Ethical Slut - Dossie Easton [135]
Centrist: We use terms like “heterocentrist,” “eurocentrist,” “malecentrist,” “female-centrist,” “queer-centrist,” and “couple-centrist” to draw attention to unspoken expectations about the way things “should” be. Couple-centrist beliefs, for example, are those that treat the couple as the primary unit of our culture, thus placing anyone who isn’t part of a couple outside the mainstream.
Commitment: In common usage, this word seems to mean lifetime monogamy. Obviously, we don’t use it that way in this book. To us, “commitment” means making a promise for the future and following through on that promise—whether it’s a promise to “cleave unto you only” or to meet for a hot weekend once a year.
Drama: Those of us who have chosen to avoid the well-paved road of social expectations regarding relationships must hack our way through some fairly dense shrubbery to blaze our own pathways. This process sometimes involves misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and so on. “Drama” is a slightly pejorative term for the struggles that often accompany this process.
Faithful: See Fidelity.
Fidelity: Outside these pages, this term is generally used to mean having sex only with one person. However, the dictionary says fidelity is “demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support,” and that sounds about right to us.
Free love: The idea that it is possible to love and have sex with more than one person as a means of interpersonal connection as well as an idealistic sociopolitical statement—a movement that has spanned centuries, although it was most widely accepted during the 1960s.
Friend with benefits: Current parlance for someone with whom you can have sex (the “benefits” part) without the need to commit to a lifelong romantic relationship (the “friend”) part. Also known in some circles as a “fuck buddy.”
Fuck: Still the four-letter word that gets the strongest reaction (with the possible exception of “cunt”), but it seems a shame to us that such a nice activity gets used as a curse. Can mean genital sex in general, or specifically penetrative sex such as penis/vagina, penis/anus, or fisting.
Gender: The catchphrase used in gender-explorative circles is, “Your sex is what’s between your legs, your gender is what’s between your ears.” Someone who was born with female genitals and chromosomes, but prefers to interact with the world as a man (possibly using surgery and/or hormones to further that goal), is thus of the male gender. Those who prefer to occupy a place somewhere between the extremes of binary gender, or who like to be playful with their gender presentation, are called “gender-queer,” “gender-fluid,” or “gender-bent.”
Kink: Any form of sex outside the mainstream. Often used specifically for BDSM, leather, and/or fetish play.
Leather: Another way of talking about BDSM and related behaviors. Generally in wider use in gay, lesbian, and queer circles.
Munch: A social get-together of polyfolk in a restaurant or similar location. Munches started as a way for Internet-based polyfolk to meet face to face. Munches have been established for many online communities.
Nonjudgmental: An attitude that is free of irrational or unjustifiable moralizing. “Nonjudgmental” does not mean all-accepting; it means being willing to judge an activity or relationship on the basis of how well it works for the participants and not on some external standard of absolute rightness or wrongness.
Nonmonogamy: We don’t generally use this term, because it implies that monogamy is the norm and that any other way of relating is somehow a deviation from that norm (i.e., it’s “monogamy-centrist”—see our definition of “Centrist” above).
Nymphomania: See Promiscuity.
Openheartedness: Greeting the world with compassion and without defensiveness; opening yourself to whatever love or connection life offers you.
Open relationship: A relationship in which the people involved have some degree