Lev Abramov has found the Internet. He curls up quite happily on a couch, falls asleep, wakes up, and returns to what he was doing.

"Hey," the Sasha who is Spiderman says, and sits down next to him. 

"Hello. Your world is very different from Old Earth even setting aside the superheroes."

"Like, the superheroes and mutants and such have had other effects, or —?" 

"You have the sexual mores of Beta Colony without the earrings."

"I'm not sure whether to ask about Barrayar's sexual norms or about the earrings." 

"Beta Colony has earrings that communicate information about your orientation and relationship status." He visibly hesitates, and then starts to sketch. "Mine would look something like this, which means 'bisexual, partnered to multiple people, not looking, not on a contraceptive.'"

"Huh. — we used to have something like that, earring in your right ear meant you were queer, but we don't have it very much anymore. What would 'gay, partnered to multiple people, not actively looking but open to the idea, not on a contraceptive' look like?" 

"Something like this." He sketches. 

"Pretty." He touches the outside of his ear, then takes his hand away. "If I decide to go through with getting my ears pierced I'll keep that in mind." 

"Not planning to change your relationship status any time soon?"

"Things happen, but I'm not planning on it, and the most likely changes are 'add more partners' rather than 'break up with current partners.'" 

"But outside of Beta Colony-- and particularly on Earth a thousand years ago-- people are generally monogamous."

"....huh. I'm a little weird in that I'm dating multiple people, rather than dating someone and also sometimes having sex with other people, but I'm not that weird here. — what do you do if one person turns out to have a way higher sex drive than the other, or incompatible kinks or something, just break up?" 

"On Barrayar, if you're a woman or an honorable man you suffer, and if you're a dishonorable man you get a mistress or are unusually close to one of your Armsmen."

"...I think I prefer our system." 

"It's easier for the lower classes to get away with having no spouse and a very close personal friend, but among the Vor even if you're gay you have to marry and produce an heir. Luckily in recent years love matches have gotten more common so it's possible to make an arrangement with a woman similarly inclined. In the days of matchmakers you simply had to do your duty regardless."

"Christ. Yeah, I'm glad I live somewhere with institutionally recognized poly and queer marriage and no nobility." 

"My Asher likes being a Vor a good deal. He was a war hero and now he retired and spends all his time working on agricultural reforms and economic policy and dodging invitations to balls."

"Well. Asher's Asher." There's no heat in it. 

"And I'm an Armsman and an Auditor so I can just be excessively devoted to my work and no one will particularly gossip."

"That's better than not, anyway," he says. "How are you liking not-Old-Earth so far other than our bizarre acceptance of polyamorous queers?" 

"I think Old Earth was okay with queer people, it's poly people they weren't really into. --I am genuinely concerned about the number of times the world appears to have been threatened with destruction. You guys need to work on inventing jump drives stat."

"More inventions are really really not going to help with the 'world under threat of destruction' thing." 

"Why?"