Friendly Sex

A short excerpt from "The Ethical Slut" by Janet Hardy and Dossie Easton

Friendly Sex

If one of those good, intimate friends becomes your lover … what then? Will it ruin the friendship? Will it lead to something more, something that threatens another part of your life? These are the concerns of many people encountering the possibilities of friendly sex for the first time.

The cultural ban on having sex with your friends is an inevitable offshoot of a societal belief that the only acceptable reason to have sex is to lead to a monogamous marriagelike relationship. We believe, on the other hand, that friendship is an excellent reason to have sex and that sex is an excellent way to maintain a friendship.

But monogamy-centrist culture affects us all. In single life, we can observe the Land of One-Night Stands, in which you go home with a pick-up and share some hot sex, then the next morning you look at each other and decide if the relationship has life-partner potential. If not, you leave, with much embarrassment, and the unspoken rule is that you will never be comfortable with that weighed-in-the-balance- and-found-wanting person again. Sex as audition is detrimental to people and to relationships. It happens because most people have no script for sexual intimacy in the midrange between complete stranger and total commitment.

How do you learn to share intimacy without falling in love? We would propose that we do love our friends, and particularly those we share sex with: these individuals are our family, often more permanent in our lives than marriages. With practice, we can develop an intimacy based on warmth and mutual respect, much freer than desperation, neediness, or the blind insanity of falling in love—that’s why the relationships between “friends with benefits” are so immensely valuable. When we acknowledge the love and respect and appreciation that we share with lovers we would never marry, sexual friendships can become not only possible but preferred. So while you’re worrying that your sexual desire could cost you your best friend, the more experienced slut could be wondering why you are the only friend she has never fucked.

Dossie, when she was first a feminist, vowed to remain unpartnered for five years to find out who she might be when she was not trying to be somebody’s “old lady.” She had many wonderful relationships during those years, a rainbow of intimacies, including the sharing of childrearing and households and fixing cars and, of course, lots of lovely sex and affection. She decided that if she made sure to be affectionate, to let people know what she loved about them, that most would find a way to be comfortable with her without needing to be territorial, and it worked. Her quest helped her discover new ways of being in the world as a woman, and as a sexual human being—the foundation of who she is and what she teaches today.

Each relationship seeks its own level, or will if you let it. Like water, you and whatever person has caught your fancy can flow together as long as you let it happen in the way that is fitting to you both.

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