Ethical Slut - Dossie Easton [119]
First, make a list of all the sexual activities you can think of that anyone, not just you, might like to do. You will immediately discover that this is also an exercise in developing language, so pay attention as you name these things. Are you more comfortable with intercourse or fucking, oral sex or going down, cock sucking or eating out? What do you call your own sex organs: penis, dick, cock, prick … pussy, cunt, vagina, clitoris? If you get stuck, put a little effort into finding any name that describes the activity, take a deep breath, and repeat those words five times, and breathe again. Make your list as complete as possible, and include activities that you don’t like as well as those you do. You can get prefab lists online, but then you miss the experience of naming all these unspeakable delights.
Then each of you take a separate, smaller piece of paper and make three columns: YES, MAYBE, and NO. YES means I already know I like this. NO means this act is outside my limits and I don’t want to try it in the foreseeable future. MAYBE means you would try it if the conditions were right. The conditions might be:
if I feel safe enough
if I’m turned on enough
if I know it’s okay to stop if it feels bad
if we go slow enough
if we have a backup plan
and so forth.
Decide where every act on the big sheet fits into your limits today. Share the lists with a partner. Discuss where you fit together well and where you have differences. There are no rights and wrongs here. Think of your likes and dislikes as if they were flavors of ice cream.
Notice the wealth of what you both like on your YES lists.
This exercise will need to be done more than once, as your limits will change over time. You can do it to look at what you can share with any particular partner when you are sharing sex.
These are ideas about how you can start communicating explicitly about sex and negotiate consensuality. Remember, we define consent as an active collaboration for the pleasure, benefit, and well-being of all persons concerned. Consent means that everybody involved must agree to whatever activity is proposed and must also feel safe enough that they could decline if they wished. We believe that if you are not free to say “no,” you can’t really say “yes.” We also think it is essential that everyone involved understands the consequences of both responses, which is another way of saying that it’s not acceptable to take advantage of someone’s naïveté.
We cannot say this often enough: You have a right to your limits, and it is totally okay to say no to any form of sex you don’t like or are not comfortable with. Having a limit does not mean that you are inhibited, uptight, no fun, or a permanent victim of American puritanism—it just means you don’t like something. When you want to learn to like it, we think there are better ways to do that than to succumb to guilt tripping, shaming, or outright bullying. Say no to what you don’t want, and when you decide to try something new, arrange for lots of support from your partner, get your conditions met, and be kind to yourself. Positive reinforcement is really the best way to learn.
In many areas, workshops and groups about sex are available, put on by dedicated sex educators and counselors, sometimes at birth control clinics or organizations supporting sexual health. All of these workshops are designed to be safe, to respect everyone’s boundaries, and to give you an opportunity to learn new information, increase your comfort level, and speak for yourself about your own feelings and experience. What we are advocating here is communication by, with, and for everybody.
EXCERCISE More Fun with Your “Yes, No, Maybe” List
Once you’ve made a list, there are lots of further activities you can do with it:
Put your lists up on the fridge or in the bathroom where you can see them every day.
Write a possible script for your next date based entirely on items found on both of your YES lists.