The Ethical Slut (12 page)

People who refuse to learn to use barriers that get between people and viruses are not ethical sluts. Arguing with lovers about allowing potentially infectious sex, insisting on sex without barriers, or attempting to sneak around a lover’s limits about safer sex is, quite simply, playing dirty. Refusing to deal with the realities of viruses and bacteria because of embarrassment is unethical: a good slut speaks the truth even if blushing furiously.

Ethical sluts do not make promises they can’t keep. If you are attracted to someone who is looking for a life partnership and what you want is a lighthearted affair (or vice versa), you need to be honest about that,
even if that means saying “no, thank you” to sex until your feelings for each other are more on a par. Mistakes can easily be made. Dossie made such a mistake when she was very young and stupid:

An older and wiser Dossie has since discovered a couple of limits of her own: she does not share sex with anyone that she’s not at least potentially interested in sharing sex with again, and anything worth doing is worth waiting for till the time is right. While we all make mistakes, the hallmark of a skillful slut is to learn from them and keep going.

Which brings us to revenge fucking. It is truly nasty to arrange to have sex with one person to get back at another. To arouse one person’s insecurities, jealousy, and other painful feelings on purpose is dishonorable, and to use another person as a puppet in your play is disrespectful and most often downright abusive. In psychopathology, “antisocial” is defined as behaving with flagrant disregard for the rights, and we would add feelings, of others. We prefer to relate to sociable people.

What do you do when someone in your intimate circle is not playing honestly? It helps if the people in your extended family have ways to talk about what is going on, to share experiences and feelings. If everyone is too ashamed to admit to having been misused by someone with an
untrustworthy hidden agenda, then no one will have the information they need to protect themselves. There is no shame in having believed someone’s lies, and most of us at some time or other have given our trust to someone who turned out not to be worthy of it. It is possible to fool an honest person, but we hope you have enough humility to learn from your mistakes and not get fooled twice.

All these difficult scripts are about somebody not being honest and are also about somebody having sex while avoiding intimacy and emotional connection. When you are not telling the truth you cannot be present, and when you are not present you can’t be connected to anyone else, and when you are not connected how can you feel anything at all?

By treating lovers as people, and letting relationships take the shapes they want instead of the forms forced on them by the culture around them, ethical sluts can form friendships that last as sex waxes and wanes.

FLIRTING AND CRUISING are fine arts, and skills that you can learn even though few people develop them overnight.

Is there a difference between flirting and cruising? Some people think of “flirting” as what you do in environments that are not erotically oriented, and “cruising” as what you do in clubs, conferences, bars, and other places where people often seek sex partners. Or you might see flirting as a more introductory maneuver and cruising as what you do when you know for sure that you’re interested. Both involve an exchange of sexual energy in the form of eye contact, body language, smiles and warmth, and little flashes of erotic energy that can be shared long before any physical contact would be appropriate.

Sex roles can complicate both flirting and cruising. Men in this culture are taught to push, to insist, never to take “no” for an answer; women are taught to be coy, to refuse, never to offer an outright “yes.” The more polarized we get in this silly equation, the further we push one another away—with results that range from hurt feelings to date rape.

The good news, though, is that both sets of behaviors can be unlearned and that the more we unlearn them, the less there is to unlearn. When all genders feel free to answer “yes” or “no” with no
concern for anything but their own desires, a truer understanding and a more positive sexuality become possible.

Dossie tells the story of a woman friend of hers back in the 1970s who decided to experiment with what was supposed to be every man’s fantasy. She sat patiently in a singles bar one night, being approached by many men, until one to whom she felt attracted came along and began to flirt. He asked if he could buy her a drink, and she asked him nicely if he would like to come back to her place and fuck. He swallowed his ice. It took the poor fellow a couple of minutes before he could talk coherently again, and when they actually got to her place he found himself impotent. They did share some perfectly lovely massage.
That’s
how deeply ingrained some of these cultural stereotypes can be.

If you’re going to put yourself out there and make connection with fellow sluts, it is vital that you get good at saying two simple little one-syllable words: “yes” and “no.” For most of us, who have been taught that “yes, please” is overeager and “no, thanks” is rude, these simple words may be unexpectedly difficult.

Sexual sophisticates tend to give each other a lot of credit for knowing what they want. With this assumption, it becomes easier for your potential partners to make very direct proposals that might seem outrageous in any other context; that’s because they trust you to say “no” if you’re not interested. It is nobody’s task but your own to figure out what you want, and nobody can or should second-guess you. So you are going to have to learn to say “no,” and to say “no” easily enough that having to turn down a couple of unwelcome come-ons won’t ruin your evening.

Men as well as women have trouble with “no”—men are taught that they are always supposed to be eager for sex, so if someone comes on to a man when he is not ready, or not interested, it can feel unmanly and wrong to say “no.”

The trick to a comfortable “no” is to structure it in such a way that it’s about you, not about them. So instead of “With
you?
Are you out of your mind?” you’re saying “No, thanks, you seem nice but I’m not feeling much connection with you,” or “No, thanks, I’m not really looking for lovers right now,” or “No, thanks, I prefer to get to know
people a lot better before I do anything like that with them.” Important note: the “thanks” should be sincere. Being asked, even by someone you don’t find attractive, is a compliment and deserves a thank-you. If you think someone is ridiculous for finding you attractive, we worry about your self-esteem.

Women have been taught that it is unfeminine to say “no” directly. Ask yourself: when was the last time you said “no” to sex? How did you do it? Was it with a polite and friendly but unmistakable “no thanks”? Or was it with a sort of “Not tonight, I’ve got a headache” or “maybe another time” or “I’ll think about it” waffle? We strongly suggest you work out a “no thanks” that feels comfortable to you; expecting the interested party to read your mind and somehow know that your “maybe …” means “no” is neither ethical nor slutty.

Women also need to practice saying “yes.” Our cultural myth is that the man in a heterosexual interaction pleads with, or cons, or bullies the woman into saying “yes,” or at least refraining from saying “no,” and then does whatever he thinks is appropriate. Women need to equalize here, to do more of the choosing, to know what it is that you enjoy and to be able to say clearly what you want to whomever you find attractive. And if you are a man whose programming is more about what you think you are supposed to want than what you actually want, then you need to learn to say “yes” to your real desires when they appear on your doorstep.

Once you’ve gotten comfortable with “no,” “yes” is usually easier (and more fun). Try it, in all its variations: “Yes, please.” “Yes, when?” “Yes, but I have some limits I want to tell you about first.” “Yes, but I need you to talk to my partner first.” “Yes, but not tonight; how does next Tuesday look for you?” “Hell, yes!”

Everybody is born knowing how to flirt, and if you doubt it, watch the way a baby or toddler interacts with nearby adults: lots of eye contact, smiles, maybe a chortle of welcome and the offer of a beloved toy (which must, according to the rules, be promptly handed back after due admiration, just like adult toys).

Most of us, though, lose this precious ability by the time we’re grown-ups and need to learn it all again from scratch. Your authors believe that great flirting should be an end in itself rather than a means to an end. Practice flirting for fun, and maybe put aside, for the moment, any specific goals about getting laid. Focus on getting good connection. Watch the way many gay men flirt with straight women—friendly flattery, lighthearted innuendo, nonthreatening intimacy, all made possible by the realization that the interaction is intended simply for mutual pleasure, not in the hopes of a quick dash to the nearest bedroom.

We suggest, then, that you learn to flirt simply by practicing. The sort of behavior you may associate with the word “flirting” (“hey, baby, what’s your sign?”) is not the sort of thing we’re talking about here and is, in fact, its exact opposite. Great flirting is about
seeing;
hunger to be seen is a natural human emotion, and when you show people that you’re seeing them, it’s natural for them to start seeing you.

A lot of flirting is nonverbal. There’s a way of holding eye contact for just a moment longer than usual—more than a passing glance, less than an outright stare—that lets a person know that you find them worth looking at. Turn your body so that you’re facing the object of your interest, and stay physically open, arms and legs uncrossed. Smile.

If your flirting proceeds to words, we suggest a sincere, personal, but nonsexual compliment to start. Is the person at the dry cleaning counter wearing a new pair of glasses? Is the person next to you on the park bench leading a poodle that’s sporting a fresh haircut? Did you hear through the grapevine that your next-door neighbor just got a nice promotion at work? A sincere compliment on any of these is a way of saying, “I’m paying attention to you; you’re not just a face in the crowd to me.” This approach may not seem like flirting to you, but trust us, it’s a great first step. Commenting on physical appearance, particularly
in a sexual way (“hey, those pants make your ass look great!”) is
not
what we’re talking about here. Your goal is to make your friend feel fully seen, not reduced to an agglomeration of body parts.

Watch for feedback. If we were cruising you and you turned your face away from us, took a step back, or crossed your arms, we’d know you weren’t interested in connecting and we’d move on gracefully. We wouldn’t like it any better than anyone else does, but we’d do our best not to feel rejected—you don’t know us and don’t know what you’re missing out on. Besides, for all we know, you’re on the way to a date with someone you already know and are simply not available at that moment.

One of the most successful flirts we know says he has a never-fail opening line: “Hi, I’m Mike.” From there, he and the object of his attention can proceed wherever their interests take them: the weather or scenery, their work, their kids or pets, the sorry state of the world today, their favorite foods, whatever. This stage of flirting is exploration, getting to know this wonderful new person, discovering the ways in which you’re similar and the ways in which you’re different, seeing how you might connect. The sexy part of this is in the energy—the flash of a smile, a brightness in the eye. You usually can tell when you’re talking and when you’re flirting—it’s the energy.

We recognize that if you are shy, or have been taught that nice girls or boys don’t flirt, or are accustomed to a more predatory style of flirting, all this can be difficult to learn. We wish we had a magic flirting wand that we could wave at you, but since we don’t, you’re just going to have to practice. A willing friend, preferably of the gender (if not the orientation) that you normally flirt with, can be a help here: pretend that you’re meeting for the first time and try flirting. The friend can give you feedback about whether you’re coming on too weak or too strong and help you refine your skills. When you start enjoying flirting in and of itself, without thinking about where it might lead, you’ll know you’re on the right track.

Unless you’re doing your cruising in exclusively poly environments, it is reasonable to expect that the object of your attentions may not (yet) have read this book and may not be familiar with slutty lifestyles. At
some point, therefore, you are going to have to get it out there that monogamy is not on your personal menu of options.

We can’t tell you exactly when or how to do this, except that we vote for sooner rather than later. If both of you are just looking for a quick fling or a party scene, it may not be necessary to discuss such matters at all. However, if the fling leads to a second date, that may be the right time to let your new friend know that you’re not interested in going steady, now or ever.