第9章边界

CHAPTER NINE Boundaries

MANY PEOPLE BELIEVE that to be a slut is to be indiscriminate, to not care about who you make love with, and thus to not care about yourself. They believe that we live in a excessively wide open space, with no discrimination, no fences, no boundaries. Nothing could be further from the truth. To be an ethical slut you need to have good boundaries that are clear, strong, flexible, and about all, conscious.

不少人认为，做个婊子，意味着人尽可夫，无论被谁肏都无所谓，说白了就是不把自己当回事。在他们看来，我们这些婊子，开放程度是无止境的，没有鉴别，没有防护，没有边界。——普天之下再没有啥，比上述的偏见更为扯淡。要想做个理直气壮、光明磊落的婊子，你一定要有完善的边界——清晰，有效力，既坚韧又有弹性。最重要的是，这种边界的基石，是你的明确认知。

One very successful slut we interviewed outraged by accusations of indiscriminacy, pointing out that sluts get a great deal of opportunities to develop exquisitely sophisticated discrimination: “We actually have more boundaries than most folks because we have more points of contact,” more experience relating in very different ways to very diverse people.

笔者访谈过一个把自己生活打理得非常出色的婊子，ta对“婊子谁都可以上，不分好赖香臭”的说法颇为恼火。Ta指出，众多婊子都有多不胜数的机会，能够形成一整套精细、复杂的人品鉴别方式。“事实上，我们比绝大多数不那么淫荡的人，有着更多的边界，因为我们和其ta人接触得更多。” 和各色各样的人打交道，婊子拥有更多技巧。

何为边界？

What Are Boundaries?

It is basic to any relationship, and particularly important in open relationships, that no one own another person. Some of us who are kinked that way may explore kinds of power exchange that we call “ownership”, but regardless of our relationship style it is essential and incontrovertible that we each own ourselves—lock, stock and barrel. We each have the responsibility to live our own lives, determining our individual needs, and arranging to get those needs met. We cannot live through a partner, nor can we assume that just because we have a lover, all of our needs should automatically be satisfied. Many of us have been taught that if our lover does not meet every need, this must not be true love, our lover must be somehow inadequate, or we must be at fault—too needy or undeserving or some other sin.

任何人都不能“占有”其ta人：这在所有类型的亲密关系，尤其是开放关系中，都是基本准则。那些对上述准则认知含混、心有纠结的人，可能会寻求某些类型的权力交换、势力均衡——笔者将此称之为“主权之争”。然而，无论什么类型的亲密关系，每个人都完完全全地拥有自我，这是无可争议的底线。我们每一个人，都要对自己的生活负责，明确自己究竟想要什么，并设法满足自我。谁也无法让自己，活在某个伴侣的世界里，也不要幻想只要有了所爱之人，就能够自然而然地相互满足彼此的全部。我们当中的很多人，都被以下谬论洗脑：“如果爱情不能满足全部，那就不是真爱；爱侣显然在某些方面没做到位，或者我们彼此各有不足——也许是太贪心，也许是我们不配得到，或者我们还有其他的过错。”

If you were brought up to believe that your relationship would provide your other, or (shudder) better, half, or that your destiny is to submerge your identity in a relationship, you will probably have to put some attention into learning about your own boundaries. Boundaries are invariably in the plural because none of them hold still for long and all of them are individual. They are how we understand where I end and you begin, where we meet and how we are separate as individuals. You need to figure out where your limits are, what constitute comfortable distance or closeness between yourself and others in various situations, and particularly the ways in which you and your lovers are different and individual and unique.

“亲密关系意味着和我‘严丝合缝’的另一半，乃至要‘整体大于部分之和’（想来令人肝儿颤！）；既然每个人都只是‘一半儿’，那就命中注定，要让自我意识，全然沉浸在两个人之间的亲密关系之中。”——如果我们习得了上述信念，接下来，就需要多花些精力，好好学一学任何建立你自己的边界。“边界”永远是一个复数名词，因为其中的每一项，既彼此独立，又难免因时而变。这些边界，是我们止步和开始的准绳，是我们作为独立个体，相聚和相离的规则依据。你需要明确，你不希望被逾越的界限有哪些，以及，在各种境况下，其ta人与你的距离感或者亲密度，需要处于怎样的状态，才会让你感到舒服。尤其是，边界意味着你和你的爱人，都是有血有肉的独立个体。

练习题：你的“魔法杖”

EXERCISE Your Magic Wand

Imagine that you could have wave a magic wand and make yourself as brave, strong, and independent as you can imagine being. What, then, would you like your boundaries to look like? List your limits, or try drawing a picture. Remind yourself that you have a right to the treated with respect by everyone in your life. Imagine telling the people you love what your limits are, and remember that doing so is an act of self-respect and self-love.

想象你有一根魔法杖，让你从此变得更加勇敢、坚强，不依赖任何人，你所能想到的一切都会实现。到那时，你希望拥有怎样的个人边界？把你所想到的个人边界，诉诸笔墨列举出来，或者尝试画成图。别忘记，在这辈子的任何时候，让别人尊重你的选择，都是你的权利。想象你把自己的这些边界，告知你的所爱之人的场景。切记，这个做法，意味着自尊和自爱。

你自己的选择，你自己来把控

Owning Your Choices

It is axiomatic in communication between intimates that, as we’ve already discussed, each person own his or her own emotions, and each person is responsible for dealing with those emotions. Understanding this is the first step to claiming something very precious—your own emotions. And when you grasp your emotions, you have something unbelievably valuable to bring to your relationships.

在和亲密对象的沟通中，有个公理一般的准则——正如笔者在之前的第8章“你的内心感受，你自己做主”中所说的那样——人人都是自己情绪的主人，自己的情绪问题，归根结底唯有自己才能处理。深入理解这一点，是主导自己情绪（情绪是你的贵重物品！）的第一步。当你能够把控好自己的情绪，你便拥有了难能可贵的特质，可以带进你的亲密关系中，发热发光。

When you find yourself responding to someone else’s behavior, it can be easy to dwell on what that person has done and how terrible it is and what exactly they should should do to fix it. Instead, try looking on your own feelings as a true message about your internal state of being, and decide how you want to deal with whatever’s going on. Do you want to find out more? Do you want to discuss a limit? Do you want a little time to yourself to calm down and get centered? Do you want to be heard of something? When you take responsibility, you get these choices, and more.

当你发觉自己正在对别人的行为进行回应，这时候，你很容易回顾那个人做了什么、造成了多么糟糕的后果，以及，设想那个人应当如何弥补。另一个替代方案，是着力于审视自己的内心感受——这才是你内在状况的真正讯号——进而明确：接下来的事态如何，你打算怎样应对。你想不想觉察到更多？你是否要把自己的底线，详细告知对方？你要不要先花点时间，让自己冷静下来，从而集中精力处理问题？你有没有需要进一步询问的事情？当你对自己的情绪负起责任，你便拥有了更多选择，包括但不限于上述问题。

What you are not responsible for is your lover’s emotions. You can choose to be supportive—we’re great believers in the healing power of listening—but it is not your job to fix anything. Once you understand your lover’s emotions are not your job or your fault, you can listen and really hear, without falling victim to an overwhelming need to figure out whose fault it is or to make the emotion change or go away.

你无法为你所爱之人的情绪负责。你可以选择做个辅助者——本书的两位作者，都对用心倾听所带来的治愈力，坚信不疑——然而，你没有为之搞定一切的责任。当你明确，你所爱之人的情绪，不是你的责任，更不是你的错误，也就不会陷入对“究竟是谁的责任”、“怎样让ta的负面情绪消失或者变好”的刻意寻求，不会让你沦为上述难题的受害人：这时，你反而能够更好地倾听和感受对方。

Some people habitually respond to a lover’s pain and confusion with an intense desire to fix something. Fix-it message can feel like an invalidation to the person who is trying to express an emotion. “Why don’t you just do this…try that…forget about it…relax!” sends the message that the person expressing the emotion has overlooked some obvious and simple solution and is an idiot for feeling bad in the first place. Such messages are disempowering and invalidating.

对所爱之人的痛苦和困惑，一些人的惯常应对方式，是迫不及待地试图“把问题搞定”。然而，站在想要表述自己情绪之人的立场上看，“把问题搞定”的回应信息，无异于自己的情绪表达遭到否定。“你为啥不这么做？……那样试试看。……把这破事忘掉吧。……放松下就好啦！” 向一个想要表述自己情绪的人，传达这样的回应信息，这既是高估了自己“解决方案”，也意味着指责对方：“你的负面情绪，表明你从一开始就在冒傻气——你连我说的那点道理，和那么简单的应对方法，都不懂得。” 这样的回应信息，是赋权的反面，只会让无力者更加悲哀。

Being responsible for your emotions doesn’t mean that you have to conquer all your difficult feelings bare-knuckled and solo. You can ask for the help you need—reassurance, validation, a shoulder to cry on, an ear to vent in, a brain to brainstorm with—from friends, lovers, and/or a good therapist. And you, in turn, will do your best to make yourself available to when your friends and lovers need this kind of help from you…right?

对你自己的情绪负起责任，并不是要你独自一人赤膊上阵，战胜自己内心的负面感受，将其统统踩在脚下。必要时，你尽可向人求助，得到让你恢复信心的安慰，得到令你备受鼓舞的认可，或者借你一只肩膀任由你伏在上面哭泣，伸出一只耳朵听你诉说衷肠，献出一份脑力和你共同思考对策。朋友、情侣，以及心理咨询师，都可能做到这些。换位思考下，如果你的朋友或情侣，向你寻求上述的帮助，你也会尽力做好，不是吗？

Learning to operate our emotional system consciously may require changing some old habits and can feel very shaky, sort of like learning to ride a bicycle. Weird, embarrassing…you’ll probably fall down a few times, but if you pick yourself up and keep going, eventually you get the feel of it. And once you get your balance, you’ll never forget.

有意识地掌控自己的情绪系统，其学习过程，可能需要改变一些旧有的习惯，还可能会像学骑单车时那样，颤颤巍巍、跌跌撞撞。你很可能会跌倒不少次，一次次感到反常和窘迫。但是，只要你让自己爬起来，继续下去，就会最终找到感觉，能够轻松把控。就像学骑车那样，当你学会了掌控平衡，一辈子都忘不了。

亲密有间，切莫越线

Relationship Boundaries

Relationships also have boundaries. The agreements of loving singles, couples and families make with respect for each other’s feelings constitute the boundaries of their relationship. In an open sexual community, it is important to deal with each relationship within its own boundaries. For example, you figure out your limits with your partner before you go to the sex party, you don’t use your mistress to diss your wife, and decisions are made with input from everybody affected by them and not behind anybody’s back.

亲密关系也同样具有边界。不同的个体、伴侣和家庭，相爱走在一起，本着相互尊重彼此感受的前提，所达成的共识协议，便是这份亲密关系的边界。在一个性爱开放的人际群落，应对每一场亲密关系中的问题，都必须实现明确边界、时时恪守边界。例如，你在参加和外人的性爱聚会之前，就要事先明确自家两口子之间的容许边界，那么，如果你的情妇，挑拨离间说你老婆的坏话，你就绝不会听信，也不会姑息此类言行。作出所有的决定，都要对所有的相关人等，从一开始就公开透明，不能在任何人背后搞小动作。

Communications based on sex and intimacy work best when everybody has respect for everybody’s relationships, which includes not only lovers and also children and families of origin and neighbors and exes and so on. Such communities can evolve into high connected family systems when everyone is conscious of and caring about boundaries.

基于性爱和亲密的沟通，最有效的时候，莫过于每个人都尊重其他任何人的人际关系——不仅尊重其爱人和情侣，也尊重其子女和原生家庭，尊重其邻里、其前任，尊重所有的相关人等。这样的亲密社群，只要人人都对相应的边界，时刻留意、悉心守护，就可以演化成为人际关联非常紧密的大家庭。

Be willing to learn from your mistakes. Boundaries can get tricky at times, so we hope you give yourself lots of slack to explore. Expect to learn by trial and error, and expect to make plenty of errors. Forgive yourself for everything that doesn’t work out the way you hoped it would. Remember, you can’t learn from your errors if you always have to be right!

要乐于从错误中吸取教训、学到新知。亲密关系的边界，有时也会走入死胡同。因此，笔者建议你多给自己预留一些可以灵活处理的空间，从中不断探索。要期待不断试错，从教训中学习，也就是说，要勇于拥抱自己的错误。无论任何事情没有达到你的预期目的，都要原谅自己，不要为之自我纠结。切记，如果你从不犯错，就失去了吃一堑长一智的可能。

“情绪倾销”

DUMPING

One place where people often get confused is differentiating between the honest sharing of feelings and dumping. Dumping means using others as your garbage pit, spewing your problematic stuff all over them and leaving it there. Dumping usually carries the expectation that the dumpee will do something about the problem, even if it’s simple to take on the burden of worrying so that the dumper can stop. Usually you can avoid dumping by making it totally clear that your need to share your emotional state carries no obligation for your listener: “I don’t like you having a date with Paula tonight,” followed by a heavy and pregnant silence, carries an entirely different weight than “I’m feeling insecure about your date with Paula tonight, but I want you to go ahead and have it. Are you okay to with listening to some of my fears? Can we talk a bit about ways that I might be able to feel a little safer?”

有个经常令人感到困惑之处，是如何区分坦诚、善意的述情，和“情绪倾销”。所谓“情绪倾销”，就是把别人当作你掩埋垃圾的深坑，对其倾吐一大堆你的情绪难题，然后甩手离去。“情绪倾销”往往包含着“让对方为你做些什么，来排忧解难”的期待——似乎别人可以替你肩负起情绪重担，这样你就能停止诉苦。一般来说，你需要明确，你表述自己情绪的欲求，本身并不包含着“倾听者必须为你做些什么”的责任，这样才能避免“情绪倾销”的糟糕做法。须知，言简意赅地告诉你的伴侣“我不希望你今晚和葆拉约会”，随后便是面色凝重、意味深长的沉默，这比你喋喋不休地说一大堆“你今晚和葆拉约会，让我感到不安，但我依然不会拦着你，你要去就尽管去。但是，你也听一听我的内心感受，好不好？我们能不能好好谈谈，究竟该怎么做，才能让我更有安全感？……”，更有效果。

情感投射

PROJECTION

Another trick to watch out for is projection. No, not the kind you find at the movies on Saturday night! Projection is when you use another person as a screen to run your movie on. You see your fantasy and miss the real person. You imagine you know this person’s thoughts, when in fact you are thinking about your fears. Maybe you imagine that they will respond the same way your parents did—“I know you’ll reject me if I don’t make a lot of money”，“You’ll never respect me if I show you my sadness.” Every one of us learned our expectations of how people will react to us from our parents. Or you might be projecting your expectations, projections that your lovers—who are not mind readers—can never live up to: “You’re supposed to take care of me!” “Whaddaya mean, you’re not horny? I’m horny!”

另一个需要留意规避的不良花招，是“情感投射”。所谓的情感投射，显然不同于周末看露天电影的屏幕投射；其特点是：你把另一个人当作“荧幕”，用ta来放映你自己的“影片”。你从那个人的身上，看到了你自己的脑内剧情，然而，你却与那个人的真实自我，就此失之交臂。你自以为了解那个人的想法，但事实上，这只是你在应对自己心中的恐惧。也许，你还会以自己父母的处事方式作为准绳，脑补别人会如何对待你—— “我知道，如果我挣钱不够多，你就会看不上我”，“我再难过，也不能说出去，否则我会沦为笑柄”。我们每个人，都难免从父母那里，习得“我这样做，预计别人会如何回应”的判断标准。此外你还可能，把自己的期待，投射到旁人身上——对你所爱的人来说，除非ta有读懂你内心的超能力，否则，无论如何都无法满足你的期待。就像这样的说辞：“按理说，你应该照顾到我的！” “你这是啥意思？你没性趣了吗？我还在性头上啊！”

When you make a commitment to own your own stuff, you can stop projecting and see the people you love clearly, in all their glory. When you find yourself thinking blameful thoughts about your partner, you might ask yourself: “what do I own here?” What you see inside might be something like “Wow, I sound just like my father when he was angry”, or “I feel the way I did when I was eight and used to hide in the closet when I was upset.” Then you might go to your lover and share how whatever was going on woke up some old tapes of yours, and you can brainstorm what you want to do about that. When you work together to own your stuff, each of you, then your partner can support you in exploring your emotions and, more important, learn to stop projecting on you as well. Then you need never again feel like a puppet in somebody else’s show.

当你对自己内心的林林总总，真正做到负起责任、妥善对待，你就能够避免“情感投射”，从而看清真实的对方，看到对方的所有闪光点。当你觉察到自己，正在对伴侣产生怨恨的想法时，你可以扪心自问：“此时此刻，我自己应当对哪些方面承担责任？” 你对自己内心的反省和觉察，其结果也许会是：“天哪！我的言行，和我爸爸在气头上的表现，一样一样的！”，或者“我发觉我的做法，正如我八岁时养成的习惯，经常刻意掩饰自己心中的恼怒和烦乱。” ——接下来，你就可以找到你的所爱之人，告诉ta，你过去沉积下来的情绪习惯，因为怎样的情况，而被唤起、激发，就像重复听旧磁带那样。进而，你和伴侣可以来一场头脑风暴，想一想接下来，打算如何应对这些问题。当你和你的伴侣，携手合作，既管理好自己的情绪，也相互帮助对方实现情绪自理、情绪自控，这样一来，你的伴侣就可以帮你一起探索自己的情绪世界，更重要的是，伴侣也能由此养成避免对你“情感投射”的好习惯。这就意味着，你也不会成为被任何人“情感操控”的“木偶”。

和人际角色有关的边界

ROLE BOUNDARIES

You may find yourself playing out different roles, indeed feeling like a somewhat different person, with different partners. With one partner you might feel young and vulnerable and protected, with another, you are earth mother. With one lover you might feel careful and solid and safe, with another you might be dashing and reckless. There boundaries may seem unfamiliar or confusing when you don’t have experiences with living in multiple relationships.

也许，你会感觉自己扮演着很多不同角色，面对不同的伴侣，自己就像换了个人。和某一个伴侣一起时，你会觉得自己仿佛年幼、弱小，被那个伴侣保护着；和另一个伴侣一起时，你却俨然成了这个人的“大地母亲”。或者，和某个伴侣一起，你的感觉是细水长流、平淡的温馨，而和另一个伴侣，则如同爱情大冒险，把脑袋挂在裤腰带上一路狂奔。如果你缺乏在多重亲密关系中生活的丰富经验，这些角色差异之间的鸿沟或曰边界，可能会令你备感陌生，无所适从。

Janet got a wonderful feeling of acceptance for all her parts at a party:

本书作者之一珍妮特，曾在一场派对中，获得了充分接纳自己各个方面的美好感受：

I enjoy games which I role-play the part of a little girl, but my last partner wasn’t comfortable with them. After a bit of searching, though, I found within my circle of acquaintances a man who enjoy being a “daddy” as much I enjoyed having one. My partner was delighted I’d found a safe place to play that role, and we both felt I’d made a good choice in selecting someone to whom I could entrust such vulnerable part of me. “Daddy” and I got together once or twice a month for finger-painting, watching Disney movies, eating peanut butter sandwiches, and other slightly more adult pleasures.

我喜欢扮演一个小女生的角色，但我的现任伴侣，对这样的角色游戏感到不适。于是，经过一番寻找，我在我的熟人圈子里，找到了一个喜欢给伴侣当“爸爸”的男人，我和他玩得很开心。我的伴侣也很高兴，因为我得到了一个能够玩角色游戏的安全空间。我和伴侣都为此庆幸，因为我终于找到一个合适的人，可以将自己的脆弱一面托付给他。我每个月和“爸爸”约会一到两次，他陪着做美甲、看迪士尼影片、吃花生酱三明治，或者一起做些更像成年人的事。

At one point I attended a party where both my life partner and my “daddy” were in attendance. From across the room, I saw the two of them chatting, and I headed over to say hi. As I drew closer, my partner held his arm out invitingly and called, “Hi, hon, come over here and hang out with your dad and your boyfriend for a while.” The feeling of acceptance, and the warmth of knowing the two men accepted and honored each other’s role in my life, was amazing.

有一次，我参加一个派对，我的伴侣和“爸爸”也都在场。我看到这两个人在房间的另一边聊天，于是我向他们打招呼。当我走近他们，我的伴侣对我招手相迎，对我喊道：“嗨，亲爱的，过来和你的爸爸和男友一起玩会儿！” 那种被充分接纳的感觉，和深知那两个男人都乐于承担自己对我而言的不同角色，由此所带来的温暖，真是美好得难以形容。

One of the things people get out of multiple relationships is the chance to be all of their various selves. When two people meet, they relate where they intersect, where they have complementary roles in similar scripts. So, being different things to different lovers, we might find ourselves having different boundaries, limits, and relation styles in different circumstances.

多边关系为参与者带来的收获之一，是有机会展现自己的不同侧面。当两个人相遇，ta俩的关系，取决于两个人的共性或曰交集，换言之，ta俩各自扮演彼此认同的角色，一起创造同样的生活脚本。所以，和不同的爱侣，展现出不同的自己，我们会发现自己，在不同的环境下，有着不同的边界、不同的限度、不同的关系模式。

Your own internal variety might manifest in many ways. For instance, you might be calm and centered when Lover A is angry, but Lover B’s irritability is distressing to you—it “pushes your buttons”, perhaps reminding you of a past lover or a punitive parent. Here is an opportunity to take charge of your buttons. When your buttons are your own, it becomes much easier to figure out what your limits need to be with Lover B, and to understand what they may be altogether different from your limits with Lover A.

你内在的不同侧面，可能会通过很多方式，对外表现出来。举个例子讲，你的情侣包括张三和李四，当张三发脾气时，你可能云淡风轻；然而，如果发脾气的是李四，就可能令你无法保持冷静——因为李四发脾气，就像触碰你的敏感按钮，勾起了你的创伤回忆，令你想到了某个前任，或者严苛的家长。然而，这也是一个良机，促使你觉察到自己的“敏感按钮”。当你能够真正管控好自己的“敏感按钮”，就更容易明确：我和某个情侣之间，究竟需要怎样的边界。同时你也能想明白，自己和张三、李四等不同情侣之间的边界，分别需要有哪些不同。

Forget about fairness. Ethical sluttery does not mean that all things come out equal. Different relationships have different boundaries, different limits, and different potentials. So if your lover has found someone that she can share a certain activity with, and you would like to share that with her too, the question is not “Why don’t you do that with me?” but “That sounds interesting, how do you suppose we could make that work for us?”

忘掉所谓的“公平划一”。理直气壮、问心无愧的婊子生涯，并不等于凡事一刀切的绝对公平。和不同的人之间的亲密关系，边界、限制，和未来发展的潜在可能，都会有所不同。所以，当你发现你的情侣，和一个陌生人之间，用一种和你在一起时大不相同的方式互动，那么，你千万不要质问“为什么你不这样对待我？” 上述问题，不妨替换为：“你们这样很有意思，以后可以对我，也试试这种玩法吗？”

This is how one woman we interviewed put it:

有个笔者采访过的女人，如此写道：

My open sexual lifestyle gives me personal freedom, independence, and responsibility in a way that that being an exclusive couple doesn’t. Because I’m responsible, every day, for my needs being met (or not), and for creating and maintaining the relationships in my life, I can take nothing for granted. Every person I meet has the potential for whatever it is that’s right between me and that person, regardless of how my relationships are with anybody else. And so this life style gives me a very concrete feeling of individuality that I re-create every day. I feel more like a grown-up, adult, responsible person when I know that my life, all of it—who I fuck, who I relate to, how I relate to them—is all my choice. I promise my partner that I would share my life with him, and that implies to me that I have a life to share—a complete life. And it’s clear to me that he’s here because he wants to be, wherever “here” is. We are with each other, every day, because we really want to be. Our choices are real.

性爱开放的生活方式，为我带来个性化的自由、独立和自主责任；而封闭、排外的亲密关系，根本无法给予我这些。每一天，我都要为了满足自己的需求（或者未能实现），为了创造和维持我的多边关系，而自负全责，因此，我不会对任何事情“想当然”。无论我已经和多少人，有了怎样的亲密关系，我所遇到的每一个外人，都依然具有和我在各个方面都很对味的潜在可能。所以，这样的生活方式，为我带来坚实的个性独立感，而我的独一无二的个性，每天都在重建，都在不断创造。当我真正懂得，我人生的全部——包括和谁上床、和谁以怎样的方式交往——都取决于我自己的选择：这时，我才真正长大了，像个成年人了，能对自己负起责任了。我对自己的伴侣承诺，我生活中的一切，都可以和他分享。这意味着，我拥有一个完全属于自己的生活，可以用来和他分享。并且，这也清晰可见，他无论何去何从，都完全出于自主和自愿。每一天，我们都能彼此心心相印，相知相伴，因为我们的心愿，都朝着同一个方向。我们的选择，都出自真情实意。

篇外篇：德性有亏、理不直气不壮的浪货（吐槽文）

INTERLUDE The Unethical Slut ( A Rant )

SOME PEOPLE TREAT SEX as a big-game hunt—trying to conquer the unwilling and unwitting victim, as though the object of their attention would never decide to share sex with them unless tricked into it. Believing that a person would have to be a fool to make love with you is often, we observe, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Someone who tries to use sex to shore up sagging self-esteem by stealing someone else’s is a pitiable object: this strategy does not work to build a solid sense of self-worth, and this poor starving individual will have to go on stealing more and never getting fulfilled. We hope that such people play the thief of love in some other social circles than our own.

性爱，在某些人看来，如同对巨兽的狩猎——将不愿意、不知情的人，捕获成为自己的战利品。似乎他们所追求的乐趣，是不肯与任何人分享性爱：除非这个人中了自己的诡计，陷入自己的口袋。根据笔者的观察，当你认定“只有傻瓜才会和我上床”，这个习惯性的偏见，会成为自我证实的预言。有些人试图用“窃取他人芳心”的性爱，来维系自己摇摇欲坠的自尊，这种人非常可悲可怜，因为他们的行径，根本无法让自己获得坚定的自我价值感。于是，他们就像穷疯了的饿鬼，不得不继续窃取更多，来填补自己内心的无底洞。这类爱情窃贼，随便去哪都好，但不要和我们自己的人际关系，产生任何交集。

Such people often approach open sexual lifestyles as if keeping score. Set collectors and trophy fuckers treat their partners like prizes in a contest they have set out to win—only what happens after the prize is collected? It is time to go after the next one?

上述的那种人，往往也乐于寻求开放性关系——他们将此作为自己的狩猎比赛得分，想要把高分数一直保持下去。他们堪称“人际关系的收藏家”，把每一个和自己做爱的对象，都视为自己的“胜利奖杯”。伴侣在他们眼里，无非是一次次比赛获胜后的奖励；或者说，身边的伴侣，无非意味着以下问题：既然“奖杯”我已得手，接下来，我再去狩猎哪些新的艳遇？

The concept of set collectors may be new to you, but we assure you that such people exist. Dossie discovered several of them when she lived with two other single mothers in a communal San Francisco household, called Liberated Ladies at Large, and learned that some people’s ideal of free love was to make sure they had sex with all three of the liberated sisters. A friend of ours once discovered that a would-be lover of hers had already had sex with her mother and her sister and was hoping to complete the set. Sex that means treating your partners as collectibles does not meet our requirements for mutual respect.

“人际关系收藏家”之类的说法，可能让你感到新奇，但笔者可以肯定地告诉你，这样的人确实存在。本书作者之一道茜，就曾在遇到过好几个那种人。当时，道茜和另外两个单身母亲，在旧金山共享一座名叫“法外女狂徒”的家宅，搭伴过日子。当时她得知，有些熟人的“自由性爱”理想，是和道茜等“法外三姐妹”，一个不落地统统上床。此外，我们三姐妹的一个朋友，发现有个人，对外自称是她的情侣——此人之前已经和她的母亲、她的姐妹，分别发生过性关系，此刻正在对她撒网，打算把她全家的所有人，都“纳入自己的收藏”。将性伴侣视为“收藏品”，这种行为，与我们所期待的相互尊重，显然违背。

Some people approach “scoring” as if all people can be ranked on a hierarchy from the most to the least desirable and as if the way to make the most points and assure yourself as a high rank is to collect partners as high up the ladder as you can reach. People gain in rank and value in these hierarchies by being thin, young, cute, gym-toned, wealthy, and/or high social status.

有些人追求“获得高分”，仿佛所有人都可以根据“性感度”的成色，划分为三六九等；仿佛自己的尊卑等级，取决于把多少高分数的人，“收纳”到自己的性伴侣之列——这就像一个无止境的阶梯，你要尽量爬到更高。至于性感等级得分的评判标准，可能是“瘦高白秀幼”、“潘驴邓小闲”之类，也可能取决于社会地位。

We do not believe that love is a game that you can win by scoring high on a hierarchy of shallow values. 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 unhappy with those who want to relate to our rank (authors get quite a few points in the status category) more than ourselves. Hierarchies produce victims on the top as well as the bottom, since it is almost as alienating to be approached by too many people for the wrong reasons as it is to be approached by no one at all.

我们无法认同，在一个肤浅寡义的等级秩序下争夺更高得分，这种玩意就是爱情。大量的现实经验一再告诉我们：无论外貌还是财产，都并非爱情美满的先决条件。我们力求避免对身边的任何人，搞“谁比谁更好或更差”的等级排序，更不想遇到那些看重自己“得分多少”，而不是真正在意“我这个人”的家伙（本书的两位作者，按照各种标准，都有不低的得分）。等级秩序本身，对其上上下下的每一个人，都会造成伤害；它让你把努力追求更多人，作为实现某些荒诞目标的手段，你被由此而异化，与真正的人际亲近绝缘。

Someone who has a history of nonconsensual nonmonogamy may get attached to the sense of secrecy, of getting away with something. These folks may have a very hard time adapting to the idea of consensual sluthood—they are so used to concealing their activities from their partners that they may even have built that furtive feeling into their erotic life, hooked on the adrenaline rush they get from forbidden fruit. It takes a pretty substantial leap of faith, and maybe some creative fantasizing and role-playing, for such individuals to open up their hidden places and experience the greater joy that can come from knowing that nobody is getting hurt by their fun.

并非所有当事人都知晓、自愿的开放关系 【也就是包含着欺骗，例如刻意隐瞒配偶的婚外恋——译者注】 ，这样的亲身经历，会让一些人形成“背后耍花招”、“暗度陈仓”的习惯——对一些想要的东西，采用蒙蔽和窃取的手段。“所有人都可以你情我愿地开放、浪荡”，这个观念对他们而言，往往需要费劲巴拉地磨合很久，才有可能接受。瞒着自己的伴侣和其ta人“闷得儿蜜”，是他们唯一擅长的惯技，甚至已经把鬼鬼祟祟的心态，融入自己这辈子的情爱——他们所要勾搭的“对象”，与其说是哪个人，毋宁说，是“偷食禁果”导致的肾上腺素飙升。要想让这样的人打开“密室”、卸下伪装，体验到无人受骗、无人受伤，从而更加美好的开放关系，这个过程是个巨大的飞跃，需要让他们真正懂得什么是“信任”，可能还需要借助一些创造性的想象力，和创造性的角色扮演疗法。 【本书作者之一道茜，是婚姻、家庭和非主流亲密关系的执业咨询治疗师——译者注】

People who refuse to learn to use barriers that get between people and viruses are not ethical sluts. Arguing with lovers about allowing potentially infectious sex, insisting on sex without barriers, or attempting to sneak around a lover’s limit about safer sex is, quite simply, playing dirty. Refusing to deal with the realities of viruses and bacteria because of embarrassment is unethical: a good slut speaks the truth blushing furiously.

而那些拒绝养成“亲密有间，有边界意识”的习惯，做爱不带套，对艾滋和乙肝等各类病毒毫无防范意识的人，绝对配不上“理直气壮”一词，遑论“理直气壮的婊子”。撒泼争吵，让性伴侣同意冒着被病毒感染的风险，放弃自己的边界，与之无保护做爱，或者想方设法让所爱之人，放弃安全性爱的壁垒——咱说句大实话，这种行径真他爹的龌龊、肮脏。如果出于不好意思、难以启齿，而对切实存在的病毒病菌风险假装漠视，和对方无套做爱，这同样是不道德的，是理不直气不壮的表现。一个理气直壮、问心无愧的婊子，会明确道出安全性行为的现实必要性，为了坚持要求戴套，不惜和对方吵到面红耳赤。

Ethical sluts do not make promises they can’t keep. If you are attracted to someone who is looking for a life partnership and what you want is a lighthearted affair (or vice versa) , you need to be honest about that, even if that means say “no, thank you” to sex until your feelings for each other are more on a par. Mistakes can easily be made. Dossie made such a mistake when she was very young and stupid:

理直气壮的婊子，从不开空头支票，不会对自己无法保证的事情作出承诺。如果你被一个想要寻求终身伴侣的人所吸引，而此时的你只想找个短期的炮友——或者是相反的情况：寻找长久伴侣的你，迷上了寻找短期炮友的ta——你需要对ta讲出自己的真实情况，哪怕这意味着你俩在达成一致之前，根本无法上床。相比之下，我们很容易犯错误。本书作者之一道茜，就曾在自己年少无知的岁月，有过这方面的教训：

I had just broken up a long-term relationship and was pretty broken up about myself. I went out to the coffee shops in Greenwich village and saw my recent ex in earnest conversation with a cute young thing who was not me. I felt horribly betrayed, lost, and worthless. Just then, a young man who had been attracted to me, and for whom I had no serious feelings, came up to speak to me. It somehow seemed appropriate to go home with him and let him smooth my ruffled feathers, but I regretted it the next day when I found myself hurting his feeling and leaving him in the lurch. To further aggravate my guilt, it turned out what my ex was doing with that sweet girl was beating his bosom about how horrible he felt about breaking up with me—we wound up getting back together. I have always felt I took advantage of the young man who offered me his affection, which I thoughtlessly took and then gave right back to him. It would have been kinder had I just said no.

那时的我，刚和一个长期的伴侣分手，内心感到很崩溃。我走出家门，到格林威治村的咖啡店 【格林威治村，是美国纽约多元文化艺术的地标区域——译者注】 ，猛然发现我的前任，正和一个漂亮女孩聊得很动情。我感到被他彻底抛弃了，内心充满失落，觉得自己狗屁不如。恰在此时，一个青年男子走过来和我搭讪，我对他有点好感，但并无和他交往的打算。我应邀去他家，让他抚平我的情绪，这在某种程度上是个不错的选择——但我到了第二天，就感到后悔，因为我完事后就走，留下他独自发懵，这种做法伤害了他的感情。更让我良心不安的是，日后得知，我的前任和那个漂亮女孩的谈话内容，是讲述对我的恋恋不舍，为和我分手而顿足捶胸——但他和我的关系，再也无法挽回。这些年来，我总觉得自己在利用那个向我示爱的年轻男子，我不加思索地接过了他递给我的橄榄枝，又在我自己“完事后”退还给他。如果我从一开始，就对他直截了当地拒绝，这才是更大的善意。

An older and wiser Dossie has since discovered a couple of limits of her own: she does not share sex with anyone that she’s not at least potentially interested in sharing sex with again, and anything worth doing is worth waiting for till the time is right. While we all make mistakes, the hallmark of a skillful slut is to learn from them and keep going.

那件事之后，更有阅历的道茜“发现”的这样两条属于自己的边界限制：如果某个人，我完全不想和ta做爱第二次，那么，就不要和ta发生第一次；同理，如果发现一件事不值得花时间等待，那么，这件事就不值得去做。人人都会犯错，而一个经验丰富的婊子，其特点是善于从错误中学习，并继续往前走。【道茜本人的经验与感悟，对于性伴侣丰富、毫不隐讳自己是个婊子是个荡妇的人，也许可以借鉴。然而，对更多人而言——尤其是长期饱受国内特色熏陶的我们——更要警惕的是：如果简单地把“如果此人不值得等待，就不值得和ta做爱”云云，奉为圭臬，那么，就很容易滑入“性爱必须慎重，宁可不做，也不能和‘错误的人’做”的保守理念，以及“我这场性爱，是赚了还是赔了？”的纠结盘算（这几乎就是“贞操有价值论”的翻版）。显然，这是对性探索的自我束缚；甚至这种自我束缚，还可能披着“主体性”的虚幻马甲。本书的两位作者。性爱资源极其丰富，而我们绝大多数人，于此缺乏可比性——这就像郑板桥的名言“难得糊涂”，对于绝大多数很难成为文化巨匠的普通人，都没啥可行性；像王小波那样只想让自己变得更明白，才是芸芸众生的正理。——译者】

Which brings us to revenge fucking. It is truly nasty to arrange to have sex with one person to get back at another. To arouse one person’s insecurities, jealousy, and other painful feelings on purpose is dishonorable, and to use another person as a puppet in your play is disrespectful and most often downright abusive. In psychopathology, “antisocial” is defined as behaving with flagrant disregard for the rights, and we would add feelings, of others. We prefer to relate sociable people.

某些情况下，可能会让我们把做爱当成一种报复性为。然而，为了“从张三那里找补回来”，而刻意和李四做爱，这种做法，实在太坏。故意给别人添堵，令其不安、吃醋或者其他负面感受，这会让你自己也很不光彩；若是操控他人，让ta们成为你的木偶，而你在幕后“导演”，这既是对ta们的不尊重，更是彻头彻尾的整人害人。从精神病理学的角度看，这就是“反社会”——对他人权益的公然漠视；为避免于此，我们要学会换位思考，顾及别人的感受。我们都希望只和友善的人（而非与之相反的人）打交道。

What do you do when someone in your intimate circle is not playing honestly? It helps if the people in your extended family have ways to talk about what is going on, to share experiences and feelings. If everyone is too ashamed to admit to having been misused by someone with an untrustworthy hidden agenda, then no one will have the information they need to protect themselves. There is no shame in having believed someone’s lies, and most of us at some time or other have given our trust to someone who turned out not to be worthy of it. It is possible to fool an honest person, but we hope you have enough humility to learn from your mistakes and not get fooled twice.

如果你的亲密关系圈子里，有人以欺骗、坑人为乐，你将如何应对？如果你所在的亲密大家庭里，大家都能对最近各自的经历和感受畅所欲言，就能让反社会之辈无所遁形。如果每个人，都对自己被某个人暗中设局坑害的经历，羞于启齿，那么，其他的所有人，都没有赖以自我保护的信息。曾被某个人的谎言骗得团团转，这并不意味着丢人现眼，事实上，我们当中的绝大多数人，都难免在某些时候，被事后发觉不可信任的家伙所一度蒙骗。欺骗一个正人君子并不难，我们希望你能放下面子，坦然从被坑骗的经历中吸取教训，不要让坏人有第二次可趁之机。

All these difficult scripts are about somebody not being honest and are also about somebody having sex while avoiding intimacy and emotional connection. When you are not telling the truth you can not be present, and when you are not present you can’t be connected to anyone else, and when you are not connected how can you feel anything at all?

以上所述的种种费力不讨好的行为脚本，既包含了虚伪之徒的行为模式，也包含了那些试图只要性爱，却不想为之付出亲密感受和情感联结的人。当你隐瞒实情，你的真心、真人，就无异于不在现场；既然你根本“不在现场”，徒具一副皮囊空壳，就无法和其他人进行情感联结：既然如此，你又如何能够感受到彼此之间的任何价值？

By treating lovers as people, and letting relationships take the shapes they want instead of the forms forced on them by the culture around them, ethical sluts can form friendships that last as sex waxes and wanes.

把伴侣当人（而不是当作工具之类），让亲密关系成为它所应有的模样——而不是被文化环境所强加塑造的模样：只要做好这个方面，我们这些理直气壮的婊子，就能够亲手塑造属于自己的人际情谊。无论彼此的性欲，潮落潮涨、缘生缘灭，相互之间的真情都将持久不熄。

第9章 边界