Dorothy "Dossie" Easton (born February 26, 1944), who has also written under the name Scarlet Woman, is an American author and family therapist based in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. She is polyamorous and lives in West Marin, California.

Background

Easton is a non-fiction author and poet. She has been a plenary or keynote speaker at many conferences, including conferences of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists ( AASECT), the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, and the

University of Hamburg The University of Hamburg (german: link=no, Universität Hamburg, also referred to as UHH) is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('' Allgemeines Vo ...

. Easton has given presentations at many colleges and universities, including

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge of ...

;

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United ...

;

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

;

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was ...

;

Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California. In 1925, it became t ...

; and

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different ...

. Her B.A. is from New College of California, 1975; MA in Education and Counseling from

University of San Francisco The University of San Francisco (USF) is a private Jesuit university in San Francisco, California. The university's main campus is located on a setting between the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park. The main campus is nicknamed "The Hil ...

, 1989; Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, 1991, USF. Her bachelor's thesis was titled ''Sex is Nice and Pleasure is Good for You.'' She worked at the

Haight Ashbury Free Clinic The Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, Inc. is a free health care service provider serving more than 34,000 people in Northern California. Overview The organization was founded by Dr. David E. Smith in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, California on J ...

Psych Annex in 1968 as a psychedelic crisis guide, and she worked with

San Francisco Sex Information San Francisco Sex Information (SFSI) is an organization that provides free sex information via the World Wide Web, e-mail, telephone, and online social networking. SFSI also offers a bi-annual sex educator training program and various continuing ed ...

for several years, beginning in 1972. She had a radio show on sexuality on

KPOO KPOO (89.5 FM) is a community radio station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States. The station is owned by Poor People's Radio. It broadcasts from a building in the Fillmore district. Poor People's Radio was conceived of and name ...

San Francisco from 1973–1975 called "Get in Touch", as Mandy Jenkins. She has worked in battered women's centers and mental health clinics in Santa Cruz, Sunnyvale, and San Francisco. She was a member of the first Board of Directors of the

Society of Janus The Society of Janus is the second BDSM organization founded in the United States (after The Eulenspiegel Society) and is a San Francisco, California based BDSM education and support group. The Society of Janus is nonprofit, volunteer run and is ...

in 1974, and is a life member. She is an inductee of the Society of Janus Hall of Fame. She also is or has been a member of other well-known

BDSM BDSM is a variety of often erotic practices or roleplaying involving bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, and other related interpersonal dynamics. Given the wide range of practices, some of which may be engaged ...

organizations such as The Outcasts, Exiles, and Black Leather Wings, a radical faerie group. In 1969, Easton made the decision never to enter into a monogamous relationship again. Her books have been cited as fundamental to the

polyamory Polyamory () is the practice of, or desire for, romantic relationships with more than one partner at the same time, with the informed consent of all partners involved. People who identify as polyamorous may believe in open relationships wi ...

movement.

Works

Nonfiction books

* Easton, Dossie and Janet W. Hardy, ''Radical Ecstasy: S/M Journeys to Transcendence.'' San Francisco: Greenery Press, 2004. * Easton, Dossie and Janet W. Hardy, ''The New Topping Book.'' San Francisco: Greenery Press, 2003. . * Easton, Dossie and Janet W. Hardy, ''The New Bottoming Book.'' San Francisco: Greenery Press, 2001. . * Easton, Dossie and Catherine A. Liszt. ''When Someone You Love Is Kinky.'' San Francisco: Greenery Press, 2000. . * Easton, Dossie and Catherine A. Liszt. '' The Ethical Slut.'' A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities. San Francisco: Greenery Press, 1997. . . . :* Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy. ''The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures''. Second edition. Celestial Arts, 2009. . :* Janet W. Hardy and Dossie Easton.
The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Freedoms in Sex and Love
'. Third Edition.

Ten Speed Press Ten Speed Press is a publishing house founded in Berkeley, California in 1971 by Phil Wood. Ten Speed Press was bought by Random House in February 2009 and is now part of their Crown Publishing Group division. History Wood worked with Barnes & ...

, 2017. .

Poetry

* Poems under the name Scarlet Woman and Dossie Easton in works edited by

Patrick Califia Patrick Califia (born 1954; formerly also known as Pat Califia and by the last name Califia-Rice) is an American writer of non-fiction essays about sexuality and of erotic fiction and poetry. Califia is a bisexual trans man. Prior to transitioni ...

Joan Nestle Joan Nestle (born May 12, 1940) is a Lambda Award winning writer and editor and a founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, which holds, among other things, everything she has ever written. She is openly lesbian and sees her work of archiving hi ...

(''The Persistent Desire''), Leslea Newman (''The Femme Mystique'') * Scarlet Woman. "Roll Me Over and Make Me a Rose" and "Dress Shirt". ''The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader.'' Ed. Joan Nestle. Boston: Alyson Publications, 1992. pp 351–352 * Scarlet Woman. "Hold Me Down So I Can Fly." ''The Second Coming: A Leatherdyke Reader.'' Ed. Pat Califia and Robin Sweeney. Boston: Alyson Publications, 1996. pp 101–103 * Scarlet Woman. "For DAVID & JERRY & CYNTHIA & MARK & now CHRISTOPHER too..." ''Coming to Power''. Ed. by members of Samois, a lesbian/feminist

organization. Boston: Alyson Publications, 1981 * ''Scarlet Woman: poems.'' Chapbook. 20pp. 1995

Articles

*"Shadowplay:SM Journeys to Our Selves" in ''Safe, Sane and Consensual'', eds. Meg Barker and Darren Langdridge, UK 2007. *"Making Friends with Jealousy" in ''Understanding Non-Monogamies'', eds. Meg Barker and Darren Langdridge, Routledge, 2010. *"Cultural Competence with BDSM Clients" in ''Counseling Ideologies, Queer Challenges to Heteronormativity'', ed. Lyndsey Moon, Ashgate Publishing, United Kingdom, 2010. *"Sex and Relationships: Reflections on Living Outside the Box" in ''Families - Beyond the Nuclear Ideal'', eds. Daniela Cutas and Sarah Chan, Blomsbury, London, 2012.

References

Sources

*Klesse, Christian. ''Sexualities'' Vol. 9 No. 5. Special issue on Polyamory. Contains interview with Dossie Easton, "The Trials and Tribulations of being a 'Slut' – Ethical, Psychological, and Political. Thoughts on Polyamory." December 2006. pp 643–650. * Love, Barbara, ed. ''Feminists who Changed America, 1963-1975'', University of Illinois Press, 2006.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Easton, Dossie 1944 births Living people American erotica writers American feminists American psychotherapists American relationships and sexuality writers Writers from Massachusetts New College of California alumni BDSM writers Feminism and BDSM American sex educators Sex-positive feminists University of San Francisco alumni People from Andover, Massachusetts Polyamory Writers from San Francisco LGBT scientists from the United States Women erotica writers American women non-fiction writers Polyamorous people 21st-century LGBT people 21st-century American women