I do have to point out that desire and action are not the same thing. I don't believe there is a person on earth, poly or mono that has never looked at a person they weren't dating and desired them. The thing that makes the difference is your belief as to whether it is okay or not okay to act on that desire. This is what I'm talking about here.
There are few things that annoy me more than the old 'I couldn't help it, I fell in love!' trope, which I have to say this reminds me of. Every interaction with another person, or with the environment around you involves choices on a conscious level, and barring a very few of us with severe mental illnesses, we all have much more control of our behaviour than many of us would like to admit to. You may well not have chosen to hold the particular beliefs or experiences that lead you to conclude that poly makes sense to you, but you absolutely have the option to behave in a not-poly way, which makes this about conscious choice, not about desire.
My point here though, is not that this is a switch that people can flip on and off whenever they choose - I doubt many conservatives consciously chose to be conservatives either, but that it is a ridiculous and ultimately useless argument to make. If these things were truly based in biological difference, nobody would ever be capable of going from one belief position to the other, and that's simply and obviously not true.
Also just because you 'feel' that something's right for you, that doesn't make it based in biology, it just means that it is based on a deeper laid belief about the value of whateveritis and how it relates to your life. These things can and do alter for many people every day. I don't discount the possibility that my ideas about what suits me may change too based on some input that I may or may not have chosen. Two + two continues to equal four no matter what the genetic code of the person counting it, but if I have been told that a plus sign means 'double the two figures before adding them together' then suddenly it will signify eight to me.
no subject
I do have to point out that desire and action are not the same thing. I don't believe there is a person on earth, poly or mono that has never looked at a person they weren't dating and desired them. The thing that makes the difference is your belief as to whether it is okay or not okay to act on that desire. This is what I'm talking about here.
There are few things that annoy me more than the old 'I couldn't help it, I fell in love!' trope, which I have to say this reminds me of. Every interaction with another person, or with the environment around you involves choices on a conscious level, and barring a very few of us with severe mental illnesses, we all have much more control of our behaviour than many of us would like to admit to. You may well not have chosen to hold the particular beliefs or experiences that lead you to conclude that poly makes sense to you, but you absolutely have the option to behave in a not-poly way, which makes this about conscious choice, not about desire.
My point here though, is not that this is a switch that people can flip on and off whenever they choose - I doubt many conservatives consciously chose to be conservatives either, but that it is a ridiculous and ultimately useless argument to make. If these things were truly based in biological difference, nobody would ever be capable of going from one belief position to the other, and that's simply and obviously not true.
Also just because you 'feel' that something's right for you, that doesn't make it based in biology, it just means that it is based on a deeper laid belief about the value of whateveritis and how it relates to your life. These things can and do alter for many people every day.
I don't discount the possibility that my ideas about what suits me may change too based on some input that I may or may not have chosen. Two + two continues to equal four no matter what the genetic code of the person counting it, but if I have been told that a plus sign means 'double the two figures before adding them together' then suddenly it will signify eight to me.