In the most recent article before this one, I talked about the big picture lesson from my slut era.
Now, I want to tell you more about the practical aspects about being a slut and respond to some commonly asked questions about sleeping around.
Q: How do you meet people?
A: Two main places. First, dating apps. I have written pretty comprehensively about my experiences in the dating apps in a previous article, but the key takeaways for me are the following:
Be as transparent as possible what’s important to you, especially the things you feel like hiding. My main things were: you need to be at least fluent in non-monogamy, you need to at least be extremely progressive, and you need to want to shower me with all the attention and validation. With less transparency, the higher the chance that you end up wasting a lot of time once you match because if any of those requirements are a problem for them, you will find your relationship unsustainable at a very fundamental level after you’ve spent some time with them.
Continue to be transparent about what you want without making them responsible for it. Guessing games are ineffective tools for sustainable dating. Tell them what you’re up to. For example, I was telling a connection the other day, “I would love to spend more time with you. Would you like to partner with me on making that happen?” I might want a lot of attention and validation, but it is up to me to communicate how I want to get it from them. If they are unavailable for it, I can use that information to decide how much room in my heart I can have for this relationship. And then also be open to that also changing over time as we either build the relationship or dissolve the relationship or something in between. This is how we honor each other’s agency.
The second, *more interesting* place I like to meet people: literally everywhere else. 😂 When you are non-monogamous, pretty much everybody feels like a candidate. In the beginning, this was fun because I was flirting with, uh, everybody. For example, it is a common practice for me to tell the bartender how hot he is in the middle of a date with my husband or any one of my connections and partners. I just like being congruent and find joy in telling people the truth about how I experience them. How they receive my congruence is not my business.
Even when I am not flirting, I just get to enjoy being around people I find attractive. If I want to take action on it, I will start a conversation and gather more information. And that’s it. It doesn’t have to be complicated.
Chances are higher that I will meet people I desire more deeply in places where I feel at home. There is one person I have met in a class I was so excited about, and we bonded because we shared so many common values and interests that the class addressed.
When you’re looking, you will find so much.
Q: How do you take care of your sexual health?
A: I was not so diligent about this in the beginning because I was unaware and having fun. Looking back, this is what I would recommend to my six-months-ago self:
Get a consultation with a provider who is fluent in sexual health and is able to recommend a thorough STI/STD panel because there are different levels and kinds of testing available depending on the provider. During the consultation, talk about what the process looks like if you test positive for an STI: how you will be notified and whether you will need to come in for additional lab work or treatment, etc.
Generally educate yourself on sexual health, like the kinds of vaccines that are available for the different STIs, how they are transmitted, what their incubation period is, risk levels. For example, I learned recently that HPV is an STI that cannot be tested in men. I also learned that there are preventive measures for HIVs that is not commonly known among the medical community.
Get tested at the very beginning of your slut era and every three months just to keep tabs on the state of your sexual health.
Be transparent with all of your partners the results of your panel.
Require a negative panel from all of your partners before having any sexual contact.
Continue your sexual health education from experienced experts you trust and follow.
Given that I have lost track of how many sexual partners I’ve had, I am lucky that I’ve had a negative panel after all that (except for cold sores, which I’ve had my whole life and which most people on the planet have), but I decided to be more diligent moving forward given that I had my first panel done and realized more firmly that I would like to keep it negative.
Q: Was there any jealousy on Dan’s part?
A: I had a conversation with Dan about this, and here’s the short of it (because I don’t remember everything he said). Because we had such extensive conversations around how we relate to our own experiences of jealousy, he found it easier to experience it in reality. In his words: “At first it was kind of weird, but after the first time you had sex, it was like, wow, the world is still turning. You still love me, and I still love you. Nothing has changed.”
Of course, it’s not always that simple. There will be feelings of jealousy that come up throughout different scenarios, and what we do there is relate. To relate is to connect by knowing more of the other and being known by the other. The way we address jealousy is to treat it as an indicator that there is some part of us that is not being seen or that some part of our needs are not being met. Are you willing to have a conversation around what that is without needing that to mean that you are a bad partner or a bad person?
And, everybody’s path is different. Even if we have done the work of rebuilding our relationship to jealousy, we can still feel differently once reality hits us. One thing I like to say about jealousy is that it is simply an indicator that we are not getting what we want. So, what is that? I speak a little more on jealousy here.
Q: What if I don’t really have a lot of experience with sex, or it’s been a while since I’ve had sex with anybody other than my spouse/partner?
A: Well, that is probably one reason you are interested in being a slut. I mean, that was definitely one of my reasons. I did not date seriously before Dan, so he was my first sexual partner. So when I watched my sexuality finally explode back in September after opening up our marriage, I was so excited to be “bad” because we just get tired of being all buttoned up and performative everywhere else. You know?
The way I eased into my experiences was that I was transparent about it. I told my partners that I was inexperienced. If there was any judgment on their part, I would probably feel less connected with them, so I would probably lose interest having sex with them. If there was just a lot of sincere endearment and appreciation for my transparency, chances are higher that I would feel more connected to them and find myself more attracted to them.
Q: What if the sex is bad?
A: Yes, what if? Sex is sometimes bad. And then you decide what you liked about it and didn’t like about it, and then you decide how you’re going to go after more of what you do like.
I also want to note that whether sex is good or bad is based on your own standards. What are your standards?
For me, the way I measure whether sex is good is whether I feel closer to them through the experience. This has nothing to do with whether someone climaxes or not. So often, I have found that cis het guys that I have sex with have found it problematic that they couldn’t get it up “fast enough” or couldn’t climax “at the appropriate time.” For me, there is no such thing. If I get to know you and your body more, that is all that matters to me.
All these arbitrary standards around sex has gotten us wondering if we are doing sex “right” when the only question is how we feel having sex with them and what we want different next time, if at all.
Q: What needs to happen for me to call my slut era “a slut era”?
A: Nothing except your own decision. I simply said, ooh I feel like a slut. So I called myself a slut. There was a period of time where I felt like a slut. So I called that period a slut era.
There is no “right” amount of people to sleep with or how that needs to happen.
I had a lot of terrible dates, a lot of canceled dates, and a lot of false alarms thinking I was falling in love. What I got out of it was a treasure chest of information of what I wanted next, which was deeper emotional connection with a fewer number of people. So what is what I am now after and am getting. Whatever I experience during this time of my life will offer another set of valuable information about what I want next.
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I think this is all I can think of in terms of the Q&A for now. You know I’ll report back with more when I think of more. 😘
By the way, if you haven’t signed up for the fireside on opening up your marriage, this is an excellent way to ask me any questions live, whether it’s about opening up hearts or opening up legs. 😉
There is no dumb question to ask. In fact, one of my self-appointed job titles is Dumb Question Collector. I go around collecting questions that you think are the dumbest because those are the most fruitful and valuable ones.
The fireside is happening Friday, April 5 at noon ET.
We’re going to go over some general principles around opening up your marriage, including a framework specifically for opening up your marriage and essential relating skills to relate through any difference. We will have plenty of time to talk through wrinkles that are specific to your own curiosities and what you are grappling with right now. There will be opportunity to ask your questions anonymously.
Register here: angela-han.com/open
The first part of this is a masterclass in copywriting