It normalized the objectification of women [1] and allowed sexual predators [2] to flourish.

[1] Objectification: instead of treating a woman like a person, they were reduced to being a body to satisfy a man’s base urges.

[2] Sexual predator: Men who do not care about women as human beings but merely see them as potential sexual conquests, and who do dishonest and manipulative stuff to get a woman to have sex with them. Dishonest stuff includes getting a woman drunk so they will consent to sex; lying about one’s wealth or achievements (the canonical example is someone who never joined the military claiming they are a Navy SEAL); etc.

I was there, and part of it.

You may find it hard to believe, but there were lots of young women who were just extremely promiscuous. Just as promiscuous as the young men were. Free sex was a political statement. A form of rebellion against the status quo. And of course, it was enabled by the ready availability of antibiotics and hormonal birth control.

I saw a lot of that movement too, probably not as much as you.

My sense is that no one was finding any real satisfaction from having short term strictly sexual relationships, and my sense in this day and age of #MeToo (which I very strongly feel has become a witch hunt) is that some men were hurting some women emotionally by only wanting them for sex.

Right. I was an illegal immigrant from Russia. And an LSD dealer. I was also ~homeless, and living out of a VW bug.

It wasn't about having "meaningful relationships". It was about having fun. And forgetting about dying in a nuclear war. For those who weren't alive in 1962, you really have no clue.

Just wanted to say it’s fantastic to see this perspective expressed so clearly, when many have taken the puritanical aspects of feminism to heart as something that’s obvious and certain in educated society.

It’s as if certain aspects of preferences and free will are now inconceivable. Refreshing to see a more accurate historical account.

>> hurting some women emotionally by only wanting them for sex.

I can definitely say as a man that in the context of some women in my life I would be hurt if sex is the only thing they wanted from me, too.

I don't necessarily see how the whole free-love movement is supposed to be responsible for my delusions about what kind of a lover I am currently hanging out with, though.

Hmm, I think those are pre-existing pathologies in society that free-love folks have worked really hard both to prevent—by empowering women, by frowning upon non-lesbian couplings, by talking extensively about informed and enthusiastic consent, and by fostering cross-gender friendships the monogs were suspicious of—and to reduce the harm from, for example, with birth control, condoms (and strong norms against not using them), and by socially supporting single motherhood. Sex parties in free-love circles very frequently have strict rules against alcohol, while many serial monogamists can only copulate when intoxicated. So I think you're probably mistaken.

The “free love” movement of the 1960s and 1970s, as I understand it, did not really have people widely using condoms. It was assumed that women were on the pill or used a diaphragm.

Condoms only really became a thing in the 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic hit the world.

Your post gives me a lot of hope; I really hope that we can reverse the trend of people, particularly young people in their 20s, having sex less and less. [1]

I personally would not partake in such a free love movement, but I really want to see, post-#MeToo, a world where it’s OK for a man to sexually desire a woman, as long as he also sees her as a person with feelings, is not being manipulative to get sex, and fully respects consent.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/02/well/family/millennials-l...

I’m pretty sure both those things existed before the sixties.