Somehow, I can’t quite imagine that the Freedom Riders were like this:

Metropolis reports, “Outdoor sex has been a topic of discussion at quality-of-life meetings held each afternoon inside Zuccotti Park. Some people have expressed discomfort with sexual activity in their midst, but Andrew Carbon, 26 years old, said protesters generally are loathe to restrict anyone’s behavior.” Carbon explained, “To be controlling someone’s own autonomy is a sensitive issue. It’s a bad image if it’s visible, but policing it is wrong.” Yeah, residents probably want OWS to crack down on the public pooping first, but we’ve heard that protesters have had sex on the tables at the site.

One protester who left his girlfriend behind in California has “shared sleeping bags with… several women” and says, “It’s a natural human thing. It’s part of our support structure. It’s nice to have someone to care about. It’s nice to have someone to hug and kiss.” As it happens, the NY Times Magazine had a photograph of two young protesters, and the 19-year-old revealed, “I’m doing well now, though. I drank six Four Lokos with Core, a beer or two. And then we ordered an iced mocha and two chicken fingers and large fries. I lost my virginity today. I was amped for it.”

“To be controlling someone’s own autonomy is a sensitive issue. It’s a bad image if it’s visible, but policing it is wrong.” Oh, for pity’s sake. Idiot.

UPDATE: Danny Goldberg is ticked at liberals who roll their eyes at the drum circles and expressions of hippieness:

Yet it is precisely the mystical utopian energy that most professional progressives so smugly dismiss that has aroused a salient, mass political consciousness on economic issues—something that had eluded even the most lucid progressives in the Obama era.

… The price that Democrats and progressives pay for belittling or ignoring contemporary devotees of the hippie idea, who share the opinion that politics are corrupt, is to reinforce the impulse to “drop out” in a cohort that would otherwise be, for the most part, natural allies.

Spiritual values can expand the reach of political action, especially at a time when progressives struggle to connect to mass consciousness. Their causes have been mired in phrases like “single-payer” and “cap-and-trade.” For all of their virtues, policy wonks didn’t come up with “We are the 99 percent.” People with drum circles did.

“Spiritual values”? Like I said, People of the Nookie.