Sexual Freedom League
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
The Sexual Freedom League was an organization founded in 1963 in New York City by Jefferson Poland. It existed to promote and conduct sexual activity among its members and to agitate for political reform, especially for the repeal of laws against abortion and censorship. When Jefferson Poland moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, he started a League there as well, specifically at the University of California, Berkeley in 1966. Although Poland founded the League, he did not try to establish it as a conventional organization with membership lists, dues and meetings. Instead, he went around establishing various Leagues and allowing others to run them.
The League first made national news in August, 1965 with the "Nude Wade-in" led by Poland, 23, Ina Saslow, 21, and Shirley Einseidel, 21, at Aquatic Park, a public beach in San Francisco. The S.F.L. was featured in an article in Time Magazine for March 11, 1966, which attracted thousands of curiosity seekers and a few active participants. In early 1966 Poland turned over the East Bay League to Richard Thorne, who proceeded to organize nude parties, which were thinly disguised sex orgies. Thorne fled to Mexico in the Summer of 1966 and later changed his name to Ohm and started a religion by that name.
Following Thorne's departure, a rift developed. One faction wanted members to have open meetings and discussions about sex but not actually to engage in sexual relations. The other wanted to continue the tradition of orgies. The non-sex branch eventually came to be headed by Dutch immigrant Alida Reyenga, whereas the pro-sex group was headed by Sam Sloan, a student at the University of California at Berkeley.
Sloan's faction was recognized by Sproul Hall as an official, registered on-campus student organization under the modified name of "Campus Sexual Rights Forum," because the Dean of Students would not agree to register it under the name of "Sexual Freedom League." The Sloan group set up an S.F.L. information table on campus and distributed literature, held rallies and sold buttons to finance its activities on campus, while holding orgies (mostly involving Berkeley students) off campus. It was featured in articles in Time, Playboy, and Sexology magazines as well as in numerous articles in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Berkeley Gazette, and the Berkeley Barb.
The East Bay S.F.L. established headquarters in Oakland, but decided against holding more nude parties and instead formed "circles," including the "Horny Men's Circle" and the "Wanton Women's Circle." The Coordinator of these circles, who was the equivalent of Chairman, called herself Lisa Lindvall. She dabbled in both factions, as Coordinator of the non-sex group while participating in the sex orgies of the campus group, but she suddenly died of cystic fibrosis in January 1967 at age 24.
Alida Reyenga took over as Coordinator, but she often complained that she spent so much time working for the Sexual Freedom League that she had no time left for sex.
By December, 1966, the East Bay Sexual Freedom League, forced by competition from Sam Sloan's Campus Sexual Freedom League and also by the influence of an article in the September "Back to School" issue of Playboy which Sloan helped to write, started holding nude parties and sex orgies again. In the middle of 1967, all of the files and membership records of the East Bay League were appropriated in a putsch by Tom Palmer and Virginia Miller, who formed it as a corporation, kicked out the discussion circles and started holding nude parties again, but who also turned the East Bay League into a wife swapping or Swinging club, which was an anathema to serious and dedicated freedom leaguers. Later, Tom Palmer committed suicide and another person seized the membership records and tried to turn the East Bay League into a for-profit business.
The Sam Sloan pro-sex "Campus Sexual Freedom League" disappeared when Sloan left town. It held 28 nude parties, the last of which took place on Christmas Eve, 1967. By then, the East Bay League had folded too and Alida Reyenga had moved to Los Angeles, where she had taken up Scientology and eventually achieved Clear.
While the East Bay versions were dying out, the San Francisco Sexual Freedom League moved to the forefront, headed by Margo St. James, who organized sex orgies while participating in political activism. It was eventually taken over by Frank and Margo Rila. Frank, who edited the Sexual Freedom newspaper, eventually committed suicide. There were chapters all over Califonria. Annual national meetings were held at different sites. Margo St. James ran for San Francisco Board of Supervisors several times, claiming to be a "former prostitute". Margo got 76,000 votes in 1996, but lost the election for Board of Supervisors and has ever since been attacked by anti-sex feminists such as Dorchen Leidholdt.
Many of the leaders of the Sexual Freedom League were females. Alida Reyenga, Lisa Lindvall, Margo St. James and Holly Tannen occupied leadership positions, whereas Richard Thorne and Sam Sloan were the only male leaders.
