Freedoms in Sex and Love. Exploring Polyamory with the authors of “The ethical slut”
1h 50m
Dossie Easton
Marriage and Family Therapist
Trailer
Get AccessFull VideoContent: Sexual and relational freedom, the right to love and be loved in ways that don’t fit neatly into a normative box, might be braked by fears, prejudices, and cultural biases we have internalized. Freedoms in sex and love are about courage and honesty. We have been honored to host two pioneers of today’s “positive sex culture”. Janet Hardy and Dossie Easton were real revolutionists in proponing alternative perspectives on polyamory, open relationships, consensual non-monogamy, and challenging prejudices their contemporaries encountered regarding gender, orientation, sexuality, and relationships. Their life is entirely committed to giving voice to diverse subcultures and reclaiming the right of people of any gender to accept their enjoyment of sex and the pleasure of physical intimacy with others ethically and openly.
With generosity, they share their point of view and experiences of polyamory and kink as they have evolved over the years. Through the narrative of their life challenges and radical decisions, this interview passes from the mid-sixties to the current minority culture, exploring how some concepts came to life to define a new vocabulary for alternative ways to be in a relationship and reveal our inner selves. Emotional intelligence, jealousy, consent, intimacy, and vulnerability are some of the precious elements of the talk that will leave you with new insights and a more open heart.
Produced in 2023
Dossie Easton
Marriage and Family Therapist
Speaker
Dossie Easton is a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice for the last 30 years, providing counseling and therapy to members of her slut and S/M communities.
She began her career as a sex radical in 1962. Since then, she has been committed to offering authentic, respectful, competent, and compassionate psychotherapy and relationship counseling to people exploring non-traditional lifestyles.
She has worked at a Battered Women’s Shelter and is currently working on publishing the syllabus of Navigating Consent, a series of classes presented on two tracks, About Surviving and About Transgressing. She created the classes as a contribution to the #MeToo movement. Navigating Consent is now in its fifth year and keeps training more folks on its teaching team. Planning to refocus on poetry in her retirement (if that ever happens): she particularly loves finding language to communicate the erotic in a tasty manner.
She has been a plenary or keynote speaker at many conferences, including conferences of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT), the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, and the University of Hamburg. Dossie has given presentations at many colleges and universities, including the University of California, Santa Cruz; Bryn Mawr College; University of California, Berkeley; Mills College; Pomona College; and San Francisco State University.
She was a member of the first Board of Directors of the Society of Janus in 1974 and is a life member. She is an inductee of the Society of Janus Hall of Fame. She has been a member of other well-known BDSM organizations such as The Outcasts, Exiles, and Black Leather Wings, a radical faerie group.
Her books have been cited as fundamental to the polyamory movement.
Publications with Janet W. Hardy
- The Ethical Slut
- The New Bottoming Book
- The New Topping Book
- When Someone You Love Is Kinky
- Radical Ecstasy: S/M Journeys to Transcendence
Janet Hardy
Writer and Sex Educator
Speaker
Janet W. Hardy is an American writer and sex educator, and founder of Greenery Press. She has also been published as Catherine A. Liszt and Lady Green.
She is the author or co-author of thirteen books about alternative sexuality, including the groundbreaking bestseller The Ethical Slut, and frequently collaborates with Dossie Easton. She has traveled the world sharing the knowledge she has gained through life as a polyamorous pervert bisexual genderqueer (and, lately, geezer).
She received the Geoff Mains Nonfiction Book Award from the National Leather Association in 2019 for The Sexually Dominant Woman: An Illustrated Guide for Nervous Beginners and in 2020 for Impervious: Confessions of a Semi-Retired Deviant.
She is an inductee of the Society of Janus Hall of Fame.
This year she received the Race Bannon Activism Award from the National Coalition of Sexual Freedom. Her latest book, Notes of an Aging Pervert, is coming in September 2023 from Unbound Editions.
Books authored or co-authored by Janet Hardy
- Dossie Easton, Janet W. Hardy, The New Topping Book. Greenery Press, 2003. ISBN 1-890159-36-0.
- Dossie Easton, Janet W. Hardy, The New Bottoming Book. Greenery Press, 2001. ISBN 1-890159-35-2.
- Dossie Easton, Catherine A. Liszt, When Someone You Love Is Kinky. Greenery Press, 2000. ISBN 1-890159-23-9.
- Lady Green, The Sexually Dominant Woman: a Workbook for Nervous Beginners, Greenery Press, 1998. ISBN 978-1-890159-11-5
- Lady Green, The Compleat Spanker, Greenery Press, 2000. ISBN 1-890159-00-X.
- Lady Green (edit.), Jaymes Easton (edit.), Kinky Crafts: 101 Do-It-Yourself S/M Toys, Greenery Press, 1998, ISBN 0-9639763-7-0
- Charles Moser, Janet Hardy, Sex Disasters… and How to Survive Them, Greenery Press, 2002. ISBN 1-890159-44-1.
- Janet Hardy, The Toybag Guide to Canes and Caning, Greenery Press, 2004. ISBN 1-890159-56-5.
- Dossie Easton, Janet W. Hardy, Radical Ecstasy, Greenery Press, 2004. ISBN 1-890159-62-X.
- Dossie Easton, Janet W. Hardy, The Ethical Slut Third Edition, Ten Speed Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0-399-57966-0.
- Janet W. Hardy, Girlfag: A Life Told in Sex and Musicals, Beyond Binary Books, 2012. ISBN 1-93812-300-X.
Film
- BDSM: It’s not what you think (2008)
- Vice & Consent (2005)
- “Sex TV”—Girl Show/The Ethical Slut/Sex and the Beard? (2002)
- Beyond Vanilla (2001)
- The Dr. Susan Block Show (1996)
