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Family & Relationships. Philosophy. Self-Improvement. Nonfiction. HTML:The classic guide to love, sex, and intimacy beyond the limits of conventional monogamy has been fully updated to reflect today�??s modern attitudes and the latest information on nontraditional relationships. �??One of the most useful relationship books you could ever read, no matter what your lifestyle choices. It�??s chock-full of great information about communication, jealousy, asking for what you want, and maintaining a relationship with integrity.�?��??Annie Sprinkle, PhD, sexologist and author of Dr. Sprinkle�??s Spectacular Sex For 20 years The Ethical Slut�??widely known as the �??Poly Bible�?��??has dispelled myths and showed curious readers how to maintain a successful polyamorous lifestyle through open communication, emotional honesty, and safer sex practices. The third edition of this timeless guide to the ethics of relationships, communication, and sex has been revised to include: �?� Interviews with poly millennials (young people who have grown up without the prejudices their elders encountered regarding gender, orientation, sexuality, and relationships) �?� Tributes to polyamory pioneers �?� Tools for conflict resolution and instructions on how to improve interpersonal dynamics �?� New sidebars on topics such as asexuality, sex workers, LGBTQ terminology, and ways polys can connect and thrive The authors also include new content addressing nontraditional relationships beyond the polyamorous paradigm of �??more than two�?�: couples who don't live together, couples who don't have sex with each other, nonparallel arrangements, couples with widely divergent sex styles, power disparities, and cross-orientation relationships, while utilizing nonbinary gender language and new terms that hav… (more)
User reviews
I feel I should say something about the aspects of this book that I felt negatively about or that did not gel with me. I felt that the language was all rather 'new age', speaking of the healing force of sexuality and its spiritual basis. As someone currently about to be published on the basis of a critique of the spiritualisation of sexuality, I do find this more than a little problematic. Yes, sex can make us feel good, but does it have to be tied into spirituality all the time? Also, I felt uncomfortable with the references to people in domestically violent situations being urged to merely find other ways to communicate as opposed to blaming people could put many people, especially women, in dangerous situations. Many women remain in violent situations because it has been impressed upon them by society that they can change a person from being violent if they only love them, and try hard enough. Nonetheless, overall I found their book, especially their thoughts on negotiating boundaries, communication and jealousy extremely engaging and useful. I still prefer to be monogamous once I enter a relationship, but I still now feel proud to count myself as an ethical slut.
Good: Really excellent and practical instructions on forming your own relationships and becoming a whole person, whether you're poly or monogamous or undefineably sexy. Easy + fun read.
Maybe it's because I've been in therapy for bipolar since I was 13, maybe it's because I regularly read psychology and medical texts, maybe it's because I have an
And too often, self-help books and relationship manuals rely on what I perceive as the negative perpetuation of the idea that one can improve serious issues like depression, bipolar, dissociative personality disorders, PTSD, and other serious mental issues through "happy thoughts" and "positive thinking" and "spiritual energies" and other hoo-ha.
Most relationship "help" books also tend to tilt too far in one direction or the other: Here's how to change him/her (you can't change another person, it's an exercise in futility and only hurts everyone involved), or, alternatively and supposedly more realistically: You can't change them, so accept them faults and all and love them as they are. Live with it.
Both of those tactics are depressing and horrific and probably help attribute to the high divorce rate, as neither of those tactics are in any way conductive to honest communication.
Which is why The Ethical Slut is so freaking awesome. The authors are proponents of polyamory, or open relationships, that's true. But the basic tenants of communication and how to strengthen a core relationship, the little exercises for opening up the lines of discussion between a couple -- everything in this book is invaluable.
I loved the concept of "agreements" rather than "rules" -- it's so easy for someone to say, "This is a rule," and we think of something strict and unbreakable and feel boxed in and itchy and, even if we often don't admit it, angry and wanting to break it. Rules beg to be broken. But agreements sound so flexible, so easy and negotiable.
As my husband pointed out when I discussed this with him, they have safety rules at his place of work and they get broken all the time (which irritates the crap out of him, as a forklift driver). But they also have employee agreements, which are re-negotiated every two years, with employee input.
And I can see how that parallels so easily. It makes sense.
Another thing the authors discussed was arguing -- obviously, all couples argue. Everybody argues. We have to argue, it's how we hash out the difficult issues, paying bills and visiting inlaws and everything big and little that we disagree on. The authors introduced two new concepts to me: Scheduling fights (?!?!) and the win-win idea.
I'd heard of scheduling sex. I'm pretty sure that anyone married more than 3 years and definitely anyone with a kid has been introduced to the concept of scheduling sex. At first it sounds weird, but then you get used to the idea, and then it makes perfect sense. There's still spontaneous sex, yeah, but there's also scheduled sex.
Well, the authors discussed how scheduling fights and learning how to fight constructively -- letting each person have uninterrupted time to air their feelings, practicing fighting over small issues using a timer, learning to walk away and calm down for 10 to 15 minutes when things got too heated -- can strengthen a relationship.
The concept of a win-win is brilliant, too. It's basically compromise, but I love how they phrased it, because we all go into an argument wanting to win. It's how we're wired -- we want to make our point and we want to win, and once we do, it'll be done because we've won, right?
Except it's not done just because we've won, because somebody's lost and a loser is never happy. They're still angry and mulling over their loss and what happened and one day that same damn argument will swell up and bite you in the ass, even though the winner thought it was over and done and behind them -- they won, so it was done, right?
That's where win-win, compromise, agreements come in. If everyone feels like they've won, then there are no losers and the argument is truly over. It won't come back to bite anybody in the ass. But only if you've hashed out a compromise that's truly a win-win for everybody, something that everyone is happy with and can live with.
And all these things seem so self-evident, so, "Well, duh, I knew that."
They're the type of things that when you read them, you're nodding and laughing and going, "Yeah, I totally get that!" and making little notes in the margins and underlining phrases and entire paragraphs. Because even though in some part of your brain you knew that and you totally understood how that worked, you couldn't quite figure out how to phrase it in just the right way.
I swear, this book is a must have for everybody in a relationship or anybody who wants to be in a relationship. It's awesome. It doesn't matter if you're in a monogamous relationship, an open relationship, or curious about an open relationship. It's great for anyone, seriously. Read it.
Although the book is a bit too "flower child" at times and could focus more on emotional connections rather than just sexual ones since it is
(And for those of you who've seen my profile, this is a hardcover book. It took me awhile to track a copy down, as the library systems where I live did not carry it - but other libraries in the state did. I have yet to see this in audio book format, so this review is actually of the book.)
Ahhh, fuck ya. (What kind of name is "mozilla firefox" anyway? It's like the dude's name was Moe and his Hawaiian shirts weren't loud enough. "Mozilla! The Mo-man! The ..." the Moeminator. (headdroop.) This book was panglossian and mischaracterized its opponents (what opponents?) as repressed haters in a way that was totally not cricket, and I gave it 1.5 stars and that's all the review you get now, because I was cursed as an infant by gypsies or Krampus to always fail. Also, polyamory is doomed to fail not because we are jealous and repressed, but because monoamory is hard enough. How many ways is there for any relationship to fail? Say each partner brings a million to the table, even the most progressive of us. Safe assumption? NOW HOW IS ADDING MORE DUDES A GOOD IDEA?????
There, you heard it. The word has been reclaimed, and therefore you should not be offended by the use of such word. If you are offended in the slightest, then you probably shouldn't read this book of general ideas of how to
To start off, I would definitely say that this book is a great conversation starter. There's so many things to discuss in it, and I would recommend everyone to read this book, if they can at least open their mind. This book is something of a 'relationship help' type of book, meaning that it shares the opinion of the writers of the book. If you feel like challenging yourself and your own ideas of what it means to love someone in a relationship, then this is for you.
"A few, though, persist and discover that being openly loving, intimate, and sexual with many people is not only possible but can be more rewarding than they ever imagined."
The authors here go in depth in having open relationships and other polyamory adventures, and it's really up to the reader to interpret it how they want. With my interpretation, I read it as a book about how to love everyone close in life. There's no hierarchy of partners, family, and friends. No...nothing like that. It's an equal opportunity world. No more feeling like there's only so much attention one can give or receive. They talk about something called 'starvation economies,' which is something we may learn as children where one child gets more love and attention than another. But of course, there is no finite amount of love, sex, commitment, support, and nurturing to go around.
You shouldn't be deceived by the idea of sexual freedom as having sex. This can even include celibacy: "We think that any kind of sexual freedom must include the freedom to not have sex, without being pestered or pathologized. And with that being said, there are an infinite number of possibilities to have relationships with other people, sexual or non-sexual, inter- or outercourse, one or many, and everything in between. Now are you getting the idea of being an ethical slut?
The main theme behind their opinions in this book is, of course, being ethical. What does this mean? Why, being honest. Not all people are created the same in their desires for love and companionship. And we shouldn't feel that we should conform to society that being monogamous is the norm, and if you're not, then you are in the wrong. Here's where many people may be challenged. You may have yet to realize that there are other minority groups out there that you may not have even realized existed! What about those people that need more than one person to love? Have you ever felt that way, and then felt ashamed for even thinking it?
"But cheating is not necessarily about some failure in your connection, and it is cruel to tell people that something is wrong with a perfectly good relationship just because sexual desire has a way of squirming out of bounds."
"Having a limit does not mean that you are inhibited, uptight, no fun, or a permanent victim of American puritanism--it just means you don't like something." Nicely said.
There will probably be a number of things that you won't personally agree with, but that shouldn't stop you from reading it, should it? If it did, then you probably shouldn't be reading anything. This book is a great explanation on how to live loving, open lives with everyone close to us. Be honest with those you hold dear to you, and more importantly, be honest with yourself. Own your feelings. Know what you want and don't want in your own life. And then feel free to just be yourself in your interactions with those around you. Once you get the hang of it, it's not all that hard. Just try it.
It was.
The book starts off beautifully from the simple premise: Sex is fun and pleasure is good for you. The authors proudly dismiss the idea that the number of partners a person has has any bearing on their value as a person or their moral fiber. This, they point out, is a hold over from our culture's long tradition of commodifying sex, or, more specifically, commodifying women according to the exclusivity of their bodies. There is of course nothing wrong with monogamy if it is what works for a couple, however the authors are quick to point out that love and sex need not go hand in hand, and if love is dependent on complete sexual possession of your partner's body you might be confusing your lover with your property. You love a person for who they are, not who they do.
These are of course things that need to be sorted out by the individuals involved and nowhere in the book do the authors imply one sort of relationship to be superior to another. They do however point out that what's best for one person is not necessarily best for another and what is best for a person can change over a lifetime. Or several times. They dig into the ethics and strategies of non-monogamy and here it really opens up. Frankly, with the possibly exception of the chapter on how to negotiate sex parties, this section really ought to apply to anyone. Communication and emotional honesty are emphasized above all else. Using this basic foundation the authors detail how to sort out what boundaries you need in your relationship and how to deal with the difficulties and problems that will arise in a non-mongamous relationship. Not because non-monogamy is inherently more fragile than monogamy, but because every relationship faces challenges.
I still don't know how exactly I would like to structure my romantic relationships, but now I'm a lot more knowledgeable about the options out there and feel more secure knowing my relationships don't need fit any expectations or structure other than those imposed by the people involved. Yay!
Eventually, though, I've had to come to grips with the fact that a lot of people assume exclusivity = love and this is "normal," and I really needed this book to give me good logical arguments to the contrary.