"Freeforall" is a

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal ente ...

dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

n short story by

Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, nin ...

, often described as a gender flipped version of her novel ''

The Handmaid's Tale ''The Handmaid's Tale'' is a futuristic dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood and published in 1985. It is set in a near-future New England in a patriarchal, totalitarian theonomic state known as the Republic of Gilead, which h ...

''.

Background

Atwood envisioned "Freeforall" as a

companion piece ''Companion Piece'' is an original novella written by Robert Perry and Mike Tucker and based on the long-running British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. It features the Seventh Doctor and Catherine Katherine, also sp ...

to ''The Handmaid's Tale'', published a year prior. Like ''The Handmaid's Tale'', "Freeforall" is set in an dystopian society. Atwood intended this dystopia to evoke responses to the then-widespread

AIDS epidemic The global epidemic of HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) began in 1981, and is an ongoing worldwide public health issue. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of 2021, HIV/AI ...

: "The solution that society has come up with is that you would have to have arranged marriages, and you would have to have sexually pure participants, otherwise everyone would just die." "Freeforall" was first published on Sept 20, 1986 in the ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...

s Life section, as part of a series called "The Family Into 2001." A year later, the story ran in the Canadian anthology series ''Tesseracts''. Atwood originally intended "Freeforall" to appear in her 1994 collection ''

Good Bones and Simple Murders ''Good Bones and Simple Murders'' is a book by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, originally published in 1994. Although classified with Atwood's short fiction, it is an eclectic collection, featuring parables, monologues, prose poems, condensed sc ...

'' but ultimately decided it did not fit the theme. At her editors' request, she included a new version of "Freeforall," abridged and slightly rewritten, in a 2023 anthology of stories ''Old Babes in the Wood''.

Summary

The story is set in the year 2026, a time of widespread and rampant sexually transmitted diseases in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Society is extremely limited, with freedoms tightly regulated by a totalitarian state in the name of saving society from these illnesses. The world's population is tightly segregated with the infected living somewhere on the "outside," presumably in deplorable conditions and left to their own devices. These "freeforalls," areas of sexual freedom, are tacitly encouraged, with the intent that the presumed anarchy and privation will lead to the natural elimination of disease when all the human carriers are dead. The infected are condemned and are left to perish, with no assistance offered from the "inside". Moral value has been placed on disease with the infected being treated as having brought the trouble onto themselves. Minimal detail is supplied about the "outside" world, and it is referred to only indirectly and reflected in the fears of the healthy inside population. This presumably healthy population lives under extreme duress, and gender roles appear to be breaking down. A group of "Mothers" has arranged young and boys to be married off and to live celibate lives, using a "turkey baster" rather than sexual intercourse to procreate.

Publication history

* ''The Toronto Star'' (1986) * ''Tesseracts'' (1987) * ''Northern Suns: The New Anthology of Canadian Science Fiction'' (1999) * ''Old Babes in the Wood'' (2023)

References

1986 short stories Dystopian literature Short stories by Margaret Atwood Toronto in fiction {{1980s-story-stub