Most of the language available for us to talk about sex has built-in value judgments, just like the word “slut”—the legacy of our sex-negative history. Without language, how are we to communicate with each other and share our thoughts and feelings? Without language, we can hardly even think about sex.
New words and terminologies are coined constantly, which is a challenge for writers and sluts alike. Thus, many of the terms in this book may be unfamiliar to you and may be defined differently in different regions and communities. In this glossary we’ll define these words, and some others you may encounter in openly sexual communities, as we understand them.
BDSM: Activities in which one person controls the behavior of another, and/or puts them in bondage, and/or gives them intense sensations. BDSM derives from B/D for bondage and discipline, D/S for dominance and submission, and S/M (or SM or S&M) for sadomasochism. You may also hear it called “erotic power exchange” or just plain “SM.”
Centrist: We use terms like “heterocentrist,” “eurocentrist,” “malecentrist,” “female-centrist,” “queer-centrist,” and “couple-centrist” to draw attention to unspoken expectations about the way things “should” be. Couple-centrist beliefs, for example, are those that treat the couple as the primary unit of our culture, thus placing anyone who isn’t part of a couple outside the mainstream.
Commitment: In common usage, this word seems to mean lifetime monogamy. Obviously, we don’t use it that way in this book. To us, “commitment” means making a promise for the future and following through on that promise—whether it’s a promise to “cleave unto you only” or to meet for a hot weekend once a year.
Drama: Those of us who have chosen to avoid the well-paved road of social expectations regarding relationships must hack our way through some fairly dense shrubbery to blaze our own pathways. This process sometimes involves misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and so on. “Drama” is a slightly pejorative term for the struggles that often accompany this process.
Faithful: See Fidelity.
Fidelity: Outside these pages, this term is generally used to mean having sex only with one person. However, the dictionary says fidelity is “demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support,” and that sounds about right to us.
Free love: The idea that it is possible to love and have sex with more than one person as a means of interpersonal connection as well as an idealistic sociopolitical statement—a movement that has spanned centuries, although it was most widely accepted during the 1960s.
Friend with benefits: Current parlance for someone with whom you can have sex (the “benefits” part) without the need to commit to a lifelong romantic relationship (the “friend”) part. Also known in some circles as a “fuck buddy.”
Fuck: Still the four-letter word that gets the strongest reaction (with the possible exception of “cunt”), but it seems a shame to us that such a nice activity gets used as a curse. Can mean genital sex in general, or specifically penetrative sex such as penis/vagina, penis/anus, or fisting.
Gender: The catchphrase used in gender-explorative circles is, “Your sex is what’s between your legs, your gender is what’s between your ears.” Someone who was born with female genitals and chromosomes, but prefers to interact with the world as a man (possibly using surgery and/or hormones to further that goal), is thus of the male gender. Those who prefer to occupy a place somewhere between the extremes of binary gender, or who like to be playful with their gender presentation, are called “gender-queer,” “gender-fluid,” or “gender-bent.”
Kink: Any form of sex outside the mainstream. Often used specifically for BDSM, leather, and/or fetish play.
Leather: Another way of talking about BDSM and related behaviors. Generally in wider use in gay, lesbian, and queer circles.
Munch: A social get-together of polyfolk in a restaurant or similar location. Munches started as a way for Internet-based polyfolk to meet face to face. Munches have been established for many online communities.
Nonjudgmental: An attitude that is free of irrational or unjustifiable moralizing. “Nonjudgmental” does not mean all-accepting; it means being willing to judge an activity or relationship on the basis of how well it works for the participants and not on some external standard of absolute rightness or wrongness.
Nonmonogamy: We don’t generally use this term, because it implies that monogamy is the norm and that any other way of relating is somehow a deviation from that norm (i.e., it’s “monogamy-centrist”—see our definition of “Centrist” above).
Nymphomania: See Promiscuity.
Openheartedness: Greeting the world with compassion and without defensiveness; opening yourself to whatever love or connection life offers you.
Open relationship: A relationship in which the people involved have some degree of freedom to fuck and/or love people outside the relationship. Hence, an eight-person group marriage may still be either “open” or “closed.”
Orientation: Usually used to mean gay, lesbian, bisexual, or heterosexual. Many people engage in sex, romance, and/or intimacy outside the boundaries of their chosen orientation, without feeling the need to change that orientation—it is quite possible that “orientation” has at least as much to do with culture as it does with sex.
Outercourse: Non-penetrative sex, including sex toys, mutual masturbation, phone sex, roleplaying, and such … just for fun, or as a safer-sex strategy, or both.
Pansexual: Inclusive of all genders and orientations.
Pathologize: To treat a functional sexual or relationship pattern as a disease, usually because it’s unfamiliar.
Polyamory (often shortened to “poly”): A new word that has gained a great deal of currency in recent years. We like it because, unlike “nonmonogamy,” it does not assume monogamy as a norm. On the other hand, its meaning is still a bit vague—some feel that polyamory includes all forms of sexual relationships other than monogamy, while others restrict it to committed love relationships (thereby excluding swinging, casual sexual contact, and other forms of intimacy).
Polyfidelity: A subset of polyamory in which more than two people, possibly two or more couples, form a sexually exclusive group. Sometimes used as a safer-sex strategy.
Promiscuity: One of several words used to pathologize those who like to have a lot of sex. Mainstream culture tips its hand about its underlying paradigm of sex-as-commodity when it refers to such people as “cheap.”
Public sex: Sex in an environment containing many consenting people, such as a sex party.
Queer: A recently reclaimed word, originally an insult aimed at homosexual people. In some communities this word means specifically “gay or lesbian.” However, it is used increasingly as a political/sexual self-definition by anyone who doesn’t fit neatly into mainstream sexual expectations. Often combined with a description of what makes you queer, as in “genderqueer” or “leatherqueer.”
Reclaiming: If someone uses a word about you in an attempt to insult or offend you, you can either get angry, or you can defuse the word by using it yourself so it’s no longer an insult. Words that have been reclaimed in this way include “queer,” “dyke,” “fag,” and, yes, “slut.”
Sex: Frankly, it doesn’t matter what definition we use; sex is whatever you and your partners think it is. Whatever you think sex is, we approve of it—because all forms of consensual sex are wonderful.
Sex addiction: The subject of heated debate in sex therapy communities, this phrase refers to compulsive sexual behavior that takes over a person’s life to the extent that it interferes with healthy functioning in relationships, work, or other aspects of life. Far too often used as a way of pathologizing happy sluts.
Sex-negative: Sex is dangerous. Sexual desire is wrong. Female sexuality is destructive and evil. Male sexuality is predatory and uncontrollable. It is the task of every civilized human being to confine sexuality within very narrow limits. Sex is the work of the devil. God hates sex. Got the picture?
Sex-positive: The belief that sex is a healthy force in our lives. This phrase was created by sex educators at the National Sex Forum in the late 1960s. It describes a person or group that maintains an optimistic, open-minded, nonjudgmental attitude toward all forms of consensual sexuality.
Slut: A person who celebrates sexuality with an open mind and an open heart.
Transsexual (“transman,” “transwoman,” etc.): Someone who identifies as a gender different from the one that their chromosomes and/or genitals dictate. Transfolk may or may not decide to take hormones and/or have surgery to change their physical appearance. Some transfolk are reclaiming the formerly derogatory term “tranny.”