The Ethical Slut

Oh my Christmas Crackers, doesn't that word just smack you up-side the head?

The title is from a book:

The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities is an English non-fiction book by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy (given as pseudonym Catherine A. Liszt for the book's first edition in 1997).

The authors define the term slut as "a person of any gender who has the courage to lead life according to the radical proposition that sex is nice and pleasure is good for you." The term is reclaimed from its usual use as a pejorative and as a simple label for a promiscuous person. Instead, it is used to signify a person who is accepting of their enjoyment of sex and the pleasure of physical intimacy with others, and chooses to engage and accept these in an ethical and open way—rather than as cheating.

The Ethical Slut discusses how to live an active life with multiple concurrent sexual relationships in a fair and honest way. Discussion topics include how to deal with the practical difficulties and opportunities in finding and keeping partners, maintaining relationships with others, and strategies for personal growth.

It contains chapters discussing how consensual non-monogamy is handled in different subcultures such as the gay and lesbian communities, information on handling scheduling, jealousy, communication, conflict in relationships, and etiquette for group sexual encounters.

What is a blog from a mom without some reading suggestions?

The aforementioned book spells out the background for the base of what I am trying to tell my children.  

That your happiness is not pigeon holed to the ideals or norms that society has set forth for you.  That you can be as chaste, or as free thinking as you deem necessary.  But, above ALL THINGS, understand the driving force behind your decisions.  Is it your happiness?  The happiness of others above yours?  Is it what people might think?  Is it how other people might want you to behave, expect you to behave?  

Other people do not walk in your shoes, only you do.  So if you want to value life as a steady current in a singular direction, by all means do so.  If you want to be a waterfall crashing on the rocks and spilling in all directions, then be that as well.  Just choose your path based on what is best for you.  

I hate the word Slut.  We can try to reclaim it all we want.  Still, it, and other words in the English language, were created to put people down.  To instantly slap them in the face.  Slut is one of those words.  

What does it mean?  A promiscuous person.  What is promiscuity?  See above. 

A Ho can be promiscuous, but I have always seen the term as more of a marker for a person's ability to identify as not happy yet.  Not content with just one path.  Not satisfied with the slow and steady.  

You do not have to sleep around to be a Ho.  A Ho and a cheater are not the same thing.  

You seen, to me, a ho is someone who refuses to step into the shoes of monogamy (by whatever standard you define it) until they are satisfied that the other options are not suitable for them.  Well researched. 

I am well researched. 

The Creation

How did it come to this?  To me, typing out advice to the ether of the internet?
Well, I'll tell you.  
I have a two teenage daughters.  As I watch them grow, and enter situations that I clearly remember, I found myself holding back certain stories of my past.  I wanted to set a good example.  Let them see a bastion of calm certainty in my answers.  Be the proper semblance of MOTHERHOOD.  Pure, refined, distilled to the very essence of what a woman should be.  
I was lying to my kids.  Our life is CLEARLY not put together.  I am a stumbling mother, as all mothers tend to be, in their own way.  But, I am a good mother.  I love my children, I am a mother first, then friend.  Sometimes, not a friend at all; but calm assertive disciplinarian.  I have withstood enough withering glares to make grown men cringe.  
I did not get where I am from being a pure beacon of chastity and good decision. 
So, I started telling my daughter's the truth.  
Your mamma, was a Ho!

I do not look at a the word "Ho" like it is a bad thing.  
In the early 1920's women were expected to partake in the company of multiple men.  The revolution of a woman's choice to marry lead to the idea of dating.  Dating, meant you sampled the wares of potential suitors.  Now, a ho.... may sample more wares than others.... but I just consider that thorough research. 
Let's face it, anything worth doing, is worth doing right. 
I dated, I sampled, I learned.  I had a full array of experience that allowed me to step unto my roll of advice and be able to say, "Do as I say, not as I do."  followed by "Because I know from EXPERIENCE."
So, I wanted to share that experience. 
I created this blog, for other Mamma Ho's out there.  Other women who sip coffee in leggings and over sized sweatshirts while their children scream, "You have NO IDEA WHAT I AM GOING THROUGH!"
Other women, who do not want to admit.... they too, were ho's. 
Other men too, because men were ho's as well.  It was just more socially acceptable.  But, men, please do not think we did not notice.  
My hope is that people will visit this page for some good advice, funny anecdotes, and I would like to share the stories of others.  
Pass the URL around, like a good coffee shop: let your friends know.