Polyamory Is Boring

An early (2013) candid personal essay normalizing polyamory. Scott traces how it went from seeming bizarre (his dad's 'too old-fashioned,' his own 'kids these days') to utterly ordinary once the surrounding culture stopped flagging it as weird — captured in the sharp Know-Nothing/Irish analogy (a transported 19th-century anti-Irish bigot would lose the energy to maintain the prejudice: an empirical strike plus a psychological one). Personal testimony (Mike & Hannah as the best couple he's seen, despite multiple partners — 'they just obviously haven't seen any hippos'); the claim that jealousy is a 'paper tiger' while 'compersion' (joy at a partner's other happiness) is real and common; and the reframe that poly is NOT about more sex (open relationships/swinging are easier for that) but about people who are really into the relationship part. Most poly people settle into a 'primary' — 'monogamy plus' — though he flags honest uncertainty about loving multiple people maximally and about child-rearing.

Quality 65 · Strong. Strong, low (65). Well-crafted and persuasive, with two or three memorable frames (the Know-Nothing analogy, compersion, 'monogamy plus'). Held to low-Strong because the case rests largely on limited personal anecdote, which Scott candidly acknowledges.

Claude’s paradigm shift 55 · Moderate. Moderate, high (55). Poly advocacy existed, but mainstreaming it for a general audience via the desegregation/Know-Nothing analogy and the 'it's about relationships, not sex' reframe was a fresh framing in 2013.

Real-world impact 3 · Moderate. Moderate (3). A widely-read, influential contribution to the normalization of polyamory (and the 'compersion' vocabulary) within the rationalist/Bay-Area subculture; no broader material change.