Input:
 1. Q: What is the purpose of the chapter?
A: The purpose of the chapter is to discuss the many different styles of ethical sluthood and to show that there is no one "right" way to be a slut. The authors argue that everyone has their own unique style of sluthood and that it is important to find what works for you.
2. Q: What are some examples of different slut styles?
A: Some examples of different slut styles include relationship pioneers, who have always found happiness and growth in sexual openness; people who live in intentional sexual communities, such as the Oneida community or Rajneeshpuram; and people who have built their lives around intentional exploration of alternative relationships, such as artists and freethinkers.
3. Q: How do the authors define sluthood?
A: The authors define sluthood as the practice of being sexually open and adventurous, and of having multiple sexual partners. They argue that sluthood is not a negative thing and that it can be a source of happiness and growth.
4. Q: What is the authors' stance on monogamy?
A: The authors argue that monogamy is not the only way to have a fulfilling and satisfying relationship, and that there are many other ways to be happy and satisfied. They argue that people should be free to choose the relationship style that works best for them.
5. Q: Who is the intended audience of the chapter?
A: The intended audience of the chapter is people who are interested in exploring alternative sexualities and in questioning cultural norms around sex and intimacy.
6. Q: What is the tone of the chapter?
A: The tone of the chapter is positive and empowering. The authors argue that sexuality and pleasure are fundamental forces for good in people's lives and in the world, and that everyone should be free to celebrate their sexuality in the way that works best for them.
7. Q: What is the main argument of the chapter?
A: The main argument of the chapter is that there are many different ways to be a slut and that everyone should be free to choose the relationship style that works best for them. The authors argue that monogamy is not the only way to have a fulfilling and satisfying relationship, and that there are many other ways to be happy and satisfied. They encourage readers to be open to new experiences and to write their own scripts for their relationships and their lives.

Response:
# 4

# SLUT STYLES

Ethical sluthood is a house with a lot of rooms: it shelters everyone from happy celibates to ecstatic orgiasts and beyond. In this chapter, we'll talk about the many styles of sluthood that have worked for us, for the people we know, and for happy sluts throughout history. Whether or not any of these scenarios fits you, we hope they will offer you some ideas about where to start your exploration or perhaps the validation of knowing that there are others like you out there.

Relationship Pioneers

Although the phrase "ethical slut" is relatively new—Dossie coined it in 1995—the practice is not. Cultural acceptance of practices outside monogamy has roller-coastered up and down from acceptance to stern rejection, but regardless of the opinions of church and state, there have always been those who have found happiness and growth in sexual openness.

ANCIENT CULTURES

You could spend your life as a cultural anthropologist trying to describe the innumerable ways that human beings have chosen to be together sexually, romantically, and domestically—from the temple prostitutes of ancient Babylon to Mormon polygyny and far, far beyond. So, rather than trying to list them all, we just want to note that the prevailing cultural values that twenty-first-century North America inherited from Europe seem to date back to the Roman Empire and to early Christianity, which recommended monogamous marriage only for those who couldn't manage celibacy, the ideal state. Cultures without those influences have developed all sorts of ways for people to bond—polygyny (many wives), polyandry (many husbands), group marriage, arrangements in which marriage is fundamentally a domestic business relationship and sexual dalliance takes place elsewhere, ritual group sex, and pretty much any other configuration of human hearts and genitals that you can imagine.

UTOPIAN SEXUAL COMMUNITIES

History is dotted with experiments in creating intentional sexual utopias, often with a philosophical or religious basis: if you're curious, read up on the Oneida community of nineteenth-century Ohio (or see the sidebar); Rajneeshpuram in India (from the late 1960s) and Oregon (in the 1980s); and Kerista in New York, Belize, and San Francisco from the early 1960s through the 1990s…to name just a few. Such communities are usually built by one leader and may falter when the leader is no longer available. However, their philosophies live on, adding new visions and practices to the mainstream culture. Many practitioners of Western tantra today, for example, can trace their practice to the teachings of Oshō, the guiding spirit behind Rajneeshpuram.

ARTISTS AND FREETHINKERS

It's easy to point to artists and writers who have built their lives around intentional exploration of alternative relationships. If you're curious about the ways in which these relationships played out in times when there was even less support than there is now, you can read up on the Bloomsbury group in early twentieth-century England and about freethinkers like Vita Sackville-West, Harold Nicholson, George Sand, H. G. Wells, Simone de Beauvoir, Alfred Kinsey, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. What we can't know is how many nonwriters were also building the kind of sexually open lives that worked for them, because there are no records of such lives. We feel safe in supposing, though, that a significant minority of people have always gotten their needs met through ethical multipartner living.

THE LOVE GENERATION

Dossie came of age surrounded by the utopian concepts of the 1960s, and Janet did shortly afterward; both of us have been greatly influenced by those days of radical exploration. Many ideals of that era—nonconformity, exploration of altered states of consciousness, equality of race and gender, ecological awareness, political activism, openness about sexuality, and, yes, the possibility of ethical and loving nonmonogamy—have permeated the greater culture. We doubt that we could have written this book or published it in the 1950s, so if you're reading and enjoying _The Ethical Slut_ today, thank a hippie.

Sluthood Today

Sluts come in all the various forms and styles that humans come in: in all cultures, from all parts of the world, of all religions and lifestyles, rich and poor, with formal and informal education.

"We doubt that we could have written this book or published it in the 1950s, so if you're reading and enjoying _The Ethical Slut_ today, thank a hippie."

Most of us today live in communities of nonsluts, with only occasional or limited contact with other people who share our values: some groups host conferences, meetups, **munches** , conventions, and parties, all of which can mitigate isolation, facilitate the exchange of information and support, and expand their members' intimate circles. These conferences are very important in bringing sexual undergrounds into the view of those who are looking for them and building institutions aboveground that can better support their members. Other sluts drop out of mainstream culture to live in communities composed of people whose values are like their own.

A slut living in mainstream, monogamy-centrist culture in the twenty-first century can learn a great deal from studying other cultures, other places, and other times: you're _not_ the only one in the world who has ever tried this, it _can_ work, and others have done it without harming themselves, their lovers, their kids—without, in fact, doing anything except enjoying themselves and each other. If you go online and search for "polyamory" plus the name of your city, you'll be surprised how much shows up, even if you live in what you thought was a conservative community.

Pioneering sexual subcultures with extensive documented and undocumented histories include communities of gay men and of lesbian women, trans groups, bisexuals, asexuals, the leather communities, the swing communities, and some spiritually defined subcultures of pagans, modern primitives, tantra temples, and Radical Faeries. And that's just in the United States. Even if you don't belong to any of these sexually oriented communities, it's worth taking a look at them for what they can teach us about our own options through the ways they have developed of being sexual, of communicating about being sexual, and of living in social and family structures that are alternatives to **sex-negative** traditions in America.

Dossie's favorite dance club in 1970 was a remarkable miniculture of polymorphous perversity. She remembers:

> The Omni, short for "omnisexual," was a small North Beach bar whose patrons were men and women, straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and often transgender. The sexual values were very open, from hippie free love freaks to sex industry professionals, and most of us came there to dance like wild women and cruise like crazy.
>
> Thanks to the large transgender faction, there was no way of pigeonholing a person into your categories of desire. You might dance with someone you found very attractive and not know if they were chromosomally male or female. It's difficult to get attached to preferences like lesbian or straight when you don't know the gender of the person you are flirting with.
>
> The results were surprising: I patronized the Omni because it was the safest environment available to me. Because there was no way to make assumptions, people had to treat each other with respect. And if you were, as I was, a young woman in your twenties, to be approached with respect was a most welcome relief from straight social environments where it was customary for men to prove their manhood by coming on too strong.

Since we see some of the problems in attaining a free and open expression of our own individual sexuality as having to do with living in a sex-role-bound culture, we have found it useful to learn from people who have shifted the boundaries of what it means to be male or female, or what it means to choose partners of the same or opposite sex or with ways of approaching sex that go beyond the genital. Thinking about different ways of living and loving can help us as we consider whether we want to change anything about how we go about living as men, women, and/or somewhere in between.

LESBIAN WOMEN

In the lesbian community, we get to look at what happens in a world consisting almost entirely of those who identify as women. For women, relationships can get confused with their sense of identity, especially because our culture in its most tradition-bound form hardly allows women any independent sense of identity at all. Thus, many women, who may have been raised to believe that their identity depends on their partnered status, act as if they would lose their entire sense of themselves without their relationship. The most common relationship sequence, as we see it magnified in the lesbian community, is the form of nonmonogamy known as serial monogamy. Often the connection to the partner of the future precedes the breakup with the partner of the past, with accompanying **drama** that presumably feels safer than the vast, empty, unknown, and terrifying identity void of being a woman living as a single human being.

Younger lesbians are questioning these traditions, and often that questioning includes looking into nonmonogamy as a way to form less insular relationships. Lesbian polyamory is characterized by a lot of serious thoughtfulness and attention to consent and thus by tremendous openness about processing feelings, an area in which the women's community excels.

Our lesbian sisters also have a lot to teach us about new ways of developing a woman's role as sexual initiator. In heterosexual culture, men have been assigned the job of initiator and trained to be sexually aggressive. In the world of women who relate sexually to other women, it rapidly becomes apparent that if we all see ourselves as Sleeping Beauties waiting for Princess Charming to come along, we might indeed have to wait a hundred years.

Women's style of coming on—when shyness doesn't get in the way—tends to be forthright, with respect for consent, and is unlikely to be intrusive or pushy, as many women have had too much experience with being violated to want to go down that road. Women have strong concerns about safety and so tend to move slowly and announce their intentions. They may be shy in the seductive stages and bolder once welcome has been secured. Women often want explicit permission for each specific act, so their communication could serve as an excellent role model for negotiated consent.

We would like to draw your attention to another illuminating difference about sex between women. A sexual encounter between two women rarely involves the expectation of simultaneous orgasm, as many people believe penis-vagina intercourse should, so women have become experts at taking turns. Lesbians are world-class experts on sensuality and outercourse, those wonderful forms of sexuality that do not rely on penile penetration. When penetration is desired, the focus is on what works for the partners: we have yet to meet a dildo that got hung up on its own needs. And you get to choose whatever size and shape you want!

GAY MEN

The gay male community reflects some of the traditional images of male sexuality in intensified form. While some gay men are interested in long-term relationships and settling down, others have set records as world-class sluts. The gay baths are the ultimate role model of friendly group sex environments and easy sexual connection for its own sake.

Gay male sex, as a rule, starts from a presumption of equal power, without the dynamic of overpowering and withholding that often pervades male/female interactions. Thus, men do not generally try to get consent from each other by manipulation and pressuring: a straightforward approach meets an easy response and no need to ask three times. Gay men give each other a lot of credit for being able to say no, and for meaning it when they say it—this makes coming on very simple, because you are never trying to sneak up on anybody and you are not required to be subtle. It is always okay to ask as long as it is okay for the other person to say no. This admirably simple approach to consent cannot be recommended too highly.

Men in general have had less reason to fear sexual violation than their sisters. Although it is true, and terrible, that boys do get molested and men do get raped, men seem to have more confidence than women in their power to protect themselves. Men also tend to get a lot of cultural support for being sexual. So, although the forbiddenness of homosexuality may give many gay men a lot of questions (about being okay or having something wrong with them or having other forms of internalized homophobia), this is less often reflected in sexual dysfunction. Gay men as a group are really good at finding out what feels good to them.

Gay men have established most of our understanding of safer sex. In the face of the AIDS epidemic, where many people might have retreated into sex-negativity, the gay community held its ground and continued to create environments where hot, creative, safer sex could be learned and practiced.

BISEXUALS/PANSEXUALS

Often stigmatized as "gays unwilling to relinquish heterosexual privilege" or "hets taking a walk on the wild side," bisexuals and pansexuals, starting back in the 1970s, have developed their own forceful voice and their own communities.

Some people prefer the term _pansexual_ to _bisexual_ because they're uncomfortable with the etymology of "bisexual," with its implication of only two genders. We like bi activist Robin Ochs's definition: "I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted—romantically and/or sexually—to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree." Use whichever term you feel more comfortable with, but be prepared to hear from others who have made different choices than yours.

Looking at the theory and practice of bisexual lifestyles offers opportunities to explore our assumptions about the nature of sexual and romantic attraction and behaviors. Some folks have had sex only with members of one gender but know that they have within themselves the ability to connect erotically or emotionally with more than one gender and thus consider themselves bisexual. Others may be actively having sex with someone of a gender that is not their usual choice and still consider themselves heterosexual or gay. Some bisexuals prefer different types of interaction with different genders, while others consider themselves gender-blind. Some can be sexual with any gender but romantic with only one, or vice versa, and so on, throughout the universe of bisexual attractions and choices. Bisexuals challenge a lot of our assumptions about gender, and many bisexuals can tell you what is different for them between sex and relationships with one gender and with another. This interesting and privileged information can provide all of us with new stories about sex and gender.

The increasing visibility of bisexuality has led to some challenges to traditional definitions of sexual identity. Specifically, we are having to look at the fact that our sexual attractions may say one thing about us, while our sexual behaviors say another, and our gender identity says yet a third. Questions like these are eating away at some of the traditional boundaries we place around sexual identity, much to the dismay of purists of all orientations. Your authors, sluts that we are, enjoy this kind of fluidity and appreciate the opportunity to play as we like with whoever looks good to us without relinquishing our fundamental sense of who we are.

Janet's path toward her current identity as a bisexual has been a confusing one: it was nearly a decade after she began having sex with women before she started to feel comfortable using the term to describe herself:

> I felt turned off by the trendiness of "bisexual chic." And at the same time, I was hearing some genuinely cruel and ignorant judgments from both heterosexuals and homosexuals about bi's.
>
> As a result, it wasn't until I knew for sure that I was capable of having both sexual and romantic feelings for both men and women—and until I felt strong enough to claim the identity in the face of all those negative judgments—that I finally began calling myself "bisexual."
>
> I look back on my life now and see that I've generally expressed my domestic urges toward men but that my romantic and sexual feelings are about equally likely to be inspired by a man, a woman, or someone in between. The bisexual community also offers more support than either straight-land or gay-land for my rather ambiguous gender presentation: some days I like to wear red lipstick and jewelry and other days men's trousers and oxfords. So "bisexual" is the identity that fits me best and where I intend to stay.

HETEROSEXUALS

In bygone decades, there were few role models for heterosexual interaction in mainstream culture: an Ozzie and Harriet household, monogamous, patriarchal, and focused on conformity and childrearing, was presented to us all as our sexual and romantic ideal. Your authors are very glad to have outlived this era.

Modern heterosexuality offers a plethora of options for happy sluthood, from long-term "vee" triads, where two partners are both sexual with one "hub" partner but not with each other, to orgiastic recreational sex—with lots of possibilities in between, including open relationships, triads and quads, poly pods, and intimate extended families we sometimes call _polycules_ or _constellations_. (Janet implores you, by the way, not to assume that any couple that appears to be a man and a woman is in fact a heterosexual couple. One or both of them may be bisexual, trans, or queer in any number of other ways. As always, if you wanna know, you gotta ask.)

There has been a major change in the culture since the last edition of this book: now people of all genders can marry the person they love and raise a family together if that's what they want. What this means is that many people are now looking to the accumulated wisdom of heterosexual sluts to figure out how to reconcile their parenting obligations with their goals for their sexuality and relationships.

It's also worth noting that heterosexuals are perhaps subject to even more gender-role-based pressure than the rest of us. So those hetero folk who somehow manage to break through those confining roles—who have succeeded in building lives in which the man stays at home with the kids while the woman is the breadwinner, or the woman cuts her hair short and stomps around in heavy-soled boots while the man struts his stuff in colorful silks and velvets, or who have formed ranks to protect kids whose gender presentation is atypical but who still need to function in an otherwise conventional life—have much wisdom to share.

TRANS AND GENDERQUEER FOLKS

Trans and genderqueer people form a variety of communities, all of which have much to teach to those who are interested in transcending their gender-role programming. Dossie, in the early years of her feminism, found friends and lovers among trans women who became her wonderful role models for how to be female, indeed often ultra-feminine, and still be assertive and powerful.

What we can all learn from our trans friends is that gender is malleable. From people who take hormones to express male or female gender, we learn about how some behaviors and emotional states may be hormone-related. People who have lived parts of their lives in different gender modes, physiologically and culturally, have a great deal to teach us about what changes according to hormones and what does not, and what gender characteristics remain a matter of choice no matter what your endocrine system says. Genderqueer and nonbinary people—those who choose to live their lives somewhere between the usual gender roles—are softening the boundaries of gender and demonstrating what life without binary gender might look like.

"What we can all learn from our trans friends is that gender is malleable."

If you think this doesn't apply to you, that you are certain of your gender and that it's immutable, please consider that a great many people are born with characteristics of both genders: depending on whose definition you use, anywhere from two to seventeen babies out of a thousand are born with chromosomes and/or genitalia that place them somewhere between the extremes of the gender continuum. These conditions are collectively called **intersex**. Intersex support organizations have arisen with the goals of preventing surgeries on infants to make sure they conform to some gender or other, condemning them to a long series of surgeries and hormone treatments. It appears that Mother (Father?) Nature doesn't believe in only two genders and neither do your authors.

Moreover, a great many people whose genitals and chromosomes are all lined up with biological norms nonetheless feel strongly that they would live more happily and appropriately when presenting as a different gender than the one the doctor assigned to them at birth; you may have such people among your friends and family without knowing it, unless they choose to tell you.

Trans folks can tell us a lot about how differently other people treat you when they see you as a man or as a woman. Perforce, they become experts at living in a very hostile world. It takes a strong-minded person to stand up to our culture's rigidity about "real men" and "real women." No other sexual minority is more likely to suffer direct physical oppression in the form of queer-bashing. It was mostly genderqueer people—butch women and drag queens—who rebelled against police brutality in the famous Stonewall riots of 1969 that initiated the gay liberation movement.

Since our last edition, there has been a lot of media coverage of transgender people and enormous progress in acceptance of gender variance. Important transgender legal rights are increasingly considered human rights. With the support of mainstream pediatricians, in many places, children are allowed to attend school in the gender they feel themselves to be. Famous people may transition publicly, and a rich library of films and television shows are presenting fascinating stories about lives that transcend gender. Trans people can teach us a lot about the determination to be free.

TANTRA AND SPIRITUAL SEX PRACTITIONERS

Celibacy is not the only sexual practice of the spiritually inclined. Early examples of religious communities based on nonmonogamy included the Mormon Church, the Oneida community (see sidebar), the practices of _maithuna_ in tantric yoga, and the temple whores of the early Mediterranean goddess worshipers. Tantra as we know it today is actually a Westernized form of classical tantric practice, which uses breath, eye contact, and physical movement to attain altered states of high erotic consciousness; it is taught in workshops in most major cities and in many excellent books and videos. Other classical spiritual/sexual traditions have been updated for Western consumption in practices like Healing Tao and Quodoushka. Pagans and Radical Faeries come together for festivals and gatherings to celebrate ancient sexual rites such as Beltane, or to make up their own rituals that are appropriate to current lifestyles, like the open sexuality of Faerie gatherings or the more subtle eroticism of sacred dance and drumming.

These practitioners understand that sex is connected to the spiritual. As we said in _The New Bottoming Book_ , "Every orgasm is a spiritual experience. Think of a moment of perfect wholeness, of yourself in perfect unity, of expanded awareness that transcends the split between mind and body and integrates all the parts of you in ecstatic consciousness….When you bring spiritual awareness to your sexual practice, you can become directly conscious of—connected to—that divinity that always flows through you….For us, sex is already an opportunity to see God."

KINK, LEATHER, AND BDSM

Many cultural anthropologists believe that contemporary leather culture got its start in the wake of World War II, brought home by soldiers who came back from war with a taste for power and authority exerted by and for men. We note, however, that many forms of kinky play predate this phenomenon by centuries or even millennia: the Greek philosopher Aristotle is known to have enjoyed being ridden like a pony by his female acquaintances, and sexual bondage is the subject of Japanese art dating back to the seventeenth century.

Today's kinksters offer tremendous knowledge of how eroticism can be awakened with or without going for the genital, as well as ways to play with the outward appearance of inequality while staying well within the boundaries of negotiated consent. Polyamory and open relationships are very common in most kink communities, as the chances are slim of finding one partner who is open to all your fantasies and whose company you can tolerate on an ongoing basis. Both of your authors learned many of their sexual values and behaviors within the kink/leather/BDSM communities.

SEX WORKERS

Despite what you might have learned from the TV or the tabloids, sex workers really are not all desperate drug addicts, debased victims, or predatory gold diggers. Many healthy and happy people work in the sex industry, doing essential and positive work healing the wounds inflicted by our sex-negative culture. We know them as friends, lovers, colleagues, writers, therapists, and educators, as well as performers and artists. These folks have a great deal to teach us about boundaries, limit setting, communication, sexual negotiation, and ways to achieve growth, connection, and fulfillment outside a traditional monogamous relationship.

Sex workers may be people who exchange genital sex for money, but professional dominants, porn performers, erotic dancers, phone sex and webcam providers, sacred intimates, sexual surrogates, and many other erotic professionals are also considered sex workers. Do not imagine that connections between sex workers and clients are necessarily cold, impersonal, or degrading, or that only losers frequent these businesses. Many client/sex worker relationships become a source of tremendous connection, warmth, and affection for both parties and last many years.

CULTURAL DIVERSITY

While we are looking at sexual diversity, let's remember that we live in a multicultural society and that every culture in our world, every subculture, every ethnic culture, has its own ways of creating relationship, connecting in sex, and building families. All are valid and valuable.

One of the great joys of living as a slut is the opportunity to make intimate connections with people whose background is unlike your own. When you do that, you will find yourself tripping, with some embarrassment, over a lot of differences. This process can feel awkward, but every time it happens, you've learned something new about how people go about being human—perhaps just the thing that was lacking in your own culture.

It's also worth remembering that many people, particularly those whose differences are visible, feel safest in the communities they grew up in and may be taking considerable risk by coming into a less diverse sexual environment. If becoming an out-of-the-closet slut would shock your community of origin, you might wind up sacrificing the safety and acceptance of home to join a community where most people don't look like you.

Boundaries in communication, connection, and relationship vary from culture to culture. Personal distance differs enormously—they say you can recognize the European Americans at a Latin American cocktail party; they're the ones who are backing away from everyone who wants to talk to them because the Latin Americans keep stepping too close. Volume varies too: some cultures value being subdued and quiet, while others are dramatically expressive and, well, loud.

We recommend that you look for these differences and question your judgments. Is that person who seems too loud actually able to be more expressive than you? Does that quiet person notice more? What's the intelligence of a person who hasn't read a lot of books but understands how your car or your computer works? Who are these friendly people who make sexual propositions openly and enthusiastically and get really confused when you accuse them of coming on too strong? Maybe they're counting on you to say no if you don't want to. Maybe they have some ways of making connection that you could learn from.

"We recommend that when you are in the company of the unfamiliar, you look for unfamiliar wisdom."

It is tragic that so many of our sexual communities fail to welcome people from the whole world of cultures, races, genders, orientations, and sexualities. Those of us who grew up in a European-descended culture too often expect our friends to deal with cultural differences by conforming to us. When you look at the people around you and dismiss them—or, worse yet, assume you know all there is to know about them—because of their skin color, gender, orientation, way of speaking, mode of dress, religion, or country of origin, you'll never get to hear any of the new and fascinating things those people might have to say.

We recommend that when you are in the company of the unfamiliar, you look for unfamiliar wisdom. You'll find lots of it, and it will make you richer.

What Can You Learn?

If thinking about all this makes you kind of nervous, what you are experiencing is how threatening it feels when the customary boundaries you take for granted, and believe apply to all social and sexual situations, may no longer apply in some environs. There are no universally accepted boundaries of gender or attraction among consenting adults, and the limits of sexual exploration are not handed down on stone tablets by some higher authority.

When you look at people who meet your standards of happiness and success without buying into the world's standards of lifetime heterosexual monogamous pair-bonding, you begin to see how such things can be possible for you, too—even if these people aren't doing it the same way you want to. Recognizing other sexual cultures offers an opportunity to become aware of your own preconceptions and uncertainties.

Listen to your fears: they have a lot to teach you about yourself. Not knowing what's what can feel scary—but think of it as a chance to scrap all your preconceptions and start from scratch. It's only by recognizing all the possibilities out there that you can choose the ones that work for you. Then you can be free to figure out where you want the boundaries in your life, what your personal limits are, and whether you ever want to expand those limits. Accomplishing this amazing task will set you free to explore beyond your wildest dreams.

"Listen to your fears: they have a lot to teach you about yourself."

Black and Poly

Here are some thoughts about poly and the way it plays out in Black communities—from our friends Ron and Lisa Young, cofounders of the international support group Black & Poly (blackandpoly.org), who have graciously allowed us to use this excerpt from their upcoming book, _Love: A Black Love Revolution_.

"Many of us are not just looking for that 'extra someone' for casual sex and occasional affection; we may see the freedom and openness of poly as key to our survival. For many people of color, though, surface-level connection is easy, yet complex bonding and romantic love is a motherfucker. Here's why.

"Imagine trying to love someone when everything around you is set up to systematically pull you apart. For Blacks, first there was slavery, then Jim Crow, then the welfare system, and now mass incarceration—we haven't had time to concentrate on love. We haven't had time to comfortably settle into each other. Sure, we have love, family, and community within our homes, but moving those feelings out into the world can be a very big problem.

"We've been taught that in order to get by in this world, we need to be strong…but that doesn't work in terms of dealing with each other. Our culture has asked us to maintain strong boundaries that protect us from harm: from being broken down, taken advantage of, robbed of basic human necessities, and stripped of our dignity. This fear often leads us to reject anything that places us in vulnerable positions, redirecting our attention away from the fact that only through vulnerability can we find true strength, growth, beauty, and most of all love.

"As Blacks, we were sent here as objects. Through polyamory, we receive the unique and joyous opportunity to define ourselves. We don't want to be your 'Mandingo Warriors' or 'Nubian Princesses,' or just to attend your play parties. We want to be respected as equals when it comes to building something real, polyamorous, and tangible. We see the love that is abundant within the community, and sometimes we feel that love reaching out to include us.

"But there's a still a huge divide between us and the white poly communities. How will we bridge the gap?"


Input:
  1. Q: What are some ways that people try to stop others from being sexual?
A: Some people try to outlaw birth control and abortion, leading to unwanted pregnancies and back-alley abortions. Others would outlaw access to sex information, so that people cannot learn to care for their health and well-being and have no access to safer-sex training. In some places, a vaccine that helps prevent cervical cancer in women is being met with resistance from puritans who believe that inoculating a young woman against cancer somehow encourages her to have sex. People who take medications that can protect them from contracting the HIV virus are called "sluts" and "whores."
2. Q: How do some people justify violence against sluts?
A: Some people believe that being a slut makes you fair game for violence. They might demand to know why you were walking down that street at night in a short dress or tight pants, or proclaim that no wonder you got raped or assaulted. Sluts are considered fair game for other forms of oppression, too. Multiple sexual partners can be seen as a good reason to take all your property, your children, and your future income in a punitive divorce settlement. You could lose your job or your promise for advancement or your professional reputation if the wrong people find out about your personal life.
3. Q: What are some internal and external forms of oppression that sluts face?
A: Internalized oppression is when we judge ourselves by cultural values imposed from the outside. For example, when women believe they ought to be small and quiet, when gay people believe that their sexual choice is a neurosis, or when we all believe we would be better people if we were able to be monogamous. Horizontal hostility is when we apply these unfair judgments to other people who are like us, when we see our friends as too slutty or too free.
4. Q: What are some consequences of being unconventional in a sex-negative world?
A: Those of us who choose to run our lives and loves in an unconventional manner should be prepared for the fact that many parts of the world will not welcome us with open arms. For many people, sluthood is their first experience with being in the closet, and they learn firsthand what their queer friends have known for quite a while. Ex-spouses, parents, in-laws, and others who don't share your values about the potential for inclusive relationships may be hostile. Your friendly neighborhood pastor may not be sympathetic, either. Bringing both your partners to the company picnic is not necessarily a good way to ensure your continued ascent through the corporate hierarchy.
5. Q: What legal protections do sluts have?
A: You still can't legally marry more than one person at the same time. If you and your partner(s) are living in a marriage-like structure, with the expectation of sharing property, providing for one another in the event of illness or death, raising children, or running a business together, we strongly recommend official legal documentation of your status and intentions. You do not legally own your children, and the legal agreements you can make about them are limited by that fact. In some cases, a nonbiological parent can adopt a lover's children as a stepparent. Some states and municipalities are not supportive of second-parent or stepparent adoption. We encourage you to write out your plans and your agreements, especially your lifestyle choices, and have your signatures notarized. Such affidavits may not be enforceable in most states, but in the event of later disagreements, they may serve as evidence of everyone's intentions on forming a family or a relationship, and they make it clear what you have signed up to do. Writing out your vision of the family you are building together is a valuable and affirming act in its own right.
6. Q: What is the legal status of sex work?
A: What would the world be like if sex work were legal? If sex work were out in the open, and sex workers could be judged like any other workers—by their skill, their respect for their clients, and how well they manage their responsibilities? Imagine if sex work were treated as a profession like therapy: a client making a contract with a provider. If the customer liked the work they received, they'd keep coming back; if not, they'd move on and try someone else. Brothels could be like clinics, new sex workers could learn from more experienced practitioners, lower-fee services could be provided

Response:
# 5

# BATTLING SEX NEGATIVITY

From the slut's point of view, the world is sometimes a dangerous place. Lots of people seem to think it is okay to go to any lengths to stop us from being sexual.

Some antisex crusaders try to make loving dangerous for women by outlawing birth control and abortion, leading to unwanted pregnancies and back-alley abortions. Others would outlaw access to sex information, in schools or on the Internet, so that our children cannot learn to care for their health and well-being and have no access to safer-sex training that would teach them how to avoid spreading diseases. In an appalling development since the previous edition of this book, a vaccine that helps prevent cervical cancer in women is being met with resistance from puritans who believe that inoculating a young woman against cancer somehow encourages her to have sex. People who take medications that can protect them from contracting the HIV virus are called "sluts" and "whores" (presumably not the good kind).

Some people believe that being a slut makes you fair game for violence, that it must somehow be the victim's fault. They might demand, "Why were you walking down that street at night in a short dress or tight pants?" or proclaim, "No wonder you got raped or assaulted" or "You look so queer—no wonder that gang decided to beat you up."

We are considered fair game for other forms of oppression, too. Multiple sexual partners can be seen as a good reason to take all your property, your children, and your future income in a punitive divorce settlement. You could lose your job or your promise for advancement or your professional reputation if the wrong people find out about your personal life.

"Some people believe that being a slut makes you fair game for violence."

Judging Ourselves

We hope this examination of the dangers of sluttery will lead you to ask yourself some questions. What is my experience of oppression and how does it affect me? Who do I have to lie to in my life? What are my closets? As you look deeper, you might ask yourself, "What assumptions have I made about how my sexuality should be? Do I hold judgments about what 'good' and 'nice' people do that I wind up turning against myself?"

When we judge ourselves by cultural values imposed from the outside, when women believe they ought to be small and quiet, when gay people believe that their sexual choice is a neurosis, or when we all believe we would be better people if we were able to be monogamous, this is internalized oppression. When we apply these unfair judgments to other people who are like us, when we see our friends as _too_ slutty or _too_ free, this is called horizontal hostility. We suggest you look through chapter 2, "Myths and Realities," as a checklist to see where the beliefs that you learned in our sex-negative culture might be getting in your way.

It's a Harsh World Out There

Those of us who choose to run our lives and loves in an unconventional manner should probably be prepared for the fact that many parts of the world will not welcome us with open arms. For many people, sluthood is their first experience with being in the closet, and they learn firsthand what their queer friends have known for quite a while.

While there are certainly ways to protect yourself against some social, logistical, and financial consequences, we can't guarantee that there will never _be_ consequences. It's not easy being easy.

Ex-spouses, parents, in-laws, and others who don't share your values about the potential for inclusive relationships may be hostile. Your friendly neighborhood pastor may not be sympathetic, either. Bringing both your partners to the company picnic is not necessarily a good way to ensure your continued ascent through the corporate hierarchy. We recommend caution in choosing who to come out to: yes, we know you're blissfully happy and want to share your joy with the world, but remember, you can't un-tell. We know people who have lost jobs, child custody, and more because the wrong people have become aware of their sexual choices. In some places outside the United States, the consequences of unconventional sexual choices are far more dire, up to and including the death penalty.

But even here, some states and cities have laws that forbid multiple adults to live together if they're not related by blood or marriage. In others, landlords are reluctant to rent to groups that don't conform to the traditional family structure. Some leases contain clauses that allow landlords to terminate rental agreements on the basis of "immoral behavior" or "association with undesirable people"—which in some states includes nonmarital sex.

Similarly, your personal love and sex arrangements are best kept out of the workplace: both of us have lost jobs and clients for being who we are. While some cities and states offer some protection to people who are gay, lesbian, or transgender, we are not aware of any that guarantee equal rights for sluts.

We urge those who can be out and proud to do so because it's harder for the world to hate sluts when it can see lots of us living happy lives that do no harm to anyone. However, unless you are absolutely certain that your workplace and important relationships are slut-positive, we recommend caution.

Legal Agreements

> With thanks to Dylan Miles, Esq., for consulting on legal aspects, and for being available to our communities as a knowledgeable and open-minded family lawyer.

Much progress has been made in recent years in establishing and affirming the legal rights of sexual minorities, including the Supreme Court's historic decision to legalize same-sex marriage throughout all the states. Several states have made provisions for children who are growing up with more than two parents, which protects many youngsters from foster care when a person who has functioned as a parent to a child can assume custody if needed; it also allows nonbiological parents to sign up for all the rights and responsibilities of parenting. When any of our allies in thinking outside the box wins any battle in human rights, we all benefit.

You still can't legally marry more than one person at the same time. If you and your partner(s) are living in a somewhat marriage-like structure, with the expectation of sharing property, providing for one another in the event of illness or death, raising children, or running a business together, we strongly recommend official legal documentation of your status and intentions. Terrifying stories of lover kept from lover when one of them is hospitalized, a longtime partner left penniless and homeless after someone's unexpected death, individuals who have been parents in all ways but blood losing an orphaned child to a partner's parents or ex-spouse, and so on, should be enough to convince you that it's time to get official about all this.

You do not legally own your children, and the legal agreements you can make about them are limited by that fact. You can use your will to express your desires about who will care for your children after your death, but the court may not be obliged to follow your wishes. In some cases, a nonbiological parent can adopt a lover's children as a stepparent. Some states and municipalities are not supportive of second-parent or stepparent adoption, meaning if you are a child's third parent at that child's birth, you have fewer rights than any parent from a second, third, or fifteenth marriage.

We encourage you to write out your plans and your agreements, especially your lifestyle choices, and have your signatures notarized. Such affidavits may not be enforceable in most states, but in the event of later disagreements, they may serve as evidence of everyone's intentions on forming a family or a relationship, and they make it clear what you have signed up to do. Writing out your vision of the family you are building together is a valuable and affirming act in its own right.

Don't forget to make and keep current your durable powers of attorney for finances and health care and your wills. These are legal documents, and while the law will not support everything an eager slut might want to do with their money and property, your chances of having your desires upheld by the law will be greatly improved if you express them in a formal and legal manner.

We recommend checking out a publishing company called Nolo Press, which puts out carefully researched do-it-yourself legal books on aspects of family and business law, including sample forms and step-by-step instructions. However, if your agreements are particularly complicated, or if things of substantial value (such as a lot of money or a successful business) are involved, you may want to go beyond the do-it-yourself level and contact an attorney. If you have that kind of money, you probably know more about this than we do. Do try to find an attorney who is open to nontraditional relationships; you can ask that in a question or two over the telephone, so you don't have to pay good money to find out that your lawyer thinks you're the Whore of Babylon.

We have neither the space nor the expertise to tell you all the ways that people with nontraditional sexualities can go about setting up their lives—options range all the way from adopting your partner to setting up a business trust and beyond. But please, don't assume that your good intentions, heartfelt love, and general wonderfulness will protect you. Sluts don't have that luxury. Do your homework and get the law on your side.

"Don't assume that your good intentions, heartfelt love, and general wonderfulness will protect you."

The Oldest Profession

What would the world be like if sex work were legal? If sex work were out in the open, and sex workers could be judged like any other workers—by their skill, their respect for their clients, and how well they manage their responsibilities?

Imagine if sex work were treated as a profession like therapy: a client making a contract with a provider. If the customer liked the work they received, they'd keep coming back; if not, they'd move on and try someone else. Brothels could be like clinics, new sex workers could learn from more experienced practitioners, lower-fee services could be provided by interns being supervised and taught by more experienced practitioners.

If sex work were legal, a worker being exploited by a pimp or trafficker could leave, report abuses and file charges, even unionize—just like any other worker. If we stopped clogging our legal system with consenting adults engaging in professional sex, perhaps our police would have more time and resources to end legitimate sexual crimes like rape, abuse, sex slavery, and child prostitution.

If sex work were legal, sex workers would be free to require whatever levels of safer sex seem appropriate to them—sex workers are often world-class experts at ways to spend hours in sublime pleasure and still refrain from passing around harmful viruses—and to seek out testing and treatment to avoid passing on any bugs.

Legal sex work would enable partnerships, too often driven apart by the pressure of a long-term relationship where passion has ebbed, to rekindle sexual heat by seeking the services of a skilled heat-kindler. Therapists could refer clients to such practitioners for embodied explorations of their deepest dreams and oldest fears, just as they might to any other professional. Dossie has worked with clients whose spouses bought them a session with a professional dominatrix for their birthday.

Many sex professionals have worked hard to acquire skills that most of us don't even know are possible: freedom of choice about our physical responses, timing of orgasms, ease of erection, G-spot fountains, the amazing possibilities of all the muscles in the pelvic area to bring pleasure in so many ways. Sexual healers could help free us from the terrors and inhibitions learned in a sex-negative society and show us what amazing sexual geniuses we all might be. Healing shame, healing trauma, the amazingness of sex beyond violation, the power of our fantasies…so much is there for us to learn and grow. Sex can be a powerful journey into healing and general goodness, and there are professionals who can teach us how.

Some people believe that sex for money is dirty. Our sex-worker friends prove otherwise, over and over again. We pay our ministers, priests, rabbis, imams, and gurus, so why should we not pay our sex priests? Our spiritual and sexual healers and guides deserve to make a living for the valuable work they do.

Right now, some kinds of sex-for-hire are legal in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand. We note that all these countries seem to be managing just fine with letting talented and devoted professionals make their living doing what they do best, for the betterment of their clients and the greater society.


Input:
1. Q: What are some challenges in building a culture of consent?
A: People around the world are gaining awareness of the enormous prevalence of sexual assault and smaller sexual aggressions. But bringing into consciousness something that we have avoided thinking about usually requires some thrashing around. When we claim our sexual freedom and start building communities wherein we can express ourselves in a sex-positive way, we immediately bump up against the truth that we are living in a society that holds some insane values about sex and consent.
2. Q: What are some statistics on sexual assault?
A: In a lecture on consent, Dossie asked those who had never been sexually assaulted to stand up. Only about a quarter stood up, mostly men, some women. There were many men as well as women among those still sitting.
3. Q: What are some conditions necessary for a sex-positive culture?
A: All our wonderful sexual freedom is dependent on two very important conditions: freedom from sexism and freedom from rape. These changes must take place at both the individual and community levels.
4. Q: What are some examples of major violations in a sex-positive culture?
A: Major violations include drugging someone and then raping them, violent rape, child molestation, and any intentional violation of another person's stated limits.
5. Q: What are some examples of minor violations in a sex-positive culture?
A: Verbal offenses—pushy come-ons, arguing with someone who has said "No, thank you," or objectifying or belittling people—may cause less harm than physical offenses but can still create an atmosphere of danger in our communities. Edging over people's limits, or trying things that have not been explicitly agreed upon, can tear apart relationships and have a ripple effect that occasionally destroys the communities in which those relationships are grounded.
6. Q: What are some strategies that don't work in dealing with violations in a sex-positive culture?
A: Pathologizing, splitting, truth seeking, and blaming are strategies that don't work in dealing with violations in a sex-positive culture. Pathologizing refers to turning a response or reaction into a disease, as if labeling it were a sort of antibiotic. Splitting is a psychological defense in which a person tries to feel safe by presuming that the good guys are all good—so if any part of some person is not good, then that person must be all bad and needs to be permanently exiled, with no accommodation for change or growth. Truth seeking is an attempt to determine who is at fault, while blaming is an attempt to minimize one's own involvement and blame someone else.
7. Q: What are some strategies that do work in dealing with violations in a sex-positive culture?
A: Conflict resolution strategies, such as teaching emotional intelligence and restorative justice in schools, can be helpful in dealing with violations in a sex-positive culture. Students in these programs are being trained to be peer counselors and peacekeepers, to intervene in conflicts that might become violent or otherwise destructive. Resources to support change happen all over the world, and we need to adapt them to our sex-positive communities: nonviolent communication workshops, anger management classes, conflict resolution classes, self-defense classes where you can practice clarifying your "no," support groups for offenders and survivors, and more.
8. Q: What is clean love?
A: Clean love is love without jealousy, without possessiveness—love washed clean of all its clinginess and desperation. It is love without attachment, to open our hearts to someone with no expectations, 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 someone 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.

Response:
# 6

# BUILDING A CULTURE OF CONSENT

People around the world are gaining awareness of the enormous prevalence of sexual assault and smaller sexual aggressions. But bringing into consciousness something that we have avoided thinking about usually requires some thrashing around. When we claim our sexual freedom and start building communities wherein we can express ourselves in a sex-positive way, we immediately bump up against the truth that we are living in a society that holds some insane values about sex and consent. When it is not safe, accepted, or welcomed to say, "No thank you" to sex, building a sex-positive culture can become impossible.

Dossie, giving a lecture on consent to about two hundred people, asked those who had never been sexually assaulted to stand up. Only about a quarter stood up, mostly men, some women. There were many men as well as women among those still sitting. That large number of people who remained sitting—let's admire their courage and determination to free themselves and their sexuality, even though someone hurt them.

All our wonderful sexual freedom is dependent on two very important conditions: freedom from sexism and freedom from rape. These changes must take place at both the individual and community levels. Prosecuting rape and child molestation is quite difficult, so our communities need to work for our own safety. We can seldom send offenders to jail, but we can uninvite them from our parties, and remove them from the other environments that we control, both online and in the physical world.

Major violations include drugging someone and then raping them, violent rape, child molestation, and any intentional violation of another person's stated limits. These are all very serious crimes, even if they are often hard to prosecute. Other violations require some discussion, sometimes because the accused doesn't feel that they've done anything wrong. Verbal offenses—pushy come-ons, arguing with someone who has said "No, thank you," or objectifying or belittling people—may cause less harm than physical offenses but can still create an atmosphere of danger in our communities. Edging over people's limits, or trying things that have not been explicitly agreed upon, can tear apart relationships and have a ripple effect that occasionally destroys the communities in which those relationships are grounded.

Much of this conflict is the consequence of our absurd cultural insistence that in sex, men should be the initiators and women the withholders. Thus, some people learn that they are supposed to be pushy and others that saying anything but no is, well, slutty. This pattern leads to "no" being heard as an invitation to push harder, with predictably disastrous results. Freeing your sexuality requires that you look at these cultural beliefs about what it means to be a person of your gender, and perhaps make some changes—unless you want to spend the rest of your life living down to your gender stereotype. How would we propose that people of all genders learn better behavior? We wish we could say that there's a handy twelve-step group around the corner for this sort of thing, or a class we could take, but at this writing, these resources are pretty rare. Some community members are stepping up to the plate to do this sort of work. We'd love to see more.

"Freeing your sexuality requires that you look at cultural beliefs about what it means to be a person of your gender."

For Trauma Survivors

Way too many people of all genders, ages, and cultures have experienced sexual trauma. Sexual assault, outright rape, child sexual abuse, sometimes even medical trauma, can leave us with major challenges to enjoying our sex lives—including flashbacks, disassociation, post-traumatic stress disorder, and just plain fearfulness.

People who have survived trauma, especially as children, have particular vulnerabilities and may feel unsafe or violated more easily than most. A trigger response may have been learned, and an individual may be responding to a relatively modest offense as if it were the terrible thing that may have happened in the past, or as if they were still the child that they were when they were abused. The fear may appear unrealistic or disproportionate to outsiders, but that's not the point—the fear itself is real, usually doesn't feel sexy at all, and may leave the person so panicky that discussion, or even hearing an apology, may be impossible at that time.

Don't give up! Your therapist author Dossie specializes in healing old wounds for trauma survivors and is happy to announce that many people find ways to deal with their history of violation, take care of themselves when painful memories show up, succeed in reclaiming ownership of their bodies, and enjoy a free and happy sexuality.

Sometimes all it takes is a little collaboration about safety, establishing clear agreements about boundaries, creating safe space, and being supportive and understanding. Survivors and partners alike need to be willing to deal with the interruption if a person needs to stop and recover from a bad memory, even if that happens in the middle of sex. We hope you will be patient with yourself if this is your situation, because being kind to yourself and your partners can become the practice that heals you.

The information about taking care of yourself around triggers that you'll read in chapter 15, "Roadmaps through Jealousy," is also applicable when you decide to deal with other emotional landmines. If you have a partner who is struggling with reclaiming their sexuality from an ugly history of violence, we hope that you will choose to become an ally in that struggle and find the patience to support the work that needs to be done to claim a joyous sexuality. Check Further Reading for some good resources about healing sexual trauma.

For Those Who Have Been Accused

If you've done something that has left a partner feeling traumatized, you have a different problem. Our natural tendency when we are accused of doing something wrong is to get very defensive and really want to tell our side of the story. But if the people who used to like you well enough to have sex with you are now angry with you and clamoring for your hide, you might want to look around and see if there's anything you'd like to change in your behavior.

You may have been taught that "getting laid" is about getting away with something. From that point of view, having an active sexual life may look like consumerism: how much can you acquire, with how little effort? Does that mean that your lover, or potential lover, is a commodity? Having learned this doesn't necessarily make you a problem, but acting on it certainly will.

How would you go about making changes in yourself? And later, how will you let people know that you have done some work on yourself and it's now safe to welcome you back?

If you are in this situation, please remember to retain your sense of yourself as a whole person. Behavior that may have frightened or hurt another is a part of you, and you have many parts. Take a little time to reflect on your own strengths and sense of ethics. How do you want to use your strength? What can you do that is in line with your ethics?

For Everyone

Here are some strategies that we know _don't_ work:

_Pathologizing_. This refers to turning a response or reaction into a disease, as if labeling it were a sort of antibiotic. Is this person a predator, a sociopath, a victim of Stockholm syndrome, a victim of the patriarchy? (Pretty much all of us act like all of these on occasion.) Are we rape apologists if we don't immediately ostracize the offender? When we define a problem as a disease, we often act as if a diagnosis were a solution: paste on a label and then end the discussion as if we've accomplished something. But then nothing ever changes.

_Splitting_. This is a psychological defense in which a person tries to feel safe by presuming that the good guys are all good—so if any part of some person is not good, then that person must be all bad and needs to be permanently exiled, with no accommodation for change or growth. Splitting can divide whole communities, with everyone choosing up sides rather than asking what they might do to make things better.

_Truth seeking_. In many of these problems, there is one person saying "So-and-so did me wrong, hurt me, caused me pain or damage," and the other is insisting that the person who is upset with them is making it up, getting revenge, or really wanted it. So who do we believe? It is going to take courage to try and find solutions when we can't determine the absolute truth of the problem. We must understand that we are a community, not a criminal justice system, and our actions need to be about whatever we can do at this time, with the resources we have today, to make this situation a little better.

_Blaming_. Whose fault is this? Who did what to who first? Very few of us actually blame ourselves: we all have ways of rationalizing and reasons why our behavior is justifiable. But when we try to feel safe by minimizing our own involvement and blaming someone else, then we disempower ourselves. We give the "other" all the power by saying that only they can make things better. Many people, acutely uncomfortable at hearing about how a person has been violated, distance themselves by finding some reason to blame the victim: looking too sexy, drinking too much, what did you expect if you want a kind of sex that's more extreme than most? And just to make things more confusing, what feels like violation to one person might be easy for another, and a third may see it as play and delight in it.

But there are a number of conflict resolution strategies that we find helpful to draw on. A marvelous body of wisdom is emerging from efforts to teach emotional intelligence and restorative justice in some American high schools and middle schools. Students in these programs are being trained to be peer counselors and peacekeepers, to intervene in conflicts that might become violent or otherwise destructive. Many studies have measured very positive results, even in "difficult" schools, as a result of these trainings, both in reduction of fights and suspensions and in increases in the percentage of students who graduate.

Some schools now have a quiet room where kids who were causing trouble can sit at a desk to write down their answers to questions like these: "What happened?" "What was my part in it?" "What can I do to make it better?" "What can I do to make it less likely to happen again?" Perhaps when there is an issue about sexual boundaries, we can ask ourselves these same questions—"victim" and "villain" alike—and see whether that leads to a more productive dialogue.

Back in the protest era of the 1960s, we used to say, "When you don't want to be part of the problem, you need to become part of the solution." Resources to support change happen all over the world, and we need to adapt them to our sex-positive communities: nonviolent communication workshops, anger management classes, conflict resolution classes, self-defense classes where you can practice clarifying your "no," support groups for offenders and survivors, and more.

We approve of communities that offer new members information on ethics and boundaries in their community, and we also know that rules alone will never be enough. We need to be willing to enter into an ongoing process that addresses these issues and supports change and healing and growth, each of us contributing what we can and expecting to continue indefinitely in the process of navigating consent and boundaries. We do have a right to insist that people prone to bullying, limit pushing, and other problematic behaviors go learn what they need to learn—take a workshop or a class, join a group working on changing compulsive or antisocial behaviors, get a therapist, get sober—before they can earn their way back into our communities.

We can't prevent every problem, but we can create a sex-positive culture that deals proactively and constructively with the problems we face rather than sweeping them under the rug out of shame.

Clean Love

Can you imagine love without jealousy, without possessiveness—love washed clean 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, to open our hearts to someone with no expectations, 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 someone 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 walk away a little wiser.

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.

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 is 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 wonderful person who is standing right in front of you.