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Free Love Is Free Expression

By Punkerslut

Image by NiD
Image: "Intertwined" by NiD

Start Date: Friday, January 11, 2002
Finish Date: Friday, January 11, 2002

     It is doubtless that the theory of Free Love is not unethical. There are, however, still individuals who continue to persist that Free Love is immoral. They have yet to prove a causal relationship. An individual may have multiple partners with which they do many things: chess, jogging, movie going. These are things that people can do together. When they do it together, they do not expect their partner to only do such an action with them only. Sex, as far as our society is concerned, is the only thing which we should limit to one individual. There are few, if any, individual who persist that it is a moral duty for individuals to have only one chess partner, or only one jogging partner. You can be moral without being monogamous. However, there are certain groups which believe that the word "moral" itself means sexually abstinent! Rationalist Humanitarians will admit that being moral means something other than sexual abstinence; we will admit that being moral constitutes being generous to our fellow men, being kind to our fellow creatures, and always endeavoring for justice.

     The answers for having only one sex partner have all too often fallen short of logical and reasonable foundations. There is no correlation between Free Lovers and individuals who are immoral. There certainly may be people who try to make it look that way, but no such correlation is true. Sex, jogging, watching films, playing chess, and talking are all bodily functions. There are no intrinsic differences between these different actions. Sure, sex may be different from jogging or chess in how much pleasure you can attain, but that is a useless point to make: I am discussing intrinsic values here. There are certain drugs which are fully capable of making someone feel hundreds, if not thousands of times better than they would from on orgasm, yet there are no philosophical or abstinence groups which are working to make it so that drug addicts must get high only when with one other specific addict. The point is: the amount of pleasure from sex does not mean it should be limited to only one person.

     It is obvious that Free Love is not unethical at all. The arguments used against it are often brought from amidst the contradictory pages of the Bible or from some other profane source. There will still be those who assert that you can get all you need from only one sex partner and that multiple sexual partners are unnecessary. There may be those who assert that one partner is all you need. And there will be those who still assert that a one-on-one sexual relationship based on the principles of monogamy will last longer than any friendship. It is often stipulated by monogamists that Free Lovers choose to have more sexual partners for the sole reason that they are more sexually active. Such a stereotype is flagrantly foolhardy and ignorant. Free Love is about the freedom of expression. If someone can express their lust with lust, then why should they hold back? There will be bountiful amounts of monogamists who would hold back. It is a lack of expression. If you love someone, or if you're aroused, there is certainly no reason at all that you should prevent yourself from sex other than for practical reasons (such as lack of available contraceptives).

     The Puritans would have considered holding hands to be non-monogamous when not in marriage. Certain Arabian cultures require that females be entirely covered head to toe because to look at another woman constitutes adultery. Even the Bible confirms it when it states: "But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matthew 5:27-29) The Bible never promised to grant freedom of conscience, and with this cruel moral, this "ethic" if it deserves such a title, restricts freedom of expression. If two individuals are close to each other as far as their character goes, then why should their bodies not be close? If a person loves another, then why refuse to look at each other, all for the sake of morality and sexual ethics? The reasons have always been disgusting: greed and dogma. Actually sexual penetration, kissing, touching, and looking have all been things which the army of cruelty and vice have restricted and limited. The cultures which strongly favored monogamy have also been the cultures which have been fond of viciousness and quick to be malicious in their behaviors. Physical expression was banned. To touch one's face affectionately, even if it was your own child, was considered perverted and demented. To share kindness and compassion through your body, by making others feel good about themselves, was ultimately considered evil. This is the foolishness that is monogamy: restriction of expression.

     Such expression is inappropriate, some will claim. The Puritan will say that if you touch the face of an individual, you are a sinner bound to hell by a cruel and vicious god. The Arabian Monogamist will say that if you look at another woman other than the wives in your harem, that the woman must be killed. And today, the modern Western Civilization Monogamist will say that if you have sex with an individual who is not your "significant other," then you are immoral and without values. The Right Wing political branch is always quick to spread false propaganda to express their contempt for Liberal ideas. All too often, their religious squabbling is bent on controlling how other people live their own lives. The Puritans aggressively punished those who showed affection for each other publicly. Today, if a man is known for having many girlfriends, if he is a Free Lover, lies and slander will be spread about him like wildfire. Freedom of expression has never been the agenda of the Right Wing. Senator Comstock disallowed sexual content to be spread through the mail system. With the trial of Reynolds in the late Nineteenth Century, the legal system held blasphemy as illegal. In the Seventeenth Century, in the colonies, blasphemy was punishable by death. Oppression has been the only motive of the religious right. In the days when the government was entirely influenced by the corrupt officials who killed and tortured individuals because divine authorities ordered it, the Scarlet Letter was assigned to those who had committed adultery. Both men and women were property: both abused in either the system of African Slavery, Feudalism, or Wage Slavery. In this day, this era of abuse and greed, those governments which ordered their citizens to become monogamous were monsters of their time, incapable of knowing compassion, distant of justice, and beyond any reasonable knowledge of humaneness.

     What constitutes adultery? If you were to ask a Western Civilization Monogamist, practically the majority of humans on this planet, you would be told that adultery is sexual activity which arouses the sex organs of any of the participants when they are committed to someone else. If you ask a Puritan, you would be told that simple touching is adultery. If you ask an Arabian Monogamist, you would be told that seeing any skin of a woman that is not your wife is adultery. Down and down the lines of various monogamist cultures, and the same basic principle is set: expression of affection and love is banned. From tracing the ethics of various monogamist cultures, any intelligent person would believe that the most monogamist culture would be one which banned the emotion of compassion and did not tolerate the existence of affection at all. For who could stand to live under a government which did not permit you to touch the faces of your most loved ones, except under the provision of such individual being your spouse? Who could live under such a tyrannical government which made it so that affection was only allowed between two who were in marriage? Those who are devoutly and uncompromisingly monogamous are the individuals who would enjoy this government.

     Even if being a Free Lover means I will be less sexually active than being monogamous, I will absolutely choose the position of a Free Lover. I value my freedom over pleasure. And for myself to know that I can be as kind, compassionate, welcoming, and soothing, and to express myself physically, to express myself freely, is a right I hold to be undeniable.

Punkerslut,


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