Polyamory : Ethical or UnEthical?

What is Polyamory, you may ask.
Here's what it literally means...
Poly, is Greek, meaning many parts,
and
Amory is derived from French Amour, meaning love.
So basically it means Many Loves, or perhaps in some cases Many Lovers.

Polyamory has been defined as the philosophy and practice of loving more than one person at a time with honesty and integrity.
Synonyms for polyamory are responsible, ethical, and intentional, non-monogamy.

One of the first things that most polys would tell you that polyamory isn't swinging.
Swinging has sometimes been called sport sex or spouse swapping.
It is defined as more or less organized recreational sexual
activities for married couples and singles.
Another thing that polyamory isn't is, it isn't "free love" in the 1960s sense of the term. There are other polys who view their polyamory as a look backward toward better times in the history of human society.

One of the largest and oldest incorporated Pagan organizations in America is called the Church of All Worlds. It was founded in the late 1960's and is still led by the aforementioned Otter G'Zell, the coiner of the term polyamory. CAW holds the distinction of being the only organized American denomination I know of which explicitly supports polyamorous relating amongst its members. The church is organized into small congregations called "Nests," and some, though apparently not all, of these Nests have been intentionally set up not only as religious fellowships but also as functioning intimate networks.

Some of them look no further back than to the late nineteenth century in upstate New York, where there existed an intriguing social experiment called the Oneida Community. The Oneidas were a heretical Christian sect who established an agrarian commune in rural New York and coexisted peaceably with their conventional neighbors for about forty years. In the context of nineteenth century America, the Oneidas practiced some concepts which even today would be considered futuristic in some circles. As best they could conceive it given their cultural background, they practiced equality between the sexes. They practiced family planning and contraception, and sex for recreation and pleasurebonding as well as reproduction. They also practiced a concept called "complex marriage" in which every adult member of the community was considered essentially married to every other member.

Then there were Anarchists like Emma Goldman who put sexuality, free love, non-monogamy, and the struggle for control over our own bodies on the anarchist map almost a hundred years ago. Today gender queer anarchists are everywhere. Sexuality, sexual orientation, gender and sex are important constitutive practices in anarchist culture. Non-monogamy, polyamory, radical monogamy, pangender, transgender, and a whole range of new sex and gender categories of resistance, or resistances to categorization that challenge traditional gender and sex roles as defined by sexism, heterosexism, heteronormativity and the male-female or masculine-feminine binaries are debates and practices that rage on in anarchist collectives and gatherings.

Today's Polyamorists argue that love should be unconditional, rather than the monogamous proposition that "I will love you on the condition that you will not love anyone else" - "forsaking all others" is how it usually is put. As they say, that more you love, the more you CAN love,and the more intensely you love. And there is no limit to how MANY you can love. Polyamory is loving... radical loving, unconditional loving, unrestricted loving, loving without boundaries. Polyamory is breaking the chains of jealousy and selfishness. It is to be as a child, who is without fear or boundries that restrain us from knowing one another intimately. Polyamory is not about sex, it is about affection. Polymamory is breaking the sadistic human rules and discovering the barbarian instincts of carnal pleasures.
To love anything that moves if you so desire.

They then go on to argue that there's a lot of non-monogamous behavior being practiced in our society. There are single people out playing the field and married people out cheating on their spouses. This is not polyamory. Responsible non-monogamy involves a conscious philosophical commitment to an alternative style of living and loving.
It involves conscious and consensual agreements between and amongst loving people, and not just the breaking loose of frustrated hormones.

And as shown by history, monogamy and marriage are no safeguards against falling in love with someone else. If monogamy is so natural and hardwired, why is there such a large relationship industry - the "How to make it right" of magazines, books, TV shows, marriage guidance, etc.?

But despite all their arguements, Polys, like any group who live on the outskirts of our society's moral village, can live lonely and frustrating lives.

What are your views on Polyamorists?

Regards,
_DigitaLVampirE_

[bosse_s]

As long as people can make their choices upon free minds and with mutual respect for their partner(s), why not? The problem with this or that, to me, is when it becomes defined by religion for example. I live in a monogamous society, and I understand that this way of life is very much a social construction.

I am a part of that construction, so I tend to favour monogamous relationships!

[DruidSmith]

I keep busy enough between my wife, the baby, work, family, friends and everything else. Who has time for such pursuits?

It's one thing to have the occasional fantasies and thoughts, but entirely another thing to pursue them in real life or try to attain any genuinely fulfilling relationship with that type of lifestyle.

I speak from experience, I have had occasions in my younger days where I had several girlfriends at the same time, and sometimes more than one of them in bed at the same time.

It's fun, yes, but it has its downside also. It's simply not sustainable over the long run without one or more parties suffering somehow or another.

Having tried, I prefer monogamous relationships by a longshot.

[goldstein]

Psychologically, the mind's mechanism of loving is the same,
whether it is in the case of
loving one's children, siblings, parents or elders.
It varies only in hues.
What is love ?
Love is a product of memories.
It is different from attraction,desire,lust.

Basically, I believe, if one is capable of loving someone sincerely, one must be able to love many people at the same time and at the same plane.It is only because of practical difficulties caused by having many lovers simultaneously, polyamoury is prohibited by society and many traditional religions, though some religion permit it.

Even now, polyandry and polygamy is practiced in many societies around the world.