the better I'm gonna be at predicting how that relationship's going to evolve over time, how it's going to affect me. And so part of not lying, part of having that communication is, I think, kind of nipping in the bud those- those simulations that you run, right?

Chris Williamson 26:13 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Justin Mogilski 26:13 You say, "Uh, this is how this is gonna turn out. This person is going to replace me in this way."

Chris Williamson 26:17 Yup.

Justin Mogilski 26:17 And when you talk about it, you realize, well, maybe no, they- they're filling a totally different role, or my partner's still very much interested in being with me. And to nail that down, it's kinda like what you were saying earlier, if someone says, "I'm still gonna be committed to you," and they show that and there's evidence of that, um, that te- that tends to help quite a bit.

Chris Williamson 26:37 Yeah, the, uh, so the vacuum sucks in speculation. And, uh, by filling the vacuum with transparency, the-

Justin Mogilski 26:46 Right.

Chris Williamson 26:46 ... I guess the speculation doesn't happen so much.

Justin Mogilski 26:48 Right.

Chris Williamson 26:48 So you came up with the multi-relationship maintenance strategies scale.

Justin Mogilski 26:55 Yes.

Chris Williamson 26:55 And I want to go through all of the different maintenance strategies that people use.

Justin Mogilski 27:01 Absolutely.

Chris Williamson 27:01 The first one is an exclusivity agreement. What's that?

Justin Mogilski 27:05 Well, so this is actually ... So if you're ... The- the data we've collected looking at this, um, the exclusivity factor ended up not coming out. But originally, what we had thought this was is in the beginning of your relationship ...

Chris Williamson 27:16 Ooh.

Justin Mogilski 27:16 Yeah, this is ... So, we- we gathered data to validate, um, uh, this measure of different, uh, strategies, and nine of them stuck around. That was the one that we lost. But nevertheless, this was something that people within consensually non-monogamous relationships, as we were gathering this data, they nominated it and said, "You- people should be doing this." And so the idea is at the beginning of your relationship, you should be not only very explicit that this is our agreement, that we are not going to sleep with or fall in love with, form attachments with other people, and so having that explicit conversation upfront. 'Cause right now, you can sometimes assume that, right? You start dating someone or you- you- you- you meet someone for the first time, there might be this assumption that if things continue, you're going to be monogamous.

Chris Williamson 28:03 Mm.

Justin Mogilski 28:03 And so if your expectations are mismatched, then that's a breeding ground for potential conflict, where say a month down the line, "Surprise, I'm still dating other people and you are not," right? You've agreed to monogamy, "You thought we were monogamous and- and we're not." Uh, and then another part of that is revisiting that over time, right? Because what your- what your agreement is and how interested you are in it and how you wanna maintain it could change.

Chris Williamson 28:30 Right. Is that ... So the exclusivity agreement saying that you won't fall in love and won't do these things and so on and so forth, presumably there's different levels, that different types of non-monogamous relationships try and drop into.

Justin Mogilski 28:45 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 28:45 There'll be some where you're only allowed to do this with a person, you're only allowed to see them so often or whatever.

Justin Mogilski 28:53 Yep. Yeah, a- a- a lot of degree of exclusivity as well.

Chris Williamson 28:57 Right, yup.

Justin Mogilski 28:57 Right? So t- um, "You know, I- I may be totally fine with you having sex with somebody, but don't fall in love," or, "You can have this deep ame- intimate attachment, but I- I don't want sex." And then, um ...

Chris Williamson 29:07 Because both of those two things are so unbelievably easy to pass apart.

Justin Mogilski 29:12 (laughs) That's right, yeah, yeah. And I think that's where people get into ... they- they- they get into trouble, right? Is you make that agreement and you're saying, "Okay, this is how it's gonna work," then you are having sex, you are talking to this person, you're creating that attachment, and then suddenly you say, "You know what? I kinda wanna do more." And so revisit, that's why I think revisiting the agreement also helps, because once you establish it, things can change.

Chris Williamson 29:35 All right, att- attraction disclosure.

Justin Mogilski 29:37 Yeah. So this was actually the biggest one, uh, in- in- in statistical speak, it explained the most variance in people's responses to the scale, so ... And it- it was, uh, strongly correlated with, uh, some of our relationship quality outcomes, satisfaction, conflict. Um, what this is, is if you are- if you are in a relationship and you are attracted to someone outside of your relationship, um, tell your partner about it. So disclose that you're attracted to other people. Right now, I think the habit for a lot of people is if you're attracted to someone else, just hide it, don't talk about it. You know, brush it under the- under the rug and just don't acknowledge it, because if you say that to your partner, the first reaction your partner's usually going to have is, "Wait, what? There's this other person?" And they- they ... their heart rate goes up, they get all panicked, and that seems like an unpleasant experience. But again, what you're doing is you are giving your partner...... true information because the alternative is, let's say that your partner observes that you're talking with this other person, that clearly you're attracted to them. Now they are free to just stew in their own simulations of what's gonna happen between you two versus, um, if they know that you're attracted to this other person, there's no mystery. So it sucks, but you can at least be confident that, um, you know, that something is actually happening. And then from there you can take other steps.

Chris Williamson 31:00 Okay, so was this- was this proposed by some people in the non-monogamous community as potential strategies for people in monogamous relationships to also try?

Justin Mogilski 31:14 They were nominated as the best- so we asked for the best and the worst practices (laughs) for doing consensual non-monogamy. So they weren't even thinking, "Should monogamous people do this?"

Chris Williamson 31:25 Right.

Justin Mogilski 31:25 But what we found in our data set was that people who were monogamous who did this also tended to report higher relationship satisfaction.

Chris Williamson 31:34 Have you got any idea which way the arrow of causality runs there?

Justin Mogilski 31:38 That's unclear. So none of this data was experimental. None of it was longitudinal. We got one snapshot in time. My guess is that th- the- 'cause we asked it as adherence to certain behaviors. So the people that were- we're asking, "How often do you do this?" And so from there we can guess that the behavior may have led to greater satisfaction. The opposite is less clear to me. If you're already satisfied that leads you to disclose your attraction more-

Chris Williamson 32:06 Mm.

Justin Mogilski 32:07 ... maybe you're more comfortable doing that.

Chris Williamson 32:08 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Justin Mogilski 32:09 Um, and that could be a- a possibility, but my guess is that engaging in the behavior leads to the, you know, the satisfaction.

Chris Williamson 32:20 Got you. Compersion.

Justin Mogilski 32:22 So compersion, if you Google that what you'll get is usually, um, it's how much you enjoy or like that your partner is currently involved with someone else, whether that's sexually, romantically, or otherwise. And, uh, this, depending on who you ask, the scholar that you ask what com- the definition will change. I think in general it is if your partner is involved with someone else and they are having a good time, you can then be happy for them, right? You can actually feel that- that- that pleasure that- that- that they're getting what they need. This is kind of like being, and this is a very platonic way of thinking about it, but this is kind of like being happy for a friend or a colleague or someone else who had a major, um, success in their life, right? They ended up getting the job they really wanted. They ended up having, say, the vacation that they were really looking forward to, et cetera. You're just happy that they're having this positive experience. And so it would be you are happy that your romantic partner is having this very positive experience with someone else. And so, for example, um, say if your partner is involved with someone else, you're happy at first, but then you realize this person isn't very good for them or they seem to be stressed more, they're crying more than they used to, and- and that person seems to be causing it, you might feel less compersion because now you know that they're not enjoying themselves. So it's really about this appreciation for the other person, th- your partner's experience, positive experience.

Chris Williamson 33:47 Yeah, I mean, we're running into all manner of pretty heavily hardwired concerns here. You know, uh, "My husband is getting really great emotional support and affection from this other woman," that's gonna trigger an awful lot in most women. And, uh, "My wife is getting sexually satisfied by that dude down the street or that guy that she goes to see in Dallas once every six weeks or whatever," again, you know, like that compersion seems like a, uh, ancestrally rare emotion to have felt, which is probably why no one's ever tried to spell it or write it before.

Justin Mogilski 34:29 (laughs) Yeah, I- I don't think... My- my guess is that c- 'cause there's very little that we know about compersion, but my guess is that this is not something that spontaneously arise, at least not as spontaneously as jealousy or envy does, right? Is I think that you have to, to some degree, reason yourself towards compersion because at first you're feeling jealousy, you're un- you're insecure about whether your relationship is gonna last, or you're feeling envious. You really want what this other... "Who's- what's this other guy doing for my wife that I'm not able to do?" You're feeling that envy first. And then from there you have to work your way and say, "Okay, despite the fact that I'm feeling this, I know that she is getting something that gives her joy, but then may not actually affect me," right? Is- is I think you make the assumption that this relationship is going to filter back and negatively affect me somehow, but there is a world where it doesn't. And so when you realize that that's- that can be true, it gets easier.

Chris Williamson 35:27 Yeah, security of attachment must be-

Justin Mogilski 35:29 Yep.

Chris Williamson 35:30 ... a big mediator

Chris Williamson 35:31 here. Okay, next one is, you just said there, jealousy regulation.

Justin Mogilski 35:34 Yeah, I mean, this is straightforward, right? Is if your partner is involved with someone else, you're gonna feel jealousy. And the way that the items are worded for our measure is how well can you... How- how free do you feel to communicate about jealousy? Because I think you can find yourself in a situation where, you know, you're feeling this jealousy and- and you really wanna... And- and- and even if you were to communicate it, you wouldn't resolve it. But the fact that you can just openly talk about your experiences with your partner then leads you to be able to resolve the concern, right? 'Cause if you're not talking about the jealousy, again, you are trying to deal with it yourself. You are trying to reason through it yourself. You're trying to, again, "W- what is my- what is my partner going to- going to be, uh, going to be doing with this other person?" So, um, it's all p- it's... Many of these s- are kind of part and parcel with this openness of communication, this honesty, just- just giving your partner the information they need to work through whatever- whatever emotional or otherwise issues they're having. And so I think openness to talk about jealousy...... um, helps people resolve that.

Chris Williamson 36:44 Have you learned anything or did you discover anything during your research about how people can better manage sexual jealousy?

Justin Mogilski 36:52 So there are... (laughs) There are multiple strategies that are identified. Some of the ones that are worse are-

Chris Williamson 36:59 (laughs)

Justin Mogilski 36:59 ... avoidance. So I'll start with the bad ones, right? The, the, the worst, the worst one tends to be avoidance, where it's, it's you're experiencing this and you just say, "You know what? I shouldn't be experiencing this, and so I'm just not even gonna address it. I'm not gonna give it the light of day." Um, a better way to... A, a better way tends to be, um... Uh, one of the ways is, is cognitive reframing. So in other words, rather than... So if you experience jealousy, the first place that your mind goes is you focus on all the ways that this other relationship that your partner has could harm you. What you could do instead is think about all the ways in which that other relationship could actually enrich your life. Uh, so for example, this is kinda hard to see if you're really worried about your partner, but, um, if your partner is, you know, spending more time with someone else, they are having a good time, that means they're gonna be in a better mood probably. And so, if they come home or you see them again, they're gonna be better prepared to meet you where you're at. They're not going to be, you know, having this desire to go off and do other things. Um, you're also getting more time. When your partner spends more time with someone else, I mean, that's more personal time for you, and I some-... I think some people, um... You know, if, if you're in a relationship and you're kind of following the traditional, uh, monogamous paradigm is, is you're pretty much up each other's asses all the time, right?

Chris Williamson 38:22 (laughs)

Justin Mogilski 38:22 And so that... A little bit of distance can be a good thing. So when you kind of reframe what are the consequences after I feel this emotion, um, I think that tends to help. I, I almost think of it as, um, really as a type of mindfulness, right? Where you recognize that you're experiencing an emotion, it's rising up, and rather than just follow the script and get possessive, get worried, start punishing your partner, instead you observe that emotion and think, "Is this emotion actually serving the purpose for which it's designed?" Jealousy is meant to preserve pair bonds, preserve relationships, but there is jealousy that you can experience, especially if it's chronic, if it's, you know, mis- uh, misapplied, um, that it makes the relationship worse. So you have to ask yourself, "Is this jealousy motivating me, say, to address a problem that I have with my partner? Or is this jealousy just something that I'm experiencing, I'm running with the negative emotions, and it's not helping me at all?"

Chris Williamson 39:27 Yeah, it's interesting to think that... All right, I- I'd love to know if polyamorous relationships, non-monogamous relationships have higher rates of domestic violence.

Justin Mogilski 39:41 Well, my, my guess is low... So, I, I imagine you're thinking that just because when you, when you-

Chris Williamson 39:47 Jealousy, mate guarding.

Justin Mogilski 39:48 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jealousy, mate guarding, yeah, that's all... That is all, is all wrapped up in domestic, uh, uh, intimate partner ab- uh, violence. And so, yeah, to the degree that these emotions are poorly managed, yes, I think that you'd probably see more of that. And that's what you see in monogamous relationships, right? When there's cheating, people just are t- They feel absolutely valid in saying, "I feel jealous. I wanna murder my partner," essentially. You're almost justified in doing that. Um, versus if you're successfully managing these emotions, which my impression of most people who, who are polyamorous, they are, I don't think you would see more domestic violence. I would guess that they would be... They would probably have rates as common as monogamous people who are faithfully monogamous.

Chris Williamson 40:41 Yeah, that's interesting.

Justin Mogilski 40:42 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:42 I just, uh... I guess it all comes down to... It's a high-wire act, right?

Justin Mogilski 40:46 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 40:47 It's, it's, uh... You're purposefully putting yourself into a situation where there will be more jealousy, there will be more mate guarding, but, uh, how many people are accidentally finding themselves in a, in a non-monogamous relationship? Like, they're very much first principles anti-culturing their way into this-

Justin Mogilski 41:06 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 41:06 ... kind of relationship setup, so they're probably doing at least some of the cognitive work to be able to, "Okay, and what do I need to think about and what are the risks and what are the benefits and what are the costs and what are the so on?" And, uh, I guess, it, it's a, it's a balancing act of is preparing for the fire whilst going further into the fire? Wh- wh- which one is more effective, you know?

Justin Mogilski 41:31 Right, right, yeah. I think it's preparation. I think it's also how you handle yourself along the way, right? Because, um, I think... So one of the things I'll say about the practices that we've identified is, even if I think you followed all of them and you were going into it as prepared as you could be, there are going to be experiences that you're not prepared for, and I think it is about managing in the moment how you respond to what's happening and keeping your eye on is what is happening over here between my partner and someone else, how is that actually going to filter back and affect me?

Chris Williamson 42:03 Mm.

Justin Mogilski 42:03 Right? Because I- uh, we... I think it's less defensible to restrict a partner's kind of behavior with other people if... It's really just to, to, to make you feel better about your jealousy or make you feel better about your fear. Um, we wouldn't really do that for, for... In many other, in many other situations where, you know, my, my partner just doesn't want this for some undisclosed reason, so I'm not going to do it. Um, I- I think that's part of, of, of keeping track of that. The other thing that your comment made me think of is, uh, for a long time, I've been thinking about the degree to which m- people in monogamous versus polyamorous relationships differ on intelligence, and it w- Intelligence would probably aid in helping to...... again, be aware of what's happening as you're being non-monogamous, keeping track of what's happening, and then devising these, these kind of novel, creative solutions to, um, dealing with jealousy or whatever's happening. I don't know of any data on that but, um, I'd be curious. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 43:06 (laughs) Yeah, okay. Partner hierarchy.

Justin Mogilski 43:08 Okay, so this is, um ... One of the things that you'll, uh, observe if you ever get ... if you're ever kind of, like, tipping your toe into, to polyamory and all that, is that people will essentially label their partners as primary versus secondary or tertiary, and this is the idea that primary relationships are going to look more like the traditional monogamous relationship where you have deep investment with one another, you have shared goals together. Um, you know, if you buy a house, this is the person that you're buying the house with, that you're sharing. You know, you're taking care of children together. And then secondary might fill some other role, uh, but they're usually treated ... (sighs) They have maybe f- (laughs) Their voice in some cases may matter less. So if the primary partner puts their foot down and says, "No, this is not okay," the secondary may not have, uh, much of a say in that. And so this really gets at to what degree are you more hierarchical or are you more non-hierarchical, where you ch- not that you treat partners exactly the same, but you don't go into the relationship already having specified who's gonna be primary and who's gonna be secondary. People who are non-hierarchical, what they tend to do, what they tend to say is, is you want the kind of natural relationships that arise, th- the, the, the, the chemistry between people as it arises to guide how much time you spend, what you do with each partner, et cetera.

Chris Williamson 44:34 Mm.

Justin Mogilski 44:34 So letting, letting it follow your preference, rather than imposing that structure from the beginning.

Chris Williamson 44:41 That's interesting.

Justin Mogilski 44:42 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 44:42 Okay, sexual health maintenance.

Justin Mogilski 44:45 I mean, that's, that's straightforward, right, is if you're having ... So, one of the things that we know, it's well-documented, is if people have denser sexual networks, you have sex with a greater number of people and they all have sex with multiple people, the risk of contracting an STI is, is higher. And so, um, you, you see this in polyamorous communities. Getting tested regularly is, is very, very common. It's expec- it's, it's almost a m- it's a moral imperative in these communities, where if you're not doing this, you are introducing risk. Um, so it's that. It's preventing, um, uh, spread of pathogens, but also making sure that you use, uh, safer sex tools to prevent, um, you know, unwanted pregnancy, because if one partner gets pregnant, I mean, that's its own drama, and there are, there are a lot of, um, there are a lot of issues that can come from that. So the idea is take away all the risks that can come from having sex with multiple people.

Chris Williamson 45:39 Got you. Shares

Chris Williamson 45:41 extra pair sexuality.

Justin Mogilski 45:43 Ah, yeah. Okay, so this one's fun because, uh, this is including your partner in the sex that you have with other people.

Chris Williamson 45:51 Right.

Justin Mogilski 45:52 And so that could look like ... Uh, I, I think what most people are probably familiar with is, I think it's more common, for example, for partners to watch pornography together, where you're including a third partner in your sexual ... You're, you're including a- essentially a third person in your, uh, sexual fantasies. But of course it's, it's someone else who's far away who's a fictional character. They're a, you know, porn star that you're never gonna meet, right? Um, but it could also include, uh, once you start getting, uh, involved with someone else, you also get involved with them. And my thinking here is that this is going to produce less conflict, and that's what we see, is it's so- associated with lower con- with, uh, less conflict in relationships. Um, to the degree that you're both getting something out of that third partner-

Chris Williamson 46:36 Mm.

Justin Mogilski 46:37 ... you have less reason to really complain about it or to find it as a, as, to see it as a negative, right? You are getting something from it, and, you know, again with, with any collaborative, um, kind of endeavor, if, if y- if all people are on the same page, they're all working towards the same goal, you tend to see better cooperation.

Chris Williamson 46:57 You do need to have someone who's at least, uh, slightly malleable in their sexual orientation. Well, um, do you ... I guess it depends who's doing what with who in the bedroom specifically, the mec- the nuts and bolts and mechanics of, of what's going on.

Justin Mogilski 47:12 Yeah, so if you're actually involved with the other person, yes. But if you're, you're present and you're just playing a part, you could, for example, say if it's two guys, one girl, you could still be having sex with your partner and you're getting something from just being there. This is actually one of the ... Uh, I see this a lot, where if your partner's off having sex with somebody else, you're again simulating thinking about what's going on, what's that, what's that like. If you're actually there, you see what that's like, you see the dynamic.

Chris Williamson 47:38 (laughs) I don't know if that's ...

Justin Mogilski 47:39 And that can be-

Chris Williamson 47:40 Yeah, it could be traumatizing or it could be beautiful.

Justin Mogilski 47:42 Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:43 I, I'm not convinced that that's-

Justin Mogilski 47:45 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 47:46 There's many, many people going, "Yeah, no, I just keep it in my mind. It can't be as bad in my mind as it is in reality."

Justin Mogilski 47:52 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 47:52 I don't know.

Justin Mogilski 47:54 Yeah, maybe you'll discover something you don't wanna know.

Chris Williamson 47:56 Yeah, perhaps.

Justin Mogilski 47:56 Um, that, that is possible. But, uh, so that's ... I think this, the first step is really you're present, now you know. And this is true with all these practices. You know this information now. But that's only the first step. The next step is, what do you do with that information? And that's where you get into thinking about, you know, I wanna be mi- Uh, if you, if you're present and you're experiencing jealousy, envy, because of actually watching, say, uh, other people have sex, well, what do you do with those emotions that you experience, right? Do you channel that into your own sexual satisfaction? Do you channel that into anger and aggression? Do you realize that it's, it, again, this is not gonna, something that's gonna harm you, et cetera? Uh, that's gonna lead to ... That, that I think is what leads to different kind of positive or, or negative, um, outcomes.

Chris Williamson 48:43 Got you. Reputation management.

Justin Mogilski 48:46 Uh, that is ... The way that we measured it was we, we asked people how often they hide their relationships from other people, so that is from people outside of their current relationship. This is managing, do other people know that you're consensually non-monogamous?... a manog- uh, so people who are consensually non-monogamous, they tend to be more secretive about their relationships, and that's associated with, um, again, having worse experiences overall. 'Cause, for example, if you're, if you're in a relationship with someone and there's a s- a secret, let's say that they do want to be a greater part of things. They want to maybe hang out in a public setting with all of your friends. If they wanna, you know, be brought to a family event. Now they can't do that, and that's important for a lot of people, and I think that's a, that's a keystone part of many romantic relationships. So you're taking away that opportunity to be public about it, you know?

Chris Williamson 49:37 Yeah, that's, uh, I- I suppose, the branding problem, uh (laughs) -

Justin Mogilski 49:42 Mm-hmm, sure.

Chris Williamson 49:43 ... that we were, that we were talking about earlier on. And I don't know, there's just... I- if it was more, uh, uh, accepted in wider culture, e- even if it was not even more accepted, if it was somehow held in high esteem, uh-

Justin Mogilski 49:56 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 49:56 ... you know, reputation management would be a totally different task, right?

Justin Mogilski 50:00 Yep.

Chris Williamson 50:00 It might be, it might be, um, playing it up even more because then we're gonna-

Justin Mogilski 50:03 Yep.

Chris Williamson 50:03 ... gain a little bit more social status from doing it. Uh, resource distribution.

Justin Mogilski 50:08 So this is whether you think about how you spend time, give attention, share physical resources among your partners. Um, one of the things that pops up is that you're in a relationship, you're in a, maybe an established pair bond, okay, with just two individuals, and then someone else comes in. At first, and this happens with all dating, you're now going to up your game and try to, uh, you know, shower this other person with presents, with attention. There's that new relationship energy, the initial courtship where you're investing more effort than you otherwise would. To your current partner, who may be... You've been past that stage for a long time, what it's gonna look like is you're spending more time, you're giving them more stuff than you ever give me. And so that is a source of jealousy as well. And so if you think more carefully about how each partner is... Whether they're getting what they need, y- the ideal might be, yes, you're kind of embracing this new relationship energy with the new partner, but then maybe you should also be considering that your partner's going to feel a little bit more, uh, threatened. They might be more jealous. And so maybe you need to up your game with your current partner as well. The idea is you don't wanna neglect one in favor of another, 'cause that's where you get a lot of rivalry.

Chris Williamson 51:27 Yeah, well, so this is your, your big matrix of, of strategies that were most likely used. Was

Chris Williamson 51:34 there anything else that you learned just while going through this big fat piece of research?

Justin Mogilski 51:39 Well, I think I've, I've mentioned just in, in passing, uh, bits and details, but I- I- I kinda wanna visit the, the, the branding, um, point that you, you keep, uh, bringing up, which I, I think that, again, when you hear something like polyamory, swinging, open relationships, et cetera, there is that initial reaction because there aren't really scripts. There isn't really a playbook for how to do consensual non-monogamy in a way that's ethical or in a way that doesn't potentially, uh, harm somebody, right? And so I think people are having almost a, mm, a- it's a justifiable reaction where you say, "Well, there's gonna be this other person. How's that gonna affect me? I- I, you know, there, maybe there are more STIs. Maybe, you know, I'm, I'm gonna be neglected." And what we're doing by identifying these different practices is we're showing how there is a logic to how people in polyamorous relationships navigate these issues, that it's not just a free-for-all, and it's not just, you know, "I'm gonna be involved with someone else. Suck it up. You gotta deal with that. It is what it is." It's more of there's, there's a conscientiousness to how people approach these relationships, and I think if that were better known, if the process were better known, um, as much as it's well-known a- for monogamy and how people should navigate monogamy, I think that if that were known, that stigma, that branding problem would start to go away. But of course, all that relies on are these, are these practices actually working? Our, our evidence, our, our data suggests they seem to be, but again, until we have experimental longitudinal data, we can't really say that they are.

Chris Williamson 53:16 Mm.

Justin Mogilski 53:16 And so this is, uh, this is, this is just a whole scientific endeavor that needs to happen, and, and we need to know whether what people in polyamorous relationships, for example, are doing actually has a positive effect, as many claim that it does. Um, yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:33 Yeah. W- why do you think it is that people so heavily condemn consensual non-monogamy, like the wider culture?

Justin Mogilski 53:44 I think there's... Because there are legitimate risks to... Because of jealousy, because of envy, because the, the probability that when you experience these things, you're going to be more combative. You're going to be more, um, aggressive with, with other people. I mean, there's, there's, um... For example, it's, it's well-known that, uh, uh, you know, if you t- you talked, uh, to William, uh,, uh, the other time, you know, if you have i- incels, like, people who are having a, a difficult time for one reason or another finding relationships, and it seems like, you know, everyone's flocking to the most attractive, most valuable relationships, and, and I'm not getting much at all, you're gonna see more animosity, more envy, more jealousy. And so I think the idea is if you maintain monogamy, it's almost like maintaining, um, kind of abstinence, ha, abstinence-only education, right? It's just you're, you're, you're telling people, "You know, if you have these issues, you should just ignore them. You should, uh..." so that we can avoid all of this envy, all of this jeal- uh, jealousy, all this aggression that comes from being disappointed in the mating market. Um, so I, I, I think that people are, are, are noticing that this is, um...... that this is, th- th- that this, that this can be, that these can be issues, right? When you engage in non-monogamy, it's, it can be messier. And so for it to be popular and for people to be getting into these relationships, you look at that and you say, "Well, this is gonna affect my life. This is going to cause more chaos than I really want, and so I, I don't want to support that." I think the other legitimate concern is, and I've thought about, I've, I've kind of tossed this idea back and forth a little bit, is if I'm in a polyamorous relationship and you are monogamous, I'm saying it's okay for your partner to have sex with, fall in love with other people. And so if you are committed and you say, "No, I'm only interested in monogamy, I'm only interested in, in you, uh, my love," and then they see that other people are being monogam- or being polyamorous, they're being non-monogamous, they say, "Oh, geez, that option's out there? Maybe I wanna try that." And so I think there, there is, there's this fear that polyamory is a threat to monogamy, and I think in some ways it is. It permits a different way of approaching relationships. Um, and so to the degree that you don't want that alternate option, you might be motivated to not have it be popular.

Chris Williamson 56:18 Yeah. The, I kinda got it in my head that polyamory is kind of like an animal that's able to... You throw something at it and it just eats it and keeps on moving.

Justin Mogilski 56:29 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 56:30 Whereas monogamy is much more fragile. Uh, polyamory is much more difficult to brea- not impossible to break at all, but it's way more sort of flexible and robust than non-monogamy, uh, than monogamy is.

Justin Mogilski 56:40 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 56:40 I guess as well, you know, this, uh, uh, intrasexual competition has to play a, a big part of this, right? That I am in a relationship with my significant other and we are committed to each other, and that person over there is also in a relationship. Therefore, I can be pretty reliable in knowing that they're not gonna try and steal my partner away. Whereas now, uh, like I said before, my friend who was hit on way more when it was found out that she was non-monogamous than when she was single, oh, the, some sort of sexual voodoo magician. They, they know all of these tricks from living in their polycules for the last few decades, or-

Justin Mogilski 57:15 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:16 ... that they, they're gonna invite her to a five-some and, and she's never gonna love me again, as, you know-

Justin Mogilski 57:20 Right.

Chris Williamson 57:20 ... li- all of these concerns that we have. Uh, I guess other reasons that I can spitball would be monogamy's a pretty good sexual redistribution strategy. Uh, people would be concerned about some sort of harem beginning by this one turbo Chad that's able to capture all of the women. Uh, I think there's still like a sort of vestige of Puritanism, uh, uh, around s- sex and, and, and sort of what we're supposed to be doing sexually. There's still an awful lot of, um, shame, I suppose, about what it is-

Justin Mogilski 57:51 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:51 ... that people actually want to do, and, and non-monogamy puts sex into the forefront of the conversation in a way that monogamy doesn't, uh, for some reason. B- again, because people, I think, often consider non-monogamy to be primarily about the se- they're all about the sex. Um, so I think that probably contributes, uh...

Justin Mogilski 58:12 Yeah, to the, to the degree that people have to be mindful or, or put effort into dealing with the emotions that pop up, it really is more, um, I guess the term for it would be cognitive overhead, right? You have to think about more. And so with any, every interaction that you have with a person, yeah, if you're monogamous, everyone's monogamous, you know that sex is off the ta- you know, no one's eyeing each other up when they're gonna get romantically involved. Um, versus you're right, if you're opening that up, now not only are you holding a business meeting and you're talking about non-sexual things, but you're maybe in the background having these obsessive, intrusive thoughts about, wait, is she looking at him in this way and et cetera, et cetera. Um, I think that that's avoidable. I think that, again, if you get good enough at handling those emotions, I think that it's less effortful and that comes into play less. I think also if you, the clo- the more of an attachment you have with your partner, the more that you trust that your partner is not going to pursue anything in a way that is directly harmful to you, that becomes less, it becomes less costly that something could happen between them and someone else, right?

Chris Williamson 59:15 Mm.

Justin Mogilski 59:15 So, um, it's, it... I- I think the fear really isn't that sex with someone else or emotion with some- or emotional attachment with someone else is going to happen, it's that it's going to happen and then there's gonna be this consequence. But if you can cinch up that consequence, then the act of it will matter less, if that makes sense.

Chris Williamson 59:38 That does make sense. It's, it's so... I- I'm trying to sort of parse apart in my mind the, uh, my imagined envy, um, is it... how much of it is because s- of something inherent in the act itself and how much of it is because of what that, the implication of that act has down the line? And, and it's like, it almost gets into... This conversation almost gets into sort of questions of sacredness and kind of like axiomatic truths and, and virtues and honesties and, you know, chastity in and of itself, commitment in and of itself.

Justin Mogilski 1:00:16 Mm.

Chris Williamson 1:00:16 Um, it is a good, you know. Uh, and then from there you need to scale it out into a, a binding the local community together, binding the entire civilization together, helping to tamp down some of the more, um, base instincts. Is this a slippery slope for everyone to just be sniffing ketamine at 3:00 in the afternoon and not getting anything done? Like, uh, it, it's a very... it's like a, kind of like a flashpoint for a lot of, of human nature's more like visceral, hedonic, immediate pleasures.

Justin Mogilski 1:00:47 Mm. Mm. I'm definitely a consequentialist, yeah, to the, to the degree... I, I, I, I focus on what, what, what outcome is this going to have, and I, I, I think that's the way to look at it, because I, and I agree with you that beyond just the romance, you do have to coordinate how these kinds of relationships are going to affect the larger society and how people get along and wh- how, um, you know, stable societies will be. And aga- to the degree that the consequences can be addressed...... effectively, right? Or at least as- at least as effectively as what we currently have. The current paradigm is be monogamous. That's a- that's, it's, it's the equivalent... I- again, I say this again, it's like abstinence-only education, right? Just solve the problem by ignoring it altogether, by just don't even expose yourself. This is more of... I- i- it's almost like teaching safe sex, right? It's how do you safely have multiple relationships? And I think that we just don't know. We, we don't know all the joints at which doing that is going to affect our personal lives, our social lives, our communities, et cetera. We have really good models for predicting how monogamy versus non-monogamy tends to affect, or, or, you know, how we predict it'll affect society, but I don't think that we have, we, we haven't tested how these more innovative, kind of contemporary versions of non-monogamy, if they have actually solved some of these problems for themselves. It's just not well-studied.

Chris Williamson 1:02:28 Yeah, and I suppose the, i- i- it's not just can some people make it work, right? It's can-

Justin Mogilski 1:02:35 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:02:35 ... everyone make it work? You mentioned-

Justin Mogilski 1:02:37 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:02:37 ... earlier on, um, you know, what about the potential link between intelligence and preference for relationship setup? Uh, you know, it may be the case that, um, people who are in the upper 40th percentile and above of, of intelligence are able to, um, on average, engineer themselves into this, but it's not. It's about, okay, what does this happen across an entire society? Uh, and there's even a question there about, you know, like, again, egalitarianism, uh, in terms of quality of life. You know, if we then-

Justin Mogilski 1:03:11 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:03:12 ... make more widespread and more accepted a, uh, setup of mating which benefits few at the cost of perhaps more or many, that's not-

Justin Mogilski 1:03:24 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:03:24 ... particularly good, and then what if you end up, again, with this sort of, like, squeezing of sexual desire up and across to whoever the most desirable-

Justin Mogilski 1:03:34 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:03:35 ... sociosexual few are, and then you've just got everybody else is fucking orbiting these black holes of sex and, and, and pleasure or something? Um...

Justin Mogilski 1:03:44 So I'm, I'm, I, uh, to, to, to comment on the, the harem idea, right? That one or a few extremely attractive men are gonna get all the women, I'm actually, I tend not to be convinced by that, s- particularly in a modern environment where people have more individual choice, they have more individual freedom. For example, wom- so that I think the, the big fear is women will all go for that one guy, right? But women are more independent. They have more resources. They have more choice than they've ever had in many societies throughout history. And so it's not that they would need to get into a relationship with the Chad to support themselves, right? That is the, that is the paradigm for polygamous marriages, where you have one extremely wealthy man who has to provide for multiple wives. But if you're living in a society where the women can take care of themselves, they are independently empowered, yes, maybe they'll have some relationship with the most attractive man. But that doesn't mean that they won't also, by their own accord, have relationships with other people, because say that one very attractive man says, "No, you can't have sex with other people." She can say, "Fuck you. No, I can. And if you aren't gonna support, I can support myself," right? So I think the, the... there's like a traditional power dynamic where women have to get into these kinds of, uh, relationship. Uh, you know, they, they have to be with certain men because they provide the most resources. But as soon as you, you know, more widely distribute and make the resources available to, to everyone, uh, more people have choice. And I think we'll, we'll see few- we would see fewer harem-like situations for that reason.

Chris Williamson 1:05:23 Given that your, uh, area of expertise that you came up through was evolutionary psychology, and, you know, what we've been talking about today are kind of these different ways that people in a modern world with, uh, confluent relationships that highly prioritize individual happiness, individual enjoyment, freedom at all costs is something which should be, should be maximized, we are still working largely with, uh, ancient programming, right? Uh, uh, source code is, is however many hundreds of thousands of years old. How much is ancestral polygamy a myth in your opinion?

Justin Mogilski 1:06:02 Well, I don't think it's a myth at all to the degree that... So are, are you talking about just men with multiple women or just the kind of multi-male, multi-female?

Chris Williamson 1:06:14 Yeah, the multi-male, multi-female sharing-

Justin Mogilski 1:06:17 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:06:17 ... of, of, of everything. You know, that's what largely that's, it seems like what you're talking about here, that-

Justin Mogilski 1:06:23 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:06:25 ... um, people have managed to find a particular relationship setup that allows them to get something out of it that they couldn't get out of a traditional monogamous relationship. Therefore, they have, uh, hacked or somehow improved, uh, on, uh, a, a situation that may have only come about because of the last 10,000 years of human sort of culture, and was it the church? Was it because of trying to control kinship? Was it trying to be strategic and get the farmer's daughter next door to marry your... You know, I'm trying to work... How much is this kind of like the paleo diet for (laughs) for human mating?

Justin Mogilski 1:07:02 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:07:03 Uh, and, and how much is this like, um, you know, fast food for the soul?

Justin Mogilski 1:07:08 I, I think ancestrally, we were a mix of monogamy, polygyny, polyandry, and then, you know, multiple women with one man, multiple, not as much, but multiple men with one woman. And I think it really depended on the environmental context. For example-... you know, you look back to the onset of agriculture. Agriculture did a huge bit for marriage systems because now you see a concentration of wealth, men can support potentially multiple wives. Versus if you're in an environment where no one can monopolize resources as well, you start to see this more even distribution of, of relationships. And so what I would guess is, yes, clearly we have wealth inequality. There are people who control far more wealth than other people in the world, but we also... I think individuals have access to greater wealth or at least the ability to live a, a minimally very satisfying life than ever before. And that could almost be seen as a, as a flattening of the ability to monopolize resources. You know, if you're someone who's just looking for a partner that you can have consistent, enjoyable sex with, that you have an attachment with and that you can kind of plan a life with, I think that's more available in some ways than it's ever been for a person to reach that point. And so I, I, I, I... A-ancestrally we're, we've clearly been a mix. I think since we've been able to concentrate wealth, monogamy has been far... Or, well, since we've been able to concentrate wealth, I think we see more, um, ability to p- to monopolize mates as well. Uh, but I, I, I think we've been a mix and I think we'll continue to be a mix depending on the circumstances. And I think maybe the circumstances favor some amount of, uh, non-monogamy right now.

Chris Williamson 1:08:54 Yeah, it's an, uh, it's an interesting one. I definitely see, or at least my current largely uneducated deeply opinion is sort of, um, serial monogamy seemed to be the most common relationship setup. Uh, you know, there seems to be a kind of three to seven-year window in which, uh, pair bonds begin to dissolve a little bit. Again, not to say that people can't stay together for life, which they obviously do, and people can't get sick of their partner after six months, which they obviously do.

Justin Mogilski 1:09:22 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:09:23 But it seems to me, like, that makes the most sense. I can see why it would... Uh, uh, the adaptive story that that tells me is the m- I think the most compelling. Uh, you still get the benefits of alloparenting and the bodyguard hypothesis and the grandmother hypothesis. All of those things get folded in without needing to try and somehow overcome mate guarding and jealousy, uh, and male parental uncertainty. And, you know, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, the entire litany-

Justin Mogilski 1:09:50 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:09:50 ... of reasons why we're worried about infidelity.

Justin Mogilski 1:09:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:09:53 So what, wha- what I, what I... L- like, with that in mind, my, the thing... I'm kind of bemused... Not bemused, but I'm, like, pretty amazed by the fact that so many people that I know are able to, are able to do this and make this work. And maybe it's just that I haven't, uh, I haven't jumped in at the deep end and, and gone through the nine, the nine steps of, of non-monogamy-

Justin Mogilski 1:10:16 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:10:17 ... or whatever it is. But, um, yeah, like, from a, from a personal perspective, I think I would struggle. And from a, um, like, adaptive perspective, it's one of those things where, like, the story, the story to me doesn't... It doesn't make quite so much compelling sense.

Justin Mogilski 1:10:33 Well, we might yet see that polyamory looks a lot more like serial monog- or serial monogamy than we think. Because what... Uh, uh, I think it's, you know, a situation you could see is you're polyamorous, you get involved with one person, you really like them, you really get involved with them. You are e- essentially acting like you are monogamous. You're pair bonded to this person. But then you're also maybe kind of flirting on the side, but maybe you're not as interested, right? Because you're, you're absorbed with this one person and not so much with other people. And so you behave almost the exact same as a serial monogamist where several dears- years down the line, you then say to yourself, "I'm just... I wasn't as much of a match for this person as I thought. I have these other flirtations going on. Now I start to put more energy towards someone else because I just met them, they're a better fit." The equivalent of that would be you're monogamous, you meet someone else, and then you have this horrible breakup, right? There's, there's this huge amount... These, these huge emotions that come out, and you have to absolutely separate from the other person if you're married, if you own property together. There's divo- you know, divorce proceedings where all that gets... And it's just a huge headache.

Chris Williamson 1:11:41 Mm-hmm.

Justin Mogilski 1:11:41 This is almost... In a, in a way, it's almost like it could be serial monogamy, except there's this built-in assumption that y- you could or your partner could start investing more effort into someone else if that's their preference. As much as that's true for anyone who's in a monogamous relationship.

Chris Williamson 1:12:02 Yeah, the partner hierarchy thing, I guess, would come into play here. Uh, when I think about consensual non-monogamy, the typical setup that I think about is basically a couple.

Justin Mogilski 1:12:13 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:12:14 And the couple have varying degrees of freedom to go and do things themselves. So I, I'm not convinced that it fixes the pro- like, the breakup is still gonna hurt. The divorce is still gonna be whatever.

Justin Mogilski 1:12:25 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:12:25 Maybe there's even more, uh, uh, vestigial concern of, "Oh, God, I knew that I shouldn't have let him sleep with that-

Justin Mogilski 1:12:32 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:12:32 ... fucking guy or that girl," whatever the... You know, like, there's maybe even more degrees of, of what ifs that get opened up. So yeah-

Justin Mogilski 1:12:40 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:12:40 ... I mean, I can see why you're fascinated, uh, to study this. It's, uh, a really interesting way to kind of illuminate our, uh, the sex differences, our predispositions, our fears and our concerns. And you really need a good grounding in the EP world before you can then start to see these things for what they are. Like, what are the thermodynamics of this system and why, why are the, why are the physics of this setup in a particular way that people need to do this? Oh, well, that's because they need to counteract mate guarding. And why do they do this? Oh, well, that's because they need to... So on and so forth.

Justin Mogilski 1:13:11 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep, yep, yep. I think those concern, those concerns are really front and center, right? With monogamy, they're there, but you kind of ignore them. Now it's front and center-

Chris Williamson 1:13:18 (laughs)

Justin Mogilski 1:13:18 ... how do you deal with it, right? At least as, as time goes on, but...

Chris Williamson 1:13:22 Oh, yeah. What are you doing next? What's the next studies look like?

Justin Mogilski 1:13:26 Well, to be honest, I mean, there's a lot of data here. I need to write up this data. I need to get it published, and I need to get it out. So all of my projects revolve around kind of this in several ways. Um, some of the other papers that we're working on, for example, is there's a distinct lack of information about parenting in consensually non-monogamous relationships and how that works. Uh, so we have some data on that. I'm, I'm writing that up with, um, one of the big names in, in kind of polyamorous research is Elizabeth Sheff. And so she and I are, are taking the lead on, on getting that data together. Um, but one of the things that I really want to do is in my, in my mind because this is a stigmatized type of relationship, I, and there are many false beliefs, my idea right... My plan right now is really let's... If, if there's gold here, if there's something to be learned and there are ideals here that we, that we could take from consensually non-monogamous relationships, maybe even plan it, uh, y- you know, use them for mon- uh, monogamous relationships. Um, if we can kind of present the steel man of polyamory, right? The, the best reasons why it works. My next step is I want to start looking at what are the ways in which it goes wrong, and in particular when it is exploited. So some of the other research that I've done in the past is looking at dark personality traits, narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and I think when you start throwing some of the... So in general, these describe a willingness to exploit other people for personal gain. I think when you start throwing those personality traits into this dynamic, there are so many opportunities for people to exploit one another, and I think that that's probably happening more than maybe we want to admit, or, or people in the polyamorous community want to admit. There are pl-... I mean, you go onto any Facebo- Facebook group, Reddit group, there are plenty of complaints about it, but you just don't see that much research on it. So I'm, I'm, I'm wanting to kind of set up the steel man of the, the best versions of consensual non-monogamy, and then I'd really like to say, "Okay, yes, but here are some of the, um, um, uh, the issues that are not resolved or that can arise because you have bad actors."

Chris Williamson 1:15:36 Very interesting.

Justin Mogilski 1:15:38 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:15:38 Very interesting. Justin,

Chris Williamson 1:15:40 I love your work. I'm very sorry that I missed your talk at HBESS. Where should people go if they want to keep up to date with all of the stuff that you're doing?

Justin Mogilski 1:15:46 Uh, well, I'm, I'm on Twitter, I'm on Facebook. I am also on ResearchGate. ResearchGate is turned into my... where if you want the re-... if you want the updates on the actual hard science, that's where you should go. But I announce these things on Twitter and Facebook, so feel free to friend me, follow me, et cetera. As long as you don't mind some, some weird posts every so often.

Chris Williamson 1:16:05 Oh yeah. Justin, I appreciate you. Thank you.

Justin Mogilski 1:16:08 I appreciate you. Thank you.

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