1. SilentWaves55

    SilentWaves55 Active Member

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    Does having multiple spouses, partners, children an insult?

    Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by SilentWaves55, Mar 26, 2018.

    In my story, which is set in the future, I want to have a bunch of characters born from multiple antagonist family members but they would be born from multiple mothers and fathers, like a few fathers would have children that were born from different multiple woman they had been with, same might be done for some of the mothers that met with multiple partners. Guess you can think of it like corporate marriages or non nuclear family relationships. Is this very insulting? What's a good excuse I can make for something like this to happen? Thanks.
     
  2. NobodySpecial

    NobodySpecial Contributor Contributor

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    I think that’s called polyamory. Take a look at ‘100 Years Of Solitude’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; and extremely convoluted tale of seven generations of a family- their lives, loves, losses. It’s a good book, just a little dificult to read sometimes.
     
  3. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Read James S.A. Corey’s Expanse novels. One of the core protagonists, James Holden (arguably the central character) is born of eight parents. In his case all parents are genetically invested in the child through future handwavium technology. His family live as a group, have a wide array of sexual dynamics (none of which include James, of course) and I didn’t bat an eye at the idea. Imagine having that many people to love you. It would be wonderful.

    Are you sure insulting is the key word in the question you are asking? Do you maybe mean provocative or controversial?
     
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  4. SilentWaves55

    SilentWaves55 Active Member

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    I mean more like my MC's father having been with many women, having kids with a few, not caring or supporting their birth, unless they work for him, same for my MC being a born child from one of his mistress or wife. Same with other MC's like their mothers and father's giving birth and not caring about any of their existence only business, well maybe a few but their just recruited into following their footsteps in running the corporate businesses in the future. Maybe I can still have the mothers and fathers also take pleasure in their partners they meet up with, cause it's not meant to be only reprocriating but also enjoy the debaucherous lifestyle with their wealth and power.

    Not having my MC born being with a mother or father and them having multiple partners to help raise them like some kind of full happy house with multiple dad's and mom's helping together lifestyle.

    That's why I'm asking if it is insulting, or like you said, provocative and controversial would be a better way to put it. This may make some of the mothers and father's seem like gross and gritty people but it's to get my MC's in the story and it's not supposed to be a pleasant tale.

    Am I creating something very inappropriate?
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2018
  5. Mink

    Mink Contributor Contributor

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    The dynamics occur in real life. Many men, and women, have children simply to continue the bloodline or to have someone carry on the family basis.

    While the lifestyle isn't even close to the lifestyle that's right for me and books with that lifestyle aren't books I'd read, I understand the lifestyle from a sociological and anthropological point of view. If it suits your book, use it.
     
  6. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    I still think it depends on what you do with that premise, how you present it, what you’re trying to say with it. In Brave New World, no one has actual parents and instead come from what is basically a human breeding ranch where selective things are done to the babies to create strata of people. Is that inappropriate? I certainly wouldn’t want to live in that world in real life, but the story has something to say and is making use of this element as a kind of metaphor. I don’t think inappropriate is a word that applies. The element by itself is not enough to give an answer. Put another way, you can ask me if this knife over here is a problem. If you’re making a PB&J, then no, but if you’re stabbing me with it, then yes.
     
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  7. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Still not sure what you're asking. It sounds to me like you're talking about a bunch of different people having a bunch of kids with multiple partners and not caring much about their upbringing. That's called "reality."

    NO! (kidding, they've grown on me, just bought the third book)
     
  8. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    And I was rewatching the show the other day and subsequently wrote some slashy Amos/Holden fic. :whistle:
     
  9. SilentWaves55

    SilentWaves55 Active Member

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    Yeah but is it sending readers the wrong message and overdoing it by having so many characters like one father having three children from three different mistresses and another from his wife, one of his children having children from two different women, a different mother having two children from a business guy and another from her deceased husband, that business guy having three children of his own from three other women and a completely different father having four children from four different women? Is it too much? And is it also insulting that some of these will be inneracial pairs, will this make inneracial pairings look bad? Most of these parents and a few of the children when grown up will be antagonists while the rest of the children grown, etc will be protagonists. This all takes place in the future so I'm wondering if this could be acceptable.
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2018
  10. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I’m still unclear on the premise. Does it seem like bad behavior? Yes. Countless books and movies and TV shows are full of bad behavior. For example, Darth Vader destroying an entire planet? Not nice. The boy’s significant meal in A Boy And His Dog? Not nice.

    Does it seem worse than any behavior ever yet depicted in a piece of fiction? Certainly not.

    Also: The King and I

    Also: do your interracial pairs have to always be the bad guys?
     
  11. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    I can't parse the question, frankly, but in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Heinlein describes a "line marriage," where all partners are married to all others, and all children are viewed as a common responsibility. He spends quite a few pages describing the advantages of it, including guaranteed child-care. I think that that was a hetero-only marriage, but I know in I Will Fear No Evil, one of the characters is "as ambi (bisexual) as an oyster," so he wasn't (at least in his younger years, RIP Leslyn) opposed to same-sex relations. Interracial pairings are quite common in TMIAHM as well, and I read one story (not Heinlein) where a black deep-space traveler in a relativistic universe was jeered at because the modern youth thought that his family had ignored the Miscegnation Laws, which made racial outbreeding a legal requirement.

    But really, as said above, it's all in how you portray it. I can think of one man who has five children by three different wives, and is alleged to have had numerous extramarital affairs. On paper, he's done rather well for himself, although there is a certain whiff of controversy about him from time to time. Write his story one way, and he's the success to end all successes; put a different take on it, and he's a sleazy old man with an apparently insatiable sexual appetite. It's all in how you play it.
     
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  12. SilentWaves55

    SilentWaves55 Active Member

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    Yeah, I guess you have a point. Certainly a human ranch breeding wouldn't be pleasing in real life. Though that made a while ago. Probably by todays standards some would get hurt and offended by reading such a thing. Hopefully I'm wrong.

    Maybe what I could do is have it that in my story, have it that in the future, corporate leaders, business leaders, ministers, dictators, world leaders, etc can have as many partners they want and be married and for their pleasurable desires, also to choose to keep their children to follow in their footsteps to power.

    But what kind of metaphore could this represent the meaning of?

    I haven't read A Boy and his Dog yet and know little about The King and I, but I will definitely check them out.

    No not all my inneracial pairs are bad. There will be good ones. It's all in a matter depending which characters are involved in the story. Some will be of the same race pairs and will also be good and bad.
     
  13. Unique

    Unique Member

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    The only issue I see is that it might get confusing for the reader to follow relationships and the dynamics of those relationships. But that applies to real life, just watch Jeremy Kyle (*)


    (*) I've never seen this show but from what I hear your scenario is normal background for some sections of society.
     
  14. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    This implies that all of the people in power are men. That may be your intent, but I wanted to point it out.
     
  15. SilentWaves55

    SilentWaves55 Active Member

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    Ah yes I've heard about Heinleins writings. I think he explains his multiple family relationship scenarios with the intent that the families work together of some sort of deal. Mine would be just corporate corrupted jerks that care less abut their children that are either unkown to them or rebellious towards them and the ones they do take in as disciples follow into their footsteps.

    Basically they would be sleazy attributes and enjoy the pleasures of who they meet up with.

    Not quite as there will be woman that are involved as well. Will this be offensive if I have Japanese corporate leaders, a black corporate leader, a variety of races,etc, as bad guys having multiple children from multiple partners whether it's for giving births to family legacies or just for their own sexual desires ?
     
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2018
  16. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    My point is that a man can invest ten minutes in making a baby, while a woman has to invest an additional nine months.
     
  17. T_L_K

    T_L_K Senior Member

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    SilentWaves, it almost sounds as though you're dreading the possibility of not being wholly politically correct at all times to the point you're losing the freedom to write what it is you really want to write.

    It sounds as though your first question was answered, and I couldn't find much to add.

    I think your latest question is: "Is it going to be offensive, or insulting, to Japanese, or black or non-white people, or people in interracial relationships or born of them, to see such people behave this way in a story?"... I can't see why it should be, because as far as you've described it just happens that some among your "badly-behaved" characters aren't white. It is not offensive to portray human beings as being human beings. As an Afro-Japanese corporate leader in an interracial relationship, I see no issue, here. :D
     
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  18. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    It very belatedly occurs to me: birth control? Why are all these babies happening in the first place, if they’re not wanted?
     
  19. Andrew Alvarez

    Andrew Alvarez Senior Member

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    I second this.

    Just follow the principle that anyone who can't stand to be laughed at, shouldn't have the privilege of being respected, anyway. You'll do right on your story about this matter.
     
  20. SilentWaves55

    SilentWaves55 Active Member

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    Yes you could say that I am risking my freedom to create what I want in order not to offend those who have strong views on political correctness, which is making me worry too much, which I know I really shouldn't, otherwise I'll keep holding myself back :(

    And yes, my characters of different races, inneracial pairings, same pairings, of multiple children and partners, etc will all have good and bad ones, heroes, antagonists, I just know these things can be a skeptical subject for some when reading or viewing characters of their own race or ethnicity as a villain offensive, same when seeing bad guys having many women and many children with them, there's always going to be complaints, unless I come up with good reasons to back it up, other than taking place in the future.

    I mean we see how so many got so controversial over Heinlein's work, just look at how easily people get offended today. Maybe I am overthinking this a bit. Do I really need to explain why like for example why an Afro-Japanese character exist as good or bad? Or why having rich and powerful corrupted figures that just happen to of had lot's of children or just some children, or some with just standard nuclear mono family children, some inneracial, some non inneracial, good and bad guys, white, non white, without an explanation? I just don't want any hate over this, I want everyone happy :)
     
  21. SilentWaves55

    SilentWaves55 Active Member

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    That's a good question. Maybe I need to think this further on why? Maybe some do use birth control and just wanted their fun? Not all of them will have kids. Others for wanting to continue their bloodlines and partnerships and teach them at a young age? Maybe others didn't know and too drunk to remember?

    Good way to look at it :D I can try that.
     
  22. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Yeah, don't do that. Those people will never be happy. Or if they are, it will be in the most benign, vanilla, idealized, sanitized world imaginable, and nobody wants to live there.
     
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  23. Andrew Alvarez

    Andrew Alvarez Senior Member

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    Like this world:
     
  24. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I don’t think your issue here is controversy. I think the issue is the need for a plausible reason.

    A reason for a bunch of people to have sex with each other is easy. People enjoy sex.

    But why have kids they don’t want? Birth control is not that difficult. Women are not motivated to spend nine months with health problems, a great deal of pain, and a risk of lifetime health problems or death, if they don’t want the kids.

    So I think you need a reason why the kids are happening. It doesn’t have to be an admirable reason, but it needs to be a plausible one.
     
  25. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    At first I assumed it was a typo, but it seems not.

    It's interracial.

    [​IMG]

    Inneracial would be, I dunno, purebred? Inbred perhaps?

    [​IMG]

    I hope no one has strong feelings about the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V....
     
    Last edited: Mar 28, 2018
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