Ethical Slut - book discontinued by Celestial Arts - review by KrissyNovacaine

Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardey are well known authors and activists in the BDSM community. This book overlaps with the kink community, but isn't just for that small segment of the population.

Both authors have decades of personal experience in open relationships of all kinds and have taught classes and written about it before. This book is collection of their knowledge, experience, and what they have witnessed in other relationships as well.

Both authors are willing to share their failures as much as their successes which is a huge boon as the reader. Your authors are not infallible and have failed, and they want you to learn from their experiences good and bad.

I love books by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardey because they write in a way that engages the reader like there is a conversation occurring. It's not a rigid and dry lecture. Instead facts are broken up by stories and experiences. They disagree with each other on philosophies. They have different points of view. It's all expressed in an inclusive way that highlights that there is no one right way to do anything that is talked about in the book.

Both authors write passionately, but they balance humorous and serious.

This is a trade paperback. The cover design ins artistic, but the title is printed large enough that I wouldn't say it is the most discreet book on my shelf. That being said, this is not porn and it doesn't really look like porn.

The book is broken into four sections and a conclusion. It's 288 pages long in total. Each section covers important information and you can kind pick and choose what is relevant to you. I recommend reading the whole book at least once, but sometimes I just need to read a section as a refresher for my life.

The sections are:

Welcome
This is the what is an ethical slut.

Practice of Sluthood
This is about the realities of day to day life.

Navigating challenges
This covers how to deal with "negative" emotions and conflict.

Sluts in Love
This covers relationships.

My copy has held up to myself through several readings and loaning it out to folks, so this is a really nice quality paperback.

This is not an owner's manual for an open relationship. There isn't one right way to have an open relationship. Instead, this book offers a place to start having the conversations required to having a healthy open relationship.

I personally didn't read this for the first 3 years of my poly life. It has been a useful tool now that I have, but it is in no way necessary.