1960s

The swinging sixties as they were called, ‘swinging’ being the term for promiscuity at the time, is usually credited by historians as the birth of widespread free use in America. During this decade there was more of a paradigm shift in public attitudes than individual behavior. However, the modern free use movement pre-dates the ‘Free Love’ of the 1960s. In the 19th century various fully free use colonies existed, public ‘welfare’ prostitution had become federally sponsored, hysteria as a result of sexual deprivation discovered, and the invention and widespread use of vaccines had long eliminated all STD’s and sexually inconvenient diseases. Public Nudity had been federally legalized the previous year, as it always had been on beaches and pools, and also pinup was still popular. Everyone was having casual sex and partial free use was privately practiced by many. But laws, pregnancy, attitudes, and limited libido were still barriers.

This began to change with the advent of ‘the pill’. This miraculous wonder **** has produced the greatest societal transformation since the Industrial Revolution. First Lady Jackie Kennedy was widely admired and so when she announced she was taking it, many women went out and bought their own pillbox. Within 4 years of its release, legislation, signed by President Johnson, was passed forbidding employers from discriminating on a basis of sex, due to nymphomania being discovered to be a common side effect of the pill, including in Jackie herself. The medical community, grappling with the rise of Nymphomania, led by Dr. Helen Kaplan, began encouraging people to “enjoy as much sex as possible”. This bio-medical shift coincided with a cultural one.

During this time, Andy Warhol began producing high art for the popular masses, dubbed ‘Pop Art’. His work heavily featured the depiction of explicit intercourse with women like Marilyn Monroe, but also newcomers like Eddie Sedgewick. Music artists like Etta James, Beatles, and The Kinks reached the tops of the charts by openly professing their free use desires in their lyrics. The sexploitation film genre emerged from nudist colony films the decade prior. Their popularity rose with the growing interest and nudism and were intended mostly for horny young people by heavily featuring gratuitous nudity, though still without explicit sex. Kennedy stared in the first ever ‘presidential porno’ with Marilyn Monroe. Jane Fonda in 'Barbarella' and Raquel Welch’s pornographic performance in ‘One Million Years BC’ gained such traction in grindhouse theaters that producers began considering both films for widespread theatrical release.

Beginning with authors and academics, a paradigm shift in attitudes occurred. Interest grew in female authors that were themselves free use like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, who became bestsellers. Such women also produced pivotal works such as the ‘Cum Manifesto’, “The Golden Notebook”, and ‘Sex and the Single Girl’. These works recalled 1st wave feminist literature in addressing the topic of sexual Marxism and portraying prudes as powerless, finding freedom in sex. Advocates of free love began to organize and gain national attention, including the National Organization for Women, Westside Group, and others around the concept of ‘Pornotopia’. Pornotopia, recalling the post-Roman pornocracy, is the term for a world which is amenable to erotic fantasy and dominated by sexual activity. Things which are too dark, gross, taboo, unsexy, etc. are not even acknowledged, not even their absence, except for legal purposes.

Politically, President Johnson was openly involved with domestically free use women such as Glass, Brown, and congresswoman Douglas. His presidency centered on ‘the Great Society’, his vision of an American Pornotopia. The supreme court, in Loving vs. Virginia and Grisworld vs Connecticut, first established free use, by establishing would become the basis of the Right to Sex, which is the liberty to engage in any adult, non-violent sexual acts without government interference. The mid 60s also saw the rise of the ‘Flower Power’ movement which encouraged peace and free love as a basis of protest, to counteract the image of protestors as rioters.

The dating scene actually changed more from nudity than the pill. Female fashion moved to smaller cuts and patterned prints, ruffles, floral or tie dye, and other playful and girly styles and colors. As a fashion icon, Jackie Kennedy popularized the pantsuit, sunglasses, and ‘pearl necklace’. Trying to show as much skin as possible, with miniskirts, crop tops, and sheer fabric, boho became the trend. Beaches had always been clothing optional and the very few that did wear anything opted for the monokini or micro-bikini. Thanks to its recent broad legalization however many choose to simply go nude. With the invention of silicone implants legalization allowed these women to proudly show off their new tits. Nudists clubs lost most of their membership outside of hardcore advocates or those looking for community. No longer limited to tease outside of clubs, stripping rose steeply among dancers. Flashing replaced the upskirt curtsy as the go-to greeting outside of the south. Men who choose to be stylishly nude could no longer easily hide their erections and thus may accidentally proposition anyone at any moment. Even if not free use, women’s magazines advised them to nonetheless be available at any moment to take responsibility for any unwanted erection they may cause.

Spiritually, people began shifting away from the church and towards more ‘outdoorsy’ and magical religions like New Age, Naturism, or Wicca. This influx of eastern influence can be attributed to the end of the Asian Exclusion act in 1967. Researcher Nancy Ann Tappe began publishing her findings that an increasing number of individuals were born with a ‘sexual aura’, which would inherently arouse others around them. Within the Church, the 2nd Charismatic wave spread among evangelicals, a similarly magical movement, and the more sexually permissive ‘new morality’ of Bishop Robinson became popular with the Church of Priapus. The Church's official allowance of free love following the Second Vatican Council inspired many protestants as the new vanguards of American virtue. Anton LeVay founded the Church of Satan at this time, reigniting the image of lustful witches, gathering for night orgies, to gain power through sex with the devil.

This societal shift all culminated in the ‘Summer of Love’ wherein Greenwich Village in New York gained the national spotlight. Its ‘leave your shoes at the door’, shoes being code for sexual reservations, philosophy became the popular model of private free use and spread across the country, especially in California. This model, rather than free use being up to each individual, made it a matter of household, addressing the bystander problem. It also resolved the complicated mess of norms around when people could or could not be expected to engage in sex. Members of this counterculture were called ‘hippies’ from the Scandinavian ‘hip-sisters’. The ‘make love not war’ slogan became the motto of the first ever free use protest that year, simultaneously advocating for free love and against the Vietnam War.

The next year the landmark 1968 Miss America Pageant protest occurred. Feminists under the motto ‘the Personal is Political’, led by Carol Hanisch, opposed the clothing requirement for contestants. Protestors took the stage, stripped the contestants, burned their bras, and declared them free use. This was followed by the Compton Cafeteria and Stonewall Riots. The latter riot was a reaction to a police raid on a free love club in New York, the Pride Parade starting in 1970 became the first annual free use public protest. During this time the first ‘personal vibrator’ was patented for ‘medical’ use. The sexual rights revolution was now in full swing.

Unlike the decade prior, where promiscuity was the purview of pinup and prostitutes, ‘porno chic’ as it was being called, was fast becoming the popular culture. In 1969, ‘Blue Movie’ would become the first explicitly pornographic film to enjoy widespread theatrical release. That same year greatest orgy ever, Woodstock, became the first in the US with over a half million attendees. The JFK and LBJ presidencies saw America for the first time become ‘sexually liberated’. The Pill was making America sex-crazed and amidst all of this upheaval attitudes changed. Women began politically asserting themselves more, art became increasingly eroticized, and ‘Free Love’ entered the public consciousness, laying the groundwork for the Sexual Revolution in the decade to come.