The early years were hard. I felt lonely, shy and homesick, but for some reason I clung on. Hardest to adjust to were the new rules about sexuality. As a male, I had no bed of my own - you slept with a different woman every night in "her" bed. I often had sex with women to whom I was not attracted or, conversely, with women to whom I was too attracted - that is, with whom I would have liked to form a monogamous relationship, something that was frowned upon.
Based on the writings of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, the Group's attitude to sex was that it was therapeutic and ecstatic, and we should all have as much of it as possible. I had sex two or three times a day. Initially I found this traumatic; I contracted genital herpes and was regularly impotent. I grew more comfortable as I got to know the women better, but sex remained surprisingly routine, probably because love and affection were repressed in favour of expressing your "animal" nature.
Everything was common property in the Group. Members surrendered all earnings and gave up TV, cinema, shopping, computer games and newspapers. We had an ethos of creating our own entertainment and reality through discussions, art workshops, dancing and a nightly programme of "self-expression" at which the whole Group got together in a circle to watch individuals act out their emotional lives. This psychodrama was often gripping but always tinged with fear in case you did something judged "negative", drawing censure from the Group and a consequent drop in status.
Always present, this hierarchy among members became increasingly rigid: we all had a number, which moved up and down according to criteria such as work, sexuality, communication, leadership skills and emotional intelligence. The more senior you were, the more material comforts you enjoyed. It was this aspect of the Group I grew to despise the most as it encouraged servile and petty behaviour. If someone of a higher rank entered the room, for instance, you were meant to give up your seat and allow them to "lead" the conversation.
Of course, the top people always retained the same high numbers - as did the leader, who was at least 20 years older than anyone else.
There were children in the group, but no families. Instead, there was an attempt at "collective" upbringing, which proved to go against our basic parental instincts: the children did not get enough love and affection. There was even a time when mothers and babies were forcibly separated because of the danger of their forming a "couple relationship".
Indeed, we were constantly experimented on by the leader and his cohorts, who operated a good cop/bad cop system, switching suddenly from a liberal to a draconian regime without warning. Knowing that everything could change in an instant was incredibly stressful.
By 1988 I was finding our rigid, humourless lifestyle oppressive. I advocated reform of the old structures, but my attempt at revolution from within failed and I left in the summer of 1990 with the woman who'd become my partner. Since leaving I have remained friends with ex-members all over Europe. Our experiment gave me an insight into human nature; how ordinary people can submit to abhorrent regimes and behave in ways that appear crazy only in retrospect.
Looking back, I see living in the Group as akin to an alien abduction, but I can't feel any regret. I now have two children with my partner and two from different women - when the Group dissolved in 1991, all the men had a blood test to clarify parentage. They form an extended family, a wonderful living legacy from that time.
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