The Case For Free Love
I have some differences with the hippies—I like to be clean, I like to keep my hair cut and I enjoy luxurious things—but the overall spirit of the movement connected with me. I loved the music, the art, the optimistic energy, and the focus on an inclusive humanist philosophy. I was also drawn to the sexual liberation movement and the idea of free love, but this, for me, was complicated….
In the realm of philosophy, a freer, more open sexuality made sense. But when I looked at the real world, I observed that it seemed we were constantly hurting each other with sex. Sexuality and intimacy are supposed to make us feel good, but It was like sexuality was a hot stove and we were children too young to operate it without burning ourselves. This is why the religious and cultural rules restricting sexuality arose.
Over time, as society has evolved, our ideas about love and relationships have failed to evolve with it. As a result, we are all spending more and more time single, when we need love and intimacy more now than ever to be a counterbalance to our high pressure professional and economic lives.
Over the last few years, I’ve found myself amazed by how difficult we’ve made it to form relationships. We’re drifting further and further apart at the time when we most need to come together. There are over seven BILLION people on this planet! It’s absurd that so many of us are spending our days and nights alone, starving for intimacy.
This situation exists because of monogamy. Lately, I’ve been saying that I don’t believe in monogamy, but that isn’t exactly true. A more precise statement would be that I am pro-choice on monogamy. Deep down, I’m still looking for that ONE GIRL, but I don’t think that should be a standard imposed upon everyone and I don’t think I should have to go without sex and intimacy while I wait for my dream girl.
Because we are all so consumed with the idea of finding our forever partner, we push aside people with whom we could enjoy sex and intimacy right now. There is a large segment of society that is more sexually active, but they tend to, in my opinion, often pursue it in unhealthy ways, leading to a negative impact that serves to support the anti-sex arguments.
So this always made me shy away from casual sex. Personally, I needed to feel SOME level of an emotional connection with a girl to enjoy intimacy with her. Them I met a girl who turned my perceptions of casual sex upside down…
It was Thanksgiving Week 2012. I had a brief, highly enjoyable fling with a girl I met through a Craigslist “casual encounters” ad. We had a few days of mind-blowing sex and good conversation over the course of a few weeks. As it turns out, she’s the last girl that I had sex with.
When it came to sex, this girl wasn’t beating around the bush. She dove right into the deep end of the pool, and because she dis so, I felt comfortable following along. She had told me in our email exchange before we met that it was going to happen if I didn’t screw it up. In all the online dating I did, she was the only girl who ever looked better than her online pictures and she felt the same about me.
We met for drinks in the bar of one of my favorite restaurants, Poseidon Del Mar. We had a great conversation, and then I drove her back to my apartment, and we got down to business. Or rather, got down to recreation. We spent most of the next two days having sex, with breaks for food, showers and conversation.
Casual hookups usually suck because both parties are trying to be guarded and secretive and cautious while engaging in the most intimate of acts. it’s an absurd contradiction. You have to dive in. That first night, she said something very interesting. She told me, “I’ll say to people, ‘Let’s be in love just for tonight’”. It got me thinking. This is the right approach for a casual relationship, whether it lasts a night, or a weekend, or a few months. Dive into love, just forget about the forever part.
In the realm of sexuality and intimacy, we’ve never developed healthy ways pf enjoying casual relationships. We’re so focused on forever that we let right now slip away, one moment at a time. Is there risk involved in diving in? Yes, of course. But there is risk in everything we do in life. To me, a life devoid of intimacy is a greater risk than those associated with a responsible form of sexual freedom.
Have we finally grown up enough to make a modernized set of sexual standards work? If so, how can free love be made practical? How can we learn to enjoy each other without hurting each other? How can we learn to live life in such a way that we continue our searches for a storybook romance, without ignoring the opportunities that are in front of us every day?
Because of my own aversion to hurting others for my own gratification, my sex life has looked more like the life of a (sincere) religious conservative than a 60s counter-culture radical. But as I’ve dealt with the barrage of health problems that have left me contemplating an early end to my life, I realize, I don’t want the story of my sex life to end here. And the first step to preventing that is admitting to myself, and to the world, that sex IS important to me, even though I often didn’t act like it was. It’s just that, in order to enjoy sexuality, I have to feel that I am in a safe space both for me and my partner(s).
I talk about sexuality, but really I’m talking about romantic intimacy. I can enjoy intimacy without sex, as long as I’m not being asked to go without sex altogether. I want a life that’s filled with LOVE. What would it take to make that possible?
How can free love work? I created an acronym to represent the solution I propose: You have to be a HOAR. And you have to know the difference between a HOAR and a whore.
So what is a HOAR? I believe free love can work if we consistently adhere to four principles:
HONESTY: The central problem with a great portion of casual relationships is that people are not honest with themselves or each other about what they want. Men who just want sex will tell women they are looking for a relationship. Women who are looking for a husband will tell men they just want to have a casual good time. And in the end, someone feels betrayed.
But this goes beyond our deceiving one another about our major objectives. We spoil it by our inability to even be honest about what we want to do on any particular day. We have to learn a simple two-step process: 1) Say what you really want, 2) find someone who wants the same thing. if everyone’s honest, nearly all of us will get what we want.
It’s no big mystery why this is such a challenge. Expressing what you want makes you vulnerable. But fear of vulnerability is the ultimate roadblock to intimacy. We have to conquer it.
OPENNESS: This goes hand-in-hand with honesty. You can’t be honest unless you are willing to reveal your true self. We all spend so much time bending ourselves to fit molds designed by others whether it is in our jobs, family relationships or with our friends. The intimate space should be the one place where we can comfortably be our full true selves. But again, the fear of vulnerability stands in the way. We must recalibrate ourselves to be able to say, at least in the arena of intimacy, “This is who I am.”
ACCEPTANCE: For honesty and openness to be possible, we must have a kind of social contract in the realm of intimacy that we will all practice a higher level of acceptance.
I don’t mean to say that we shouldn’t have standards, or that we can’t have qualities or situations that we would rather avoid. But too often in this society, we close our minds and hearts to people and experiences that might enrich us, simply because they do not conform to what we are used to. The lesson of Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham” is simple, profound and still applies today.
So try that thing you said you never do. Spend a day with that type of person you said you’d never consider. Instead of dismissing someone who presents in a way that is challenging or unfamiliar, engage and take the ride and see where it leads. But most of all, most importantly, if someone takes the risk of being honest and open with you and sharing their true self, accept them for who they are, and don’t judge.
NOTE OF CAUTION: Some toxic people will try to get you to interpret this in such a way as to convince you to be a victim. NO! Don’t fall for the argument that a dangerous or abusive person is “just being their true self” and you should accept them. Keep your boundaries in order, but just try to be more open-minded with respect to the world’s variety of differences. But you don’t have to be open to things that are objectively bad.
RESPECT: Respect can be a thorny concept. We use this word to mean a lot of different things in a lot of different contexts.
As I use it here, respect basically means considering the effect of your actions on your partners and consistently trying to have a positive impact, or at least NOT to have a negative impact.
A practical example of respect in this context would be having open and honest discussions about sexual health and reproductive status. Another is not just asking for consent, but making sure you and your partner are on the same page at every stage of your interaction. And girls, you know you can ask us for consent too! If we’re going to have equality, women have to make the first move sometimes.
A final very important thing that I place under the banner of respect is that we have to learn to end relationships in a civilized fashion. Too often, we make a dumpster fire our of break-ups. We have to learn to be able to say, “We had a great time but it has run its course. i’m grateful to you for the what we shared and I wish you the best.”. That girl I had the fling with, we went our separate ways peaceably when she decided I wasn’t what she wanted for the longer term. If I hadn’t ended up going to prison, I believe we would have maintained contact and perhaps hooked up again in the future, which would have been alright with me.
We need to change our thinking such that, rather than having to cut off all of our past lovers, we can maintain connections with those who have touched our lives. A world with more intimate connections is a safer, healthier, happier world. I believe we’re all ready for that. it’s just hard to move past the traditional standards that have ruled us for so long. But it’s time for the dawn of a new day. It’s time for free love. And in my next post, I’m going to take a huge, bold step in that direction.
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