The Ethical Slut

with good "lines" fall into this category, especially if the lines include explanations of how they truly value the other person.

8. dont talk. talking has been known to lead to communication if practiced carelessly. communication will seriously impair your f***-up progress, and in certain cases will halt or reverse it entirely. if you must talk, use cliches and quotations from popular songs as much as possible, or fall back on strategy number 1. if all else fails, make a safer-sex agreement with your partners) and then break it, contracting a communicable disease about which you do not then tell them. double points for avoiding all discussion or negotiation of sexual matters entirely so that the "agreement" is wishful thinking and completely deniable. for a coup de grace, add strategy 6 and tell them it wouldn't have happened if they had been satisfying you like they were supposed to. m. Am *** 9. for the ultimate meta-fuck-up, remain technically faithful to your partner while breaking the spirit of whatever agreement you have whenever possible, keeping this knowledge bottled up to ensure maximum fear, shame and resentment. some people win the grand prize with the fig leaf-and-stinging-nettle cluster for self-inflicted suffering and wasted potential by managing to keep this strategy up until death do them part, concealing from their spouse the fact that they have been shamming happiness all these years.

-courtesy elise matthesen CHAPTER 6. AGREEMENTS Most successful relationships, from casual acquaintanceship through lifetime monogamy, are based on assumptions that are really unstated agreements about behavior: you dont kiss your mailman, you dont tip your mother. These are the unspoken rules we learn very early in our lives, from our parents, our playmates and our cultures. People who break these unspoken rules are often considered odd, sometimes even crazy, because the values and judgments behind the social agreements about how we relate to one another are so deeply ingrained that we are usually not even aware that we have made any agreement at all.

In many day-to-day relationships, such as your relationship with neighbors and co-workers, it's probably fine to rely on those implicit, "built-in" agreements. But when you're trying something as complicated and unprecedented as ethical slut hood we think it's very important to take nothing for granted. Talk with the people in your life about your agreements, and negotiate the conditions, environments and behaviors that will get your own needs met.

You'll often hear people talking about the "rules" of their