The <b>Oneida Community</b> was a perfectionist religious communal society founded by <b>John Humphrey Noyes</b> and his followers in 1848 near <b>Oneida</b>, New York. The community believed that Jesus had already returned in AD 70, making it possible for them to bring about Jesus&#39;s millennial kingdom themselves, and be perfect and free of sin in this world, not just in Heaven (a belief called <i>perfectionism</i>). The Oneida Community practiced communalism (in the sense of communal property and possessions), group marriage, male sexual continence, and mutual criticism.&nbsp;The Oneida community strongly believed in a system of <b>free love</b> &ndash; a term which Noyes is credited with coining &ndash; which was known as <b>complex marriage</b>, where any member was free to have sex with any other who consented. Possessiveness and exclusive relationships were frowned upon<br /><b>To control reproduction</b> within the Oneida community, a system of male continence or coitus reservatus was enacted. John Humprey Noyes decided that sexual intercourse served two distinct purposes. In the pamphlet <b>Male Continence</b>, Noyes argues that the method simply &quot;proposes the subordination of the flesh to the spirit, teaching men to seek principally the elevated spiritual pleasures of sexual connection&quot;.<br /><br /><b>John Humphrey Noyes</b> (September 3, 1811 &ndash; April 13, 1886) was an American preacher, radical religious philosopher, and utopian socialist. He founded the <b>Putney, Oneida and Wallingford Communities</b>, and is credited with coining the term &quot;<b>complex marriage</b>&quot;.