In the 1960s and 1970s, those who preached sexual liberation and sexual freedom adopted the term "free love," and those who opposed a casual sex lifestyle again used the term as prima facie evidence of the immorality of the practice.
As sexually transmitted diseases, and especially AIDS/HIV, became more widespread, the "free love" of the late 20th century became less attractive. As one writer in Salon wrote in 2002,
Oh yeah, and we are really sick of you talking about free love. You don't think we want to have healthy, enjoyable, more casual sex lives? You did it, you enjoyed it and you lived. For us, one wrong move, one bad night, or one random condom with a pinprick and we die.... We've been trained to fear sex since grade school. Most of us learned how to wrap a banana in a condom by the age of 8, just in case.
