I was recommended this book by somebody on Discord -and I no longer remember who!

Within the introduction to the book a winning explanation is given for the need of the book:

When you ask about a man’s morals, you will probably hear about his honesty, loyalty, integrity, and high principals. When you ask about a woman’s morals, you are likely to hear about whom she shares a sex with under what conditions. We have a problem with this.

So we are proud to reclaim the word slut as a term of approval, even endearment.

Page 2

This reminds me of the “hymn to him” in My Fair Lady where Henry Higgins, the pompous professor of pronunciation lists all the irritating things about women (“women are irrational, that’s all there is to that, their heads are filled with cotton, hay, rags”) and then goes on to say just what wonderful chaps men are.

There’s an exercise on page 12 where one is asked to list all the celebrity sluts one knows and what one likes it dislikes about them … the problem here is that I’m not interested in who is banging who in the bedroom: I do not know who is a slut and neither do I care!

“Easy” is there, we wonder, some virtue in being difficult?

Page 15

In a list of common insults for the sexually liberated, this was the last one, which I felt illustrated the cheeky and humourous way the book is written.

Many people have sex outside their primary relationships for reasons that have nothing to do with any inadequacy in their partner or in the relationship

Page 19

Does wanting to explore sex – out a specific kind of sex – outside of the primary relationship imply an inadequacy in the partner? It that the partner is “not enough”? That is a pressing question in my life right now. For me the answer is “no”, for my husband – I am not sure what his answer is.

The author even mentions that this external relationship could be too find a kind of sex that the primary partner doesn’t even want – such as kinky sex.

An outside involvement does not have to subtract in any way from the intimacy you share with your partner unless you let it.

Page 19

To my way of thinking, seeking sex outside of the primary relationship might even bring additional intimacy into the relationship, provided that there is honesty and trust. Forsooth (I’ve been dying to use that in a sentence), it would seem to me from what I’m reading that failure to be honest would doom an open relationship from the outset.

Ethical sluts are honest – with ourselves and with each other. We take time with ourselves to figure out our own emotions and motivations and to untangle then for greater clarity when necessary. Then, seeing aside any bashfulness we may feel, we openly share that information with those who need it.

Page 24

If my husband and I ever get through our current difficulties, and if we do decide on an open relationship, then consent, boundaries, and honest communication will be absolutely essential to living that life – and living as a couple. I don’t think I shall any problems with that any more – as long as I can actually work it what I’m feeling!

We see ourselves surrounded by the walking wounded – by people who have been deeply injured by fear, shame, and hatred of their own sexual selves.

Page 26

Well, that’s me summed up! I am the perfect example of somebody who imprisoned the greater part of their sexual identity and refused to go anywhere near it. When it finally broke free, it rampaged through my life tearing down mental barriers and leaving emotional carnage in its wake. Coming out as a eunuch and confessing my darkest fantasies exploded my marriage and hurt the man I love most to his very core.

People who have lived different parts of their lives in different gender modes, physiologically and culturally, have a great deal to teach us about what changes according to hormones what does not, and what gender characteristics remain a matter of choice no matter what your endocrine system says.

Page 40

After nearly seven months without a significant internal source of testosterone, I have witnessed how my own emotions have changed in type and strength from my uncastrated state to my current state. I shall shortly be moving onto a low dose of testosterone and again I expect to feel a little different. My own body has been an experiment in the male sex hormone. Without it, the male-sex does feel and behave differently.

Polyamory and open relationships are very common in most kink communities. L, as the chances are slim of finding one partner who is open to all your fantasies and whose company you can tolerate on an ongoing basis.

Page 42

This echoes something that I’ve been trying to explain to my husband: just because he cannot fulfil all my kink fantasies does not mean that he’s in any way inadequate or “not good enough”. What it does mean is that I can remove all the pressure from him to be what he is not. The same is true if the reverse: the pressure is off me to be what I am not.

Listen to your fears: they have a lot to teach you about yourself.

Page 45

This correlates with something that Frank Herbert wrote in one of his many Dune books: “what do you fear? By this are you truly known”. I fear rejection. It can be a crippling fear. It can keep me silent when I should speak. It can cause me to hide parts of myself – sometimes very large parts of myself – from the gaze of others – sometimes even from myself.

We urge those who can be out and proud to do so because it’s harder for the world to hate sluts and you can see lots of us living happy lives but do no harm to anyone.

Page 49

It is for a reason like this that I always wear Pride rainbows: of there is someone out there who sees me a happy gay “man”, I want them to realise that it is possible to be out and Proud and live an authentic life in celebration rather than fear.

It’s for a reason like this that I am pretty open about being a eunuch – although I’m still feeling my way with this one a bit.

If I was in polyamorous relationships, I am pretty sure that I’d be open about them too got the same reasons: shame is an emotion without use and that only hurts.

If you pretend that you have no need for sex, affection, or emotional support, you are lying to yourself, and you will wind up trying to get your needs met by indirect methods that won’t work very well. People who did this often get called manipulative or passive-aggressive – terms, in our opinion, for people who have not figured out how to get their needs met in a straightforward manner.

Page 64

This connects with the discoveries I have made about myself regarding my disavowed selves; those parts of me that have needs that I refused to acknowledge existed, and therefore could never service. They assert themselves through the unconscious and direct or lives from the backseat.

These disowned parts of ourselves, when not accepted and integrated, have as power to wreak havoc and destruction, harming those we love and are sworn to protect.

… 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.

Page 76

The parts of myself that I disavowed hurt my husband enormously. I bitterly regret that I could not face them for so long. I have lived as an incomplete person because I could not be honest – with myself.

My husband is rejection sensitive, and with good reason. Discovering that I had lied to him for so long and that I wasn’t who he thought I was, triggers that sensitivity. That is my responsibility.

People often learn about starvation economies in childhood, when experiences with parents who are emotionally depleted or otherwise unavailable teachers that we must work hard to get our emotional needs met.

Page 75

I have never felt that my mum didn’t have enough love to around. I knew and felt that she loved me and my brother in different bit no less important ways. I felt that her love was equal for both of us and that she would never favour one above the other.

I didn’t know that my dad thought anything of me until I got into university, then I heard from people that he worked with that he was immensely proud of the achievement. That we do say “I live you”. He, however, came from a family which did have a “starvation economy” and there was always at least one member of that family scapegoated. My father chose to scapegoat my brother. While they get on now, it remains a fraught relationship.

My husband grew up in a very “starvation economy” family. There were favourites, sides were chosen, and battles for affection encouraged. It was a very sick family. My husband has done very well to escape it with such a sense of personal integrity as he does have, even if it has left him with very low self-esteem (and I’m afraid that I added to the problems there).

I think I need to work hard to show my husband that just because I have friendships – maybe some of these might even become sexual – that he needn’t fear that I don’t have enough love for him.

… of 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.

Page 76

As we drove home from the gay sauna that my husband had suggested we visit as part of opening up our relationship, I felt an enormous burst of life for this man: he was trying so hard to make the relationship work. I cannot doubt hide love for me and thinking about it brings tears to my eyes.

There was a song that I learnt way back in Sunday school when I was a single figure age; I remember it went something thing this:

Love is something if you give it away
Give it away, give it away
Love is something if you give it away
You'll end up having more
It's just like a magic penny
Hold it tight and you won't have any
Lend it, spend it, and you'll have so many
They'll roll all over the floor

The enemy of shame it’s curiosity

Page 91

We’re taught shame at a very young age. I was taught to be ashamed of my erections by my dad when he shouted at me in shock when I went downstairs sporting an erection. I was clothed, well, wearing a dressing gown. I think mum was there, which explains dad’s shock. I think mum would have found a kind way to say “best not to go wandering around the house with that thing poking out”. That was one of many shaming, but unsurprising, episodes.

We are taught that parts of our bodies are dirty, and to be hidden, and there is a rightness in not exposing children to things which might cause trauma, however shame itself is a trauma. When we inflict shame on an innocent child we do violence to them and something is stolen from them in they process.

I carried that shame about sex and my body for decades. It crippled me and helped poison my marriage and rob me of authenticity and completeness.

To fight that shame, I am now curious about myself, who I am, what I think, and what I feel. I will not be shamed again.

Many of us have been taught that if it lover does not let every need, this must not be true love, or lover must be somehow inadequate, or we must be at fault – to needy or undeserving or some other sin.

Page 93

I have never felt like an adequate lover or partner. I’ve never felt up to fulfilling many of my husband’s needs, and that makes me feel very bad. I’ve pushed my inadequacies onto him: he was the problem, he couldn’t fulfil all my sexual or emotional needs.

The truth is that neither of us are inadequate: we are enough just as we are.

Some people habitually respond to a lover’s pain and confusion with an intense desire to fix something. Fix-it messages can feel like an invalidation to the person who is trying to express emotion.

Page 94

Whenever my husband (or anybody else, for that matter) describes an emotional problem, my brain tries to solve the problem to make it to away and stop the other person hurting.

It’s not an unkind response; there is love in it. However, I have never considered that I might be invalidating how the other person feels by attempting to “solve” whatever is giving them pain.

If I am the source of that pain, I might either try to completely stop the behaviour, however I wonder certainly won’t discuss my thinking and may take the absolutist view that everything about that behaviour must stop (eg when I was told that “reading in company is rude”, I completely stopped all reading when he was nearby – that was an ASD response to the statement).

When I don’t discuss where my problem solving brain takes me, I can end up feeling resentful because I’m feel that the request is unreasonable. Idiot! No request had been made, other than to listen.

To be continued…