Ethical Slut - Dossie Easton [64]
INTERLUDE
Clean Love
CAN YOU IMAGINE love without jealousy, without possessiveness—love cleaned of all its clinginess and desperation? Let’s try. We can take some thoughts from Buddhism: What would it be like to love without attachment? Or to open our hearts to someone with no expectation beyond another heart opening in return? Loving just for the joy of it, regardless of what we might get back?
Imagine seeing the beauty and virtues of a beloved and letting go of how their strengths might meet our needs or how their beauty might make us look better.
Imagine seeing another in a clean light of love, without enumerating the ways in which that person does and does not match up to the fantasy we carry around of our perfect mate or dream lover.
Imagine meeting another person in the freedom and innocence of childhood and playing together, without plotting how to make this person give us the kind of love we wish we could have gotten in our actual childhood.
But … but … but. What if you open your heart to someone and you don’t like what happens next? Suppose that person gets drunk? Or treats your open affection with scorn? What if this person doesn’t fulfill your dreams? What if this one turns out just like the last one? Suppose all those things do happen. What have you lost? A little time, a brief fantasy. Let it go, learn from it, and go find someone more worthy of your love.
Love doesn’t much take to being stuffed into forms, which is what everybody’s fantasies and imaginings are: custom-built plans for a constructed individual they’ve created to solve all their problems. Your authors have dream lovers too. But people are not made of clay or stone, and it won’t work well to approach them with a chisel. Look what happened to Pygmalion.
How many times have you rejected the possibility of love because it didn’t look the way you expected it to? Perhaps some characteristic was missing you were sure you must have, some other trait was present that you never dreamed of accepting. What happens when you throw away your expectations and open your eyes to the fabulous love that is shining right in front of you, holding out its hand?
Clean love: love without expectations.
Washing your love clean doesn’t require advanced spirituality or weekly psychoanalysis. You’ll probably never let go of every single attachment—at least we’ve never managed it. But maybe you can let go just for an instant: your history, worries, frets, and yearnings will still be there to come back to when you need them. Just for now, take a look at the nifty person who is standing right in front of you.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Embracing Conflict
NOTHING BUILDS INTIMACY like shared vulnerability. Write this on your bathroom mirror. We’ll never discount all the wonderful things that we get from sharing love—laughter and happiness and sex—but nothing deepens intimacy like the experiences that we share when we feel flayed, with our skins off, scared and vulnerable, and our partner is there with us, willing to share in the scary stuff. These are the times that bring us the closest together.
What’s in It for You?
Some people find it surprising to learn that a slut can experience overwhelming insecurities, but the truth is that sluts are just as nervous as anyone else, and skills to allay our anxieties were not taught us in our cradles.
Your own freedom might turn out to be a lot easier to accept than your partner’s. It certainly does not follow that just because we can date others with equanimity that we will be equally calm when our partner takes off for an exciting evening with somebody else. Going out and staying home are separate functions, like eating and cooking, each with its own rewards, and each requires specific skills to accomplish.
When problems arise, a good question to ask yourself is “What am I hoping to get out of this situation?” Why are you doing all this hard work to become a slut? The answer depends on your own individual situation,