The Ethical Slut (13 page)

Working this into a normal conversation about software or surfing can be a little tricky, we know. A quick reference to your partners, emphasis on the plural, often does the trick. Or you can start a discussion of relationships in general, in order to get space to express your own opinions and desires.

It may happen that the object of your attention is a devoted monogamist and that you nonetheless find this person extremely attractive. We have some words of advice for polyfolk who fall in love with monogamists in
chapter 18
, “Couples.”

If you’re standing in the corner of a roomful of people, feeling like you’re the only one there who isn’t part of a happy group and like you’re never going to be able to connect again for the rest of your life, we suggest finding someone else who’s standing in a corner, and starting a conversation. Janet’s favorite opening line for these situations is, “Hi, I don’t know a soul here, can I stand here and talk to you for a while?”

Beyond that simple opening, which gets easier with practice, cruising strategies depend a lot on your own gender and the gender(s) of the people you’re seeking.

Gay men have their own style of cruising, marked by a straightforward approach based on the understanding that most gay men are able to say “no, thank you” without much discomfort. Without the uncomfortable threat of physical overpowerment that pervades man-on-woman cruising, and free of any requirements beyond following their own desires, gay men often are able to cruise each other with greater reliance on body language and nonverbal cues than their het
brothers, confident, as we all should be, that if body language is not understood, they will use their words.

Het men have different challenges. Few women like to be pushed, overwhelmed, or not listened to in the arenas of sex and intimacy. Most women are particularly offended by men who push too hard for private get-togethers or phone numbers, who insistently move the conversation back to sexual topics when the woman has tried several times to change the subject, or who touch them, particularly in a sexual, paternalistic, or covert way, without permission. Sneaky come-ons are a pain; it works better to simply ask, and if you hear a “no,” don’t argue.

Many a man has made the mistake of approaching a woman in the way he thinks he would like to be approached if he were a woman. If you’re not sure if women find your approach too heavy-handed, imagine being approached by a large, strong man using your exact technique and ask yourself how that feels. Successful male cruisers remain sensitive to verbal and nonverbal cues, conveying friendly interest and appreciation for the fascinating human being in front of them.

Most women are not very good at saying “yes,” and not very good at saying “no”—your authors aren’t, and we’ve been practicing both for a long time. We’re not sure how things got to this state, where a woman is just supposed to stand there looking adorable until some big strong hunk comes and makes her decision for her, but we don’t like it much.

Many women, both gay and straight, can benefit greatly from learning to be more assertive in asking for what they want, both during the meeting process and afterward. If you’re used to sipping your drink and waiting for someone to make a move on you, initiating contact yourself may seem terribly awkward, pushy—yes, even slutty—at first. It’s also scary as hell to risk rejection like that. It
does
get easier … particularly if you do get rejected a time or two and get a chance to find out that it isn’t the end of the world. After all, we’re not asking you to do anything that men haven’t been doing for centuries, and you’ll discover, as they have, the many joys of asking for what you want and getting it.

Sometimes couples, or an established group of lovers, may be cruising for somebody or somebodies new to play with, in a three-way or more. Cruising as a couple has its advantages—if you strike out, you still have someone to go home with. However, many cruisees are not used to the idea of openly nonmonogamous relationships and may get a little freaked out when you come on to them with, “Hi, I find you very attractive, and so does my wife.” Be reassured that you will also find many lovely people who actually prefer the safety and built-in boundaries of getting it on with one or both members of an established couple … and be prepared to find a goodly number of happy shiny needles in your carefully chosen haystack.

Some couples cruise together for someone to play with in a three-way, while others cruise individually for partners who want to play with one or the other of them. When you’re coupled but cruising solo, please do remember to mention to your cruisee that you have a partner at home. Some people will be delighted to receive this news and others will not, but full disclosure is the ethical part of ethical sluthood.

If you plan to go home with your spouse when it comes time to leave this party, it is courteous to make sure your other beloveds know this in advance. Reassure new contacts by exchanging contact information and, if appropriate, choosing a place and time to get together in the future, like “May I call you tomorrow morning?” or “Would you like to meet for coffee after work?”

Whether you cruise individually or together, you need to work out your agreements beforehand. Who is interested in doing what to whom? Where? When? If one of you is looking for someone to hit the mattress with right there that night and the other wants something permanent (“She followed me home! Can I keep her? Please?”), you may be headed for a major misunderstanding.

Each member of a couple must have the requisite social skills. Depending on your partner to do all the work of introductions, conversation, flirtation, and negotiation is bad for you and bad for your partner. It may also lead to misunderstandings, since few partners are skilled enough communicators to get across
all
your needs, interests, and personality traits.

A pet peeve of many sluts is the individual who treats one or more of the people involved in a disrespectful or objectifying manner. One example is the couple that sends an innocent-looking woman out as bait, and you may be startled, when you bite, to discover her spouse joining the party. Janet remembers once, in a group sex environment, being invited by a man to help stimulate his female partner. As she happily joined the group, she noticed that the man immediately shifted his focus from his girlfriend to
her
—ignoring the hapless girlfriend as he grabbed Janet’s breasts. Needless to say, Janet excused herself immediately from this creepy-feeling scene.

It is disrespectful to treat the third party as some sort of oversized marital aid. Many bisexual women we know are driven to distraction by the “hot bi babe” phenomenon—couples who seek them out, not because they’re charming or hot, but because one member of the couple has a fantasy about playing with two women or seeing two women make love as a free peep show.

The fundamental rule for cruising as a couple, or being cruised by a couple, is
respect
for the feelings and relationships of all concerned. You don’t want to cruise someone who will try to steal you or your partner for his own, and your cruisee doesn’t want to be used, deceived, or mistreated. We may refer to our play partners, affectionately, as “tricks,” but actually tricking them into your bed is unethical.

When you treat everybody involved with respect, affection, and intimacy, you can reap very special rewards—anything from a warm happy fling to a long-term multiperson relationship.

The best, most successful, and least obnoxious cruisers we know, of all orientations, are friendly, curious folks who like most people and are interested in talking to everyone. If some of the people they talk to turn into potential relationships, so much the better.

When you find yourself worrying about how you are seen by others, remember that there is no point in pretending you are anyone except who you are. It does you no good to attract someone who thinks you are somebody else: all you get is someone who is excited about somebody who isn’t you. When you are honest, you attract the people who are interested in you, just as you most wonderfully are.

A good conversationalist is usually a successful cruiser and more often than not a skilled partner as well—because the give-and-take of good conversation and sensitivity to nonverbal cues are also important skills for the fulfilling relationships to come.

THE TERM “SAFE SEX,” later amended to “safer sex,” was coined to talk about how we can design sex to minimize the risk of HIV transmission … but sex has
never
been altogether safe. Both your authors grew up in an era when an unwanted pregnancy meant a life-endangering illegal abortion. It’s been only a few decades since more reliable birth control became available, and only a few before that since antibiotics began curing illness, insanity, and death caused by sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) like syphilis and gonorrhea. Herpes is still incurable, and we still have only limited answers to cervical cancer from human papilloma virus. No matter what your orientation, your practices, or your risk factors, in today’s environment, careless sex can kill—which means that you have to protect yourself and your partners.

Given that sex is never completely safe, ethical sluts put time, effort, and commitment into getting as much sex as they want at the least risk possible. Dedicated sluts have developed a plethora of risk-reduction strategies that can minimize the chances of infection and/or unwanted pregnancy.

Please research the safer-sex protocols that apply to your life and plan to protect yourself and your lover from HIV, herpes, hepatitis, gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, shigella, human papilloma virus, cervical cancer, unwanted pregnancy, and a host of other nasties. Medical
research and recommendations are beyond the scope of this volume, but at the end of the book we have listed some Internet resources that are kept more up-to-date than is possible here.

We don’t think you need to cover every portion of your anatomy with latex before you touch another human being. The goal for most of us is risk reduction, sort of like defensive driving on the freeway. Yes, a drunk could kill at any time while you are cruising down the highway, and most of us take our best shot at safety and go on driving. There are ways to have hot satisfying sex without performing the erotic equivalent of skydiving with a faulty parachute. Here are some that we, and sluts we know, have used successfully.

Utterly basic technique: put something impenetrable between you and the virus. Today, many people decide to follow their sexual urges to far-out places by being scrupulous about the use of latex or polyurethane barriers. We hope you don’t need us to explain this to you at this point in history, but careful use of barriers includes condoms for vaginal sex, anal sex, and fellatio; gloves for masturbation of a male or female partner or for insertion of fingers or hands into vaginas or anuses; and dental dams or plastic wrap for cunnilingus or analingus.

Gloves or condoms make it easy to keep any sex toy that will be used by more than one person nice and clean and bug free. Clean your toys thoroughly after each use, sterilize if you can, and let them rest, clean and dry (most of the bad bugs cannot live long without moisture). If there are toys that you really want to use on each of you within the same little bit of time, we suggest you buy two or more of them.

The use of a good water-based lubricant can do wonders to make latexed sex more pleasurable for both or all partners. Along with smoothing out the friction of rubber on mucous membranes, a single drop of lube
inside
a condom increases the transmission of warmth from one person to another, which feels nice and—well—hot. For tips on how to use barriers in a pleasure-enhancing manner, check out
chapter 21
, “Sex and Pleasure,” and some of the books in the Resource Guide. And if you’re not completely comfortable using any of these barriers, practice! Gentlemen can masturbate with a condom (or two, or three) until it comes easy. We have heard of one dedicated fellow who managed
to put on eighteen condoms at once—he said the tight squeeze felt really good. And why not get a little playful with your rubber?

If you are inexperienced with condoms and plastic wrap, give yourself some space to learn. Get playful, spill some lube, and roll around in it; invent creative ways to wrap body parts in plastic wrap and then find out what interesting new things you can feel. Plastic wrap doubles nicely as a risk reduction barrier and a bondage toy, and it comes in colors. Explore the taste and feel of your safer-sex equipment, and check lubricants on tender places for allergic reactions—not fun to discover when you are all excited only now it itches inside and you have to go wash that stuff out right now. Pay attention to the sensual qualities: fine latex is wonderfully silky, and the best lubricants feel like liquid velvet.

We want you to have fun and make wise choices: we need all the readers we can get, so we don’t want to lose you.

One popular safer-sex strategy used by some couples is called “fluid bonding” or “fluid monogamy.” The couple agrees that they are safe to play with each other with no barriers, and to use condoms and rubber gloves very conscientiously with all their other partners. Both of us have made such agreements with life partners. To do this kind of agreement, both (or all) partners get thoroughly tested for HIV and other diseases. You might have to wait six months to be sure, since HIV antibodies
don’t reliably show up in the bloodstream for some months after the individual is infected. Once you’re both sure you’re healthy, you’re free to practice unprotected sex with one another and to use barriers with your other lovers. Be sure you’re in clear agreement about which sexual acts are safe enough to do without a barrier and which ones require a barrier; to reach such an agreement, everyone involved will have to do some homework on the risk levels of various activities and decide together what level of risk is acceptable to you. Don’t forget to factor in information from everybody’s individual sex histories.