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Home , Free love, Han Ryner

CHAPTER 8

FREE BASED ON FEELINGS

The two following sections include some of the most fundamental aspects of the diverse positions anarchists and the libertarian movement had in relation to sexual freedom and at the beginning of the 20th Century, up until 1939, some of them were also dealt with by Mary Nash. It will be interesting to contrast them with the opinions expressed by Sara and Pepita on the subject, based on their own experiences. These experiences made them adopt the same position which was also in agreement with the positions of Free Women as an organisation. The other sections will be based on the experiences of these two women in order to display the double standard which existed amongst some of the people in the libertarian movement, what this meant for women and how they dealt with it.

8.1. Sexual freedom and free love in . I myself am human and free only to the extent that I acknowledge the humanity and of all my fellows.… I am properly free when all the men and women about me are equally free. Far from being a limitation or a denial of my liberty, the liberty of another is its necessary condition and confirmation. I become free in the true sense only by of the liberty of others (Bakunin, 1997:29). Mary Nash suggests that the sexual was part of the anarchist project. The new morality and sexual consisted of an “overcoming of love”, a “conscious, responsible and free love” in which relationships between people would develop through complete mutual understanding. In that way the of repression would be overcome and it would lead to a healthy sexual life which would make people more free. This author draws a parallel between the way in which anarchists dealt with the issue of sexuality and how they dealt with the social situation of women. Therefore, some of them positioned themselves in favour of the idea that sexual liberty and the liberty of women would happen through the implementation of Libertarian ; others believed that sexual freedom and the freedom of women would not happen as a consequence of the transformation of the foundations of social organisation, but rather that it was necessary to create a specific work process, based on education for example (Nash, 1981:43). Mary Nash indicates that free love was the way in which relationships between men and women were defended in the anarchist media. However, the different interpretations which were made of this free love, which was otherwise accepted by the majority, caused conflict within the movement itself. For the anarchists, the idea of free love was associated with the idea that one sex did not have possession of the other, in other words, it meant the sexual liberation of women. Mary Nash

73 CHAPTER 8 notes that “Free love”, “Free or common law union”, “Sexual freedom” and “” are terms which are often used indiscriminately in anarchist publications (Nash, 1981). Nash also includes the contributions of , a writer for Estudios magazine, in relation to the issue of anarchists sexual freedom. Ryner states that free love had the most supporters. Free love did not limit amorous experiences to only two people, but rather its supporters believed that, in order for people to manifest their full freedom and independence, it was necessary for them to widen their sexual-amorous experiences to more than one other person. However, free love did not accept the separation which the double standard had established between sexuality and feelings, but rather it prioritized the need to deepen feelings with more than one person. Since the anarchists declared that they defended this position, being able to have a mutual understanding with more than one person would provide new perspectives and new elements to the development of personality. Based on these attitudes, they positioned themselves against people who, through the supposed practice of sexual freedom, betrayed their wives or partners. Sexual freedom did not include betrayal, but it involved going deeper into sincere relationships, based on feelings and on the fact that all the people implicated in it were in agreement. Therefore free love had to be a conscious act, based on the principles of and equality which are typical of anarchism. According to the Spanish anarchist media, the type of unions which were carried out to a greater extent than others were free or “common law” unions which were monogamous, in the sense that they were united, not in matrimony, but as a couple who had freely decided to unite (Nash, 1981:50–51). In conversations on this subject with Pepita and Sara, they insisted that free love was not “sex for the sake of sex”, but rather sexual relations which arose due to feelings, from mutual understanding rather than deception or the manipulation of other people’s feelings. The problem was not related to whether the sexual relations were monogamous or otherwise, but to the values which it was based on. They were young people who wanted to join their lives together and, as I’ve been telling you, they were free and they joined themselves to each other. However there was one detail, which is that often the men, certain young men, did not understand freedom very well. They thought that sexual inter- course was like that: you go in, I love you and lets sleep together…that is not what it was about. Sexual relations are very normal, it is a human thing and there has to be an attraction (S). This respect is not about the idea that today I’m going to sleep with you and then you turn your back and they tell you they love you and tomorrow they go off with another one…you have to respect people, no? (…) That is neither freedom nor love, you have to respect people. You should not deceive people. That is respect (S). They explained to us how the subject of free love and sexual freedom was misunderstood, or was deliberately misunderstood, by some men and young people from the libertarian movement who jumped on the bandwagon of the discourse on

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