This episode of Sexplanations is sponsored by AdamandEve.com, where you can get new sex toys like this beauty for 50% off. I'll give you the discount code and details at the end. (whip cracking and throat clearing sounds)

Since the beginning of Sexplanations in 2013, I've tried to be careful with my affiliations. This was before the wave of Cancel Culture, but I still knew the possible ramifications of associating Sexplanations with outside entities. Sponsors like Adam & Eve, colleagues like Stevie Boebi, books I've read, sexologists I admire. I do research to vet them all, but that doesn't mean that everything runs smoothly and humans stop being human.

All that said, I'm about to do something that I don't typically do, and talk about one thing. This book. This book. Hopefully with the understanding that I'm not promoting it or its authors, I'm sharing my experience, encouraging you to read many, many things, and listen to many, many teachers.

I've owned this book since 2005, but I hadn't read it cover to cover until a couple of years ago. Written by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy, who went by her pen name, Catherine Liszt in a previous edition because all of this was much more taboo then. Slutdom is now less taboo because they wrote this book. 

I marked it all up with stars and question marks and annotations of my more complex thoughts because that's how I commit to literature. The first line I highlighted: "We see ourselves as people who are committed to finding a place of sanity with sex and relationships, and to freeing ourselves to enjoy sex and love in as many ways as we may see fit for each of us." That's an ethical slut. "When we see someone who intrigues us, we like to feel free to respond, and, as we explore our response, to discover whatever is special about this new, fascinating person. We like relating to different kinds of people, and revelling in how our differences expand our horizons and offer new ways to be ourselves."

I like this one, "Sluts are not necessarily sexual athletes, although many of us do train more than most." "We tend to like our lives complicated and the challenge of maintaining stable work and home lives while discovering new people and ideas is just what we need to keep us interested and engaged. "We hate boredom. We are people who are greedy to experience all that life has to offer and we are also generous in sharing what we have to offer." I just want to quote the whole book!

Those couple of years ago when I read this, I did it as part of a book club with two of my girlfriends, and we all went in, I think, thinking are we ethical sluts? And by the time we came out, I think all of us would say yes. We went through these pages that explained the value of curiosity, the human experience of jealousy, sexual economies, how to process our relationships, what we want.

On being dumped, just the idea of being able to think about how you want to end a relationship is profound to me. This book talks about monogamy, and how it needs to be consensual. Part of it being consensual is choosing to be monogamous. Even if that's how you're oriented, it's choosing to be part of your orientation and behave in line with your orientation. "If you think it over carefully and decide you want monogamy, you'll still need most, if not all, of the skills you're learning about in this book. Jealousy, time management issues, the natural ebb and flow of desire, and all the rest of it happen to monogamous too. So please read on."

On page one seventy seven, "We think that the best agreements to protect your partner from emotional pain are positive rather than restrictive." Mmm... I just, I love it so much. It just makes my whole sexual brain part glisten. "Your strategies for surviving periods of jealousy will stand you in good stead for the rest of your life, and you will use what you learn about yourself from this practice over and over."

"Kinsey's statistics from back in the 1940s indicated that slightly more than half of relationships that are theoretically monogamous in fact involve sexual contact with outside partners." One of the things that I do when I critique a book is look how they talk about former sexologists, people who have existed in the field and their research at the time. There are people who are pro-Freud and against Freud, pro-Kinsey and against Kinsey, and I look at them, and I say, hey, can you honor where they were and what they have done for the field at the time, things need to be done differently in the present; or are you just going to chastise them and put yourself above them like you will do no wrong? Dossie and Janet do their discussion of Kinsey really well. 

"When you grasp your feelings, you have something unbelievably valuable to bring to your relationships." And then they have these great questions: "Do you want to find out more? Do you want to discuss a limit? Do you want a little time to yourself to calm down and get centered? Do you want to be heard about something?" "When you respect your own limits, others will learn to respect them too. People tend to live up to your standards when you are not afraid to set them."

Slut skills... oh yeah, let's do this. "Having a clear picture of your internal landscape becomes essential." And then there are all these quotations that people interviewed say about their slut skills. On letting go: "Getting over past fears of starvation can be one of the biggest challenges of ethical sluthood. It requires an enormous leap of faith," and then this is the part that I underlined, "... you have to let go of some of what feels like yours, trusting that it will be replaced in abundance by a generous world." Mmm!

"We think it will, that if you loosen your possessive grip on the love that's already yours, you'll get more from the person who loves you and maybe from some other people too."

My therapist was telling me today about how monkeys, they put their hand in this coconut contraption to grab a banana, and they can't get their hand back out because the bananas are wider than the coconut shell. If they let go of the bananas, then they would have their freedom. But they don't. And I think that maybe some of us do this with ideals of monogamy or ideals of any of our relationships, our partners, the structures, the dynamics. We don't realize that maybe in letting go or letting be, we can actually have more and our all. 

I think this book is not in any way telling me that I can't have my one partner who has one partner who's me. I think it's telling me how I get to choose that for how it can work so that I'm not, you know, maybe looking elsewhere or dissatisfied, struggling, fighting, et cetera. It's just telling me how to be good in relationships! And all the sex of it, too. Why do you gotta be such good book? Ahh, see on the back, this person says, "Danger. This book may forever change how you do relationships. Read only if you are ready for fulfilling human connections."

If Sexplanations were to ever do a book club and you want something to focus on, or read to distract you from pandemic or whatever, ok? Here is an option. And do this with many, many more. It's important to me that you stay curious and you don't just give them all of the power, just like you don't give me all of the power to instruct you on sexuality.  

I just... I love it so much.

Stay curious, ok?

Let's talk about this. This is a sex toy that Adam & Eve sent me. It's so soft! Has that silicone feel that I love. And a remote so you can control this butterfly vibrator from a distance. This part here could be inserted vaginally or anally, and then you have the butterfly vibrator here with clit stimulation that goes up against the mons or perineum and can be turned on here. So delicious. It is pretty and it's tiny. 

I want to show you another one. This is also a vibrator. These are made by the same company. You can get them at AdamandEve.com. 50% off an eligible item plus free shipping on the whole order if it's going to the US or Canada. You use promo code "Doe," my last name, d-o-e, and you'll get 50% off. This can go around your ballsack, your cock, your dildo, your peen, and then this part here can go against a mons or perineum. Look at this! It can be dueling orgasms here. Ohhh, so much fun can be had! (outro music)