Obviously I didn’t know it was a sex cult growing up. It felt normal, because to me, it WAS normal. It was an open, loving, and nurturing environment. Sexual activity was normal, encouraged, and always consensual. Only adults engaged in sexual activity, including myself.
We called each other partners. We refrained from familial language like father, sister, mother, etc.. No one person raised another. All parenting and education was shared by the community. Housing was communal as well, though we were able to claim areas for privacy.
One of the most important days of a commune member’s life was their “Coming of Age” day. This was the day they were granted adult status, given a job, and allowed to interact with partners sexually. We didn’t have a designation for homosexuality or heterosexuality. All sexuality was just normalized. If you were attracted to a person, their gender didn’t matter.
This is a story of my “Coming of Age” day. I was staying with a couple of partners in a small house next to one of the many tracts of farmland within the commune. I was being shown how to tend to that land and provide food for the commune. This involved a lot of manual labor, and as a result, I was in my physical prime. Broad of shoulder, well defined muscles, and tanned skin that glistened in the sunlight.