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The Sexual Freedom League (SFL) was an organization founded in 1963 in New York City by Jefferson Poland and Leo Koch. [1] It existed under the name New York City League for Sexual Freedom 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, and had many female leaders.
When Jefferson Poland moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, he started the East Bay Sexual Freedom League there, near 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. [2] The SFL was featured in an article in Time magazine on March 11, 1966, which attracted thousands of curiosity seekers and a few active participants. In early 1966 Poland transferred 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,[ failed verification ] later changed his name to Ohm and started a religion by that name. [3]
The Campus Sexual Freedom League disappeared when Sloan left town due to an arrest in April 1967. The last of its 28 nude parties took place on Christmas Eve of that year. By then the East Bay League had also folded and Alida Reyenga had moved to Los Angeles, where she took up Scientology. [4]
While the East Bay versions were dying out, other chapters sprouted up all over California, and the San Francisco Sexual Freedom League emerged at the forefront. It was at first headed by Margo St. James, who claimed to be a "former prostitute" and participated in social activism while she organized sex orgies, then taken over by Frank and Margo Rila, with ongoing involvement of Jefferson Poland, and members such as Mother Boats. Frank, who edited the Sexual Freedom newspaper, eventually died by suicide.
Margo St. James ran for San Francisco Board of Supervisors many times but all without success. She has often been criticized by feminists such as Dorchen Leidholdt.
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during or around 1964 and spread to different countries around the world. The word hippie came from hipster and was used to describe beatniks who moved into New York City's Greenwich Village, San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, and Chicago's Old Town community. The term hippie was used in print by San Francisco writer Michael Fallon, helping popularize use of the term in the media, although the tag was seen elsewhere earlier.
Marilyn Ann Taylor, known professionally as Marilyn Chambers, was an American pornographic actress, exotic dancer, model, actress, singer and vice-presidential candidate. She was known for her 1972 hardcore film debut, Behind the Green Door, and her 1980 pornographic film Insatiable. She ranked at No. 6 on the list of Top 50 Porn Stars of All Time by AVN, and ranked as one of Playboy's Top 100 Sex Stars of the Century in 1999. Although she was primarily known for her adult film work, she made a successful transition to mainstream projects and has been called "porn's most famous crossover".
Marie Louise Hartman, known professionally as Nina Hartley, is an American pornographic film actress and sex educator. By 2017 she had appeared in more than one thousand adult films. She has been described by Las Vegas Weekly as an "outspoken feminist" and "advocate for sexual freedom", and by CNBC as "a legend in the adult world".
Folsom Street Fair (FSF) is an annual BDSM and leather subculture street fair, held in September that concludes San Francisco's "Leather Pride Week". The Folsom Street Fair, sometimes referred to simply as "Folsom", takes place on the last Sunday in September, on Folsom Street between 8th and 13th Streets, in San Francisco's South of Market district.
The White Panthers were an anti-racist political collective founded in November 1968 by Pun Plamondon, Leni Sinclair, and John Sinclair. It was started in response to an interview where Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, was asked what white people could do to support the Black Panthers. Newton replied that they could form a White Panther Party. The counterculture era group took the name and dedicated its energies to "cultural revolution.” John Sinclair made every effort to ensure that the White Panthers were not mistaken for a white supremacist group, responding to such claims with "quite the contrary." The party worked with many ethnic minority rights groups in the Rainbow Coalition.
The Underground Press Syndicate (UPS), later known as the Alternative Press Syndicate (APS), was a network of countercultural newspapers and magazines that operated from 1966 into the late 1970s. As it evolved, the Underground Press Syndicate created an Underground Press Service, and later its own magazine.
John Jefferson Poland, who sometimes went by Jefferson Fuck Poland and Jefferson Clitlick, was an activist, co-founder of the Sexual Freedom League, and convicted child molester.
Margaret Jean "Margo" St. James was an American sex worker and sex-positive feminist. In San Francisco, she founded COYOTE, an organization advocating decriminalization of prostitution, and co-founded the St. James Infirmary Clinic, a medical and social service organization serving sex workers in the Tenderloin.
Luis Andrew Martinez was an activist who was known at the University of California, Berkeley as the Naked Guy.
Gary Grimshaw was an American graphic artist active in Detroit and San Francisco who specialized in designing rock concert posters. He was also a radical political activist with the White Panther Party and related organizations.
Spectator Magazine was an American weekly newsmagazine published and distributed in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1978 until October 2005. The magazine had its historical roots in the ‘60s underground weekly, The Berkeley Barb, first published on August 13, 1965. In addition to political free speech issues, the libertarian values of Barb founder Max Scherr and staff included sexual freedom, which led to the acceptance of adult ads into the pages of the newspaper. In 1978, The Barb management decided to discontinue adult ads in order to try to get mainstream ads, such as liquor, and cigarette ads. The staff of the Adult Ads Center Section decided to continue on as a new and separate publication, and thus Spectator Magazine was born. The last Berkeley Barb was published July 3, 1980 when the publication went under due to a lack of ads revenues.
Jonah Raskin is an American writer who left an East Coast university teaching position to participate in the 1970s radical counterculture as a freelance journalist, then returned to the academy in California in the 1980s to write probing studies of Abbie Hoffman and Allen Ginsberg and reviews of northern California writers whom he styled as "natives, newcomers, exiles and fugitives." Beginning as a lecturer in English at Sonoma State University in 1981, he moved to chair of the Communications Studies Department from 1988 to 2007, while serving as a book reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle and the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat. He retired from his teaching position in 2011.
The St. James Infirmary, founded by members of the sex worker activist community in 1999, is a peer-based, full spectrum medical and social service organization serving current and former sex workers of all genders and their families. Located in the Tenderloin district in San Francisco, California, the St. James Infirmary is a 501(c)(3) public charity. Its services are free and confidential. Named after the sex worker rights activist and founder of COYOTE, Margo St. James, the St. James Infirmary is the first occupational safety and health clinic for sex workers run by sex workers in the United States.
The history of LGBT residents in California, which includes centuries prior to the 20th, has become increasingly visible recently with the successes of the LGBT rights movement. In spite of the strong development of early LGBT villages in the state, pro-LGBT activists in California have campaigned against nearly 170 years of especially harsh prosecutions and punishments toward gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people.
California Proposition 19 was a ballot initiative on the November 2, 2010, statewide ballot. It was defeated, with 53.5% of California voters voting "No" and 46.5% voting "Yes." If passed, it would have legalized various marijuana-related activities, allowed local governments to regulate these activities, permitted local governments to impose and collect marijuana-related fees and taxes, and authorized various criminal and civil penalties. In March 2010, it qualified to be on the November statewide ballot. The proposition required a simple majority in order to pass, and would have taken effect the day after the election. Yes on 19 was the official advocacy group for the initiative and California Public Safety Institute: No On Proposition 19 was the official opposition group.
James Blanding Sloan, also known as Blanding Sloan, was an American etcher, printmaker, theatrical designer, educator, painter, and puppeteer.
This is a timeline of the San Francisco Bay Area in California, events in the nine counties that border on the San Francisco Bay, and the bay itself.
The Sutter Cinema was located on Sutter Street in downtown San Francisco, just off of fashionable Union Square and a few blocks from Chinatown. It was a walk-up, on the second floor 363 Sutter, occupying the space that had previously been one of America's premiere Chinese-owned night clubs, Charlie Low's Forbidden City, which featured dancer Coby Yee.
Alliance of Libertarian Activists (ALA) was a libertarian student organization primarily located in the San Francisco Bay area, mostly active at University of California, Berkeley, established in 1965–1966, and considered the first campus group to adopt the term “libertarian.” ALA gained members from both the purged Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) Moïse Tshombe chapter and the Cal Conservatives for Political Action (CCPA) at UC Berkeley, which was a continuation of the 1964 Cal Students for Goldwater, both founded and first chaired by Dan Rosenthal.
Gypsy Taub is a Russian American activist in the San Francisco public nudity movement.
