We were fearless in the 70s. Our sexual adventuring knew no bounds. The process of erotic liberation that began with the sexual revolution of the 60s continued on, in spades, in the decade that followed. It was a time of discarding inhibitions and prohibitions, and of embracing personal freedom, and of self-discovery above all.
It was a time of living out sexual fantasies, via impromptu hook-ups anywhere and everywhere: on sandy beaches, and swimming pools, and hot tubs, and saunas, and on water beds with black satin sheets. We did it in vacation cottages, and at ski resorts, and nudist colonies, and on cruises — and at organized events , and encounter groups, and alternative lifestyle playgrounds, such as swing clubs, and BDSM party houses, not to mention our own private homes.
It was a time when female sexual gratification was viewed as a birthright — and casual sex with perfect strangers was as easy as shaking hands.
If it felt good we did it. If it felt really good, then, by god, we did it again!
Still, by the end of the 70s, having accrued enough sexual experience to eroticize a small, sex-starved country, I’d taken a giant step back from my promiscuous lifestyle. But not because I felt I had an out-of-control addiction requiring a twelve-step program for recovery. Or fear of disease either — believing as I did that God protects both fools and innocent, and I fit somewhere into one or both of those categories.
Instead, I stepped back for two primaryreasons: First, I’d learned over time that for me, as a woman, sexual freedom was not necessarily synonymous with sexual satisfaction — and casual sex with strangers, exciting and potentially perfect as they appeared to be, often left more to be desired. Also, by then I’d come to understand and accept my intrepid erotic nature, and perceived how easily I could continue on as I was, until my life evolved, or devolved, depending on viewpoint, into an unending series of casual, sexual encounters.
And in the end, I realized I wanted and needed a greater level of intimacy than that.
Dorothy Freed 