Ethical Slut - Dossie Easton [11]
Denial vs. Fulfillment
Dossie’s bachelor’s thesis was called “Sex Is Nice and Pleasure Is Good for You.” That idea is as radical now, in the twenty-first century, as it was back in the 1970s when Dossie first wrote 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 sexuality is vital to people’s sense of self-worth, to their belief that life is good. We have never met anyone who had low self-esteem at the moment of orgasm.
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 “yahbuts”—STDs, unwanted pregnancies, rape, the commodification of sexual desire, and so on. None of which 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 she 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 “nonproductive.”
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. Sex is for pleasure, a complete and worthwhile goal in and of itself. People have sex because it feels very good, and then they feel good about themselves. 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 sexual 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 romantic 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,