Product Description

For anyone who has ever dreamed of love, sex, and companionship beyond the limits of traditional monogamy, this groundbreaking guide navigates the infinite possibilities that open relationships can offer. Experienced ethical sluts Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy dispel myths and cover all the skills necessary to maintain a successful and responsible polyamorous lifestyle--from self-reflection and honest communication to practicing safe sex and raising a family. Individuals and their partners will learn how to discuss and honor boundaries, resolve conflicts, and to define relationships on their own terms.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5102 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-03
• Released on: 2009-03-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .75" h x 6.00" w x 9.00" l, .91 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 296 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781587613371
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Publisher
* The essential guide for singles and couples who want to explore polyamory in ways that are ethically and emotionally sustainable.
* Revised and updated throughout, with new strategies for single sluts, advice for opening an existing relationship or marriage, and exercises for thinking about and discussing open relationships.

About the Author
DOSSIE EASTON is a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in alternative sexualities and open relationships. She is the author of four other books. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and has been an ethical slut since 1969.

JANET W. HARDY is the author of more than 10 books and founder of Greenery Press, a San Francisco Bay Area book publisher specializing in sexually adventurous books. She swore off monogamy in 1987.

Customer Reviews

Amazing, essential book for all relationships
The Ethical Slut is incredible!

I first read The Ethical Slut (first edition) as part of a college course. As an undergrad, I was already well on my way to being a proud slut - I did the usual versions of short-term college dating, hookups, friends-with-benefits, threesomes, and the like, with or without a committed partner at various times. It all felt natural and right, but there were invariably awkward moments of poor negotiation, misunderstood communication, and mis-handled jealousy.
When I read The Ethical Slut, I found an amazing wealth of information and suggestions on how I could make my various relationships work better and more smoothly. I wished I'd had this book all along - it would have saved so much trouble! If only I'd known that an agreement to "see other people" wasn't nearly complete enough! The Ethical Slut lays out all the things to think about in having open relationships of various sorts. I've been called a slut since I was 14, but it was this book that gave me the idea that being a slut could be a good thing - and now I couldn't be happier with my fabulous life as a proud slut.

The Ethical Slut is an entertaining, readable, real-life explanation of all the options in relationships. Whether you want to be single or partnered or grouped, poly or monogamous, or whatever else, this book helps you figure out all the possibilities better. It's THE relationship book for anyone who wants more options than a "leave-it-to-beaver" relationship.

If you're just starting to explore open relationships, or you're even just thinking about it, there's no better place to start than with this book. And if you're already immersed in poly life, it's got the "advanced level" information you need. For those who know and love the first edition, the second edition is definitely worth adding to your collection. There's a ton of new information on the really crucial details of how to make all sorts of poly and open relationships work.

The second edition now has exercises exercises, taken from Dossie Easton's work as a therapist with poly folks, that you and/or your partner(s) can work on together. I loved the new section on living as a single slut - which makes the point that sluthood and open loving can be an identity that doesn't require a conventional partnership to secure or ground it. It also offers ideas on how to get one's needs met from a network of friends and lovers - useful information for pretty much anyone. The new segments on handling jealousy and conflict are especially good for those of us who have been involved in poly relationships for some time and need the more detailed info, from the voices of experience, to help through the rough spots. I feel like I'm always learning in poly relationships, and every time I go back to The Ethical Slut, there's some tidbit that helps with the complicated, hard, or unexpected parts of a generally fabulous poly life.

Whether you've read the first edition or not, this is definitely a book you should own. I've read it 3 or 4 times now, and I keep going back to it to check out certain sections that become more relevant as I encounter new poly challenges.

Rather than offering generalities and theories, The Ethical Slut speaks from many people's experience over many decades. It's the real-life information that you need to make all your relationships amazing!!

(and, speaking of making sex and play and relationships amazing, check out some of Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy's other books - The Topping Book, The Bottoming Book, When Someone You Love Is Kinky, and Radical Ecstasy!)

opened my mind to new possibilities!
I have always loved sex, but growing up in the South, felt a bit guilty about that. Even though I had open-minded parents, the society around me shaped my beliefs more than I often like to admit.

I found this book very helpful as it showed me that I am not the only one to feel as I do about sex and, more importantly, that I'm not a "bad" person for feeling this way.

Whether or not you are interested in having more sex, or justifying the sex you already have, this book will help you to work with the mental issues around that.

Being an "ethical slut" is about much more than sex though-- it's about having the courage to express your feelings and following your desires. It's about expanding yourself to new levels and going way beyond the limits society has set for you.

Of course, that is my definition. One of the great things about this book is that it allows you to define "ethical slut" for yourself. The authors throw it all out there. Bisexuality, multiple partners are once, marriage, leather, bondage, and more is included here. You pick what works for you. You're also free to change that at any time.

Good book. Very progressive and certainly not for everybody. The book encourages you to follow your own road though, so if you read it, do so knowing that it's perfectly ok for you to disagree.

A related book, which I also love, and I think you will also, is Just Fk Me! - What Women Want Men to Know About Taking Control in the Bedroom. Something else to make you question everything and come up with your own thoughts.

Judgmental and poorly written
First, a little background: I have recently started wondering if I might be polyamorous, and have been looking everywhere for a good source of information. A few sites that I've visited recommended this book highly, and the reviews here seemed pretty positive, so I took the leap and bought it. Bad idea.

The book starts with an introduction, insisting that the authors are simply 'reclaiming' the word 'slut', much as gay men attempted to do with 'fag' years ago. Okay, fair enough. Then they move onto dispelling myths about why being a slut is actually a GOOD thing, but has been looked down upon in the past. They talk about how the Industrial Revolution "launched a new era of sex-negativity, perhaps because of the rising middle class and the limited space for children in urban cultures". Maybe I'm asking too much here, but.. citation?? This seems like a blatant assumption to me. And the authors continually do this; take historical events or figures and interpret them freely, sans evidence.

Next we move onto a chapter simply entitled "Our Beliefs". These are ideas that will help the reader become an ethical slut! This sounds like it could be good. Hmm let's see, the first one is 'rethinking sex'. I have to quote this, since paraphrasing it will not properly describe how ridiculous it is: "Are you having sex right now? Yes, you are, and so are we. Perhaps you're looking around you in bewilderment: You still have your clothing on, and maybe you're sitting in a restaurant or a crowded bus. How could you be having sex? We think that the question of when you're having sex is actually sort of meaningless. Sexual energy pervades everything all the time; we inhale it into our lungs and exude it from our pores. While it's pretty easy to determine whether or not you're engaging in a particular sexual activity at any given time - neither you nor we are probably having intercourse at the moment - the idea of sex as something set aside, a discrete, definable activity like driving a car, just doesn't hold up very well." I am pretty sure that sex is, in fact, a distinct activity. By their definition, anyone in a relationship would technically be cheating constantly. Unless we're talking about free love, man.

I must say, I was only able to read up to page 37, and there I had to stop. Right after this sentence: "transgendered people can teach us a lot about the determination to be free". Now, I have absolutely nothing against transgenders, or lesbians, or gays, for that matter. But that sentence was just a culmination of the amount of nonsense that I was willing to take. What does it even MEAN? Just because transgendered people are repressed by society? Hm, so are minorities, and women, and illegal aliens, and homosexuals, and the list goes on and on. Should we all look up to these people as knowing how 'to be free'?

I am unsure what the authors were trying to get at in this book; their arguments are not well thought-out and unorganized. It doesn't help that the book itself is written poorly, as if transcribed from someone's rambles - there are many run-on sentences, and they lack any sense of cohesiveness. The authors often interject their own experiences and opinions into the book, and they come off as smug and all-knowing. Very off-putting to someone who's just started trying to explore this alternative lifestyle. My recommendation is DO NOT buy this book, you can easily find better and less opinionated information on the internet.