Slutever Page 21

  A few years later, about a year into dating Max (and about six months into our exclusivity), I experimented with being in an open relationship for a second time. This time we weren’t sleeping with people independently of each other, but together we decided that it would be fun to try a threesome…or two or seven. The first time was really great. We’d finally hit a stride in our relationship—for as psychologically morbid as it was at times, this was a high point, and I felt really in love—so when we invited over one of our sort-of friends for the evening, it felt like something we were really doing together. Leading up to the evening, it was fun to cofantasize about what would happen, and who was going to tie her up and spit in her mouth or whatever. Once the girl was in bed with us, the whole evening felt really playful and sexy, and afterward it provided fodder for dirty talk for weeks to come. Because I was confident in our relationship, it felt fun and freeing to be like, “Fuck societal standards, I’m the Indiana Jones of sluts!” Ya know, cliché sexual self-discovery stuff.

  After that, we were on a threesome upswing. We had a sexy MDMA shower with a busty French TV producer. We dildoed an ex-stripper while she was on the phone with her mom. We fucked my intern against a chain-link fence. It was all very glamorous. And finding people to bang was so bizarrely easy. Our tactic was literally to just text the girl of our choosing: Hey, wanna get threesomed? Somehow this strategy was almost infallible.

  But then, about a year after our first ménage, the relationship started to go downhill. Not because of the group sex, more because Max too often Dr. Jekylled into a verbally abusive, tyrannical version of himself, which in turn made me behave like a noodly, needy, insecure mess. I felt newly insecure in our relationship—primarily, about his commitment to it—and suddenly the thought of watching him fuck someone else no longer seemed “team building.” If I were smarter and stronger, I would’ve admitted this to him and explained why I didn’t think it was a good idea to group-bang someone while our relationship was on the fritz, and while I was in a state of emotional dynamite. But instead, I chose to make the same mistake I did in my first go at nonmonogamy: to just fake a smile (and an orgasm or two) and zombie-walk through the flames.

  There was this moment during that last threesome when I was watching him bang this girl—one of his ex–fuck buddies—and I saw them having this private moment of connection, and I felt like I was going to literally puke. And maybe he should have been more sensitive to my feelings, but at the end of the day, I’d put myself in that position (again). Turns out, our partners can’t read our minds, and being a passive-aggressive cunt doesn’t always communicate the subtle nuances of our feelings. I guess that’s why we hear, ad nauseum, that the key to a healthy relationship is communifuckingcation. And that’s even more true when your relationship involves a rotating cast of blow-job guest stars.

  But third time’s a charm, right? Lol, no. My third go at nonmonogamy was at twenty-seven, with Alice. She and I met just after I’d left my two-plus-year relationship with Max, and she had just ended an even longer relationship with a woman. For obvious reasons, both of us were hesitant to commit to something restrictive right away. But we really liked each other, so I suggested we keep things open—because, ya know, I’m super progressive, and because I’d had so much success with it in the past.

  As usual, in the beginning it was great: I had a loving partner to have dinner and feelings-y sex with, but I was still allowed the occasional hookup with guys from the post office or internet or wherever. Plus, I had just started working as a sugar baby at the time, and I didn’t want to give that up (for financial reasons, but also because I had the foresight to understand it would one day be glamorous to drop “Back when I was a prostitute…” casually at a dinner party). Being open meant that I didn’t have to bail on that perverted dream. It was the best of both worlds. Of course, even in the beginning I would sometimes get jealous of Alice’s affairs. Let’s be real, even in my most open-minded mood, the thought of her banging someone else made me want to pull a Left Eye and burn down her apartment. But these fleeting moments of violent rage felt like a small price to pay for my sexual freedom. And the fact that I was able to rationalize that—that I was willing to sacrifice the pain for the gain—made me feel like this time around I might have matured enough to make nonmonogamy work long term.

  But then something happened that I wasn’t expecting: We got competitive. Basically, if my girlfriend went on a date, my wounded ego obliged me to do the same, so as not to fall behind. Suddenly, our peripheral sex lives seemed to be just as much about payback as they were about pleasure. A fuck for a fuck, if you will. And that wasn’t the only problem. There was also the fact that when we’d decided to be open, we hadn’t really set any ground rules, aside from, like, “Don’t fall in love with anyone else.” But as time went on, and as we started ending up in situations where one of us felt betrayed, we were suddenly faced with the question: How open is open? Does open mean a no-boundaries slutfest in which both partners are free to form secondary relationships and show up to dinner covered in a stranger’s cum? Or does it mean that very occasionally, when an extracurricular hookup happens, you both just force a smile and pray no one got herpes?

  Over time we worked out our boundaries and set rules that made sense for us. For instance: no sleeping with mutual friends, no sleepovers, no “regulars,” and no banging someone else within an hour of hanging out with each other (an obvious sacrifice, but one I was willing to make for true love). We stayed open for nine months, which felt pretty successful. But then disaster struck, in the worst way: She fell for one of her fuck buddies and started secretly dating her—the thing slutty nightmares are made of.

  Here’s the super-condensed version of what happened: Basically, even though Alice had agreed to be in an open relationship, I was definitely the one who, shall we say, “utilized my privileges” more frequently. After a while, this imbalance started to make her secretly resentful. Then she started banging a woman who I’ll refer to simply as the Cunt (to this day, I consider her my archnemesis). So, the Cunt becomes obsessed with Alice and gives her a ton of love and attention, and suddenly Alice feels very drawn to the Cunt because she’s giving her all the affection that she feels is lacking in our relationship. Alice then ends up secretly spending the entire Thanksgiving weekend with the Cunt, while I’m upstate with my family. I discovered this through the very classy and high-tech tactic known as “looking at her phone while she’s in the shower.” Predictably, I had a mental breakdown and gave her an ultimatum: stop railing the Cunt and be monogamous with me, or we’re over. She chose me (but mainly, I think, because my level of manic rage rendered her literally scared for her life).

  For the next two years we were monogamous, and pretty successful at it—aside from that time she cheated on me (with the Cunt) and then I cheated on her back with a lesbian Mormon pornographer…but whatever, no one’s perfect. Monogamy certainly wasn’t easy, but I was really in love, and the sacrifice felt unquestionably worth it to me. And while it’s off brand for me to be sincere, I will say that, during those two years, being with her made me feel so loved and safe and supported and happy. She was unquestionably my person. But of course, there’s an expiration date to any diet, and almost two years to the day from when we closed our relationship, I pressured her to open it again.

  This time, we barely lasted two months before the relationship imploded. I’ve intentionally blocked out a lot of the details, but let’s just say that one evening, I locked myself in the bathroom with Alice’s phone, went onto her Tinder account, found all the phone numbers of the girls she had slept with, put their numbers into my phone, and then proceeded to send all of them threatening text messages in the vein of If you ever text my girlfriend again I’ll fucking kill you!! I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE! Yeah, definitely a low point for me. Not surprisingly, we broke up very soon after that. Post-violent-Tinder-meltdown, I got to thinking: What the fuck does it take to make an open relationship work?

  The (
Ethical) Slutty Basics

  Embarking on a quest for the perfect slutty relationship has become increasingly fashionable in recent years. In fact, people have built entire careers out of trying to conquer Pandora’s slutty box. The aforementioned sex writer and podcaster Dan Savage is an active proponent of what he calls “monogamish”—“opening the door of your relationship just a crack, to keep it from blowing off its hinges,” as he puts it. Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy’s book The Ethical Slut—probably the quintessential guide to nonmonogamy—has been selling consistently since its publication in 1997. And then there’s Sex at Dawn, Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá’s 2010 bestseller, which argues that monogamy goes against human nature. The book’s enormous popularity spawned countless articles and debates about whether monogamy is in fact a social construct, and one that goes against our biology. All of this demonstrates an increasing cultural interest in relationships that deviate from the norm of monogamy.

  But just because something is trendy doesn’t mean that it’s easy, and just because something feels idyllic and like it “makes sense in the long run” doesn’t mean that it won’t drive you fucking mental. Like, I rationally understand that if I didn’t drink a bottle of Prosecco every night, I would be skinnier and less of a hungover maniac, but that doesn’t make me order seltzer. And I know that if I could curb my jealousy and offer my partner the same freedoms that I seek for myself, I would be more likely to form a relationship that didn’t feel like a prison cell. Sigh. If only knowing things meant something.

  Nonmonogamous relationships generally fall into one of three main categories: swinging, polyamory, and open relationships. Swingers are the most couple-centric of the three—these are lovers in a committed relationship who have strictly casual sex with other people, which they typically engage in together, at a swingers’ party or some other “lifestyle” event. Open relationships are similar in that a committed couple can have casual hookups, but their extracurricular sex tends to happen independently. These couples will usually create specific boundaries based on their personal comfort levels—for instance, a “no sleepovers” rule, or an “area code” rule. Finally, polyamory refers to people who have multiple simultaneous relationships that are not just sexual, but emotional and romantic as well. For instance, one could have a primary partner and a secondary partner, or three or four people could all be romantically linked together, known as a triad or a quad, respectively.

  An open relationship seems like the best option for me, mainly because I prefer my extracurricular sex to happen solo, as in not at a sex party surrounded by a bunch of people who look like they were born and raised at Burning Man. Also, if my partner is going to be railing someone else, I’d rather not be present, thanks. Also, being poly just sounds way too time consuming. Like, I can’t even find time to pick up my laundry, let alone massage both of my boyfriends’ egos and prostates. There’s only so many orgasms in the day.

  Beyond freedom and transparency, there are some other, more hidden perks to nonmonogamy. For example, it’s well-known poly lore that a primary virtue of being open is that it prevents you from getting lazy or taking each other for granted—the slight competition keeps you engaged and motivates you to win each other’s affection every day. So basically, if you’re open, your husband is less likely to get a beer gut. And there’s also the issue of honesty. Let’s not kid ourselves: Adultery is rife. In a way, the social norm of monogamy requires a certain degree of dishonesty. It’s almost like monogamous couples actually prefer to be lied to rather than deal with the uncomfortable reality of extra-relationship attraction.

  I currently have two close friends in successful long-term nonmonogamous relationships, so I’ve seen firsthand that it does really work for some people. The first is Anna, a law professor who’s been in an open marriage for seven years with an extremely sweet businessman. Anna’s from Macedonia, or one of those other weird Eastern European countries where people don’t have feelings, which I assume is a primary reason why she never seems to care when her husband brings one of his many side hos on a sexy beach vacay. (Technically, people from Eastern Europe are a little bit less human than the rest of us.) Anna is an extreme case. For one, she’s thirty-four and has already slept with more than a thousand people. That’s pretty impressive—on a physical level, but also just logistically. I’m stressed just thinking about her iCal. One of Anna’s hobbies is organizing gang bangs for herself and her friends. I found this out after I once casually mentioned that I like Public Disgrace, the kinky gang-bang porn series, to which Anna responded, “OMG, I throw gang bangs! Let me know if you’re interested and I can totally make that happen for you!” Now, every couple of months or so I get a text from her like, Hey, just putting together another GB. Let me know if you want in, babe! Followed by the salsa-dancing emoji.

  It’s clear that Anna and her husband really love each other. While I would literally rather die than engage in their extreme level of double-penetration polymania, I really respect what they’ve created. They’re a perfect example of the fact that, as long you and your partner both want the same thing, you can make literally any type of relationship work—even one that lets you take ten dicks at a time on a random Wednesday.

  My other nonmonogamous friend is Colette. She’s a thirty-five-year-old dominatrix with a PhD in psychology, and for the last four years she’s been in a polyamorous relationship with her boyfriend, Dan, a thirty-seven-year-old tech millionaire. (Yes, they live in Berkeley—you guessed right.) I’ve gone to visit them multiple times, and even though I’m not trying to be poly specifically, their relationship is closer to something I would want for myself. Put simply, they’re both super-hot, successful, rich, smart, and kinky; they’re clearly very in love; and yet they offer each other the freedom to fuck and care about other people. (Annoyingly, neither of them has ever tried to have sex with me, which I’m offended by, honestly.)

  During one of my visits to their Berkeley mansion, I had something of a slutty lightbulb moment, which I once wrote about for Vogue. Until then, I always knew that nonmonogamy had the specific benefit of allowing you to continue your sexual exploration, even while being in a supportive relationship, or after marriage or whatever. But seeing Colette and Dan’s home life made me realize that outside of the obvious sexual perks, nonmonogamy lays the groundwork for a genuinely unique and thrilling lifestyle, in ways far beyond novelty fucks. Being nonmonogamous is, essentially, the opposite of being basic.

  When I arrived at Colette and Dan’s beautiful hilltop home on a Saturday morning in the spring of 2016, Dan answered the door wearing silk pajama pants. “Colette’s in the orgy room, meditating,” he said with a smile. They’d hired a rent-a-shaman to come up from Mexico that afternoon, to dose a handful of their friends with a psychoactive toad venom containing the powerful hallucinogen 5-MeO-DMT, known to induce divine revelation or, in Colette’s words, “ego death.” (Think ayahuasca but without the puking.) I was there in part to “observe” Colette and Dan’s relationship dynamic—sort of like being on a poly safari—and in part to try to see if this magical toad could collaborate with the slut gods to miraculously solve all my relationship problems. Or something.

  With a few hours to kill before the ceremony, Colette invited me to one of her dominatrix sessions to watch her electrocute a man’s balls. How could I say no? So after breakfast we all hopped into Dan’s self-driving Tesla and headed to Colette’s dungeon. Watching their morning exchange made me smile—they talked about planning a trip to see Dan’s family, and Dan made Colette oatmeal as she packed her Prada bag full of latex lingerie and washed her dildos in the sink. It was cool to see how they’d forged a relationship that is at once loving and domestic but also completely unorthodox. It’s like, just because you’re poly-glamorous and host chic orgies doesn’t mean you don’t make breakfast and hang with each other’s mom, ya know? I kept thinking: That—that’s what I want.

  Still, they’re the first to admit that defying convention is no walk
in the park. “It’s really not easy to be in a poly relationship,” Colette told me as the robot car drove us to her dungeon. “You’re allowing yourself to be thrown into situations that can arouse feelings of jealousy, insecurity, neediness—emotions you always thought you would avoid at all costs.” But ultimately, she prefers a relationship that’s challenging to one that’s binding. “That traditional relationship model just doesn’t work for me at all,” she said. “Plus, it feels good to carve out your own type of relationship. The idea of doing what everyone else does just feels insane to me.”

  “People seek monogamy and ‘till death do us part’ because it gives them security,” Dan added. “They want to believe that the other person is never going to run off. But Colette and I both value our freedom to explore life in an unbounded fashion, and to love and to build relationships with many people. Within the open relationship, what makes Colette so special to me is that I learn more from her and I evolve quicker with her than I have with any other woman.”

  “In all my previous relationships, my partners said I was ‘too much,’” Colette recalled. “With Dan, we obviously have issues that we have to work through, but I’m so happy to finally be with someone who radically accepts me for me: a weird, polyamorous sex worker.” The key, they both agreed, is not entering a relationship with someone who’s fundamentally trying to make you more normal than you want to be. And that is certainly a mistake I’ve made ad nauseum. Over the years, I have repeatedly found myself in relationships with people who loved me, but who were basically like: “So it’s cool that you’re a professional sex maniac or whatever, but now that we’re together, can you, ya know…tone it down?” (Like, I once had a guy I was dating introduce me to his family by saying that I wrote Vogue’s “emotional health column.” I was like, “Sex column, it’s a sex column, bro. My last article was about how I masturbate thinking about Anthony Weiner. That is emotionally healthy for no one.”) Either that, or I’ve dated sex maniacs who were “too much” for me. The goal, I suppose, is finding that special partnership where we’re both “just enough” for each other. I’m basically slutty Goldilocks, except swap out porridge for…I don’t know, cum? That’s gross, sorry.