Ethical Slut - Dossie Easton [127]
Cruising by body language also can work, as long as you are willing to be relaxed about any misunderstandings that may arise. We believe that it is important to learn how to put what you want into words, so you have an option for absolutely clear communication. Then you can pursue nonverbal cruising if you like it, knowing your good communication skills will back you up if you need them.
Body language is about catching someone’s eye, exchanging a smile, moving your body closer—always checking the response. If you catch someone’s eye and they turn away, well, there’s your answer. Don’t take it personally; maybe they have another commitment, maybe they’re just not in the mood—people have as many reasons for not wanting to play as they do for wanting to play. If you move into someone’s personal space and they move closer, there’s another answer. It helps to initiate touch on a relatively neutral part of the body—a shoulder, a hand—and again, does the person move away, or closer? If they freeze, it’s probably a good idea to communicate with words.
Gender Differences
We live in a society where people learn some pretty warped ideas about sex. Women learn that they are not supposed to be sexual without falling in love, men learn that sex is a commodity that you get from a woman, men may even learn that women themselves are commodities. Group sex only works when everybody is acknowledged as a person. Nobody likes being treated like a thing. To avoid such problems, most group sex environments that include both men and women restrict the number of single men who are invited or insist that no man is welcome without a female escort. These requirements are a sad last resort for dealing with an unpleasant reality, and we quite agree that it is unfair that men of good will get penalized for the intrusive behavior of men who evidently don’t know any better. But that’s how it is, and the only way we are going to change it is to work on our own behavior and teach our brothers and sisters what we learn. Pansexual environments that make a point of including a variety of people—gay, straight, bi, transgendered—tend to inspire more respect for all, and in such environments we get to learn from a lot of people whose lives and sexualities may be different from our own.
Cruising is different by gender, and those differences become very visible when you compare gay men’s environments to lesbian orgies and see how they are similar to and different from hetero or bisexual groups. Gay men seem to feel safer with anonymous sex, and gay male cruising at baths or clubs is often nonverbal. One man might catch another’s eye, smile, walk across the room, touch a shoulder, and then embrace, with little or no verbal communication. Lesbians are often more cautious and tend to talk for a while before moving into the play room and getting down.
Women in all group sex environments tend to be less open than men to anonymous sex and to prefer some communication and personal connection first. When a woman seeks to realize a fantasy of anonymous sex with a number of people, often one of her friends or lovers will act as emcee, doing traffic control and whispering into a stranger’s ear, “She doesn’t like anything that tickles” or “I think she’d like it if you fucked harder.” The emcee takes the responsibility for safety and limit setting so the star can feel utterly free. This respect for caution is probably because women have had serious reasons to feel less than safe around sex with strangers and need some support to feel safe enough to let down their guard. There are no rights and wrongs to this situation—or what wrong there is exists in our history, which we can’t very well change. What is important is that everyone—male, female, or transgendered; straight, bi, or gay—has a right to feel safe in order to get free to enjoy sex.
Establishing Consent
Consent is an absolute requirement. Naive people sometimes assume that when two or three or four people are already having sex, it is okay to just join in and start fondling somebody. Well, it isn’t, because you