ETHICAL

THE ETHICAL SLUT
make sure to stay connected. It's up to you to build yourself a family, and
it's up to you to take care of yourself gently and with an open heart.
Your relationship with yourself is a lifelong commitment. When
you are single, you have unique opportunities to live out that relationship
with yourself, to find out who you are, and to celebrate your
journey in whatever relationships you may move through as you travel
through your life. To live single and in love with many is a voyage of
self-discovery, an opportunity to get to know yourself intimately and
to work on any changes you want to make in your life. Dossie was
single when she first struggled with her jealousy, and having it all to
herself made it easier to see inside herself rather than blame someone
else, and to make conscious decisions about how she wanted to deal
with her feelings.
We are not here to advocate being single over being partnered-this
is not an either/or choice. But our culture tends to discount singlehood
as a lifestyle, and thus very few people choose to remain single, which
means there are relatively few resources and little social status available
to the single person. Perhaps if being single were an acceptable, even
valued, lifestyle, partnerships might develop more out of choice and
less out of a sense of necessity or a desperate grab for salvation.
Partnered people get to share the basics of their lives-working
together on shared goals, pooling finances, splitting the hard work of
child rearing. Partners also get to share with each other when things
are less than pretty-and we all need somebody to let us know that
we are still lovable when we are not at our shiniest. The challenge for
the single slut is to find ways to deepen the intimacy in relationships
that may not be life partnerships.
Being single, on the other hand, offers the opportunity to spend time
being purely who you are. Singles enjoy more freedom to explore, fewer
obligations, and the ability to lounge around the house in a holey T-shirt
playing video games with nobody the wiser. Perhaps you are single
for negative, and valid, reasons. The last relationship was a disaster,
and you are terrified to try again. You only feel safe controlling your
own finances, or your own kitchen, or your own life. The only way
you know how to be in a relationship is to try to be the perfect wife,
or husband, or lover, or provider, and you're exhausted from trying to
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