Free love as I understand it

I think it was Emma Goldman who, when asked whether she supported free love, asked "How can love be anything but free?" This has always made a deep kind of sense to me.

I'm so much happier when I'm in relationships with people just...because we really actively like each other. Period. Not "because she's my girlfriend," not "because we're lovers," not "because we're friends with benefits," not "because it's long-term" or "because it's short-term," not "because we're at stage number whatever in the script." Just simply "Hey, I like you, you like me, let's take things as they come and see what happens. Period." I've never particularly wanted exclusivity, and never could get my head around denying someone I love more love, whether or not it comes from me.

I think the words "free love" are often used really just to mean "free sex," and yes sometimes there is that component, but for me it also goes along with free empathy, free communication, free compassion, etc.

At least that's my convoluted take on the idea.

 

You've a great outlook on love.

 

I believe that when most people think of "Free Love" they automatically think of sex. Like you said, sex CAN be a part of it, but to me it's a minor part. I believe that free love is an deep emotional connection with a another person. I have two best friends, one a guy, the other a girl. I love them with all that I am, but just because of love them doesn't mean I wanna have sex with them. We share a deep bond with each other, we love each other, we care for each other very deeply. That, in my opinion, is the essence of free love.

 

As soon as you have sworn any fealty, one over another, then you have become a jailer and asked your friend to be one too.

Let your answer be yes or no. In this way your options of responding honestly to life remain open.

 

"Free Luv" is just an expression from the late '60s during the "Sexual Revolution," which mostly us baby boomers who came of age at that time were rebelling against the uptight generation of our parents. Altho our parents' generation often snuck around and had the same sex we were having, we were doing it in the road.

It did mean sex, perhaps a euphemism for the str8 press to use. It was also fueled by the accessibility of the 'pill' and other birth control methods that gave young women the freedom to have sex like the guys - with no attachments. To show how free it was, prostitution took a hit during that period because there were so many Hippie chicks putting out.

To me, Free Luv was just a description of having sex with girls who wanted it as much as me. It was casual sex, no great seduction, no formal date & dinner, just "wanna fuck?" Srsly, it happened like that. Once I took a girl home, fucked her, slept the night with her and when driving her back to the French Quarter realized neither of us had exchanged names. Knowing a persons name is not necessary with casual sex.

Not that love and affection were left out of the process. I had regular girls that I would hook up with. We formed a relationship with that casual sex and I felt their warmth and friendship as we got it on. Maybe that is my capacity to love the one I'm with at the moment (had the same feelings with paid hookers too). We were incestuous brothers & sisters back then - a feeling of familiarity and sharing.

It was a great time to be young - so fortunate that I was there. And, I loved all them all.

 

I tend to think of sex as being...not even so much either major or minor...but more that it happens if and when it happens. In some circumstances, it may happen sooner, and in others it may happen either later or never at all, depending on the needs, desires, and orientations of everyone involved. In either case, the presence or absence of sex doesn't determine the importance of the relationship. I take a really super-middle ground about sex. Sexual freedom is both the freedom to say yes and to say no. So many "love" relationships seem to start right off with an underlying expectation that sex either must happen now or must wait until the Nth date or the relationship is at Level X, and either of those expectations comes to define the entire relationship. I much prefer meeting people that I actively relate with, and letting the relationship develop without having to either push it or hold it back. Our culture has taken love, something that really should be fairly simple, and complicated the hell out of it.

 

In 1968 when I was 23, the culture I gravitated to, the drop out, doper, free luv, counter culture, seemed to have a very simple concept of love and most of the time it included sex.

Maybe you had to have been there.

 

Wow, my thoughts exactly . Are you sure you're not like a clone of me?

 

"... actively like each other ... let's take things as they come ..."

The term "free love" is a different kind of love than "love".

There is a love that is a commitment, NO MATTER what comes. A commitment to share lives and make it work. This kind of love supports you through bad times. This love keeps you together "because we're married". And gets your through the bad times and brings you to more good times.

Free love means that one is free to care about, be kind with, be sexual with or express any level of intimacy with any of those you are drawn to. This is not a bad thing.

But there is a kind of love that can't be free, because its always paid for. The coin being paid is the difference between "actively like each other ... things as they come" and "no matter what comes". The coin is commitment, no matter what.

 

I think for me there's much less of a dividing line than for most people. I am very committed to people in my life, but for me that doesn't need a label or a ceremony. It's difficult for me to put into words exactly what I mean, because it just doesn't seem to quite fit any of the usual terminology. The best I can do is to say that while I doubt I will ever believe in marriage for myself, I do actually care about many people. Sometimes that has included sex, sometimes not. I know I've never felt monogamous, and if I think that's going to freak someone out or make any kind of drama, I don't believe in even getting started with sex, and in some cases it just never developed, but then sometimes it does. Maybe I'm even giving the concept of "free love" more meaning than it has for a lot of people. Obviously it's everybody's choice how and who they love. I'd never deny someone a marriage, but it would never be with me. I have a tendency to think about how words get used and why we say the stuff we say.

 

you're right quiet person. But unfortunately, so many people are jealous, co-dependent and, needy. Not too many women or men can accept their significant other having so much freedom, so sometimes, "free love" relationships are not quite as they should be.

 

There are a few of us out there, though we are very scattered apparently, who would never deny someone that freedom. I'd never want a relationship based on fear, and so often that's what modern "dating" seems to be about at its core--fear of loss, jockeying for status, and putting a lot of abstractions in the way of pure, simple, honest affection.

 

reading all of your takes on free love makes me very happy

but also very sad

it makes so much sense to me... so simple and so on point. but when i was dating, i was jealous, needy, all of that. now when i meet women i just get tense, i over-think, i make it so so complicated and analyze every step.

my take on free love and how i put it into practice is the difference between knowing and accepting, i guess you could say, if that makes sense

i guess i just feel downright conditioned.

i think though part of it stems the way i view myself... i kind of grew up taking everything really seriously and i don't remember much lightness, so nowadays i take most situations, if not all, with a lot of heaviness.

 

The funny thing is, I too grew up making a Big Serious Deal of every single thing--and I still have a tendency to think a lot, though nowadays I think that's more healthy than obsessive and I now know how to just enjoy abd experience too. My views on relationships and such come from a whole lot of analysis of when I've been happy, when I haven't, what has worked and what hasn't, etc., plus seeing what happens with others around me...and the realization that people are going to do what people are going to do. I guess I've also been truly alone enough that I know that regardless of who decides to stick around and who doesn't, life, including mine, goes on. The bottom line is, I actually got to where I got from a very analytical position myself, if that makes sense...

 

Free love is possibly taking everything at face value and objectively. It means not reading into words, or phrases, or behavior. If they are being kind, polite, and fun.....then that is enough. I've recently been able to enjoy relationships in this pure form without needing more. Of course, I do like good conversation as well so I gravitate toward those that can put thought into subjects and have a genuine participation.

 

I think it really only is free love when there is that participation. It's just that the participation comes from people naturally being who they are rather than from expectations that the relationship is of some type/category/division or other.

 

QuietPerson~I think for me there's much less of a dividing line than for most people. I am very committed to people in my life, but for me that doesn't need a label or a ceremony. It's difficult for me to put into words exactly what I mean, because it just doesn't seem to quite fit any of the usual terminology. The best I can do is to say that while I doubt I will ever believe in marriage for myself, I do actually care about many people. Sometimes that has included sex, sometimes not. I know I've never felt monogamous, and if I think that's going to freak someone out or make any kind of drama, I don't believe in even getting started with sex, and in some cases it just never developed, but then sometimes it does. Maybe I'm even giving the concept of "free love" more meaning than it has for a lot of people. Obviously it's everybody's choice how and who they love. I'd never deny someone a marriage, but it would never be with me. I have a tendency to think about how words get used and why we say the stuff we say.

Quote:
Originally Posted by QuietPerson
I think it was Emma Goldman who, when asked whether she supported free love, asked "How can love be anything but free?" This has always made a deep kind of sense to me.

I'm so much happier when I'm in relationships with people just...because we really actively like each other. Period. Not "because she's my girlfriend," not "because we're lovers," not "because we're friends with benefits," not "because it's long-term" or "because it's short-term," not "because we're at stage number whatever in the script." Just simply "Hey, I like you, you like me, let's take things as they come and see what happens. Period." I've never particularly wanted exclusivity, and never could get my head around denying someone I love more love, whether or not it comes from me.

I think the words "free love" are often used really just to mean "free sex," and yes sometimes there is that component, but for me it also goes along with free empathy, free communication, free compassion, etc.

At least that's my convoluted take on the idea.


This is how I feel and this is exactly what I was trying to say in my thread "Where Has All The Love Gone?".~

Thank you, everyone for those beautiful words of wisdom.~

 

You've just hit the sore spot; why I can't identify with anything with the L word in it. It's always at the expense of sex, and always passive aggressive and hypocritical.

So what if it's about sex? What the hell is so wrong with casual sex?

 

Free love is fine, but the more you pay, the better you get.

 

I think we should all stop trying to define love in any definitive way for everyone, there is no such thing as a universal exact definition of love, just like there is no such thing as a universal exact definition of right and wrong.~

Love is different for everyone and that's beautiful and wonderful.~

We're simply talking about our each definition of free love.~

 

Well said!