An alternative lifestyle is a lifestyle perceived to be outside the cultural norm. The phrase may be used by someone to describe their own lifestyle, or someone else's. Description of a related set of activities as an alternative lifestyle is a defining aspect of certain subcultures.[1]
History
Alternative lifestyles and subcultures originated in the 1920s with the "flapper" movement, when women cut their hair and skirts short (as a symbol of freedom from oppression and the old way of living).[2][better source needed] Women in the flapper age were the first large group of females to practice pre-marital sex, dancing, cursing, and driving in modern America without scandal following them.[citation needed]
Examples
The following are examples of alternative lifestyles.[better source needed] This is by no means an exhaustive list.
- Alternative child-rearing, such as homeschooling, coparenting and home births
- Restrictive dieting, such as veganism, vegetarianism, freeganism, or raw foodism
- Living in unusual communities, such as communes, intentional communities, ecovillages, off-the-grid, or the tiny house movement
- Traveling subcultures, including lifestyle travellers, housetrucking, and New Age travelling
- Simple living Bohemianism, Punk rock, Emo, antiquarian steampunk subculture and hippies.
- Body modification, including tattoos, body piercings, eye tattooing, scarification, non-surgical stretching like ears or genital stretching, and transdermal implants
- Cross dressing and transvestism
- Nudism and clothing optional lifestyles
- Non-normative sexual lifestyles, such as BDSM, polyamory, swinging, and certain types of sexual fetishism or paraphilia[3]
- Alternative medicine and natural methods of medical care or herbal remedies as medication
- Adherents to alternative spiritual and religious practices, such as Ordo Templi Orientis, Thelemites, Neo-pagans, Satanists and New Age spiritual communities
- Certain religious minorities, such as the Amish who pursue a non-technological or anti-technology lifestyle
- Secular anti-technology community called Luddites
- Special interest groups into collecting
- Some social and religious conservatives in the U.S. argue that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people have chosen an alternative or “homosexual lifestyle".[4] However, people typically feel no sense of control over their sexual orientation or attractions, and biological explanations for sexual orientation are favoured by scientists.[5] The "gay lifestyle" may also be a disparaging term for a series of stereotyped behaviours.[6]
Initiatives
A Stanford University cooperative house, Synergy, was founded in 1972 with the theme of "exploring alternative lifestyles."[7]
See also
References
- ^ Misiroglu, Gina (2015-03-26). American Countercultures: An Encyclopedia of Nonconformists, Alternative Lifestyles, and Radical Ideas in U.S. History. Routledge. pp. xxxviâ€
Alternative lifestyles and subcultures originated in the 1920s with the "flapper" movement, when women cut their hair and skirts short (as a symbol of freedom from oppression and the old way of living).[2][better source needed] Women in the flapper age were the first large group of females to practice pre-marital sex, dancing, cursing, and driving in modern America without scandal following them.[citation needed]
Examples
The following are examples of altern
The following are examples of alternative lifestyles.[better source needed] This is by no means an exhaustive list.
- Alternative child-rearing, such as homeschooling, coparenting and home births
- Restrictive dieting, such as veganism, vegetarianism, freeganism, or raw foodism
- Living in unusual communities, such as communes, intentional communities, ecovillages, off-the-grid, or the tiny house movement
- Traveling subcultures, including lifestyle travellers, housetruck
A Stanford University cooperative house, Synergy, was founded in 1972 with the theme of "exploring alternative lifestyles."[7]
See also
References
- ^ Misiroglu, Gina (2015-03-26). American Countercultures: An Encyclopedia of Nonconformists, Alternative Lifestyles, and Radical Ideas in U.S. History. Routledge. pp. xxxvi–xxxvii. ISBN 978-1-317-47729-7.
- ^ Bland, Lucy (2013-09-30). Modern women on trial: Sexual transgression in the age of the flapper. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9781847798961.
- ^ Makai, Michael (September 2013). Domination & S