Quotes About Acceptance

Women and men who have established no-lie relationships talk about them with reverence, even when they are not permanent and, in fact, even when they are not romantic. Why? In the no-lie relationship there is acceptance of who each partner is, rather than a shallow idealization. There is a genuine commitment to the relationship beyond the immediate. You each act as though you are in a real partnership that will last.

Introducing your lovers helps prevent one of the scariest aspects of jealousy, which is the part where you imagine that your lover's other lover is taller, thinner, smarter, sexier, and in all ways preferable to funky old you. When you meet that other person or when your lovers meet each other, they meet real people, warts and all, and so often wind up feeling safer. Introducing

We think that relationship structures should be designed to fit the people in them rather than people chosen to fit some abstract ideal of the perfect relationship. There's no right or wrong way to do this as long as everyone's having fun and getting their needs met.

We know from extensive experience that appearance and wealth are not predictors of good loving. We try to avoid ranking people as better or worse than each other and are unhappy with those who want to relate to our rank more than our selves. Hierarchies produce victims on the top as well as the bottom, because it is almost as alienating to be approached by too many people for the wrong reasons as it is to be approached by nobody at all.

How many times have you rejected the possibility of love because it didn't look the way you expected it to? Perhaps some characteristic was missing you were sure you must have, some other trait was present that you never dreamed of accepting. What happens when you throw away your expectations and open your eyes to the fabulous love that is shining right in front of you, holding out its hand? Clean love is love without expectations.

For us, when our sexual lifestyle is essential to our sense of identity, anybody who doesn't know about our kink doesn't really know us.

It's not easy being easy.

BDSM gives us permission to act in ways that are unacceptable in the outside world

When you look at the people around you and dismiss them—or, worse yet, assume you know all there is to know about them—because of their skin color, gender, orientation, way of speaking, mode of dress, religion, or country of origin, you'll never get to hear any of the new and fascinating things those people might have to say.

The real test of love is when someone sees our weaknesses, our stupidities, and our smallnesses, and still loves us.

We dream of a time and a place where we will all be free to publicly declare our love, for whomever we love, however we love them.

But believing that God doesn't like sex is like believing that God doesn't like you. Because of this belief, a tremendous number of people carry great shame for their own perfectly natural sexual desires and activities.

Topping, like bottoming, gives us permission to explore energies that are not OK in the outside world

If you think someone is ridiculous for finding you attractive, we worry about your self-esteem.

A flowerchild in a 1967 interview made the most succinct description of ethical sluthood we've ever seen : "We believe it's okay to have sex with anybody you love... and we believe in loving everybody. You are already whole.".

Be good to yourself and remember that the most important part of love is not loving someone's beauty and strength and virtue. The real test of love is when someone sees our weaknesses, our stupidities, and our smallnesses, and still loves us. This unconditional love is what we want from our lovers, and we should expect no less from ourselves

I'm into S/M" is a turnoff to a lot of people who have mistaken ideas about what that means

For these reasons, and because we know that wanting to hurt, control or humiliate people is not OK, we may feel very ashamed or embarrassed about our fantasies. But once we overcome that embarrassment, and discover how many other people have similar feelings, our fantasy world becomes a hot and happy playground.

One of the things we like about what transgender and nonbinary people bring into our play parties is the constant experience of posing exceptions to all those pesky rules about gender and presenting interesting examples of how we all can be free to be exactly who we want to be. Everyone of every gender and every orientation has a right to feel safe and free to enjoy sex.

Clean love is love without expectations.

Despite what you might have learned from the TV or the tabloids, sex workers really are not all desperate drug addicts, debased victims, or predatory gold diggers. Many healthy and happy people work in the sex industry, doing essential and positive work healing the wounds inflicted by our sex-negative culture. We know them as friends, lovers, colleagues, writers, therapists, and educators, as

The real test of love is when a person—including you—can know your weaknesses, your stupidities and your smallnesses, and still love you.

GREAT SLUTS are made, not born.

People are pretty forgiving when it comes to other people's families. The only family that ever horrifies you is your own.