am i an ethical slut?

Are you responsible for others’ relationships? If you are made privy to others’ boundaries (likely) then do you become responsible for upholding them? Not just honoring them (of course you are responsible for that), but helping keep your partner in line also? i.e. If you partner suggests doing something you know breaks their boundary, do you refuse on that basis? These might be simple questions, but they have complex answers. There is a huge element of ‘it depends’ and personal choice, but I think it’s an interesting cocktail-party conversation. Well, a non-monogamous cocktail party. My personal experiences are more swinger-centric, but these are very relevant conversations for all of us ENM’s. For the polyamorous, there is much more at stake with more on-going relationships between your partner and others (metamours) and your partner’s longer term well-being is of your distinct interest. Then there’s all the in-between.

When my husband and I were a couple years into the lifestyle, a vanilla college friend of mine reached out to me. We had been lightly FWB after college, but that didn’t stick and we had stayed in touch platonically through the years. He was going to be in the area and invited me to join him and another mutual acquaintance for a weekend reunion. It was far enough away that we would be sharing an Airbnb. This friend who invited me knows that I am in the lifestyle, and I would call him LS adjacent, but not in it. My husband’s immediate response was, “He is planning on playing with you.” “No, he’s not,” I refuted, “he’s married.” He laughed. We went back and forth on this point. When I shared the conversation with another (vanilla) friend of mine, she responded, “Yes, he wants to play with you.” Hmm, there was no potential jealousy getting in her way, so I went straight to the source. I called my friend and asked about his expectations. “I thought we might do some playing,” he responded. He had boundaries that he considered “not cheating,” which I don’t agree with, but that’s for him to decide for himself and his relationship. I sat on the receiving end of the phone, shocked. “Well, I don’t play with people whose partners don’t know” I said. “OK, I get it.  Of course I would still love it if you would join us.” I debated with myself and ultimately decided to go. I knew it would be fun and thought it would be an interesting exercise to create and hold this personal boundary for the weekend. I also debated with myself on why I had created that boundary to begin with.

I don’t feel responsible for other people’s relationships. If he had wanted to cheat on his wife, it’s not really my job to protect her. That viewpoint might ruffle some feathers—and seem contradictory to my feminist, pro-woman stance—but the way I see it is if someone’s partner is cheating on them, they’ve got bigger issues than what I can be responsible for. Because I say no to someone, I’m helping save their marriage? Um, no. I do, however, have a feeling about the energy that is brought into an experience. My concern becomes less about his marriage and more about him sitting on the side of the bed crying afterward saying, “What have I done?” This might sound selfish, that the only reason I won’t be a cheating-accomplice is that I’ll have to console the guy, but it is true. I know myself and know that in the moment I’d feel compelled to soothe him. Soothing someone’s regret after fucking me is not something I want to do. That is pretty simple.

Except it’s not really simple. I know plenty of non-monogamous women – single and married - who are unwilling to be the cheating-accomplice. They will go to lengths to have some communication from the partner to know that it’s OK. I have been the communicating partner in some instances. I don’t know their motivations in this—maybe they feel similarly to me and the energy/crying thing, maybe they feel they have some responsibility in the whole scenario, or maybe they are just trying to avoid drama—and some angry wife or girlfriend texting them or showing up at their house or workplace. All are fair reasons.

I brushed up with the drama scenario only once. When I was out of town for work, my husband arranged a date for me—a hot firefighter. I might have said this before, but I have the best husband. The firefighter and I went out and had a great night. We discussed how his fiancé was aware of his lifestyle activities, but that they lived more of a ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ model of non-monogamy. This was probably a red flag and my single sisters would roll their eyes. The next morning after texting each other our post-hot-sex pleasantries, he then sent a message saying something like, “Hey, so, my fiancé might be calling or texting you because now your phone number is on my phone and she’s going to wonder who it is . . . so if you could just tell her you are a traveling nurse (a role he would work with, evidently), that would be great.” I already said I don’t feel responsible for others’ relationships. Now he was expecting me, someone who knew him for one night, to get involved with his web of lies? I texted back ‘sure’ with the full intention of not answering any unknown calls—not a problem because I never do. I regretted responding at all because maybe he at least deserved to sweat a little. She never called, at least that I knew of or even suspected. He texted a couple weeks later saying he would love to meet up again if I was ever in town. Seriously.

So, he clearly wasn’t practicing ethical non-monogamy. The question becomes then, by association am I not either? Do I owe some amount of due diligence to call myself ethically non-monogamous? I know my viewpoint of not being responsible for others’ relationships might be controversial. I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.