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We are ethical people, ethical sluts. It is very important to us to treat people well and to do our best not to hurt anyone. Our ethics come from our own sense of rightness and from the empathy and love we hold for those around us. It is not okay to hurt another person because then we hurt, too, and we don’t feel good about ourselves. We don’t want to live in a world where people treat each other with callous disregard.
Ethical slutdom can be a challenging path: we don’t have a polyamorous Miss Manners telling us how to do our thing courteously and respectfully, so we have to make it up as we go along. However, being a slut doesn’t mean simply doing whatever you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want.
Most of our criteria for ethics are quite pragmatic: Is anyone being harmed? Is there any way to avoid causing that harm? Is anyone feeling hurt? How can we support them? Are there any risks? Is everybody involved aware of those risks and doing what can be done to minimize them?
On the positive side: How much fun is this? What is everybody learning from it? Is it helping someone grow? Is it helping make the world a better place?
First and foremost, ethical sluts value consent
. When we use this word—and we will, often, throughout this book—we mean an active collaboration for the benefit, well-being, and pleasure of all persons
concerned. If someone is being coerced, bullied, blackmailed, manipulated, lied to, or ignored, what is happening is not consensual. And sex that is not consensual is not ethical—period.
Ethical sluts are honest—
with ourselves and others. We take time with ourselves to figure out our
own emotions and motivations and to untangle them for greater clarity when necessary. Then, setting aside any bashfulness we may feel, we openly share that information with those who need it.
Ethical sluts recognize the ramifications
of our sexual choices. We see that our emotions, our upbringings, and the standards of our culture often conflict with our sexual desires. And we make a conscious
commitment
to supporting ourselves and our partners as we deal with those conflicts honestly and honorably.
We do not allow our sexual choices to have an unnecessary impact on those who have not consented to participate. We are
respectful
of others’ feelings, and when we aren’t sure how someone feels, we ask.
Ethical sluts recognize the difference between things they can and should control and things they can’t. While we sometimes may feel jealous or territorial, we own those feelings
, doing our best not to blame or control but asking for the support we need to help ourselves feel safe and cared for.
Don’t panic—the rest of this book is about how you can learn to be such a fine sexy grown-up. Your authors are here to help. Here are a few of the ideas and beliefs that have helped us get here and might help you, too.
Rethinking Sex
Are you having sex right now? Yes, you are, and so are we.
Perhaps you’re looking around you in bewilderment: You still have your clothing on, and maybe you’re sitting in a restaurant or a crowded bus. How could you be having sex?
We think that the question of when you’re having sex is actually sort of meaningless. Sexual energy pervades everything all the time; we inhale it into our lungs and exude it from our pores. While it’s easy to determine whether or not you’re engaging in a particular sexual activity at any given time—neither you nor we are probably having
intercourse at this moment—the idea of sex as something set aside, a discrete, definable activity like driving a car, just doesn’t hold up very well.
We think erotic energy is everywhere—in the deep breath that fills our lungs as we step out into a warm spring morning, in the cold water spilling over the rocks in a brook, in the creativity that drives us to paint pictures and tell stories and make music and write books, in the loving tenderness we feel toward our friends and relatives and children. In our combined three-quarters of a century of work as sex writers and educators, we’ve found that the more we learn about sex, the less we know about how to define it, so now we just say the truth as we know it: sex is part of everything.
Right now, we’re writing about sex, and you’re reading what we have to say about it. You’re having sex with us! Was it good for you? It sure has been for us.
More pragmatically, we have had long, intense intimate conversations that felt deeply sexual to us. And we have had intercourse that didn’t feel terribly sexual. Our best definition is that sex is whatever the people engaging in it think it is. For some people, spanking is sex. For others, wearing a garter belt and stockings is sex. If you and anybody else involved feel sexual when you eat ice cream sundaes together, that’s sex—for you. While this may sound silly now, it’s a concept that will come in handy later in this book when we discuss making agreements about our sexual behaviors.
“You’re having sex with us! Was it good for you? It sure has been for us.”
Denial vs. Fulfillment
Dossie’s bachelor’s thesis was called “Sex Is Nice and Pleasure Is Good for You.” Even if any given person doesn’t find sex to be nice for them at this time in their lives, we believe that shame-free access to all sorts of consensual sex is extremely nice for the world in which we all live. This idea is as radical now, in the twenty-first century, as it was back in the 1970s when Dossie first wrote about it.
Our culture places a very high value on self-denial, which is fine when there is hard work to be done. But all too often, those who
unapologetically satisfy their desire for pleasure in their utterly free time are seen as immature, disgusting, even sinful. Since we all have desires, puritanical values lead inevitably to self-loathing, hatred of our bodies and our turn-ons, and fear and guilt over our sexual urges.
We see ourselves surrounded by the walking wounded—by people who have been deeply injured by fear, shame, and hatred of their own sexual selves. We believe that happy, free, guiltless connection is the cure for these wounds; we believe that sex and intimacy are vital to people’s sense of self-worth, to their belief that life is good.
You Don’t Need
a Reason
If you walk up to a randomly selected individual and propose that sex is nice and pleasure is good for you, you will probably hear a lot of spluttering, argument, and “yeah-buts”—STDs, unwanted pregnancies, rape, the commodification of sexual desire, and so on. None of these changes the core idea.
There is nothing in the world so terrific that it can’t be abused if you’re determined to do so: familial connections can be violated, sexual desire can be manipulated. Even chocolate can be abused. Abuse doesn’t change the basic wonderfulness of any of these things: the danger lies in the motivation of the abuser, not the nature of the item.
If there were no such thing as sexually transmitted disease, if nobody got pregnant unless they wanted to, if all sex were consensual and pleasurable, how would the world feel about it then? How would you
feel? If you look deep inside yourself, you may find bits and pieces of sex-negativism, often hiding behind judgmental words like promiscuous
, hedonistic
, decadent
, and not productive
.
Even people who consider themselves sex-positive and sexually liberated often fall into a different trap—the trap of
rationalizing sex. Releasing physical tension, relieving menstrual cramps, maintaining mental health, preventing prostate problems, making babies, cementing relationships, and so on are all admirable goals, and wonderful side benefits of sex. But they are not what sex is for
. People have sex because it feels very good, and then they feel good about themselves. Pleasure is a complete and worthwhile goal in and of itself: the
worthiness of pleasure is one of the core values of ethical sluthood.
Love and Sex Are the End, Not the Means
Our monogamy-centrist culture tends to assume that the
purpose and ultimate goal of all relationships—and all sex—is lifelong pair-bonding, and that any relationship that falls short of that goal has failed.
We, on the other hand, think sexual pleasure can certainly contribute to love, commitment, and long-term stability, if that’s what you want. But those are hardly the only good reasons for having sex. We believe in valuing relationships for what we value in them, a seeming tautology that is wiser than it sounds.
A relationship may be valuable simply because it affords pleasure to those involved; there is nothing wrong with sex for sex’s sake. Or it might involve sex as a pathway to other lovely things—intimacy, connection, companionship, even love—which in no way changes the basic goodness of the pleasurable sex.
A sexual relationship may last for an hour or two. It’s still a relationship: the participants have related to one another—as sex partners, companions, lovers—for the duration of their interaction.
One-night stands can be intense, life enhancing, and fulfilling; so can lifetime love affairs. While ethical sluts may choose to have some kinds of relationships and not others, we believe that all relationships have the potential to teach us, move us, and, above all, give us pleasure.
Dossie remembers an interview with a young flower child back in 1967 who made the most succinct statement of ethical sluthood we’ve ever heard: “We believe it’s okay to have sex with anybody you love, and we believe in loving everybody.”
You Are Already Whole
We believe that the fundamental sexual unit is one person; adding more people to that unit may be intimate, fun, and companionable but does not complete anybody. The only thing in this world that you can control is
yourself—your own reactions, desires, and behaviors. Thus, a fundamental step in ethical sluthood is to bring your locus of control into yourself, to recognize the difference between what is
yours to control and what belongs to other people. With practice, you can become able to complete yourself—that’s why we call this “integrity.”
When you have built a satisfying relationship with yourself, then you have something of great worth to share with others.
“The only thing in this world that you can control is yourself—your own reactions, desires, and behaviors.”
Abundance Is Entirely Available
Many people believe, explicitly or implicitly, that our capacities for love, intimacy, and connection are finite, that there is never enough to go around, and that if you give some to one person, you must be taking some away from another.
We call this belief a “starvation economy.” Many of us learned to think this way in childhood, from parents who had insufficient affection or attention for us, so we learned that there is only a limited amount of love in the world and we have to fight for whatever we get, sometimes in cutthroat competition with our siblings.
People who operate from
starvation economies can become very possessive about the people, things, and ideas that matter to them. They see the whole world in that limited light, so that anything they get comes from a small pool of “not-enough” and must thus be taken from someone else—and, similarly, anything anyone else gets must be subtracted from them.
It is important to distinguish between starvation economies and
real-world limits. Time, for example, is a real-world limit: even the most dedicated slut has only twenty-four hours every day. Love is not a real-world limit: the mother of nine children can love each of them as much as the mother of an only child loves her one.
Our belief is that the human capacity for sex and love and intimacy is far greater than most people think—possibly infinite—and that having a lot of satisfying connections simply makes it possible for you to have a lot more. Imagine what it would feel like to live in an
abundance of sex and love, to feel that you had all of both that you could possibly want, free of any feelings of deprivation or neediness. Imagine how strong you would feel if you got to exercise your “love muscles” that much and how much love you would have to give!
Openness Can Be the Solution, Not the Problem
Is sexual
adventurousness simply a way to
avoid intimacy? Not ordinarily, in our experience. While it is certainly possible to misuse your outside relationships to avoid problems, or to reduce intimacy with your
life partner, we do not agree that this pattern is inevitable or even common. Many people, in fact, find that their outside relationships can increase their intimacy with their primary partner by reducing the pressures on that relationship.
This chapter contains some of our beliefs. You get to have
beliefs of your own. What matters is not that you agree with us but that you
question the prevailing paradigm and decide for yourself what you believe. Exercise your judgment—isn’t exercise supposed to make you stronger? Thousands and thousands
of ethical sluts are proving every day that the old “everybody knows” myths don’t have to be true.
We encourage you to explore your own realities and create your own legend, one that spurs you onward in your evolution, supports you as you grow, and reflects your pride and happiness in all your relationships.
On
Love
As our relationships blossom all over the rainbow of possibility, each one may inspire different feelings of love. When we learn to recognize and welcome love as we find it in our hearts and in all of its many and marvelous manifestations—sexual love, familial love, friendly love, passionate love, gentle love, overwhelming love, caretaking love, and millions of others—we discover a river of nourishment that can flow through our lives in a constantly replenishing stream.
But like a real river, this source can contain many currents. The way to feel solid enough to swim in that ever-changing river is to learn to love yourself. Some people believe that to love yourself is selfish and to spend some part of your life focusing on yourself is narcissistic. This question is more easily answered by doing than by thinking. We believe that
self-nurturing can get you through hard times and guide you into a loving relationship with yourself. When you follow through with a simple act like comforting
yourself with homemade soup, spending time deep in a beloved book, or taking a sweet solitary walk in a beautiful place, then you get an experience of being kind to yourself that can answer all those questions about “What do they mean, love myself?”
Another way of discovering self-love is to go love someone else. If you have a hard time feeling valuable when no one is around to tell you that you are, then why not do something that is valuable to others? Many unhappy sluts with no date this weekend have gone off to serve dinner to the homeless at a local church and come back filled to the brim with good feeling about all the pleasure they were able to give.
Once you have a handle on loving yourself, you can practice sharing that love with others. You’ve probably been taught to reserve the language of love for when you’re feeling overwhelmingly tender and passionate and only for those who have made huge commitments to you. Maybe you’ve been taught that using the “L-word” implies that you are making some large commitments. Wouldn’t it be better to ask ourselves how
we love any particular person rather than worrying about whether we do or not?
Imagine how you’d feel if all the people who care about you made a practice of telling you so. Imagine what the world would be like if we allowed ourselves to recognize and acknowledge and communicate all the sweet feelings, to make the little gestures that may not be life changing or passionate but that nevertheless make life worthwhile.