Ethical Slut - Dossie Easton [53]
My friends and lovers have welcomed her into the family with open arms. Loose lovers often form kinship networks from their sexual connections—and customs, even sort of a culture, have begun to emerge. And so it is customary, in my brand-new culture, for one’s lovers to welcome a new lover, not as competition but as an addition to the community. But this is not her culture.
My lover is ready to talk now. She is pissed. She is seriously pissed. She resents me for every miserable terrified thought she has had today, she is furious that I would subject her to the unprotected experience of her own feelings, and that’s not what she said, that’s my interpretation. And that’s not what I said either—this was no time to get uppity about clean boundaries and the importance of owning your own feelings. I listened. This time I listened, without interrupting, trying only to let her know that I love her, I feel her pain, I am here for her. She is furious with me, and I am not giving myself permission to defend myself, and I hurt.
This story has no tidy ending—we talked for hours, or maybe I listened, and I heard how difficult it was for her, how she felt invaded, how she felt her home was not safe, how she feared that my other lover would not like her, how she felt attacked by her and me both, how very much she feared I was abandoning her. We came to no pat little answers that make good stories for books—we just poured out anguish, and went to sleep exhausted, and went on loving each other and working on this issue as best we could.
It’s been more than ten years since Dossie wrote this story, and she is no longer with this lover. The relationship ended for many reasons, none of them particularly about jealousy. Some readers were upset by this story when we included it in the first edition of this book—it’s not exactly cheerful and it doesn’t have a happy ending. But we are including it again anyway, because we think it’s important that our readers know that even accomplished sluts struggle with pain, miscommunication, mismatched desires, anger, and, yes, jealousy.
EXERCISE How Do You Experience Jealousy?
Set aside some time for introspection. Remember some times when you felt jealous, and write about how that felt. You may find your mind preoccupied with thoughts about what those other people were doing. It may take a little patience to go back to your own feelings: rage, grief, despair, desperation, anxiety; feelings of being lost, ugly, lonely, worthless; or whatever other feelings are particular to how you experience jealousy. We are often tempted to accuse ourselves about horrid feelings, as if we needed some sort of proper justification for feeling lousy. Try having some compassion for yourself when you feel so bad.
Or do a freewrite about jealousy—set a timer for five or ten minutes and just write down whatever comes into your mind. When you’re through writing, be kind to yourself. You might want to do this more than once, maybe over time, and keep it like a journal … to be read by you only, or maybe by a trusted friend or therapist.
Or write a letter to your jealousy. Ask it what it’s trying to accomplish. Ask it for advice. Then have your jealousy write a letter to you.
What Is Jealousy?
We cannot ask this question too often. What is jealousy to you? Does jealousy really exist, and is it what we think it is? When we choose to confront the feeling of jealousy rather than run away from it, we can see more clearly what jealousy truly is for each of us. Jealousy is not an emotion. It can show up as grief or rage, hatred or self-loathing—jealousy is an umbrella word that covers the wide range of emotions we might feel when our partners make sexual connection with somebody else.
Jealousy may be an expression of insecurity, fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, feeling left out, feeling not good enough, feeling inadequate, feeling awful. Your jealousy may be based in territoriality, or in competitiveness,