The Ethical Slut, Third Edition: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love

We are deeply into sex, but at the same time, deeply at odds with it, often misunderstanding our own urges, needs, and desires. We judge our sexual longings, we curtail our desires, and we cut ourselves off from all that it affords us. We convince ourselves that we just don’t need it or want it. This is a problem that speaks to an unhappiness at ou

On anxiety or curiosity as responses to a partner's 'other'-ness

I mean, faced with the unknown of our partners, we can either be anxious — and this is true with the unknown of life. We can be anxious, we can want to close the gap, we can want to seek the familiar in that space, or we can leave that space open and respond

to it with curiosity. And

We do not allow our sexual choices to have an unnecessary impact on those who have not consented to participate. We are respectful of others’ feelings, and when we aren’t sure how someone feels, we ask. Ethical sluts recognize the difference between things they can and should control, and things they can’t. While we sometimes may feel jealous or te

One of the most valuable things we learn from open sexual lifestyles is that our programming about love, intimacy, and sex can be rewritten. When we begin to question all the ways we have been told we ought to be, we can begin to edit and rewrite our old tapes. By breaking the rules, we both free and empower ourselves.