Wikipedia says: Polyamory (from Greek πολύ [poly], meaning "many" or "several", and Latin amor, "love") is the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. It is distinct from swinging (which emphasizes sex with others as merely recreational) and may or may not include polysexuality (attraction towards multiple genders and/or sexes). Polyamory is often described as "consensual, ethical, and responsible non-monogamy."
The authors start by defining the term slut as "a person of any gender who has the courage to lead life according to the radical proposition that sex is nice and pleasure is good for you." The term is reclaimed from its usual use as a pejorative and as a simple label for a promiscuous person. Instead, it is used to signify a person who is accepting of their enjoyment of sex and the pleasure of intimacy with others, and chooses to engage and accept these in an ethical and open way — rather than as cheating. The Ethical Slut discusses how to live an active life with multiple concurrent sexual relationships in a fair and honest way. Discussion topics include how to deal with the practical difficulties and opportunities in finding and keeping partners, maintaining relationships with others, and strategies for personal growth.
Firstly: make no mistake, this IS a self-help book. There's a lot of "learning to love yourself" stuff in here - much of it not relating to polyamory at all. But for some reason those parts, didn't bother me, and actually made it such a good read. The Ethical Slut is interesting in a lot of different ways. The authors are proponents of polyamory, or open relationships, that's true. Maybe the basic idea seems a bit far-fetched for you, even. But the basic tenants of communication and how to strengthen a core relationship, the little exercises for opening up the lines of discussion between a couple - everything in this book is very valuable.
... And not only to people in a relationship, monogamous or not. Friendships are relationships too, mind you! This book has interesting views on how to learn to understand, appreciate - and love - your friends and basically to become a better person. Which makes this book great for anyone, seriously. Read it. It has changed my life already!
You can download the book here: http://zinelibrary.info/files/The_Ethical_Slut.pdf
... or read a review in Spanish(!) "Poliamor y pareja abierta: manual para principiantes"
