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(#1) Members Believed Sex Made Them Immortal
The Oneida Community's views on sex were especially eye-opening in the prim and proper Victoria era. According to founder John Humphrey Noyes, the act of sex purified the body and made it healthy - the more sex an individual had, the closer one came to immortality. Members of the community were engaged in a complex marriage. In other words, every woman was more or less married to every man in the community, and they were free from the limitations of monogamy.
Member Tirzah Miller even kept a journal that detailed her life in the community, including her sexual encounters. On a single day in 1879, Miller had sex with three different men.
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(#2) The Community's Views On Women Were Pretty Radical
Noyes was personally aware of the toll repeated pregnancies had on a woman's life - his own wife had had multiple difficult pregnancies and miscarriages before Noyes began Oneida. Thus, by giving woman the choice of having children or not, he advocated relatively radical views about gender in the Victorian era. Women, he felt, did not have to be burdened by pregnancy or doomed to a life of domestic labor.
Women also were allowed to cut their hair and dress in bloomers or pants.
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(#3) Sexual Education Was A Hands-On Experience
Since the Oneida community allowed free love, they took the act and art of sex very seriously. As such, younger members were initiated in the act of sex by older members in a kind of mentorship program. Post-menopausal women mentored adolescent males, since there was no question of the woman's getting pregnant while the young men learned control.
Disturbingly, Noyes himself often took up the task of mentoring young women at the age of around 12.
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(#4) Religion Was Central To The Community
Oneida was first and foremost a religious community. Members initially came there because they were in search of a lifestyle that might perfect their souls and bring them closer to God. Noyes himself had a background in religion and had actually studied theology at Yale.
He believed the Second Coming of Christ had already occurred, and that event had made all men and women free from sin. The communalism at the heart of Oneida was meant to be an imitation of God's love - each individual was to love everyone else equally, just as they felt God did.
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(#5) Members Perfected A Particular Method Of Sex
Noyes believed that sex was not just for procreation; it could also cultivate social intimacy. Since he believed sex wasn't exclusively for procreation, he advocated a method of intercourse that aimed to also be a kind of contraception: continence, also known as withdrawal. Noyes believed that this method would prevent unplanned pregnancies and save women from the burden of unwanted labor. At the same time, this meant male sexual energy was supposed to be directed exclusively towards heterosexual intercourse. In other words, no masturbating.
As author Ellen Wayland-Smith put it, "Comparing the sexual act to a boat in a stream above a waterfall, Noyes argues that, through experience and training, the skillful 'boatman' could learn 'the wisdom of confining his excursions to the region of easy rowing, unless he has an object in view that is worth the cost of going over the falls.'"
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(#6) The Community Made Criticism Public
Noyes intended to perfect the body and soul of Oneida members. That meant doling out constructive criticism. The Oneida Community thus had a regular, official meeting where members would critique one another. Known as "cures," these meetings gave members the chance to air grievances and make observations about others.
The hope was that the criticisms would fall on responsive ears and that it would relieve social pressure.
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(#7) They Attempted To Create Perfect Humans Through A Breeding Program
Noyes's requirements for sex sought to free women from the physical and the domestic labor of child-rearing. However, to sustain the community, it was still necessary for some babies to be conceived and born.
So Noyes, ever obsessed with perfection, implemented a kind of breeding program - called "stirpiculture" - to match up potential parents that would create healthy, superior babies.
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(#8) Children Were Raised Communally
Thanks to a method of contraception, members of the Oneida Community did not have to have children unless they wanted them. Those who decided to become parents would not face the task of child-rearing alone. Consistent with their ethos, Oneidans raised children communally: once a child could walk, they were placed in a common nursery where parents could visit them.
The emphasis on community and social love meant that parents could not show any favoritism toward their own children, or they risked losing the privilege of seeing them.
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(#9) Falling In Love Was Seen As A Sin
In a community that abhorred monogamy, falling in love with a specific individual could be a very bad thing, indeed. Thanks to the system of complex marriage in Oneida, all of the men were technically married to all the women, and vice versa - so devoting oneself to a single person threatened to undermine the entire commune.
Moreover, with their emphasis on sex as a social experience that could heal and perfect the soul, falling in love could be a selfish sin.
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(#10) Oneida Made A Name For Itself By Making Cutlery
Despite being a fairly self-contained commune, Oneida had to sustain itself somehow. Members took up various industries and trades. Among the most successful: making silverware. After 1879, members of the community set up the Oneida Company, which continues to manufacture cutlery.
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(#11) Oneida Took Perfectionism To A Whole New Level
The Oneida Community was founded for a specific reason: to help men and women realize their perfection. For Noyes, Oneida was a utopian community that attempted to create an idealized, perfect society based on equality, self-control, and productivity.
Oneida was not alone in its obsession with perfection: many 19th-century movements, including transcendentalism, believed that achieving perfection would help an individual become closer to God.
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(#12) The Community Was Built On Ideas Of Equality
As a result of the Industrial Revolution, questions of social equality and economic opportunity intensified in the 19th century. The Oneida Community provided one answer to these concerns. In theory, everyone in Oneida was equal.
This was echoed in the fact that everyone rotated jobs, wore the same clothes, and shared responsibility of children born into the community.
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(#13) The Founder Fled To Canada
The Oneida Community lasted for around 30 years. Though relatively successful, it never could escape the air of scandal and immortality that Victorian America assigned to it. In 1879, hopes of utopia came crashing down when Noyes fled to Canada to escape charges of statutory rape.
Considering how young some women were when they were sexually initiated into the community, the charges are not surprising. He soon encouraged remaining members to quit his program and find a new occupation.
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When it comes to Oneida, most people associate it with exquisite silverware. But few people know that it was born of a radical religious experiment on free love in the 19th century. The Oneida was a community established by Noyce and his disciples near New York State in the 19th century. Members of the Oneida commune insist that free love is the key to eternal life. They believe that there is heaven on earth, and God's energy can be obtained through prayer, communication, and even sex.
The Oneida can be said the most successful commune in American history. More than 200 members live like a big family, they can share works, property, and even their lovers. The random tool introduced 13 facts about life in Oneida.
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