by: Gabriela Borzachini
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a perfect world? What defines a perfect world and lifestyle? The conclusions could be different for everyone. What one person views as ideal may be completely different than another person’s views. The utopian communities of Victorian American, that is the late 18th to the 19th centuries, sought out to create this perfect world for themselves in regards to their morals and alternative sexual lifestyles.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a perfect world? What defines a perfect world and lifestyle? The conclusions could be different for everyone. What one person views as ideal may be completely different than another person’s views. The utopian communities of Victorian American, that is the late 18th to the 19th centuries, sought out to create this perfect world for themselves in regards to their morals and alternative sexual lifestyles.
People during the Victorian era
joined these utopian communities because they wanted to achieve spiritual
perfection. They were unsatisfied with the society that was forming in American
due to industrialization and they wanted to survive on a different kind of
economy that included agriculture and crafting.
There were many different utopian
communities that had their own spiritual beliefs and practices. The Nashoba
Community believed that sex was based on love and desire and not for means of
reproduction. The Shakers were extreme in their beliefs and regulations. They had an intense
surveillance overseeing
the community and the people’s sexuality. They believed that sex was evil and
they did not allow their men and women to have any physical contact whatsoever.
However, not being able to have sex and procreate cause issues for this society
because they were not able to multiply and keep their generations flowing.
Instead they took orphans in as their new members and to keep their membership
alive. Another interesting thing about them is that they had elaborate dances
as a form of spiritual worship and physical release. I honestly think this is
quite creepy and perhaps scary. 
The next utopian community is the Mormons.
Their beliefs are heavily based on polygamy and the patriarchal family. They
use sex strictly for reproduction and have strict rules and regulations. Their
laws were against masturbation, premarital sex, and use of contraception. They
whole community was centered on male dominance and men were believed to be more
in control over their passions than women were.
Oneida is an interesting
community because they had this complex idea of marriage in that there were no
monogamous relationships. In other words, everyone belonged to everyone else in
a sense. This idea reminds me a lot of the book “Brave New World” by Aldous
Huxley because the utopian community has this idea of monogamous relationships
and everyone belongs to everyone else and people can have sex with whom they
please. Another similarity is that they have a system of “stirpiculture” which
is a eugenic breeding system in which the leaders pick what traits they want to
be reproduced from their members in order to create a genetically dominant
society. An interesting practice they had was that men were not allowed to
orgasm but women could orgasm and they were also very sexually liberal. [1]
There are many utopian communities
that are alive today. One community is The Farm in Lewis County, Tennessee, who
are a group of hippies from the 1970s that decided to move east from
California. A community that I find interesting it the Finca Bellavista
Sustainable Treehouse Community in Costa Rica. This community lives in tree
houses in the rainforest and they live a simple and environmentally aware
lifestyle. Many of the communities today rely on peaceful ways of living and
less use of technology. [2]
[1] Crystal Moore, lecture for “Utopian
Communities in Victorian America,” University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 4
March 2014.
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