Have you read The Ethical Slut? It’s the bible of the polyamory set written by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy. It’s a classic and a must-read if you want to date, or even just sleep, around. A newly expanded edition just came out, and this morning I noticed an interview with Dossie Easton on the Tina Brown-run news and blogging site, The Daily Beast. I’m not sure if that means The Beast is edgy or Poly has gone mainstream.

I read it years ago and definitely tried adopting all the self-empowerment principles contained within but I never really got good at it. I agree on a philosophical level that love is for sharing but the only time I’ve managed multiple girlfriends is when I’m just casually dating. And by casually dating I mean blindly getting into relationships with people I just wanted to sleep with. My downfall is brunch. Do not go to brunch with someone you sleep with if you want to remain single. I know most people will tell you the rule for keeping things casual is no spending the night. But we’re lesbians, gimme a break, it’s hard enough not to move in together immediately let alone pull your knickers on at 4 a.m. and call a cab. If you don’t want to get involved don’t succumb to the lure of eggs benedict.

You love brunch. We all do. It’s a gay thing. Brunch is a way to extend the party from the night before and better yet it’s how you get away with drinking before noon. But it’s also the cause of what I like to call the accidental lesbian relationship.

Accidental lesbian relationships are extra tricky to get out of because you spend most of the time you’re in one denying it and by the time you admit you want out you’ve already adopted a dresser drawer at her place.

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Here’s how it happens: you go out to the club on a Saturday night and you meet a cute stranger. She’s got a swagger; she’s quick with her Zippo when you pull out your pack of Capris and by then end of the night she’s charmed her way into your pants and the two of you are locked in a bathroom stall doing some kind of mostly naked vertical yoga positions. The club closes and you’re still mid-makeout so you reassemble your outfit and hairdo and stumble home with her. That’s the fun part. Then suddenly it’s Sunday around noon and what else is there to do besides go to brunch? You each convince yourselves that you’ll say goodbye afterwards but a couple of mimosas cloud your judgment and you end up back at her place for another round. Six weeks later you’re still saying you aren’t girlfriends. But when was the last time you spent the night at home?

Even the sex parties I’ve been to, and I’ve been to plenty of them, have always seemed more like couple events than places to hook-up. In my experience the people who get it on at sex parties show up with their partners and settle in to getting it on while everyone else stands around chatting. I don’t know a single dyke who’s even met anyone at a sex party. Lesbian sex parties are fun. They are fabulous social events. They usually have a great snack table and they give you an excuse to wear your underwear in public. But they aren’t good places to have casual sex. Lesbian casual sex, if there actually is such a thing, only takes place in the bathroom at the bar while everyone else stands outside pounding on the door because they have to pee. And now that we have four states to marry in and counting I’m starting to think we’re about to face the dangers of the accidental lesbian marriage. 

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