Do angels have sex? John Humphrey Noyes thought so. Related question: If they do the nasty in heaven, is it really so nasty after all? Noyes reasoned not. These were the basic philosophies that animated the creation of Noyes’s Oneida Community, a 19th century colony of so-called Bible Communists who believed that free love and ecstatic sex would bring them closer to God.

The story of John Humphrey Noyes— is one of a man desperate to reconcile his competing corporeal and celestial desires. If the moniker sounds familiar, that’s because the successful silverware company Oneida was founded at its namesake colony. But while its corporate legacy shines on, Oneida’s radical approach to sex and faith has largely been obscured, in part because the colony’s descendants destroyed the evidence.

Born in Vermont in 1811 to a wealthy congressman, John Humphrey Noyes matriculated at Dartmouth College and Yale Theological Seminary. While Noyes was patrician and ministerial, he was never a prude. Throughout his youth, he was said to be “bewitched” by women; a childhood friend remembered him as “inclined to give way a little too much to the libido corporis...READ MORE