Talk:Polyfidelity

message: Why is there a Pros and Cons section?  Is there a Pros and Cons section in the page on monogamy?  (No.)  Pros and cons are always relative to one's purpose or perspective.  They are not universal.  They don't belong in an encyclopedia.  Perhaps the information could be rephrased in neutral term?
DBooth 03:22, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pros and Cons????? 

message: I removed the phrase "with a lifelong intention of relationship" from the definition, because fidelity is about faithfulness.  It does not necessarily mean a lifelong intent of relationship.
DBooth 03:22, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed "Lifelong intent" 

message: Is this a euphemism for something? At the moment it just redirects to Polymer science. 154.5.119.176 (talk) 06:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for reporting the problem. I looked it up and it is indeed a euphemism for unprotected sex, per here and here. (Actually, I'm not sure what the non-euphemism would be...)  The Wikipedia articles on the topic was recently deleted due to a chronic lack of sources. If some reliable sources could be found then the article might be undeleted. In the meantime, I've added a link to bareback sex and removed the mislinked "see also" entry. We can add more here if there's anything about it in the sources.   Will Beback  talk   06:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fluid Bonding? 

message: Amongst people who consider themselves polyfidelitous, I have encountered some who have stated that since polyfidelity and polyamory "are pretty much the same thing," their vision of polyfidelity therefore can be used to define others' practice of polyamory -- in at least one instance denouncing people undertaking sexual relations without intent of lifelong commitment as "immoral."
As this (in my opinion) flies directly against the mission of any proper encyclopedia, I need to push against that tide of (potentially self-serving) illogic. As I also feel that superficiality haunts many Wikipedia articles and actually prevents any sort of authoritative discussion, I'm going to briefly tear this one apart.
There are questions that may in the end be unanswerable but must in some way be at least publicly mentioned, if not discussed. For instance, is polyfidelity a practice? If so, then people who find the idea interesting but have never actually experienced even a short-lived committed triad aren't polyfidelitous; they should not in any way be considered authoritative in the discussion.
But if polyfidelity is a philosophy, then certainly it can be undertaken not just by those with no actual life experience, but indeed by those who will never actually attempt it and in fact may be purposefully committed to a way of life that explicitly prevents nonmonogamy -- for that matter, may themselves vehemently and publicly condemn all extramarital intimacy (of which sex is but a portion). After all, there's no requirement that someone who "embraces a philosophy" thereby actually applies it to daily life.
Perhaps it is a weltanschauung, a world view. But even that Underhill divides into five categories: "world-perceiving, world-conceiving, cultural mindset, personal world, and perspective."
How are those couples who are actively "seeking" the same as those who aren't? and how is it that hopeful singles are on the same ground as a statutorially married couple? For that matter, how is it that an unattached single person can be the same as one in a "committed" and "monogamous" marriage who secretly harbors hopes of "finding a third"?
Like both polyamory and monogamy, there is no "acid test" for polyfidelity: people are free to grab hold of the term and subsequently do whatever the hell they desire -- even claim that their actions are "part of polyfidelity" -- and there is no clear common set of standards (much less some sort of Standards Committee) that can be applied to establish the utterer's credibility. There is no standardized curriculum, much less any sort of widely accepted basic seminar or such.
There is apparently no established meeting place for those actually involved in polyfidelitous relationships. This suggests a root misapprehension that somehow polyfidelity is an all-correcting mindset, perhaps even a faith not unlike the "salvation of grace" provided by evangelicalism, but rather than coming together in mutual support and to assist one another through inevitable difficulties, those who claim polyfidelityseem dedicated against wider community with peers. 
As more than one couple has said, "we're only here until we find our third."
Lacking stable definition, there can be no remotely-reliable estimates of how many people "are polyfidelitous."
In the end, the term "polyfidelity" (and its various conjugations and alternatives) is divisive -- in my opinion, its only purpose is to somehow set it off from polyamory even though closed-boundary polyamory is apparently a perfectly acceptable definition. This seems to intentionally (if unconsciously) create an opening for moralizing and a sense of superiority, with no burden to prove any basis.
In the end, my opinion is that any subsequent changes to this article ought to reflect the foregoing screed. Weeb Dingle (talk) 13:37, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: confusion remains

message: Years ago, a triad created an organization (Polyfidelitous Educational Products) and a newsletter (PEPtalk) as a means of supporting sales of their self-published book, originally known as The Polyfidelity Primer but also appearing as The New Faithful: a polyfidelity primer and Loving More: the polyfidelity primer.
A claim made in the books was Polyfidelity is AIDS-safe! This was in fact a section heading and appeared in page headings.
This claim was problematic, being based in multiple assumptions that have always been blatantly faulty if not outright false... and this foundation reappears in this Polyfidelity article.
The only way that "relative safety regarding STDs" can reflect any faint reality is if two conditions are met:
* everyone involved has NEVER EVER been physically intimate with any other person -- for instance, even being kissed once by Grandma might have passed herpes simplex
AND
* none of the people involved CAN EVER be physically intimate with any person outside the relational walls.
As an old aphorism has it that "liars lie, cheater cheat." Ongoing polling by NORC finds that today "about 15% to 18% of ever-married people have had a sexual partner other than their spouse while married” and "23 percent of men [have at some point] engaged in sex outside of marriage." 
There's also indication that experiencing intimacy outside of (or after) a first committed monogamous relationship will significantly increase likelihood of further (possibly secretive) explorations: "Only 10 percent of married individuals engaged in sex outside of marriage while 23 percent of remarried, 31 percent of currently divorced and 38 percent of currently separated people reported having extramarital sex." 
(No, I have no idea how the numbers manage to line up, but NORC can be somewhat byzantine in its logic.)
Unless polyfidelitous people are approaching sainthood, there's little reason to believe other than that almost one-fourth of the males have had extramarital sex, therefore not only are claims to "relative safety" at best questionable, but this likelihood increases with both experience and expanded awareness.
At root, the fact remains that there is no way to establish that any person is "STD free" (consider the occasional hysteria evoked by HPV), so any such claims inherently rely upon self-reporting, and a huge amount of faith. And here a further problem arises: for a number of people (and supposedly increasing), something that is "faith based" is set up as the diametric opposite of "reality based" and in fact made superior by not needing substantiation beyond blind trust -- in a leader, brain trust of elders, ideology, etc. 
Just as there are those who believe that claiming to the doctrine of polyamory automatically lends skill at interpersonal communication (often claimed as a core necessity of successful polyamorous relating), there are those who believe that claiming to polyfidelity grants all the benefits including utter lack of STD risk and no worries about extracurricular sex.
I cannot see where "polyfidelity" comes anywhere close to being a substantive ideology. Therefore, it is at best a poor basis for faith -- ironic, considering the term's suffix.
And if (as the article indicates) the primary "advantage" driving people to seek polyfidelity is the belief that it's a main (the only?) route to achieve "fluid bonding" which therefore will make them all "relatively safe regarding STDs"... well, that'd be Wikipedia supporting a lie. Weeb Dingle (talk) 15:06, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: the "fluid bond" superstition

message: New members may generally be added to the group only by unanimous consensus of the existing members, or the group may not accept new members. According to whom, exactly? Without a source, it's conjecture, and likely propaganda.  Weeb Dingle (talk) 17:58, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: But I did add an actual link to consensus, though it was tempting to go right to groupthink.  Weeb Dingle (talk) 18:03, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

text: I've removed the last line under Advantages: For some people, polyfidelity, like polyamory, is an identity, not a choice or an action. Justifying any misuse of the term by claiming widespread misuse of another term is intellectually dishonest, at best, essentially claiming that people are free to claim "polyfidelity" then do whatever they wish, which invalidates the entire article. The claim either needs elaboration or to be pointed to an analysis elsewhere, and preferably both.Weeb Dingle (talk) 18:21, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

text: Per comments from User:DBooth (ibid), I am taking under advisement merging Advantages and Disadvantages. Not to give it some equal footing with (say) Monogamy (which perhaps SHOULD have a Disadvantages section), rather that "it's not as flexible" and "it's harder to recruit" applies to practically every offshoot faith, belief, lifestyle, etc. If there's ever discovered a list created by people experienced in polyfidelity as to inherent difficulties of living polyfidelitously, it would certainly belong here. Until then... Weeb Dingle (talk) 13:27, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: overstatements