Talk:Free love

Free Love, free-love?

Pick a term and stick with it. Clue: hyphenated is out. So is capitalisation.

comment

kay, free love is an ideology, amongst other things. It is also free love, love for free (as in freedom).

STDs

Someone might one to mention that it has fallen out of favor in the last 20-30 years with the increased concern regarding sexually transmitted diseases.

Woodhull quote

Here's another quote from Woodhull that gives a picutre of the connection between free love and women's emancipation. I didn't put it in the article but will leave it here in case there's a place for it later.

"The sexual relation, must be rescued from this insidious form of slavery. Women must rise from their position as ministers to the passions of men to be their equals. Their entire system of education must be changed. They must be trained to be like men, permanent and independent individualities, and not their mere appendages or adjuncts, with them forming but one member of society. They must be the companions of men from choice, never from necessity."

ntennis 09:15, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Lead section

User:Patrick re-phrased the second sentence in the lead section, from (1) to (2):

1) While the phrase is often associated today with promiscuity, free love movements have historically been more interested in personal freedoms than advocating multiple sexual partners; as such, they are also distinct from institutionalised polygamy.

2) Today the phrase is often associated with promiscuity, but the sexual freedom free love movements have historically been advocating was not necessarily the freedom to have multiple sexual partners, whether or not in the form of institutionalised polygamy.

I'm very open to improvements on this section but I don't feel (2) accurately describes the spirit of free love, and is has a very confusing sentence structure. It implies that free lovers don't necessarily have anything against institutionalised polygamy — whereas I imagine they would reject it for the same reasons they oppose other institutions of marriage. Maybe Patrick, you can clarify for me what bothered you about the other version and/or what you are getting at with your new version? I'll have a go at rephasing it too. ntennis 11:24, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Do not just mention the current meaning in passing. Does "historically" mean outdated, or still applicable? Also, if two things are distinct, say in what regard.--Patrick 13:12, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

It's not so much the current "meaning" as the association that is often made by people who are not familiar with free love writings etc. In fact the charge of promiscuity has been levelled at free love for centuries. The polygamy thing is there to emphasise that free love is not about multiple sexual partners. Hope the new version is clearer. ntennis 14:10, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Here's my revision:

3) While the phrase "free love" is sometimes associated with promiscuity in the popular imagination, the number of sexual partners is not a determining factor — free love practice may involve long-term monogamous relationships, but would not include institutional forms of polygamy.

And Patrick's changes to that:

4) The number of sexual partners is not a determining factor — free love practices range from having many partners (sometimes referred to as "promiscuity") to long-term monogamous relationships (as long as the partners have the freedom to end the relationship whenever they want). However, they would not include institutional forms of polygamy.

Can you explain your new concerns about version (3)? I'm not happy with (4) for a few reasons. Firstly, having many partners does not exactly equal promiscuity, which is defined as "the practice of making relatively unselective, casual and indiscriminate choices" by the wikipedia article linked to. However, the phrase "free love" is often associated with a promiscuous lifestyle in the popular imagination; I think it's worth noting this in the lead section as a kind of caveat to readers. Also, the crux of free love is also not the freedom to end relationships. Have you read the article, or any writings from the free love movement? Lastly, free love practises range from promiscuity, to group "marriage" (a la Noyes), to celibacy, and beyond — not from promiscuity to monogamous relationships as your revision says. I've taken the step of reverting your edit. Can we please discuss possible changes to the lead section here? ntennis 02:59, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

There is hardly an explanation what is meant by free love. For example, "the number of sexual partners is not a determining factor" is a cryptic way of saying that the movement seeks freedom in the number of sexual partners (if that is meant). Also, mention what other freedom is sought. And what are the objections against marriage? One might be that it is difficult to end (although divorce may be easy in some jurisdictions), but you deny that that is important. What freedom makes a long-term monogamous relationship a form of "free love", relative to a marriage?--Patrick 00:27, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

The point of free love as I understand it is to demand freedom in love — love relations which are freely agreed to by participants should not be regulated by (for example) the law. Particulars differ from one free love advocate to another, but commonly objected to are laws preventing an unmarried couple from living together, or laws regulating adultery, divorce, age of consent, and birth control. Some object to laws regulating same-sex sexuality, abortion and prostitution. The abrogation of individual rights in marriage is also a concern — for example, property rights, or laws that do not recognise marital rape, or treat it differently to other kinds of rape. See self-ownership. Similarly problematic is the social expectation of marriage, policies that require(d) a female teacher to be a virgin, or policies that discriminate against children of unmarried parents. The freedom to be celibate is just a much a part of it as freedom to screw around. These are just examples from the Western world (the particulars would of course differ in another social context, e.g. arranged marriage, kings or emperors with concubines, etc.), and most of it is already in the article. I think there is a place for a general discussion of the issues before the history section; I just haven't gotten around to writing it yet. ntennis 00:57, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. For now, I added part of this to the article.--Patrick 06:55, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

1001 Nights Story

I removed the claim that "The Tale of Abdullah the Fisherman and Abdullah the Merman" from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights reflects a vision of a free love society. I haven't seen the cited reference (Irwin, Robert, Political Thought in The Thousand and One Nights, in: Marvels & Tales - Volume 18, Number 2, 2004, pp. 246-257. Wayne State University Press), but the undersea society reflected in the story itself is not at all a free love society. John M Baker 17:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Bravo

I think this article is very well done. I don't know how to nominate it for a public review or what the next step would be in making it even better. Ideas?

i would say the same..the person(s) prepared the article has done a good job, regarding the plan and the content and the extensions(links) of the article..so i appreciate the effort indeed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sivrisinek (talk • contribs) 04:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Gay marriage

I suppose the free love movement doesn't care one way or the other about gay marriage...204.52.215.107 04:01, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, none of the hippies of the 60s and 70s supported gay marriage. Even the local gay groups didn't like it. The original gay liberation movement would probably be disappointed to see the way things are going. Also, let's not forget that the 70s were the most liberal decade in our history, especially in regards to sexuality and equality. The popularity of conservatism in the 80s combined with the AIDS epidemic dealt a huge blow to the gay rights movement. Gays were shunned and ostracized. They lost their sense of unity in the face of an oppressive society, and with the demise of the counterculture that the gay movement depended so much on, they lost their determination to change society and disestablish traditional gender norms and replace them with something entirely new. For all intents and purposes, the free love movement is gone... and the gay rights movement has been damaged beyond repair.

Still, I voted against Proposition 8 as it seemed unnecessary. 203.184.0.97 (talk) 09:26, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

damaged beyond repair? Or maybe it just matured into a more stable form (much like the other "counterculture" movements). --86.168.72.216 (talk) 17:51, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Free union

I wrote an article about free unions, which are mentioned in both the Catechism of the Catholic Church and in Familiaris Consortio. The page free union now talks about unions that lack any publicly recognized bond, and was formerly a redirection page for Free Union, Virginia. Does the content in the free union page really belong in this article? Jplatts 17:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

USSR

I've made some significant changes to the recent additions on the USSR in the early 20th century. I think some of the claims made (that Lenin and the bolsheviks were tackling gender oppression and supportive of sexual freedoms, but that Stalin came along and wrecked it all) are persistent myths among the left, but not supported by evidence. On the contrary, Marx, Engels and Lenin opposed sexual liberation. For example: "According to Lenin, the very notion of sexual emancipation was typical of capitalist societies and a symptom of bourgeois degeneracy." Hekma, Gert; Oosterhuis, Harry; and Steakley, James (1995). Leftist sexual politics and Homosexuality: A Historical Overview. Journal of Homosexuality, 1995, Volume 29, Issue 2/3. ISSN 0091-8369 I've added some references to the section as well. -ntennis 08:58, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

You've left the article implying, based on a couple quotations by Lenin, that the Bolsheviks were complete moral conservatives, but the loosened restrictions on divorce, legal equality of women (even if only on paper for most people) and the legalization of homosexuality are indisputable facts and I don't see why you had to delete them. Marx et al may not have been 21st-century feminists but take for example Origin of the Family, they go into great detail about the oppression of women and their intent to resolve it. Obviously they didn't succeed; Soviet women and homosexuals were never properly endowed with their new legal freedoms, and lost even a legal claim to them from the late 1920's on. And I never spoke of Stalin, like some alien invader, "coming along and wrecking it all." The conservative backlash in the Soviet Union was unavoidable, like the aftermath of any social revolution. That doesn't mean the years 1917-1924 can be written out of history as an anomaly, any more than the early chapters of the French Revolution. Ahuitzotl (talk) 10:35, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Didn't Lenin say "Homosexuality is a disease of the bourgeoise"? I don't think any Soviet Leader was ever tolerant of homosexuality, including lenin.Alpha-ZX (talk) 22:18, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Bertrand Russell

"Coming from one of the best-respected minds of the 20th century, this remark cannot be ignored as mere Don Juanism." What a silly sentence, and weasly to boot. Johns1952 (talk) 17:07, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Essenes and Taborites into free love? Are you kidding me?

Essenes were "fundamentalist" followers of pre-exilic Judaism many of whom avoided sex except for reproduction. Taborites were Christian Biblical literalists who hated Catholics for being not orthodox Christian enough. How can anybody claim that either of these were into "free love"? 76.24.104.52 (talk) 22:27, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. If all pro-celibacy movements = free love, then this term becomes pretty meaningless. --Toastedcheese (talk) 00:44, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Polygamy

This change was done by User:192.41.245.38 without any explanation or justification. Could somebody please provide a reference to support the word "not"? --Law Lord (talk) 20:44, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

That change was justified as a correction of this vandalism by 83.37.144.26. What made you tag it as "dubious"? It certainly seems to flow with the logic of the section. At most I could see a concern for WP:SYNTH and the {{fact}} tag. -- ToE^T 05:44, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

This goes to prove how important it is that vandalism is reverted at once, and not after a month. I still think love is pretty free for a man with many wives but I am not going to push my point of view if it goes against the scientific line. I am removing {{dubious}} and still hoping for one or more references, letting {{fact}} stand until then. I gather you concur on this? --Law Lord (talk) 06:18, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that works. And I don't think that it is an issue of a "scientific line" but a matter of definition within this particular historical social movement. You could equally argue that the love between one man and one wife could be free as well, but the movement's objection was to the institutionalization of the bond and to the restrictions and controls thus imposed. (At least according to the little bit that I've read of the era.) -- ToE^T 06:35, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Gift sex

I have removed the unsourced "Gift sex" section which was added and subsequently tagged as {{original research}} eight weeks ago. The identical section was added to Human sexual behavior and to Transactional sex at the same time but was immediately removed from both. -- ToE^T 06:03, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Right Wing Spin?

"There were two reasons for why free love was more agreeable to men."

Many women found free love more agreeable than most men found it. It was a male-dominated order that the free love movement was fighting against.

"The first reason was that women lost more than men did, if marriage were to become 'undermined.'"

I suppose that is why the biggest champions of marriage, especially "traditional" marriage are right-wing authoritarian men? Yes, women lost so much by the undermining of an authoritarian institution in which their own sexual needs tended to be ignored and in which they could be beaten and raped at will. Suuuurrrreeee! ;)

"The second reason was that free love 'rested on the faith in individualism,' a quality that most women were afraid or unable to accept."

Yes, unlike the relatively individualist and open-minded men -- which is why the most male dominated countries and cultures have always been the most individualist and free thinking. Examples: Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea; Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Falangist Spain; fundamentalist Islam, the religious right in America, etc. ;)

"There were six books during this time that endorsed the concept of free love. Of the four major free love periodicals following the civil war, only two of them had female editors."

ONLY? That's half; there was substantial female involvement in the free love movement, all the more impressive in the context of the time. So this is misleading, possibly deliberately. Let's remember this was a time in which women did not even have suffrage yet. There were far more male than female writers/activists in general; this was not particularly true with regard to free love.

For an analogy, the movement to abolish black slavery was dominated by whites; most of the authors and editors were whites. This is not because black people were less inclined to support abolition, but because compared to black slaves and freemen even dissident whites had more wherewithal and resources at their disposal. There were defenders of black slavery who argued that blacks were best off as slaves and had the most to lose if slavery were to be overthrown. That doesn't mean we should take them at their word. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.25.161.50 (talk) 07:18, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Ugh, you're right. This should be fixed. Zazaban (talk) 07:40, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Take your feminist bollocks elsewhere, as in "poor women couldn't help themselves", really? Trumpy (talk)

Mary Sargeant Gove Nichols

In this Free love article, I see a few red-links to the name of Mary Gove Nichols (nee Mary Sargeant Neal, meaning no article exists. I can't do the justice of creating it. But I can provide some citations which may help. Her mention here is of course in context of her involvement in the women's movement, on which Silver-Isenstadt and other citations here may prove helpful. Obviously an article on her would need to provide, or attempt to provide, an overview of the person, works, legacy etc.

She is described as a feminist in some writings, and from perusal of the various wrtings on and about her, there were several facets to her. Silver-Isenstadt states (pp.1-2) that "Mary's life story reflects the complexity and energy of nineteenth century social reform." She was a woman who reached a point where she said "enough", but whose atypical odyssey meant that she could not be neatly pigeon-holed into "established storylines of progressivism", resulting in neglect by historians (although I did keep stumbling onto her name from other directions). Yet, beginning with her first question of to whom her body belonged,

Mary vigorously and self-consciously confronted issues that remain central to identity and conduct: sex roles, intimacy, parenthood, marriage, the question of human equality, the role of religion, the dangers of isolation, the management of illness, the nature of sex, the pleasure of work, and the route to political and social progress.

From Silver-Isenstadt's work alone, it seems evident that Mary S. Gove Nichols played a not insignificant part in the women's movement of her day - a conclusion I reached before even finding Silver-Isenstadt's work. It struck me just in the works I cited in relation to her work on health promotion in her day. And those only in passing at that, meaning I wasn't even looking for it. It just stood out.

I have encountered a few citations in which Mary Sargeant Gove Nichols is mentioned. Such findings began and continued, in the context of the water cure or hydropathy movement and related phenomena of the 1800s. Then I stumbled onto this article, hence these comments.

Of the works I'm aware of, some are directly related to her practice and promotion of hydropathy, or water cure, as hydrotherapy was known in those days. Indeed in the Hydrotherapy article, I created a brief paragraph mentioning Mary S. Gove, which someone may wish to capitalise on. Even the chronology of her works contains biographical information. For example, she published in 1842 as Mary S. Gove, and in 1846 as Mary S. Gove Nichols.

Other works mention Mary Gove Nichols in a wider context, such as the overlap between her involvement in the water cure movement, and in the women's rights movement. Or the overlap between these and her involvement in the vegetarian movement of the day, along with mention of her as a noted writer of fiction, as below.

This last book states that she wrote under the name of Mary Orme, and "One of her works of fiction was a novel based upon her life". It looks like they are referring to Mary Lyndon, or Revelations of a Life. I previously came across this during searches in Internet Archive for works by "Mary Gove". As my original focus was works on hydropathy, and I found nothing on that in a search of the book, I paid no further attention. In doing another quick search in Internet Archive for works by Mary Gove, for this commentary, I paid more attention. The book itself appears to give nothing stating a direct connection between Gove Nichols and Mary Lyndon, either in text or authorship. Internet Archive listings, valuable resource as they are, do at times contain errors on authorship, title, volume number, etc. So at first I attributed Gove Nichols' alleged authorship to this sort of error.

But then I found Blake's (1962) work. Blake quotes directly from the fictional autobiography:

“ "My mother told me often", she wrote, "that I was a fright; that my skin was yellow as a squash, my nose large enough for two, and that my eyes were not mates". ”

Blake's footnote attributes the quote to Mary Lyndon, or Revelations of a Life, where indeed one finds the exact sentence on page 9. So the Internet Archive authorship attribution appears sound. In an article on Mary S Gove Nichols, you'd need to provide direct evidence such as Blake's quote, for the reason I outline above. Having done that, you have another potential resource, or at the very least, can list it amongst Mary Gove Nichols' works. This may prove very handy.

The only other work of fiction by Gove Nichols which I found in my brief search was Jerry: A Novel of Yankee American Life. But there may be others. Blake's work looks potentially helpful, so I'd be trying to find access to the rest of it.

Articles where Gove Nichols is directly mentioned include Hydrotherapy, per above, and M. E. Lazarus. Apart from Hydrotherapy, the citations referring to Gove Nichols are also found in Brattleboro, Vermont, David Ruggles and Florence, Massachusetts.

In sum, it looks to me like an article on Mary Sargeant Gove Nichols has the potential to be fascinating and educational, both in the research and creation, and for subsequent readers. Her life has elements of both tragedy and inspiration. While I'm not in a position to do justice to the creation and development of such an article, I hope someone sees the potential, and capitalises on resources below, and in the Free love article. Wotnow (talk) 04:52, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

See also discussion at User talk:Binksternet/Archive8#Mary Sargeant Gove Nichols

And User talk:Betsythedevine/Archive 2009#Florence, Massachusetts (see speculation at bottom). Wotnow (talk) 01:33, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

See also comments on Mary S. Gove Nichols name. Wotnow (talk) 23:40, 16 January 2010 (UTC) Links updated to faciiltate access to archived talk pages Wotnow (talk) 06:30, 18 October 2010 (UTC).

One article describes some of the contribution of Mary Gove Nichols and her husband:

She arrived in England in 1861, following the outbreak of the American Civil War, with her husband and fellow health reformer Thomas Low Nichols. In America, she had lectured on physiology, edited health journals, involved herself in spiritualism, and run a water cure center and vegetarian community. She was renowned for her frank engagement with radical issues, including dress and marriage reform, birth control, natural childbirth, and opposition to vaccination, and her publications were forthright and informative on the dangers of venereal disease and the “secret vice.” In 1867 the Nicholses established themselves in Malvern, where they practiced hydropathy and spiritualism and produced their journal, the Herald of Health.

I recall mention of Gove Nichols English foray in one or more of the other citations, but this article summarises that aspect fairly well, with the relevant text readily accessible. Wotnow (talk) 23:52, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Free love the original religion?

A recent development in free love has been an internet attempt to link free love with very early Christian theology (before later worldly authorities had more dampening sway) with reference to new testament sources and doctrinal argument. This attempt is known as Orgasmianity (orgasmianity.org) proposing that the female orgasm is expressive of God's free gift of love and the item of value and praise which passes to God in sexual worship (all intercourse being seen as worship). As a free gift it is argued that it is not subject to contract as in marriage and is to be enjoyed by all believers with any other believer per the commandment to love one another, not one other. With the internet this new, or very old, religion, if it may be called that, could pose a significant modern day scriptural challenge for centuries to come to religious authorities who have traditionally promoted marriage and opposed free love based upon verses in the Bible. If the foundations are restructured attitudes may well change and marriage become quaint like betrothal110.174.27.238 (talk) 01:13, 17 March 2011 (UTC).

Stonewall Riots

Somewhere, either in the § "1940s - 1960s" or in the § "The sexual revolution and beyond" there really should be some mention of the June 1969 Stonewall Riots which had such an important effect on the lives of gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and other sexual minorities. That's part of the reason so many Gay Pride marches take place in June. Dick Kimball (talk) 19:36, 19 September 2011 (UTC)