Equal Value In Relationships

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^Yes, this is true. There are two problems with hedonism. One, like I mentioned in an earlier post, is it’s “market saturation.” It doesn’t mean you lack value or don’t value yourself at all. It simply means you are undervalued, more supply than demand.

The other problem is it’s a mindless existence. I like people who can think for themselves, who can rise above emotion and base animal instincts. People who are slaves to emotion are really just trying to avoid responsibility for their behavior. I won’t lie—I love sex and never get enough. 5 times a day, every day, 3 weeks out of a month isn’t enough for me, and once or twice a week is about the best I can realistically expect. Puzzledoll and I, at another time and place, might have gotten along quite well if we’d met IRL. And I don’t even consider puzzledoll to be a bad person necessarily. I can be friends with anyone. But if I ever do have sex, I prefer it be with someone who doesn’t take the act of sex so lightly, and certainly won’t make herself so easily, mindlessly available. Mindless sex is animal behavior, and I’m not into bestiality.

I wouldn’t suggest puzzledoll completely hates herself if it weren’t for her insistence that her poly relationship(s) are totally non-transactional. It’s absurd. Non-transactional means there is no exchange. If no one is getting anything out of it, what’s the point? To be clear: if you get no pleasure from sex, no bond/connection, even if you just like being used by men and don’t even climax, why would you have sex? Puzzledoll doesn’t like our opinions on this matter. Would she still have sex with any of us if we asked? If my wife and I decided we were up for a threesome, would puzzledoll be up for the task? In other words, would she be willing to give herself to people she doesn’t seem to value? I don’t believe she would actually do it. Maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt it. And no, I wouldn’t dare ask her to. I think you’d find puzzledoll demands transactional relationships.

To say otherwise is absurd. If she says she loves herself, she’s assigning herself value. If she enjoys having sex, she’s getting pleasure, which is SOMETHING. She’s letting men have her body for sex, which means she’s trading SOMETHING. She’s giving away her body, which she values if she loves herself, in order to receive pleasure (which we infer that she values) from someone else. It’s a value-for-value exchange. Her claim to be non-transactional is absurd.

If she’s non-transactional, then either she gets no pleasure from it or she does. If she gets no pleasure and her men do, then she’s a sex slave and she’s being abused—her consent to it is irrelevant. If she gets pleasure and her men do not, then she’s a parasite. If none of them take any pleasure from it, are they even DOING anything? It’s logically possible, but I just can’t imagine having sex, staying numb to the effects of sex throughout, and nobody climaxing. Personally, if I can’t bring my partner to a climax, I don’t feel right finishing. We just agree this isn’t working and try again later. But that means our intentions were to enjoy sex and climax. It’s difficult for me to think of two people going to bed for the purpose of the non-enjoyment of sex. While it’s logically a possibility, it’s unrealistic. Why would anyone do that? What do you seek to accomplish being non-transactional for the sake of being non-transactional?

Since the third option has little if any basis in reality, that leaves the first two options—the giver-taker dichotomy. If this is the model puzzledoll follows, which side of the dichotomy is she on? She’s either a willing victim of men exploiting her sexual desires, or she mindlessly exploits men for her own pleasure. Unfortunately, neither side is really in her best interest, and that is cause for concern.

AngelRho, your whole post simply shines through as completely ignorant of ND-relationships and non-transactional relationships (basically the same thing).

First, in a non-transactional model, sex doesn't have a value since there is no transactional model. You cannot argue for a non-transactional model and things having value as if you are talking about a transactional model. Completely inconsistent.

Second, in a non-transactional model, attachment and bonding are primary and sex and commitment are secondary. In most transactional relationships, monogamous commitment is required and sex is the primary trade good.

Third, being polyamory doesn't mean you sleep with anybody. It only means you can have multiple attachments and don't want to commit to a single person only. You shouldn't confuse polyamory with prostitution (which is a trade, and thus transactional in nature) or with one-night-stands (which is also transactional).

Forth, the natural state of non-transactional relationships is that sex does not affect bonding.

This doesn’t help your case. ANY object of desire—any expression of preference, any person you’re attracted to, anything you create, anything you purchase, all those things are values. Ideas are values. Places are values. Anything or anyone you can claim to want are values. Whatever those people and things are worth to you are expressions of value. That’s your valuation of those things and people.

You claim to prefer a non-transactional relationship. That is a valuation. You prefer attachment and bonding. That is a valuation. You despise monogamy. That is a valuation (in this case assigning low/no value, or valuating it as a liability). You prefer polyamory. That’s a valuation. You cannot prefer something without valuation.

A non-transactional model that resists valuation means you cannot have preferences, including a preference for the model itself. Any argument in favor of non-transactional relationships is an argument that commits suicide.

But if we give non-transaction a free pass and allow for it to exist, the outcomes are still dismal and hopeless. You get to choose among being a giver (no reward), a taker (greedy, abusive), or nothing at all (fantasyland). You appear to prefer fantasyland. I prefer living in reality.

THANK YOU!! ! This is exactly my point.

I suppose people can assign a value to everything if they want, including time and love, but that doesn't mean everybody feels that way about it.



Disagree. Feelings are not values. Love is not a value. Time is not a value. Being with somebody or hanging out is not a value.



No, those are part of my natural programming, and the way I prefer things to be, and so are not values.



Not really. I'm fine with monogamy, but I would hate to have to choose between two girls, or be discarded by somebody because they have connected with somebody else. I feel that attachments are separate in nature, and not connected or exclusive. That also means that I see no value in an exclusive commitment. A strong attachment feels great, but I don't see how (or why) it would be part of a transaction model.



I think that is a misunderstanding. The absence of tit for tat and valuation doesn't mean you cannot exchange things of value. It only means you don't keep score and don't care about "balances".



That's a black-and-white model that simply is false. Besides, I also prefer reality, but fantasyland is nice too.

All this require a capitalist mindset that sees values on everything, what about people who don’t have that mindset and don’t place values on anything. I don’t. How do you place a value on a human? How is one human worth more then another I find that horrible mindset.
Is trump more valuable then you? People
With your mindset would say yes and we should protect him and his family more even if it means someone else dies.
I’d say both of you are the same , no one or anything has value, that’s a capitalist idea. I’d gladly get rid of capitalist completely.
Everyone single human and animal is priceless and a value can never be put on them in my opinion.

I’d date a poor woman just the same as I’d date a celebrity

....which has nothing to do with what we're talking about.

Wutt wuzzat agin? Oh yeah...Gotcha.

Sorry but I disagree that’s exactly what everyone’s taking about.

Me too, but I don't see the solution as "everybody has the same worth", but that worth in relation to people (and animals) should not be used at all.



Me too. In fact, I'm married to a woman that is not working, and I earn above normal, so I'm living as I "teach".

Self-worth is a horrible term. I had not realized how it related to tit for tat before, but now that I understand that connection, I just find it horrible and I will no longer use it.

Another thing people should be aware of in relation to tit for tat is how it actually operates. It is only when somebody feels the other person is not reciprocating enough that people will get aggressive and accuse them of cheating. People are generally fine with not reciprocating themselves. In fact. the whole game is driven by constantly peeking each other for cheating, and when this is not done, the peeking will often go over in real cheating and a non-reciprocal relationship. This is also how "self-worth" is negotiated in a relationship. Assuming balanced values in a relationship, it means that if one party reciprocates less and the other is not challenging this, then his/her "self-worth" will decrease, and this can go on all the way until it is zero and a fully predatory relationship develops.

In relation to one-sided relationships with a giver (victim) and a taker (parasite), those are not non-transactional. The giver typically is non-transactional and the taker transactional. This happens because of how tit for tat game operates.

NDs (non-transaction people) should be aware of how tit for tat works, and either find this behavior as a red flag (and thus not allow relationships with transactional people) or learn it and live with it. It can be detected either by somebody trying to get away with less reciprocity or by failure to react to how NDs communicate too little attention (sadness).

I see an implicit capitalist attitude here. Something like worth=money. For me, they are not the same.

I once made a funny thought experiment and asked myself a question: is my husband worth his weigth in gold? It was before he lost some weight and gold was peak back then, so the number I got was unlikely for him to ever earn.
Then I thougth: would I make the exchange? No. It would make me rich but I would lose my husband - and being rich it would make it harder to replace him because finding a man trustworthy (note "worth" in this word), genuinely loving me with all my quirks (including doing such calculations) would be harder if rich-wife hunters were chasing me and pretending to be who I was looking for. And obviously, I wouldn't exchange him for any less. Nor for any more because of the reason above.

Come on, you do value the ones you love and it has nothing to do with applying monetary value to them.
Unless capitalism made your minds unhuman.

Last edited by magz on 14 Dec 2018, 5:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

No, we're not talking about "monetary value."

Like XFilesGeek said, it's not about imputing a monetary value onto someone and discerning whether or not you would trade them for that amount of monetary gain. It's about examining what they bring to the relationship that you value, and what you bring to the relationship that they value. Nothing to do with capitalism.

I’ve already covered this in an earlier post. Human life has infinite value. You cannot set a price on the priceless. Choosing to remain with the same person for the rest of your life means your life itself IS the reward in exchange for the life he chooses to give you.

While human life has infinite value, human life itself is not infinite. The clock eventually runs out. You physically cannot reward someone forever. You can only reward someone while you are still here. So you set equivalent value on the time you DO get. For example, let’s say you go out with a man you’re interested in. Traditionally the man pays for the date. He’s going to feed and entertain you. And let’s say the evening lasts 3 hours. 3 hours is hardly a lifetime. He is only obligated to you for 3 hours, and his goal is to make those 3 hours worth the time you spend with him.

If he’s paying, doesn’t that obligate you to reward him afterwards, perhaps by sleeping with him? No. Because what he’s paying for is time-limited. YOU are his reward—your time, your company, your pleasure. You owe him nothing beyond that.

You may CHOOSE to reward him beyond that. You may decide you enjoyed being with him and accept a 2nd date if he ever asks. You may CHOOSE to have sex with him, which is going above and beyond what you committed to on the date. But what you have done is said you want sexual pleasure from
him, and in return you consider him worthy of the pleasure of your own. Because of the nature of sex, you do owe it to each other to stay until morning, and he owes it to you to take you home (no “walk of shame”).

You’re not saying that 3 hours or the whole night is ALL this person is worth. You’re only exchanging time for time. That is all.

Each person possesses infinite value.

But not every person possesses the same values. What one person values will be different from what someone else values. You may go out with a man and over the course of 3 hours talking to him and watching his behavior decide you think he’s a total dirtbag. You find he has nothing of value to offer you in terms of what would induce you to commit your life to him. His life may have infinite value, but you have no common ground, no common values that you share. You have no logical REASON to want to be with him. There is no future in that relationship. So if he asks you out again, you say no.

Maybe you are both so impressed with each other you never want to say goodbye. Maybe your values are so well-aligned you become inseparable. Or maybe you have nothing in common other than enjoying each others’ company so much—it’s the other person and all that they are that you value. You might decide to get married.

Maybe he’s NOT a total dirtbag, but you clearly don’t want the same things. Maybe for some other reason you don’t feel he deserves you. Maybe you were unimpressed by what he seemed to offer on one date and do not feel he has earned another date. The possibilities are many, but it all comes down to your agency to refuse.

Sure, it’s capitalist, but there’s nothing wrong with exchanging value for value. There’s not a better way to do it. And it’s not a cold, black/white way of doing things at all. All this means is you are looking at relationships in terms of objective reality. You’re simply looking at someone and deciding whether there is a logical reason that you SHOULD be with someone. Is that reason based in objective reality? Well, whether it is or not, how do you know? You have to look at the evidence of a person’s life, what they have to offer you in material terms, how they behave, what they say versus what they do, and whether they live their life consistent with the values they claim to possess. Can that include you? Is their life one you would choose for yourself? Would you enjoy it? Do you actually want it? If this person is willing to live a productive life to earn the pleasure of your company, if this person lives in such a way that you believe he deserves you, and you actually WANT to be with this person, you have every REASON to be with that person as long as he wants you, too.

When we talk about a non-transactional model, we’re talking about a fantasyland, unicorns and fairies approach to dating that starts with warm and fuzzy, hopes-and-dreams, wishful thinking that no one need offer anything in a relationship and people just give just because someone else told us we had to and we’d feel guilty if we didn’t do it. You accept a date because someone asks, not because you actually want to be with this person. You HAVE to stay with this person because he said so, because to do otherwise means you want or expect something in return, and transactional relationships are eeeeeeevvvviiiiiillllll. If he slaps you, that’s YOUR problem for being selfish and wanting a man who doesn’t slap you.

It’s the warm-and-fuzzy, non-transactional model that causes so many problems. Rather than a logical approach to relationships, it becomes ONLY about emotion. You end up with a deadbeat drug addict who gets you pregnant and beats you, but you don’t leave or kick him out because, “but mommy, I LOOOOOVE him!! !”

Note that I’ve never said emotions are bad. I said ONLY basing decisions on emotion is bad. I never said you shouldn’t love someone or enjoy being with someone. That’s most of the whole point, that you should have feelings for someone and enjoy them. But there should be a reason to be with someone, that at the very least you do take pleasure in his company. If a relationship poses no objective benefit to you at all, and in fact might actually harm you, you shouldn’t stay in it.

My story of a husband worth his weigth in gold was just to stress that "value" is not the same as "monetary value". You know the Ancient Greek myth of king Midas, don't you? It's about the same issue.

I think everything is governed by some kind of economy, where "economy" would be defined as "how to get what you want/need to get with the resources you can afford?" That may be totally unexchangable to money or trade, still, it has some economical (not monetary) aspects about it.