First, do no harm: Some thoughts on rules as a safety mechanism

Primum non nocere. It’s a Latin phrase that means “first, do no harm.” It’s not part of the Hippocratic Oath, but it is a central tenet of bioethics in most of the world.

It also, I think, makes a pretty good tenet for relationship ethics as well.

A few weeks ago, I received an email from Dan Savage’s personal assistant, asking if I was interested in helping craft a response to a person who’d written in to Mr. Savage with a poly problem.

The problem was that the guy who’d written in was in a...