Reclaiming sluttiness in sobriety

A sharp pain in my head and a sickening nausea jolted me from sleep. My eyes were dry and crusty, a sure sign I’d slept in my contacts, again. After some furious blinking, my bleary vision began to clear, and I assessed the situation. Naked. Not my sheets. Not my bed. Okay. I looked around. Not my room. A hotel room? I rolled over and discovered the other side of the bed was empty. 

Squeezing my eyes shut, I desperately tried to remember who’d been in that bed with me the night before. Blurry fragments emerged—expensive whiskey and cigars with a coworker before dinner, a meal that consisted of more wine than food, then shots at a dive bar, a cab driver yelling as I straddled someone in the backseat, on my back in the bed, someone over me… then nothing.  

I began the familiar process of gathering clues. Leaning over the edge of the bed, I found the tiny hotel trash can. It did contain condom wrappers, as I’d guessed it would. An unbidden question popped into my head: “Was the sex good?” It probably wasn’t, but I was annoyed that I couldn’t remember. What if I’d missed out on phenomenal sex because I blacked out? It wasn’t the first time I’d had that thought, just like it wasn’t the first time I’d woken up in a strange bed (or futon, or sleeping bag), in a strange room (or camper, or tent), with no idea how I’d gotten there or what had happened to my body while my brain was on a booze-induced vacation. 

Whenever my friends asked me where I’d gone and what I’d done after abruptly leaving the bar, I’d manufacture the perfect sly smirk, make the perfect self-deprecating joke, and recite a perfectly rehearsed rant explaining how being a drunken slut was actually an exercise in sexual empowerment. The first time I put on this act, my friends responded as I’d hoped they would—with chuckles, good-natured head shaking, and eye rolls. After several iterations, their reactions changed to disbelief, then concern, then pity, and eventually scorn. 

I couldn’t blame them because, if I was being honest, my internal reactions mirrored theirs. Each time I woke up in a strange place with someone I hadn’t intended to wake up next to, it was harder to believe that I was rebelling against sexual norms by choosing to have lots of casual sex, because it got harder to believe that I was clearly making choices. Instead of feeling empowered, as I claimed to, I felt ashamed, and that shame settled deep inside me like a parasite. I felt that it would eventually devour me from the inside. 

The sober epiphany 

I wish I could say that these reckless, potentially dangerous sexual encounters and their aftermath—getting picked up on the side of the road by a friend on a six-mile walk of shame, introducing myself to the people I woke up next to because I had no memory of meeting them, tearfully confessing to partners that I’d cheated yet again—sparked an epiphany that launched me into sobriety. The truth is, they didn’t. Like so many people, I got sober because one day I was struck with the undeniable knowledge that my options were to get sober or die, and 51% of me didn’t want to die. 

During my first year of sobriety, I didn’t date or have sex, a suggestion often made in recovery communities. The idea is that you’re probably not in a great place in your life, and you probably need to work on yourself before you take on any sexual or romantic relationships. That was certainly true for me. 

So, I spent that first year undergoing a thorough and painful examination of myself, my actions up to that point, and my relationships. There’s no way to do that kind of work and avoid life-changing revelations, which is, obviously, the point. As I was forced to face several excruciating truths about myself and my experiences, I finally admitted to myself and to those closest to me how I actually felt about my drunken sexcapades: embarrassed, ashamed, cheap, and definitely not empowered. 

Perhaps preemptively, the conclusion I drew from these feelings was that casual sex probably wasn’t healthy for me now that I was sober. I decided to give it one last try after staying alcohol-free for a year. As if confirming my conclusion, I fell in love with the one person I went on a date with. He was solidly monogamous, so I figured that was the universe deciding for me. I just wasn’t meant to have sober casual sex. 

Luckily, I’m very bad at guessing what the universe has in store for me. 

About 12 years into our relationship, 8 years into our marriage, while our kiddo was at school, my husband and I sat on the couch, facing each other, with a decision lingering in the air between us—“Let’s try non-monogamy.” 

Consciously casual 

I was the one who’d first brought it up. We weren’t miserable together and our relationship wasn’t crumbling, though we’d been through our share of tough times. The simplest and most fundamental reason we decided to try non-monogamy was that—after being together for a really long time—we’d finally reached the conclusion that we couldn’t be each other’s “one and only,” because neither of us could meet all of the other’s romantic and sexual desires and needs. We weren’t choosing to date other people because either of us “wasn’t enough.” We made the decision because, for us, it seemed that no individual was capable of being everything for another person.  

That’s how, after more than a decade of monogamy, I started dating again with a clear goal: to explore all my sexual and romantic desires, things I’d never tried before, and things I’d given up when I met my formerly monogamous, still very vanilla partner. Because I was fresh meat in a small city with an even smaller queer and ENM/poly community, I made plenty of connections fairly quickly, many of which were on Feeld. Within weeks of shifting our relationship structure, I was dating two people pretty regularly. Within a few months, I was pretty seriously dating someone, regularly sleeping with a few friends with benefits, and having the occasional wild, hot one-night stand. 

My married, very monogamous friends dubbed the hedonistic stories I shared (so they could live vicariously through me) “the slutscapades,” and I proudly declared that I was in my “second slut era.” I embraced the word “slut” because I finally felt the incredible, gratifying power of being in control of my own sexual experiences, which gave me permission to pursue my own pleasure without an ounce of shame.  

Embracing sober slut-dom

As I continued to expand my sexual palate, reveling in pleasure for pleasure’s sake, I couldn’t help but think about the person I used to be, trying without much conviction to convince myself and everyone else that drunken hookups were an exercise in sexual empowerment. My heart ached for that person: the femme-presenting twenty-something role-playing as a young woman; pretending to have power and control when everything was actually careening out of control; consumed by shame, desperately trying to hide it with a disguise of bravado; a young adult who didn’t understand consent and their inability to give it while wasted. 

While processing my heartache and grief for twenty-something me, I realized that I wasn’t really in my second slut era. What I’d always considered my first slut era, the booze-soaked half-remembered hookups of my early twenties, bore no resemblance to the liberating, gratifying experience of casual sex in sobriety. This wasn't a reprise, it was a different experience altogether: my sober slut era. 

The slutscapades of my sober slut era were and still are fundamentally guided by agency and consent. When I kiss or undress or fuck someone, it’s happening because I made the informed decision to do that, and I received informed consent. When someone kisses, undresses, or fucks me, it’s because I’ve decided I want that, and I’ve given them consent to do that; consent that isn’t clouded by drugs, alcohol, manipulation, or coercion. 

In my sober slut era, I have the wherewithal and power to say no, and the people I have sex with always respect that “no,” without question or challenge. I honor my responsibility to respect someone else’s “no.” And I have the clarity and discernment to recognize when a situation isn’t safe or just isn’t a good idea—I can walk away. I truly own the power of my sexuality, the power of my pleasure, and I use those powers to enrich my own life and the lives of others. In my sober slut era, sex isn’t mired in regret or shame. It’s joyful, erotic, and sacred. 

And best of all, I always know where I am when I wake up, I recognize who I’m with, and I remember if the sex was great. Nearly every time, it was. 

For more information, you can explore Feeld guides to consent, the power of making consent sexy, and how to embrace sober dating. To uncover connections with people who value authentic and transparent experiences, you can find what serves you on Feeld.