Dossie Easton
Author of The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures
About the Author
Works by Dossie Easton
The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures (1997) — Author — 2,508 copies, 38 reviews
Flyer: The Bottoming Book 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Easton, Dossie
- Legal name
- Easton, Dorothy
Woman, Scarlet - Birthdate
- 1944-02-26
- Gender
- female
- Education
- New College of California
University of San Francisco - Occupations
- author
family therapist - Short biography
- I grew up in a small town in Massachusetts, and was amazed and delighted to discover the astounding diversity of urban life when I started working in Boston as a teenager. I dropped out of college in my sophomore year and moved to New York City's Lower East Side to be a psychedelic revolutionary and explore sexuality and spirituality in as many ways as I could find. I eagerly learned about Kundalini yoga, meditation, Buddhist, and Hindu spiritual practices. I discovered the Goddess and received my first Tarot deck when I was nineteen.
I emigrated to San Francisco in the Great Migration of 1967, a happy flower child in the Summer of Love, and have lived in this magical region ever since. My daughter was born in 1969, and being her mother has been the greatest delight and privilege in my life. It was shortly after her birth that I took my vow of permanent nonmonogamy.
I found a community of fellow seekers in sexuality at San Francisco Sex Information in 1973, and went forward from there to host a radio show, join the leather community, and finish college. Later I attended graduate school, completed my internship, and became licensed as a marriage and family therapist.
I published my first book with Janet Hardy in 1994, shortly after my fiftieth birthday; further books followed. I have been studying and practicing Tantra in a women's sangha since 2002, as chronicled in Radical Ecstasy. I am currently sixty-five years old and enjoying a rich and sexy life with my beloved in the mountains of West Marin. - Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Andover, Massachusetts, USA
- Places of residence
- West Marin, California, USA
- Map Location
- USA
Members
Reviews
The New Topping Book is a great answer to the question many new tops have: "How do I actually do it?" This book isn't just a guide to resources and fundamentals of safety and communication, it walks you through creating a viable emotional and conceptual framework for your own domination.
The authors don't try to railroad the reader down one particular road; rather, they give you the tools to empower yourself and become confident enough to actually dive into play without excess worries or show more insecurities. This sort of comforting, non-judgemental attitude can be surprisingly rare in the BDSM community. It's super readable, very inclusive of different styles and intensities of play, and I think it's not only a good primer but a good refresher for more experienced players.
I wasn't too keen on the "interludes," which are essentially little snippets from friends or acquaintances of Hardy & Easton about their experiences. Theoretically these could be helpful but mostly they just read like smut and seemed kind of pointless. I also didn't love the inclusion of a chapter on "BDSM Spirituality." It felt like too much of a departure from the rest of the text to warrant being included, plus it was predictably new-agey and hippy-dippy and all that. So you get quotes like:
The cosmic river flows through each of us, bearing nourishment, washing away what we no longer need, making us wet.
Infusing BDSM with spiritual weight is totally fine, but I don't think it belongs in a primer for newbies. I made a concerted effort to read this chapter without judgement, but when the authors mentioned a rigger friend of theirs who saw visions of "animal spirits" and received psychic messages while tying people up, my eyes started to roll involuntarily. The conclusion is also a bit up-its-own-ass, talking about Lucifer and illuminating the darkness within and stuff like that, and I mean, come on now. We're not monks, we're people who like to flog others for fun. But I suppose it's better to treat BDSM with too much reverence than not enough.
All in all, definitely recommended as a resource for beginners. Feel free to take what you need from the text, though, and leave the rest. I can promise you the animal visions are not a requirement. show less
The authors don't try to railroad the reader down one particular road; rather, they give you the tools to empower yourself and become confident enough to actually dive into play without excess worries or show more insecurities. This sort of comforting, non-judgemental attitude can be surprisingly rare in the BDSM community. It's super readable, very inclusive of different styles and intensities of play, and I think it's not only a good primer but a good refresher for more experienced players.
I wasn't too keen on the "interludes," which are essentially little snippets from friends or acquaintances of Hardy & Easton about their experiences. Theoretically these could be helpful but mostly they just read like smut and seemed kind of pointless. I also didn't love the inclusion of a chapter on "BDSM Spirituality." It felt like too much of a departure from the rest of the text to warrant being included, plus it was predictably new-agey and hippy-dippy and all that. So you get quotes like:
The cosmic river flows through each of us, bearing nourishment, washing away what we no longer need, making us wet.
Infusing BDSM with spiritual weight is totally fine, but I don't think it belongs in a primer for newbies. I made a concerted effort to read this chapter without judgement, but when the authors mentioned a rigger friend of theirs who saw visions of "animal spirits" and received psychic messages while tying people up, my eyes started to roll involuntarily. The conclusion is also a bit up-its-own-ass, talking about Lucifer and illuminating the darkness within and stuff like that, and I mean, come on now. We're not monks, we're people who like to flog others for fun. But I suppose it's better to treat BDSM with too much reverence than not enough.
All in all, definitely recommended as a resource for beginners. Feel free to take what you need from the text, though, and leave the rest. I can promise you the animal visions are not a requirement. show less
The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures by Dossie Easton
I tend to roll my eyes at self-help books and relationship books. It probably isn't my best attribute, but it's true. This one I ate up. This was almost certainly because we live in a society so knotted up about sexuality and traditional monogamy that there really isn't much discussion of, let alone positive role modeling of healthy non-monogamous relationships out in the open. Lately I have become more and more aware that a lot of perfectly lovely people have been cutting their own path show more when it comes to structuring their intimate relationships. Couple that with my own disinterest in the traditional institution of marriage and this seemed like the book for me.
It was.
The book starts off beautifully from the simple premise: Sex is fun and pleasure is good for you. The authors proudly dismiss the idea that the number of partners a person has has any bearing on their value as a person or their moral fiber. This, they point out, is a hold over from our culture's long tradition of commodifying sex, or, more specifically, commodifying women according to the exclusivity of their bodies. There is of course nothing wrong with monogamy if it is what works for a couple, however the authors are quick to point out that love and sex need not go hand in hand, and if love is dependent on complete sexual possession of your partner's body you might be confusing your lover with your property. You love a person for who they are, not who they do.
These are of course things that need to be sorted out by the individuals involved and nowhere in the book do the authors imply one sort of relationship to be superior to another. They do however point out that what's best for one person is not necessarily best for another and what is best for a person can change over a lifetime. Or several times. They dig into the ethics and strategies of non-monogamy and here it really opens up. Frankly, with the possibly exception of the chapter on how to negotiate sex parties, this section really ought to apply to anyone. Communication and emotional honesty are emphasized above all else. Using this basic foundation the authors detail how to sort out what boundaries you need in your relationship and how to deal with the difficulties and problems that will arise in a non-mongamous relationship. Not because non-monogamy is inherently more fragile than monogamy, but because every relationship faces challenges.
I still don't know how exactly I would like to structure my romantic relationships, but now I'm a lot more knowledgeable about the options out there and feel more secure knowing my relationships don't need fit any expectations or structure other than those imposed by the people involved. Yay! show less
It was.
The book starts off beautifully from the simple premise: Sex is fun and pleasure is good for you. The authors proudly dismiss the idea that the number of partners a person has has any bearing on their value as a person or their moral fiber. This, they point out, is a hold over from our culture's long tradition of commodifying sex, or, more specifically, commodifying women according to the exclusivity of their bodies. There is of course nothing wrong with monogamy if it is what works for a couple, however the authors are quick to point out that love and sex need not go hand in hand, and if love is dependent on complete sexual possession of your partner's body you might be confusing your lover with your property. You love a person for who they are, not who they do.
These are of course things that need to be sorted out by the individuals involved and nowhere in the book do the authors imply one sort of relationship to be superior to another. They do however point out that what's best for one person is not necessarily best for another and what is best for a person can change over a lifetime. Or several times. They dig into the ethics and strategies of non-monogamy and here it really opens up. Frankly, with the possibly exception of the chapter on how to negotiate sex parties, this section really ought to apply to anyone. Communication and emotional honesty are emphasized above all else. Using this basic foundation the authors detail how to sort out what boundaries you need in your relationship and how to deal with the difficulties and problems that will arise in a non-mongamous relationship. Not because non-monogamy is inherently more fragile than monogamy, but because every relationship faces challenges.
I still don't know how exactly I would like to structure my romantic relationships, but now I'm a lot more knowledgeable about the options out there and feel more secure knowing my relationships don't need fit any expectations or structure other than those imposed by the people involved. Yay! show less
Helpful and sexy is a surprisingly difficult combination to pull off, but this book manages it beautifully. The practical information was useful, approachable, and thoughtfully presented, while the stories kept the book engaging throughout. I came away feeling both more informed and a little flustered, which feels like exactly the right outcome.
I love this book. Far more than a technical manual, it gets deep into the psychology of topping. It helps explain the kind of mindset you have to have for a successful kink encounter as a top. After all, everything else is secondary. You don't need floggers or props or anything but yourself to top. Also, importantly, it doesn't make any assumptions about which "types of people" prefer to top. Anyone can enjoy either role.
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Statistics
- Works
- 6
- Members
- 3,977
- Popularity
- #6,344
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 50
- ISBNs
- 31
- Languages
- 7
- Favorited
- 4