This summer, an older friend asked who I was dating. When I told her I had more than one girlfriend she said, "Oh yea, we did that back in the sixties. It doesn't work. But find out for yourself."
This led me to wonder what the difference is between what I (and many others) are doing with polyamory and what the hippies did back in the sixties and seventies. After discussing with my friend (and others) for some time, the difference seems fairly clear.
Free love in the sixties and seventies was primarily a revolutionary act (and a joyous one). The feeling was that they did not have to be constrained by the the old social institutions and could do what they wanted. They believed that they could change the world through loving.
Polyamory, on the other hand, is primarily evolutionary. Rather than breaking away from the old system, we are creating a new one. Rather than change we world we are looking to thrive in the world as it is.
The facts on the ground are that the "one love for life," monogamous model is only working for a small portion of the population. Is the majority of the population then a failure? I think not. Rather than leaving a trail of broken hearts and emotional scarring through serial monogamy or compramising our integrity through clendistine affairs, we choose to be ethical in our non-monogamy. Rather than failing at a game we are unfit to play, we are creating a new game, a new way of living that is conscious, consensual, community oriented.
I do not think that Polyamory is for everyone, but I also do not think that monogamy is.
