Page 1 of 220 1997 by Dossie Easton & Catherine A. Liszt All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher. Cover illustration by Kai Harper. Cover design by Design Tribe San Francisco. Published in the United States by Greenery Press, 3739 Balboa Ave. #195, San Francisco, CA 94121. E-mail: [email protected] http://www.bigrock.com/~greenery ISBN 0-890159-01-8 Page 2 of 220 TABLE OF CONTENTS. Part I: Within ourselves. 1. Who Is An Ethical Slut? 2. Values and Ethics Chapter 3. Paradigms, Old and New Chapter 4. The Language in This Book Chapter 5. Ancestors & Antecedents Chapter 6. Slut Skills Chapter 7. Slutstyles Chapter 8. Enjoying Sex Part II: between one another. 1. Boundaries Chapter 2. Slut Economies Chapter 3. Jealousy Chapter 4. Sluts in Love Chapter 5. Conflict Chapter 6. Agreements Part III: in the world 1. A Slut's-Eye View Chapter 2. Health Chapter 3. Childrearing Page 3 of 220 Part IV: having fun 1. Finding Partners 2. Group Sex, Public Sex, Orgies Conclusion: A Slut Utopia Bibliography Resources For Sluts About Our Other Books Page 4 of 220 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many, many thanks for the information and encouragement we received from: Cecelia & Corwin Sunny Knight Betty Dodson Adric Petrucelli Jaymes Easton Carol Queen Francesca Guido Maggi Rubenstein Lizzard Henry Ruth & Edward Sybil Holiday Doug Stinson Ron Hoffman Susan S. Richard Karpinsky Snow White Laurie & Chris Tom & Katy Deirdre McGrath Joi Wolfwomyn Page 5 of 220 From Dossie to Jim Carver, who made the space for me to learn and Kai Harper, my beloved and outrageous partner in love and in life From Catherine to Barbara, with love and gratitude and to Jay, my him finally and always Page 6 of 220 PART I WITHIN OURSELVES Page 7 of 220 CHAPTER 1. WHO IS AN ETHICAL SLUT? Many people dream of living an open sexual life- of having all the sex and love and friendship they want. Most never try, believing that such a life is impossible. Of those who try, many give up, finding the challenges insurmountable- or at least too hard for them. A few persist, and discover that being openly sexual and intimate with many people is not only possible, but can be more rewarding than they ever imagined. People have been succeeding at free love for many decades -often quietly, without much fanfare. In this book, we will share the techniques, the skills, the ideals that have made it work for them. So who is an ethical slut? We are. Many, many others are. Maybe you are too. If you dream of freedom, if you dream of sex, if you dream of an abundance of friends and flirtation and consensual conquest, of following your desires and seeing where they take you, you've already taken the first step. Why We Chose This Title From the moment you saw or heard about this book, you probably guessed that some of the terms here may not have the same meanings you're accustomed to. What kind of person would revel in calling himself a slut? And why would he insist on being recognized for his ethics? In most of the world, "slut" is a highly offensive term, used to describe a woman whose sexuality is voracious, indiscriminate and shameful. It's interesting to note that the analogous word "stud," used to describe a highly sexual man, is often a term of approval and envy. If you ask about a man's morals, you will probably hear about his honesty, loyalty, integrity and high principles. When you ask about a woman's morals, you are more likely to hear Page 8 of 220 about who she fucks and under what conditions. We have a problem with this. So we are proud to reclaim the word "slut" as a term of approval, even endearment. To us, a slut is a person of any gender who has the courage to lead life according to the radical proposition that sex is nice and pleasure is good for you. A slut may choose to have sex with herself only, or with the Fifth Fleet. He may be heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual, a radical activist or a peaceful suburbanite. As proud sluts, we believe that sex and sexual love are fundamental forces for good- activities with the potential to strengthen intimate bonds, enhance lives, create spiritual awareness, even change the world. And, furthermore, we believe that all consensual sexual choices have these potentials- that any sexual pathway, consciously chosen and mindfully followed, can be a positive, creative force in the lives of individuals and their communities. A slut shares his sexuality the way a philanthropist shares her money because they have a lot of it to share, because it makes them happy to share it, because sharing makes the world a better place. Sluts often find that the more sex and love they give away, the more they have- a loaves-and-fishes miracle in which greed and generosity go hand-in-hand to provide more for everybody. Imagine living in sexual abundance! Sexual adventurousness The world generally views sluts as debased, degraded, promiscuous, indiscriminate, jaded, immoral adventurers, destructive, out of control and driven by some form of psychopathology that prevents them from entering into a healthy monogamous relationship. Oh, yes, and definitely not ethical. We see ourselves as people who are committed to finding a place of sanity with sex, and to freeing ourselves to enjoy our sexuality and to share it in as many ways as may fit for each of us. We may not always know what fits without trying it on, so we tend to be curious and adventurous. When we see someone who intrigues us, we like to be free to respond, and in exploring our own response, discover whatever is special about that person we are turned on to. We like relating to people, and tend to be gregarious, enjoying the Page 9 of 220 company of different sorts of folk, and reveling in how our differences expand our horizons and offer us new ways to be ourselves. Sluts tend to want a lot of things: different forms of sexual expression, different people, perhaps men and women both. We are curious: what would it be like to combine the energies of four or five people in one incandescent sexual encounter? What would it be like to share physical intimacy with that person who has been my best friend for ten years? What would it be like with this other person who is so very different from me? Some of us express more than one identity in intimate encounters with diverse people. Some of us love flirtation for its own sake, as an art form, and others make an art form out of sex. All of us love adventure. When Dossie was a young adult, and not yet aware of herself as a slut, she found herself fascinated by people from all the different cultures she could find in urban America, and used to describe her sexual curiosity as her own idiosyncratic form of cross-cultural anthropology. I delighted in finding people who were new and different: I learned an enormous amount from people who grew up in cultures that were more emotionally and sexually expressive than mine was, or who could see beauty in places I had never looked before. I'd grown up in a small mono cultural town in New England, very rigid, lily white, Waspish. In the exploration of otherness I found answers to many of the dilemmas of my programming, or my culture-bound thinking: new ways I could be that worked better for me. Dossie certainly took a lot of risks in her reckless exploration of all the different sexualities she could find in New York City. For her, it was worth it. For some of us, sluttishness is a basic part of our identity, how we know ourselves. One of the most valuable things we can learn from open sexual lifestyles is that our programming is changeable. Starting by questioning all the ways we have been told our sexuality ought to be, we can begin to edit and rewrite our old tapes. So by breaking the rules, we both free and empower ourselves. Page 10 of 220 Catherine remembers learning that there was such a thing as a gay man: "I must have been eight or nine, but even then, I understood the subtext of what I was hearing--that these men didn't belong in my comfortable suburban environment, that they had sex with each other in spite of the fact that many people thought it was wrong for them to do so, that they didn't necessarily get married and only have sex with one person, that they had their own communities where they hung out together and took care of each other because regular people didn't want them around. And I immediately got this strong sense of "Oh, people like me." Two decades went by before I came out as a slut, and another decade before I came out as bisexual, but there was something about the whole idea that I simply understood and responded to deep in my gut. A slut's eye view What does this all look like from the slut's point of view? We see ourselves first and foremost as individuals, with virtues and faults and diverse differences.