book: the ethical slut by dossie easton and janet hardy

During my break, I have also read The Ethical Slut. It's been on my list for a while, and I even had a Kindle version I just never got around to read; then I left Amazon years ago and deleted my account, and it seems like my conversion of the EPUBs via Calibre failed or I copied over the wrong files when I did my backup. All my Kindle books are unreadable.

Because polyamory and open relationships have become more relevant for me again lately (after being a bit buried by Covid, my illnesses, feeling saturated, not meeting anyone interesting etc.), I chose to get a physical copy this time.

In 2018, I read another book about polyamory, called More Than Two by Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert, published 2014. In retrospect, it was the wrong book to read at the wrong time for me, and while it definitely has its uses and worth, I regret reading it when I did! I went in with an absolutely deep sense of shame and insecurity, which was unintentionally amplified by the book because it's essentially a manual for when troubles arise in non-monogamous relationships, with all kinds of real life examples and tips. It was as if I was scared about taking medicine, and spent days reading package leaflets with all the possible side effects. Did not reassure me at all. I should reread it again with a better mindset.

I'm happy to say The Ethical Slut is a lot more upbeat, positive, silly, fun, reassuring and open, and I'd say, not even a book about non-monogamy in general, even if it's on the cover. This is a useful read even for monogamous relationships, because it focuses a lot on destigmatizing and communicating needs in relationships, regardless of how many partners there are or whether the needs are sexual or not. The focus is on living the kind of relationships you want, no matter what the modalities look like, and to get rid of meaningless past fragments and indoctrination and instead do the things you really want to do, irrespective of imposed gender roles, sexual orientation pressures, and more. Many of us simply never question the cultural messaging we get about gender, sexuality, and romantic relationships.

I'll also say that if you are a mature-acting adult in healthy relationships, not much in this book will be news to you. There is lots you either already bring to the table, aspire to be, or have learned by yourself via mistakes made. But it's nice to be reaffirmed and get a little reminder!

One thing that challenged my previously held beliefs in a surprising way was the framing of serial monogamy as, ironically, a form of of non-monogamy. I'm not saying this is more correct - many would say that the simultaneous involvement is the main point - but I found it an interesting perspective shift to see multiple partners spread across time, as opposed to the ideal of finding one and committing forever, like this. It underlines that many people are already capable of falling in love with different people throughout life, and renegotiating different rules in each relationship, being different with each partner and finding they fulfill different needs in a variety of ways. So all that stands between many monoamorous and polyamorous people is the time overlap between those relationships.

Some criticisms I have:

While trans people are often mentioned and very much credited for a lot of their work and pioneering many new relationship models and terms, and the book has been updated to include gendervariant identities that were missed in the first two editions of the book to make it, as the authors say, fit to as many sexualities and genders as possible, the entire book still feels very cis-normative in many parts. Especially when it's about lesbians or gay men, there is an implicit assumption that they are all cis, and rather stereotypical assumptions about how their gender is expressed, and these groups being reduced to tropes like "lesbians love longterm monogamy and consent, and gay men love being sexually confident sluts".

I also find that especially in the parts about bisexuality, trans people get a lot of ungendering/third gendering done to them, where they are always their separate categories (instead of trans lesbians being included in lesbian sections) or it's like "I am bi or simply queer because I can't know what the person I'm attracted to is biologically" and I feel like this has never even been a good thing to do or say, and if you are updating the book anyway to be more inclusive, just remove that shit.

Additionally, I don't care much for the more woo-woo, spiritual, hippie parts of the book, even if they can be amusing or neutral for me to read; like how we all breathe sexual energy, and that it's all around us, and that by them writing about sex and me reading it, we are having sex with each other... it's not my cup of tea personally. And I respect that the book is older, and some parts of the book now mention the internet and social media or even dating apps, but there's a whole section dedicated to how to write a personal ad to find love, and it feels very outdated.

I think I could have easily skipped chapter 1 and 2, and only 3 and 4 were really relevant or getting to it. Still, I found myself wanting; while it was entertaining, it sometimes lacked depth for me (both practice and theory), and it often felt a bit too naive to me. It's written from an utopian, aspirational, free love place, in which people are innately good, and never do anything bad to upset you, they'll all understand and see your point of view, and you're capable of feeling love and appreciation for everyone.

I feel incapable of coming from such a place, unfortunately, so some parts felt rather needlessly unrealistic to me. I will not like everybody, not everyone will understand me, and people can absolutely be mean, ruthless, unfair, and doing things purposefully to hurt you. I can't "love everyone" myself out of that reality. A lot of things in this book sound fine until you remember how shitty many other people's relationships are and how insecure they are, and how many, many people select the absolute worst people to be their partner, or have absolutely no healthy standards in place. I think you have to be a lot more guarded, careful and selective than the book describes.

In my view, it also puts too much responsibility on you to control your emotions and endure them, versus taking them as a deserved warning signal that something is wrong, as if the latter could almost never happen. Your jealousy or envy isn't always something whack and unreasonable to endure until it goes away, or something that can just be resolved with a reassurance talk or additional 1-on-1 time together. Sometimes, you are genuinely treated in a rude way and shouldn't celebrate having "endured" that.

Like, on page 152-153, Dossie describes having casually dated a man, telling him she cannot be monogamous, and then when she took him home and her best friend was there, those two just started making out while Dossie sat there staring, not knowing what to do, and in the end opting to go upstairs and read a book until the two left. This was, she writes, her first encounter of surviving jealousy.

But in my view, that wouldn't even have been jealousy - just reacting to the rudeness of the other two! It was completely odd and insensitive behavior of the man and her bestie to just do that, without asking her, without involving her, or without them retreating into another space to do that, or making out a date to meet up separately. It's not about the sexual act even, it could have been playing cards while ignoring her, too. I would never celebrate being completely disregarded and ignored as a victory. If people don't give a fuck about your feelings, they should be booted from your life, not you accommodating them for it too. Never applaud yourself for enduring or even enabling disrespect! And it's not the only time in the book where they fail to come down hard on shitty behavior. They absolutely downplay cheating, despite the other book being so full of the value of consent.

I would just regard it as "groundbreaking at its time" (1997, then updated in 2009 and 2017) but not holding up well now, not really useful for people who are already on board with non-monogamy, and increasingly irrelevant as more books and online writing is published that is better suited now.

Next up in that niche, I'll probably finally read Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships by Tristan Taormino, and Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan. But not that soon.

Published 25 Aug, 2026