Page 21 - C.A.L.L. #38 - Summer 2014

A communist collective is not

the same thing as a cult

There was no charismatic leader preaching emancipation through polyamory in the
London commune I lived in during the 90s – although quite a few of us did have sex with

one another. Sort of.

Sophie Heawood
The Guardian, 26 November 2013

If the horrific story about the women rescued from a house in south London wasn't
extraordinary enough, it took an even stranger turn when details emerged that their
home had begun as some kind of communist
collective. "Wait," said my friend, watching
the news with me in our fairly normal house,
"didn't you used to live in one of those?
A commune?"

Well. I gulped, I spluttered, and I rapidly
explained that, without wishing to be
flippant towards the unimaginable ordeal of Various passive-aggressive notes had been
these enslaved women, the lefty commune in stuck to the kitchen table
which I lived for two years in the 90s,
between the ages of 19 and 21, had a fairly standard voluntary application procedure.
Then I wondered if this was going to be people's new association with communes,

because until now, the question people always ask has been – did you all have sex with
each other? At which point you always sigh, roll your eyes, explain for the umpteenth
time that a commune is not the same thing as a cult; we all had our own bedrooms and
doors and privacy, for God's sake; there was no charismatic leader preaching
emancipation through polyamory. Until you sigh again and admit that, all right then, be
that as it may, quite a few of us probably did sort of have sex with one another.

Still, this wasn't some remote wind-powered farm – this was a 17-bedroom house in
central London. Or should I say, a 17-bedroom flat – a sprawling Victorian maisonette
above a leather shop, which also had two kitchens, two bathrooms, one living room and a
meditation room that scared the living daylights out of me. (I think I went in it twice in
two years. Its empty silence was deeply distressing to the brain of a teenage raver with
a Spice Girls fixation.) But I loved living in a house full of other people in the middle of
the city. It was like living in a village, only the village was inside the house.

I'll never forget when one long-time resident, who did so much for the house that I
suspect things would have fallen apart without him, started losing his hair. The hair

21