Ethical Slut - Dossie Easton [10]
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 we openly share that information with those who need it. We do our best not to let our fears and bashfulness be an obstacle to our honesty—we trust that our partners will go on respecting and loving us, warts and all.
Ethical sluts recognize the ramifications of our sexual choices. We see that our emotions, our upbringing, 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. We wrote this book to help you become an ethical slut. 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 pretty 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.
You can compare this idea to the idea of eating, if you like. Most people would define “eating” as the actual activity of placing food in the mouth. But gourmets might spend a long time savoring the aroma and appearance of their food before actually taking a bite, so that smell and vision have become part of eating. For those who open themselves to the possibilities, every stray aroma that floats under our nostrils, the ocean breeze with its tang of oysters and seaweed, the peaty whiskeylike whiff of woodsmoke, becomes a kind of eating. And our eyes take in colors and shapes, apple red and creamy custard yellow, while our busy brains, remembering yesterday’s wonderful meal, plan another for tomorrow, and the whole world becomes our food.
Similarly, 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 half 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 here is that sex is whatever the people engaging in it think it is. For some people,