Talk:compersion

compersion
--Connel MacKenzie 23:54, 13 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Cited. DAVilla 19:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed. —RuakhTALK 18:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Etymology
The Kerista Community apparently practiced "polyfidelity" (i.e. a system of polygamy with multiple but well-defined, agreed-upon partners). The community was dissolved in 1991, and the term does not appear in print before 1997 1994. So it is very difficult to trace its origin. The people who have used it in print since the late 1990s have just copied off one another the single bit of information that it originates with Keristan. No details are given, no insider is being cited or mentioned.

The claim that it is formed on French compère seems plausible enough, but it is only found on wiktionary: this isn't part of the tradition attributing it to Kerista that we can trace to the late 1990s. It is somewhat malformed, combining a Latin suffix with a modern French noun. If this is the true etymology, one might have expected compeersion, or similar. But the question is, do we have any objective evidence that this was really based on French compère? --Dbachmann (talk) 06:11, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

I found this: http://www.kerista.com/compersion.html This is clearly the source tying the word to French compere. The suggestion of using the (real) word compérage for the institution of sharing wives observed among Amazon natives was made by Levi Strauss in 1943. It is possible that the Kerista coinage was somehow informed by this, but both word formation and sense are different. Strauss' use of comperage refers to a social institution, not an emotion. But it seems plausible that the Kerista community would have attempted to derive a term for a positive emotion associated with polygamous relationships from the ethnographic term, thus comperage, comper-ity?, comper-tion, compersion. This is speculation. The note on kerista.com was posted in 2011 under the title "Etymology source for compersion? (Levi Strauss' comperage)", so even community insiders do not seem to know. It might also be noted that interest in the term is very recent, in spite of its supposed 1970s coinage, with significant use found only in literature associated with the "polyamory" movement since about 2010.

It might further be noted that compersion is also a Middle English spelling of comparison (Chaucer). --Dbachmann (talk) 06:31, 26 June 2019 (UTC)


 * The website in question http://kerista.com/kerdocs/glossary.html clearly states that neither compérage nor Lévi-Strauss's book were known to the community at the time. A Latin inspiration is much more probable (cf. dispersion, aspersion). Wall (talk) 10:32, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

RFV discussion: May–June 2020
RFV of senses 1 and 3: "1. Joy from witnessing another's enjoyment of something" other than sense 2 (joy specifically at one's partner enjoying sexual or romantic activity with someone else), and "3. Joy produced by knowing of something, unrelated to oneself, that brings a loved one joy." Sense 1 is plausible. I'm not familiar with sense 3, and not entirely sure what it is intended to cover that sense 1 would not. - -sche (discuss) 23:45, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

RFV-failed Kiwima (talk) 21:25, 23 June 2020 (UTC)