Major male anarchist thinkers (except Proudhon)
generally supported women's equality. Free
love advocates sometimes traced their roots
back to Josiah Warren and to experimental
communities, viewing sexual freedom as an
expression of an individual's self-ownership.
Free love particularly stressed women's rights.
In New York's Greenwich Village, "bohemian"
feminists and socialists advocated self-realisation
and pleasure for both men and women. In Europe
and North America, the free love movement
combined ideas revived from utopian socialism
with anarchism and feminism to attack the
"hypocritical" sexual morality of the Victorian
era.
== Beginnings ==
The major male anarchist thinkers, with the
exception of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, strongly
supported women's equality. Mikhail Bakunin,
for example, opposed patriarchy and the way
the law "subjects [women] to the absolute
domination of the man." He argued that "[e]qual
rights must belong to men and women" so that
women can "become independent and be free
to forge their own way of life." Bakunin foresaw
"the full sexual freedom of women" and the
end of "the authoritarian juridical family".
Proudhon, on the other hand, viewed the family
as the most basic unit of society and morality,
and thought women had the responsibility of
fulfilling a traditional role within the family.In
Oscar Wilde's The Soul of Man Under Socialism,
he passionately advocates for an egalitarian
society where wealth is shared by all, while
warning of the dangers of authoritarian socialism
that would crush individuality. He later commented,
"I think I am rather more than a Socialist.
I am something of an Anarchist, I believe."
Wilde's left libertarian politics were shared
by other figures who actively campaigned for
homosexual emancipation in the late 19th century,
including John Henry Mackay and Edward Carpenter.
"In August 1894, Wilde wrote to his lover,
Lord Alfred Douglas, to tell of “a dangerous
adventure.” He had gone out sailing with
two lovely boys, Stephen and Alphonso, and
they were caught in a storm. “We took five
hours in an awful gale to come back! [And
we] did not reach pier till eleven o’clock
at night, pitch dark all the way, and a fearful
sea. . . . All the fishermen were waiting
for us.”...Tired, cold, and “wet to the
skin,” the three men immediately “flew
to the hotel for hot brandy and water.”
But there was a problem. The law stood in
the way: “As it was past ten o’clock on
a Sunday night the proprietor could not sell
us any brandy or spirits of any kind! So he
had to give it to us. The result was not displeasing,
but what laws!”...Wilde finishes the story:
“Both Alphonso and Stephen are now anarchists,
I need hardly say.”"
== 
Free love and anarchism ==
=== United States ===
An important current within American individualist
anarchism was free love. Free love advocates
sometimes traced their roots back to Josiah
Warren and to experimental communities, viewed
sexual freedom as a clear, direct expression
of an individual's self-ownership. Free love
particularly stressed women's rights since
most sexual laws discriminated against women:
for example, marriage laws and anti-birth
control measures. The most important American
free love journal was Lucifer the Lightbearer
(1883–1907) edited by Moses Harman and Lois
Waisbrooker but also there existed Ezra Heywood
and Angela Heywood's The Word (1872–1890,
1892–1893). Also M. E. Lazarus was an important
American individualist anarchist who promoted
free love.Free Society (1895-1897 as The Firebrand;
1897-1904 as Free Society) was a major anarchist
newspaper in the United States at the end
of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth
centuries. The publication staunchly advocated
free love and women's rights, and critiqued
"Comstockery" -- censorship of sexual information.
Deliberately defying "Comstockism" in an act
of civil disobedience, The Firebrand published
Walt Whitman's "A Woman Waits for Me" in 1897;
A.J. Pope, Abe Isaak, and Henry Addis were
quickly arrested and charged with publishing
obscene information for the Whitman poem and
a letter "It Depends on the Women", signed
by A.E.K. The A.E.K. letter presented various
hypotheticals of women refusing or assenting
to sex with their husbands or lovers, and
argued that true liberation required education
of both sexes and particularly women.In New
York's Greenwich Village, "bohemian" feminists
and socialists advocated self-realisation
and pleasure for women (and also men) in the
here and now, as well as campaigning against
the first World War and for other anarchist
and socialist causes. They encouraged playing
with sexual roles and sexuality, and the openly
bisexual radical Edna St. Vincent Millay and
the lesbian anarchist Margaret Anderson were
prominent among them. The Villagers took their
inspiration from the (mostly anarchist) immigrant
female workers from the period 1905-1915 and
the "New Life Socialism" of Edward Carpenter,
Havelock Ellis and Olive Schreiner. Discussion
groups organised by the Villagers were frequented
by Emma Goldman, among others. Magnus Hirschfeld
noted in 1923 that Goldman "has campaigned
boldly and steadfastly for individual rights,
and especially for those deprived of their
rights. Thus it came about that she was the
first and only woman, indeed the first and
only American, to take up the defense of homosexual
love before the general public." In fact,
prior to Goldman, heterosexual anarchist Robert
Reitzel (1849–98) spoke positively of homosexuality
from the beginning of the 1890s in his German-language
journal "Der arme Teufel" (Detroit).
In Europe and North America, the free love
movement combined ideas revived from utopian
socialism with anarchism and feminism to attack
the "hypocritical" sexual morality of the
Victorian era, and the institutions of marriage
and the family that were seen to enslave women.
Free lovers advocated voluntary sexual unions
with no state interference and affirmed the
right to sexual pleasure for both women and
men, sometimes explicitly supporting the rights
of homosexuals and prostitutes. For a few
decades, adherence to "free love" became widespread
among European and American anarchists, but
these views were opposed at the time by the
dominant actors of the Left: Marxists and
social democrats. Radical feminist and socialist
Victoria Woodhull was expelled from the International
Workingmen's Association in 1871 for her involvement
in the free love and associated movements.
Indeed, with Marx's support, the American
branch of the organisation was purged of its
pacifist, anti-racist and feminist elements,
which were accused of putting too much emphasis
on issues unrelated to class struggle and
were therefore seen to be incompatible with
the "scientific socialism" of Marx and Engels.
=== Europe ===
French and Spanish individualist anarchist
circles had a strong sense of personal libertarianism
and experimentation. Free love contents started
to have a strong influence in individualist
anarchist circles and from there it expanded
to the rest of anarchism also appearing in
Spanish individualist anarchist groups."In
this sense, the theoretical positions and
the vital experiences of French individualism
are deeply iconoclastic and scandalous, even
within libertarian circles. The call of nudist
naturism, the strong defence of birth control
methods, the idea of "unions of egoists" with
the sole justification of sexual practices,
that will try to put in practice, not without
difficulties, will establish a way of thought
and action, and will result in sympathy within
some, and a strong rejection within others."
Periodicals involved in this movement include
L'EnDehors in France and Iniciales and La
Revista Blanca in Spain.
==== Emile Armand ====
The main propagandist of free love within
European individualist anarchism was Emile
Armand. He advocated naturism (see anarcho-naturism)
and polyamory and he came up with the concept
of la camaraderie amoureuse. He wrote many
propagandist articles on this subject such
as "De la liberté sexuelle" (1907) where
he advocated not only a vague free love but
also multiple partners, which he called "plural
love". In the individualist anarchist journal
L'en dehors he and others continued in this
way. Armand seized this opportunity to outline
his theses supporting revolutionary sexualism
and "camaraderie amoureuse" that differed
from the traditional views of the partisans
of free love in several respects.
Later Armand submitted that from an individualist
perspective nothing was reprehensible about
making "love", even if one did not have very
strong feelings for one's partner. "The camaraderie
amoureuse thesis", he explained, "entails
a free contract of association (that may be
annulled without notice, following prior agreement)
reached between anarchist individualists of
different genders, adhering to the necessary
standards of sexual hygiene, with a view toward
protecting the other parties to the contract
from certain risks of the amorous experience,
such as rejection, rupture, exclusivism, possessiveness,
unicity, coquetry, whims, indifference, flirtatiousness,
disregard for others, and prostitution." He
also published Le Combat contre la jalousie
et le sexualisme révolutionnaire (1926),
followed over the years by Ce que nous entendons
par liberté de l'amour (1928), La Camaraderie
amoureuse ou “chiennerie sexuelle” (1930),
and, finally, La Révolution sexuelle et la
camaraderie amoureuse (1934), a book of nearly
350 pages comprising most of his writings
on sexuality.In a text from 1937, he mentioned
among the individualist objectives the practice
of forming voluntary associations for purely
sexual purposes of heterosexual, homosexual,
or bisexual nature or of a combination thereof.
He also supported the right of individuals
to change sex and stated his willingness to
rehabilitate forbidden pleasures, non-conformist
caresses (he was personally inclined toward
voyeurism), as well as sodomy. This led him
to allocate more and more space to what he
called "the sexual non-conformists", while
excluding physical violence. His militancy
also included translating texts from people
such as Alexandra Kollontai and Wilhelm Reich
and establishments of free love associations
which tried to put into practice la camaraderie
amoureuse through actual sexual experiences.
The prestige in the subject of free love of
Armand within anarchist circles was such as
to motivate the young Argentinian anarchist
América Scarfó to ask Armand in a letter
on advice as to how to deal with the relationship
she had with notorious Italian anarchist Severino
Di Giovanni. Di Giovanni was still married
when they began the relationship. "The letter
was published in L’en dehors" on 20 January
1929 under the title “An Experience”,
together with the reply from E. Armand". Armand
replied to Scarfó "“Comrade: My opinion
matters little in this matter you send me
about what you are doing. Are you or are you
not intimately in accord with your personal
conception of the anarchist life? If you are,
then ignore the comments and insults of others
and carry on following your own path. No one
has the right to judge your way of conducting
yourself, even if it were the case that your
friend's wife be hostile to these relations.
Every woman united to an anarchist (or vice
versa), knows very well that she should not
exercise on him, or accept from him, domination
of any kind.”"
==== Errico Malatesta ====
The treatment of the issue of love by the
influential Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta
deserves attention. Malatesta says in "Love
and Anarchy," "Let's eliminate the exploitation
of man by man, let's fight the brutal pretention
of the male who thinks he owns the female,
let's fight religious, social and sexual prejudice,
let's expand education and then we will be
happy with reason if there are no more evils
than love. In any case, the ones with bad
luck in love will procur themselves other
pleasures, since it will not happen like today,
when love and alcohol are the only consolations
of the majority of humanity."
== Anarcha-feminism ==
Anarcha-feminism was inspired by late 19th
and early 20th century authors and theorists
such as anarchist feminists Emma Goldman,
Voltairine de Cleyre and Lucy Parsons. In
the Spanish Civil War, an anarcha-feminist
group, Mujeres Libres ("Free Women") linked
to the Federación Anarquista Ibérica, organized
to defend both anarchist and feminist ideas,
while Stirnerist Nietzschean feminist Federica
Montseny held that the "emancipation of women
would lead to a quicker realization of the
social revolution" and that "the revolution
against sexism would have to come from intellectual
and militant 'future-women.' According to
this Nietzschean concept of Federica Monteseny's,
women could realize through art and literature
the need to revise their own roles."Since
the 1860s, anarchism's radical critique of
capitalism and the state has been combined
with a critique of patriarchy. Anarcha-feminists
thus start from the precept that modern society
is dominated by men. Authoritarian traits
and values—domination, exploitation, aggression,
competition. etc.—are integral to hierarchical
civilizations and are seen as "masculine."
In contrast, non-authoritarian traits and
values—cooperation, sharing, compassion,
sensitivity—are regarded as "feminine,"
and devalued. Anarcha-feminists have thus
espoused creation of a non-authoritarian,
anarchist society. They refer to the creation
of a society, based on cooperation, sharing,
mutual aid, etc. as the "feminization of society."
=== Emma Goldman ===
Although she was hostile to first-wave feminism
and its suffragist goals, Emma Goldman advocated
passionately for the rights of women, and
is today heralded as a founder of anarcha-feminism,
which challenges patriarchy as a hierarchy
to be resisted alongside state power and class
divisions. In 1897 she wrote: "I demand the
independence of woman, her right to support
herself; to live for herself; to love whomever
she pleases, or as many as she pleases. I
demand freedom for both sexes, freedom of
action, freedom in love and freedom in motherhood."A
nurse by training, Emma Goldman was an early
advocate for educating women concerning contraception.
Like many contemporary feminists, she saw
abortion as a tragic consequence of social
conditions, and birth control as a positive
alternative. Goldman was also an advocate
of free love, and a strong critic of marriage.
She saw early feminists as confined in their
scope and bounded by social forces of Puritanism
and capitalism. She wrote: "We are in need
of unhampered growth out of old traditions
and habits. The movement for women's emancipation
has so far made but the first step in that
direction."
==== Sex education ====
Goldman in her essay on the Modern School
also dealt with the issue of Sex Education.
She denounced that "educators also know the
evil and sinister results of ignorance in
sex matters. Yet, they have neither understanding
nor humanity enough to break down the wall
which puritanism has built around sex...If
in childhood both man and woman were taught
a beautiful comradeship, it would neutralize
the oversexed condition of both and would
help woman's emancipation much more than all
the laws upon the statute books and her right
to vote."
=== Mujeres Libres ===
Mujeres Libres (English: Free Women) was an
anarchist women's organization in Spain that
aimed to empower working class women. It was
founded in 1936 by Lucía Sánchez Saornil,
Mercedes Comaposada and Amparo Poch y Gascón
and had approximately 30,000 members. The
organization was based on the idea of a "double
struggle" for women's liberation and social
revolution and argued that the two objectives
were equally important and should be pursued
in parallel. In order to gain mutual support,
they created networks of women anarchists.
Flying day-care centres were set up in efforts
to involve more women in union activities.In
revolutionary Spain of the 1930s, many anarchist
women were angry with what they viewed as
persistent sexism amongst anarchist men and
their marginalized status within a movement
that ostensibly sought to abolish domination
and hierarchy. They saw women's problems as
inseparable from the social problems of the
day; while they shared their compañero's
desire for social revolution they also pushed
for recognition of women's abilities and organized
in their communities to achieve that goal.
Citing the anarchist assertion that the means
of revolutionary struggle must model the desired
organization of revolutionary society, they
rejected mainstream Spanish anarchism's assertion
that women's equality would follow automatically
from the social revolution. To prepare women
for leadership roles in the anarchist movement,
they organized schools, women-only social
groups and a women-only newspaper so that
women could gain self-esteem and confidence
in their abilities and network with one another
to develop their political consciousness.
Lucía Sánchez Saornil was a main founder
of the Spanish anarcha-feminist federation
Mujeres Libres who was open about her lesbianism.
At a young age she began writing poetry and
associated herself with the emerging Ultraist
literary movement. By 1919, she had been published
in a variety of journals, including Los Quijotes,
Tableros, Plural, Manantial and La Gaceta
Literaria. Working under a male pen name,
she was able to explore lesbian themes at
a time when homosexuality was criminalized
and subject to censorship and punishment.
Dissatisfied with the chauvinistic prejudices
of fellow republicans, Lucía Sánchez Saornil
joined with two compañeras, Mercedes Comaposada
and Amparo Poch y Gascón, to form Mujeres
Libres in 1936. Mujeres Libres was an autonomous
anarchist organization for women committed
to a "double struggle" of women's liberation
and social revolution. Lucía and other "Free
Women" rejected the dominant view that gender
equality would emerge naturally from a classless
society. As the Spanish Civil War exploded,
Mujeres Libres quickly grew to 30,000 members,
organizing women's social spaces, schools,
newspapers and daycare programs.
== Queer anarchism ==
Anarchism's foregrounding of individual freedoms
made for a natural marriage with homosexuality
in the eyes of many, both inside and outside
of the Anarchist movement. Emil Szittya, in
Das Kuriositäten-Kabinett (1923), wrote about
homosexuality that "very many anarchists have
this tendency. Thus I found in Paris a Hungarian
anarchist, Alexander Sommi, who founded a
homosexual anarchist group on the basis of
this idea.” His view is confirmed by Magnus
Hirschfeld in his 1914 book Die Homosexualität
des Mannes und des Weibes: “In the ranks
of a relatively small party, the anarchist,
it seemed to me as if proportionately more
homosexuals and effeminates are found than
in others.” Italian anarchist Luigi Bertoni
(whom Szittya also believed to be homosexual)
observed that “Anarchists demand freedom
in everything, thus also in sexuality. Homosexuality
leads to a healthy sense of egoism, for which
every anarchist should strive.”Anarcho-syndicalist
writer Ulrich Linse wrote about "a sharply
outlined figure of the Berlin individualist
anarchist cultural scene around 1900", the
"precocious Johannes Holzmann" (known as Senna
Hoy): "an adherent of free love, [Hoy] celebrated
homosexuality as a ‘champion of culture’
and engaged in the struggle against Paragraph
175.” The young Hoy (born 1882) published
these views in his weekly magazine, ("Kampf")
from 1904 which reached a circulation of 10,000
the following year. German anarchist psychotherapist
Otto Gross also wrote extensively about same-sex
sexuality in both men and women and argued
against its discrimination. In the 1920s and
1930s, French individualist anarchist publisher
Emile Armand campaigned for acceptance of
free love, including homosexuality, in his
journal L'EnDehors.
From 1906, the writings and theories of John
Henry Mackay had a significant influence on
Adolf Brand's organisation Gemeinschaft der
Eigenen. The individualist anarchist Adolf
Brand was originally a member of Hirschfeld's
Scientific-Humanitarian committee, but formed
a break-away group. Brand and his colleagues,
known as the Gemeinschaft der Eigenen, were
heavily influenced by homosexual anarchist
John Henry Mackay. They were opposed to Hirschfeld's
medical characterisation of homosexuality
as the domain of an "intermediate sex". and
disdained the Jewish Hirschfeld. Ewald Tschek,
another homosexual anarchist writer of the
era, regularly contributed to Adolf Brand's
journal Der Eigene, and wrote in 1925 that
Hirschfeld’s Scientific Humanitarian Committee
was a danger to the German people, caricaturing
Hirschfeld as "Dr. Feldhirsch".
Der Eigene was the first Gay Journal in the
world, published from 1896 to 1932 by Adolf
Brand in Berlin. Brand contributed many poems
and articles himself. Other contributors included
Benedict Friedlaender, Hanns Heinz Ewers,
Erich Mühsam, Kurt Hiller, Ernst Burchard,
John Henry Mackay, Theodor Lessing, Klaus
Mann, and Thomas Mann, as well as artists
Wilhelm von Gloeden, Fidus, and Sascha Schneider.
The journal may have had an average of around
1500 subscribers per issue during its run,
but the exact numbers are uncertain. After
the rise to power by the Nazis, Brand became
a victim of persecution and had his journal
closed.
=== Anarchist homophobia ===
Despite these supportive stances, the anarchist
movement of the time certainly wasn't free
of homophobia: an editorial in an influential
Spanish anarchist journal from 1935 argued
that an Anarchist shouldn't even associate
with homosexuals, let alone be one: "If you
are an anarchist, that means that you are
more morally upright and physically strong
than the average man. And he who likes inverts
is no real man, and is therefore no real anarchist."Daniel
Guérin was a leading figure in the French
Left from the 1930s until his death in 1988.
After coming out in 1965, he spoke about the
extreme hostility toward homosexuality that
permeated the Left throughout much of the
20th century. "Not so many years ago, to declare
oneself a revolutionary and to confess to
being homosexual were incompatible," Guérin
wrote in 1975. In 1954, Guérin was widely
attacked for his study of the Kinsey Reports
in which he also detailed the oppression of
homosexuals in France: "The harshest [criticisms]
came from Marxists, who tend seriously to
underestimate the form of oppression which
is antisexual terrorism. I expected it, of
course, and I knew that in publishing my book
I was running the risk of being attacked by
those to whom I feel closest on a political
level." Later sexual anarchists continued
in that vein. In 1993, the "Boston Anarchist
Drinking Brigade" criticized "anti-porn activists
who are frankly censorious."Emile Armand advocated
naturism (see anarcho-naturism) and polyamory.
He also called for forming voluntary associations
for purely sexual purposes of heterosexual,
homosexual, or bisexual nature or of a combination
thereof. Anarcha-feminism was inspired by
late 19th and early 20th century authors and
theorists such as anarchist feminists Emma
Goldman, Voltairine de Cleyre and Lucy Parsons.
Emil Szittya, in Das Kuriositäten-Kabinett
(1923), wrote about homosexuality that "very
many anarchists have this tendency... Homosexuality
leads to a healthy sense of egoism, for which
every anarchist should strive.”
== Later 20th century and contemporary times
==
The writings of the French bisexual anarchist
Daniel Guérin offer an insight into the tension
sexual minorities among the Left have often
felt. He was a leading figure in the French
Left from the 1930s until his death in 1988.
After coming out in 1965, he spoke about the
extreme hostility toward homosexuality that
permeated the Left throughout much of the
20th century. "Not so many years ago, to declare
oneself a revolutionary and to confess to
being homosexual were incompatible," Guérin
wrote in 1975. In 1954, Guérin was widely
attacked for his study of the Kinsey Reports
in which he also detailed the oppression of
homosexuals in France. "The harshest [criticisms]
came from Marxists, who tend seriously to
underestimate the form of oppression which
is antisexual terrorism. I expected it, of
course, and I knew that in publishing my book
I was running the risk of being attacked by
those to whom I feel closest on a political
level." After coming out publicly in 1965,
Guérin was abandoned by the Left, and his
papers on sexual liberation were censored
or refused publication in left-wing journals.
From the 1950s, Guérin moved away from Marxism-Leninism
and toward a synthesis of anarchism and communism
which allowed for individualism while rejecting
capitalism. Guérin was involved in the uprising
of May 1968, and was a part of the French
Gay Liberation movement that emerged after
the events. Decades later, Frédéric Martel
described Guérin as the "grandfather of the
French homosexual movement."The British anarcho-pacifist
Alex Comfort gained notoriety for writing
the bestseller sex manual The Joy of Sex (1972)
in the context of the sexual revolution. Queer
Fist appeared in New York City and identifies
itself as "an anti-assimilationist, anti-capitalist,
anti-authoritarian street action group, came
together to provide direct action and a radical
queer and trans-identified voice at the Republican
National Convention (RNC) protests." Anarcha
-feminism continues in new forms such as the
Bolivian collective Mujeres Creando or the
Spanish anarcha-feminist squat Eskalera Karakola.
Contemporary anarcha-feminist writers/theorists
include L. Susan Brown and the eco-feminist
Starhawk.
The issue of free love has a dedicated treatment
in the work of French anarcho-hedonist philosopher
Michel Onfray in such works as Théorie du
corps amoureux : pour une érotique solaire
(2000) and L'invention du plaisir : fragments
cyréaniques (2002).
=== Anarchists in high heels ===
"Anarchists in high heels" are anarchists
(or sometimes radicals or libertarians) who
work in the sex industry. The term can be
found being used in XXX: A Womanʼs Right
to Pornography by Wendy McElroy where porn
actress, Veronica Hart, makes this comment
upon hearing the word ‘feminist’:
“I donʼt need Andrea Dworkin to tell me
what to think or how to behave.” [...] “And
I donʼt appreciate being called psychologically
damaged! I have friends in the business who
call themselves ‘Anarchists in High Heels.’
Theyʼd love to have a word with her.”
== Further reading ==
Greenway, Judy (1997). "Twenty-first Century
Sex." Twenty-first Century Anarchism: Unorthodox
Ideas for a New Millennium. Ed. J. Purkis
and J. Bowen. London: Cassell. 170-180. Online
version.
Heckert, J. and Cleminson, R.(eds.) (2011)
Anarchism & Sexuality: Ethics, Relationships
and Power. New York/London: Routledge.
Kissack, Terence. (2008). Free Comrades: Anarchism
and Homosexuality in the United States. Edinburgh/Oakland,
Ca: AK Press.
== References ==
== External links ==
Sexuality and sex related articles at the
anarchist library
Anarchist Studies Network reading list on
Sexuality, an extensive bibliography
East Van Porn Collective.com, home of Made
in Secret a pornographic documentary.
