Free Love; Then, Now and in the Future - by Starla Knight

   

 As sexual beings, we’ve certainly had our ups and downs in the department of free love throughout the centuries.  Swinging from periods where free loved flowed just as naturally as all of the rivers and streams to eras of dusty riverbeds and desert like missionary monogamy, humans have experienced great floods and devastating droughts of sexual freedom.  We’re currently experiencing a re-emergence of the free love scene, but what does that mean? Where have we been and what will the oceans and seas of free love offer in the future?

    Yes, we’ve had our moments of free love. And if images of flower power and the psychedelic graphics of the 60’s and 70’s limit your historical view of sexual revolutions let me briefly remind you of public bath houses throughout Greece and the extravagantly planned orgies of the Roman Empire, just to mention a few.  Before the rise of monotheistic religions, free love was accepted and often encouraged for thousands of years.

     Once monotheism dominated the landscape, showing skin between the chin and the toes became punishable by law, so it’s no surprise that anything resembling even a drop of free love was shunned, made taboo and often forbidden by those in power.  For centuries, we endured a drought of free love, and it wasn’t until the 1960’s and 70’s that we began to break those dams and levees.
It seemed as though the sexual revolution of the 60’s and 70’s was opening the floodgates of free love.  Swinging couples and “key parties” flowed through big cities and suburban areas alike.Those brave homosexuals began to emerge from the closet more and more.  However, the full revolution was damned up with the emergence of some mysterious disease.  Fear of the unknown caused for stereotypical superstitions and those found guilty of not fitting into societies cookie cutter norms had to retreat once more into the shadows.  HIV and Aids, and frankly our complete ignorance of safe sex, stemmed the flow and free love became a taboo subject once more.

     Good on the shortest history lesson of free love ever?  Great, me too.

     Thanks to the old gods and the new for the information highway! And welcome to 2017, where not only has the internet provided access to information so that even the poor unfortunate souls still stuck in schools that preach abstinence only can get access to accurate knowledge regarding sexuality and safe sex. One can also find a community of people who share the same kinks, no matter how obscure they might be. Technology has provided community for those living in the dark.

     Not since the Roman period have humans been as free, sexually, as we are today. Well, save for those people who still live in countries where homosexuality is deemed immoral and illegal, or where women can still be stoned for having premarital sex, otherwise in North America, we’ve regained the sexual ground we lost in the 1980’s and then some.

     Marriage and sex therapists alike are surprised at the current number of people engaging in swinging, cuckholds, three-ways and orgies, not to mention the growing numbers of couples who now openly watch porn together, frequent gentlemen clubs together and explore more with toys and kinks alike.  But nearly all of said professionals agree that if all parties involved are informed, consenting adults, practicing safe sex, then no harm no foul.  If anything, most of them are able to report stronger relationships in couples who feel liberated enough to be so honest as to reveal kinks that society would typically judge negatively.

     Yes, my lovely readers, if you haven’t noticed yet, we are currently riding the cultural wave of free love.

     Yes! Cheer and shout! Huzzah! Huzzah! Praise the old gods and the new, for all of you free loving adults sharing safe, liberating,sexual experiences. I salute you! Sexual freedom means less repression, less anger, more honest and happier, healthier lives.  With the floodgates opening wider and wider, what does that mean for the future, near and distant, in regard to this sexual revolution?

     Only time will truly tell.  But I can state that if technology pulled us from the toilet bowl of ignorance into the pool of sexual knowledge, then technology will continue to provide the viscosity and energy of this free love wave across the humanity ocean.

     Professionals can only estimate that as more and more people discover the wondrous variety of communities catering to their unique kinks, and as more and more people step out of the shadows of fear from negative judgment, that the number of people engaging in person to person, to person and person (oh the wondrous possibilities!) will naturally continue to grow. Which is liberating and fantastic, as long as we all remember consent and safety.

     Now that I have you all fantasizing about tantalizing cuckholds/cuckqueens, sexy swinging and erotic orgies (I know I am) just to name a few, don’t put those kinky blind folds on just yet.  The wave of future free love will be so much more than simply adding to your dance card.

     From sex dolls that are projected to include A.I. functions as soon as 2020, to VR machines and sex suits already equipped with sensory pads that can be controlled by another human around the other side of the world, sexual freedom is taking advantage of technology.  For the guys and gals who have no trouble in finding others to share free love with, this might not make much of an impact, but for those who have struggled to meet societies expectations of normal, or beauty, this is ground breaking.
 

 As your resident horny bisexual who has a geeky affinity for everything Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars, comics, Game of Thrones and World of Warcraft, I look forward to being able to fulfill those fantasies with specific characters or species becoming that much closer to reality.  My imagination runneth wild. Mmm… slave Leia.

     That’s all well and good, but for those who suffer from conditions that prevent them from interacting socially or sexually, be them mental or physical, the simulation of normal(or not) human sexual encounters via VR or interactive sex dolls will be able to provide gratifications like they’ve not been able to experience before.  Think of the gentleman who suffers from agoraphobia and is afraid to interact with people, or the lady who lives with a physical disfigurement that prevents typical sexual interaction, future technology will be able to help provide an experience that will bring them the closest to a typical human sexual experience than ever before.

     Current costs to experience techno free love can be expensive.  Those AI robot sex dolls, expected to be on the market in 2020, appear to start at sixty thousand.  Ouch, Baby.  But I could argue that purchasing a sex robot is still cheaper than getting married and having kids. VR units typically run six hundred and already have large libraries of 360 degree view adult videos, some of them even work on your smart phone with adult VR apps. Meaning you can already enter your own little porn world on the subway.  Hey, no one said it would all be pretty.

     But I’d like to know what you, the reader thinks.  What is your opinion of the current sexual revolution and its future?  Email me at Starla.friction@gmail.com.  In the meantime, live and let live, lovies.