To many, "open marriage" is a phrase so laden with 1970s nostalgia that the idea can't be considered without imagining its practitioners leering at each other across shag-carpeted conversation pits, their chest hair spilling out of maroon polyester leisure suits.

While many of today's adherents are aging swingers from the old school, a new generation -- well organized and committed to legitimizing a lifestyle -- continues to push traditional notions of marital fidelity by having sex with people other than their spouses.

But do marriages -- fragile institutions traditionally built on the fidelity and sexual intimacy of two people -- work when the doors of the bedroom are thrown wide open?

"Polyamory," which literally means "many loves" is a new name for an old practice.