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A review by bluecatreads
Sex from Scratch: Making Your Own Relationship Rules by Sarah Mirk
3.0
This book was okay, I think it just wasn't for me. Sarah Mirk tried to sprinkle in some inclusion and diversity with one-liners that included "and in same-sex relationships," but I think women who date men are much more likely to benefit from her relationship advice. It was a lot of common sense advice on many standard relationship dynamics with one or two nuggets of wisdom thrown in.
Mirk did have a chapter about open relationships and polyamory, but she chose the most harmful, toxic examples to display as the groundwork for her advice. I wanted to tell the man whose wife and mother of his child cheated on him and then pressured him into an open relationship that no one was forcing him to stay in that situation. Unfortunately, stories like that aren't uncommon, but it is irresponsible and misleading to hold them up as the paramount representation of open relationships in a book that claims to glean "real-life knowledge from smart people in a variety of nontraditional relationships."
Mirk did have a chapter about open relationships and polyamory, but she chose the most harmful, toxic examples to display as the groundwork for her advice. I wanted to tell the man whose wife and mother of his child cheated on him and then pressured him into an open relationship that no one was forcing him to stay in that situation. Unfortunately, stories like that aren't uncommon, but it is irresponsible and misleading to hold them up as the paramount representation of open relationships in a book that claims to glean "real-life knowledge from smart people in a variety of nontraditional relationships."