Free Love

I don't really like the idea of closed relationships (or marriage, as well), because I think it has been established out of traditions in our society, and it simply means to limit your "love" to one person, to have only one "partner", which in my opinion is not very natural.

I like the metaphor with children: Imagine you have two, three, four, any number of children, and you love all of them equally. You don't make a difference (you shouldn't at least) - now the question becomes: Why not spread this idea to everyone? Drop the distinction between friendship and relationship and replace it by simple human relations, with the extension that they can be of multiple levels: you can barely know a person, be like "normal friends", or have an obligation-free intimate connection. Closed relationships only create obligations and interdependence which is very harmful when they come to an end.

The good thing is: you can alter the levels at any time. You can be friends with someone and have sex the next moment - there's nothing bad about it, as long as two people agree in what they want to share, and don't develop any kind of interdependence.

It might sound hard in the beginning, but as soon as you free yourself from the demand for exclusive love, and replace it by the idea of free (or open) love, it becomes easier.

hahaha ur idea made me think, If I cant get ONE partner, imagine getting two or more lol. Mission impossible for me

hahaha ur idea made me think, If I cant get ONE partner, imagine getting two or more lol. Mission impossible for me

Click to expand...

I guess you didn't really understand what I meant. My idea is about to drop this whole friends/partner thinking, and have just open relations with everyone. It's not about getting one, two, or how many partners you'd like. Or have a dozen of friends on the other hand. What I would like to see is a society where all the relations we have are more liberal, free, without fixed boundaries and interdependence, and no categories such as "this is my friend" and "this is my partner". We could be anything we want at any given time.

Sure, we are all lonely, maybe also shy, we not even have friends or are seen as possible traditional relationship material. And that's why I believe that such a "system" could resolve a bit of the problem with loneliness, in a way that might help us. If people were more open and sensitive, and not trained like they are.

Hi-
I've thought, half-jokingly, to myself that it would be nice to lease a relationship. You know, both parties sign on for 6 months or a year or whatever and at the end, if it's not working for either one, you can walk away with no harm, no foul.
But as for the whole "free love" idea? Meh. Bad idea. Many adults, not all but many, have children. The first couple of years in a child's life are especially labor-intensive and this is a huge commitment. A child in the picture just complicates this whole "free love" thing. And ya know, a child can often result from "free loving". Besides, there's nothing stopping anyone from practicing their free love right now. There are quite a few people who have no problem hopping from person to person with no emotional intimacy or deep relationships. It already exists, dude, it's just that there's not many people who buy into it.

Teresa

Personally, I'd hate sharing someone. My dude is mine, and I'm his. I wouldn't be with anyone if the case were sharing the love with everyone around. I wouldn't see a point in being with someone then. I don't think that's loving someone when you're essentially cheating on them.

Nor would I ever be with any of my friends. So while I understand your idea, I kind of like having those boundaries. Because certain people are just friends to me, and nothing else.

sevenacids said:

I don't really like the idea of closed relationships (or marriage, as well), because I think it has been established out of traditions in our society, and it simply means to limit your "love" to one person, to have only one "partner", which in my opinion is not very natural.

I like the metaphor with children: Imagine you have two, three, four, any number of children, and you love all of them equally. You don't make a difference (you shouldn't at least) - now the question becomes: Why not spread this idea to everyone? Drop the distinction between friendship and relationship and replace it by simple human relations, with the extension that they can be of multiple levels: you can barely know a person, be like "normal friends", or have an obligation-free intimate connection. Closed relationships only create obligations and interdependence which is very harmful when they come to an end.

The good thing is: you can alter the levels at any time. You can be friends with someone and have sex the next moment - there's nothing bad about it, as long as two people agree in what they want to share, and don't develop any kind of interdependence.

It might sound hard in the beginning, but as soon as you free yourself from the demand for exclusive love, and replace it by the idea of free (or open) love, it becomes easier.

Click to expand...

Interesting ideas. I wonder, how many women have you convinced to allow you your freedom with this theory?

I am all for sharing as long as I am being shared. In the end really what separates a friend from a mate is sex, for me. The idea of closed exclusive relationships is more something we do to ensure that men do not just knock of females and run. As well as to make sure that females do not just squeeze out their child and leave it for dead. The idea is to help society advance by exposing a child to a constant idea and letting it absorb a lifetime of work from its parents.

But like I said if my girlfriend had 3 boyfriends and I have 3 girlfriends aside from her, and she is cool with it, then I am cool with it. However, if I only have her and she has 3 other guys then I am not cool with it. Vice versa as well. If I have 3 females and she only has me then she is ok to not be cool with it. I do agree though, that we draw too many lines with who we are allowed to be sexual with.

However, right now the only females who are interested in me are those who are so desperate they are considering switch hitting to have someone. I need to change this... or kill myself I am not sure which one yet.

Interesting idea. But the thing is that it's such a gray area. How can you differentiate someone you love & have sex with and a friend who you also have sex with? Another thing is that feelings always get in the way. What if you develop feelings for that friend your having sexual relations with or vice-versa?

The same way many people who do not believe in sex until marriage differentiate between people. I think the main idea behind the OPs post is that you should love everyone intenesly. In the end who is more important to you? Your wife, or your childhood friend who you have known for 20+ years?

I'm down with free love, I am a regular practitioner of it. It just sucks when the other people don't know and feel as though they own me or my time.

Appellation to nature is a logical fallacy. Nature or what is natural has no authority on what we should or should not be doing. That said the only problem I can see with your idea is figuring out who is responsible for child raising.

Though we could also eliminate the 2 parent model and start looking at different numbers of parents or other alternative means like state run child raising. Though the costs of that would be pretty big.

VanillaCreme said:

Personally, I'd hate sharing someone. My dude is mine, and I'm his. I wouldn't be with anyone if the case were sharing the love with everyone around. I wouldn't see a point in being with someone then. I don't think that's loving someone when you're essentially cheating on them.

Click to expand...

This is the kind of interdependence I think is not good, but essential to the traditional relationship model of this society. And I don't see a point in being with (or better: commited to) someone, too - for what? Cheating is only possible in a closed relationship model, therefore not applicable to my idea.

Comment to love in general: What is love? And is there a normative specification to it? I don't think so. I think there are many different points of view, and none of these can be declared as wrong. And can't I love someone without having to declare him or her as my boyfriend/girlfriend?

Comment to the children argument: Well, this is only my opinion, and I'm an anarcho-primitivist... considering the fact that there are seven billion humans living (more or less) on this planet already, I don't like the idea of having children at all - not in this insane civilized society we're trapped in. I'd rather take care of an animal that is driven to extinction because of the lifestyle of the civilized kind. Don't you think we're enough? How many more do you think is good for this planet? We already exploit more than the Earth can stand. Think about it. Seriously.

Comment to the 3 boyfriend/girlfriend argument: The way you put it, it sounds to me like a jealousy issue having not the same amount of girlfriends as your "girlfriend" has boyfriends. The thing is: In my theory of "free love", exclusive partners don't exist - only relations of different levels. So, you can't have a "girlfriend" like in the classical relationship model in the first place. I mean, this is not a game, is it? There's nothing to score. Look at what you've got by yourself - not at the others. That's less envious.

There's nothing wrong in drawing lines - having a friend relation or a sexual relation. But I don't agree in making a limit on how many friend relations and how many sexual relations (maybe both at the same time) I can have.

Ghost Boy said:

What if you develop feelings for that friend your having sexual relations with or vice-versa?

Click to expand...

"Free love", as I think of it, doesn't mean to suppress any feelings. The thing you'd rather avoid developing should be interdependence, because that's causing the pain when "it comes to an end" in the traditional way. If you feel love for someone, you should always respect his/her individual freedom. I'm in love with a woman that I have a free-love-relation with: she's one of my best friends, and more. But I know she's not my property, so I give her - with love - the freedom she deserves. We don't see each other very often, we have our own lives. And I don't care about how many other lovers she has, as long as she's happy in what she's doing, I'm happy too.

Might not be good for you. It's good for me. I like one person, and one person only. It's about preference and I'm sure people would agree with you, but that's not the type of life style for everyone. And just because you believe in it doesn't make it fact or true for everyone.

I see a major point in being with just one person. I don't want to share myself or my life with everyone. Just one guy is special to me.

I forget which apes do this, but they are not monogamous. A female will take on a multiple number of mates at any given time and the group of primates never knows who the father is so the child rearing is taken upon equally by all members of the group.

I see no problem with this. Free love was very big during the psychadelic 60's and it's only major flaw was the lack of practice of safe sex which lead to a lot of sexually transmitted diseases and flower children as they were called i think. However this didn't last and most people settled in to their old ways.

From what I know of history there is evidence of a time in man kinds past when we almost went extinct. Our numbers dwindled very low and this is probably where monagamy came from. You were more likely as a male to pass on your genetics and have children if you could "secure" a mate for you and you alone. Likewise a woman was more likely to survive and pass on her genes through offspring by finding the most suitable male that could meet her needs and provide protection against the advances of other males.

There are also a handful of other species that mate for life. Penguins do and they are not even mammals. Dolphins do I'm pretty sure as well as perhaps a few others.

I think it just depends on the person. I personally like the idea of free love, being that i'm often the jelous and 1 partner type of person. However, i know it's just not in my nature to be able to handle free love. Casual sex, maybe. However I've proven to myself that I desire to have a partner that is exclusive to me and likewise. I couldn't accept free love if I wanted to, it's just not in my nature.

I think it's more likely our natural primate instinct to be free lovers though. Free love doesn't have to deal with problems like jelousy which stem from feelings of inadequacy. Free love doesn't seek to compete and compare.

I just think from all the evidence of nearly EVERY culture where marriage is a key process in the mating ritual, it is largely to blame for the advancements humanity has made. You must compete, you must maintain yourself. It's like when Russia and America were in the space race... that competition lead to many technological advancements. So it is that with the competition for mating rights we have advanced further as a whole.

As opposed to a society where nobody ever got jelous and didn't care who anyone slept with at any time. Finding a mate would mearly be an issue of curiosity and trying new people. Rather than a careful selection and commitment to some one based on aquiring survival needs and having to compete with everyone else.

I'd rather be a free lover, but i'm just the old fashioned jelous type who wants 1 mate and must be forced to suffer if things don't work out.

It's just a matter of personal choice and the nature of the person or persons involved. Our older instincts are to be free lovers I think. Otherwise people wouldn't cheat, get tired of one another, and break up/divorce. People wouldn't have multiple relationships in their life if they didn't desire more than just 1 person. Even in some old African tribes still in existance... marriage comes first... then the boy friends and girl friends.

However, we wouldn't be as we are today if we didn't require monogamy to survive as a species. So the desire to have 1 mate is still ingrained in many of us even though it goes against our natural tendency to desire more than just 1 person. It's just personal choice. And I think people who don't get jelous and can love some one and feel loved without feeling threatened or inadequate if that person shares their love with some one else, are most likely better off.

But again. I can't change who I am. I like the idea of having 1 special person.

No need to cite, I agree with yesm, and still respect the choice to have one special person.

I just hate the idea of someone I care about being with someone else.

One man's enough for me. I just want one

Same for me, one woman is all I want. One who will love me as much as I love her. Personally I believe love and sex should go hand in hand, mind and body.

I am not religious, not waiting for marriage nor have I decided to live a life of celibacy. If a woman offered herself to me (lol) I would actually most likely seize the moment BUT I do not actively look for sex... The reason being that I would prefer my first to be with someone who I know likes me for who I actually am and not just my body.

Here's another thing. What if you live in this free love society and still nobody wants you? lol

ouch, lol.

i'm not in to the idea so much because even know i'm a guy i'm kinda into the whole soul mate idea plus with my luck in life theres a good chance i'm going to be single for a year or so before i find my next partner for free love so i'd just that stick with that partner far a wile instead of having to go on the hunt again after that lol