‘How to be an Ethical Slut’ Explores Lessons and Logic of Polyamory

Blake Valentini has a problem. She’s wrestling with her desire for a loving, monogamous relationship and the simultaneously dawning realization that there may be alternative — and better — ways to forge meaningful romantic and sexual connections.

In short, Blake is contemplating How to be an Ethical Slut — not our words but the title of Brooke McCarthy’s one-woman musical comedy cabaret show that she’ll perform at The Rooster in Gastonia on Feb. 21.

The award-winning show advocates for polyamory, a consensual nonmonogamous lifestyle that involves having romantic/sexual relationships with multiple partners at the same time, as a way to find emotional happiness and sexual satisfaction, explained McCarthy, a Charlotte-based theatre artist who wrote, produced and stars in the show.

The show’s title reclaims the word “slut” in much the same way the LGBTQ community reclaimed the word “queer,” McCarthy insists. How to be an Ethical Slut is the opposite of slut-shaming. Instead, it praises the experimentation and fulfillment that comes from its protagonist’s supposedly slutty behavior.

Alongside Valentini, McCarthy also portrays six more characters on an eye-opening journey that sees the main character’s arc range from unethical slutdom to what could be considered more of an ethical slut — all accompanied by songs, choreography and self-discovery.

Making musical theatre more slutty

With a passion for singing since the age of 5, it wasn’t difficult for McCarthy to decide that her one-woman show would be a musical — with songs on subjects you won’t often hear in theatre productions. How to be an Ethical Slut tackles sexually transmitted diseases, threesomes, orgies, love and lies with comedic Broadway-style show tunes, emotional pop songs and sultry jazz standards.

The show opens with a bang, the tuneful empowering “Slut Anthem,” co-written by McCarthy and Marcia Ferguson.

“I own myself, I know my truth/ I’m ethically slaying, breaking taboos/ I like me ‘cause I’m weird, sexy and bold/ And I’m not confined by society’s mold/ My sexuality is unconventional/ No shame in my love, it’s all consensual…”

Another musical highlight is “STD”, a celebration of getting your tests back negative. The parody duet, set to the tune of “You Can’t Stop the Beat” from the musical Hairspray, is sung by Blake and her romantic interest Guy.

“Our bodies bouncin’ round and round/ Your dick’s pumpin’ blood ‘cause we want to pound/ We discuss our results/ It’s mature, grown-up foreplay/ We don’t have STDs!”

“Three is Better,” an original tune by McCarthy and Sarah Clemency, sings the praises of having a threesome, with the back-and-forth patter of a musical comedy tune.

McCarthy said the production was conceived as a musical from the very start, when she wrote the show as a thesis to earn her Master of Fine Arts in Acting at the University of Georgia (UGA) in 2020.

“In order for people to connect with the taboo topics and to find ways to make [the show] funny, I knew that music would lend itself to the story,” McCarthy says.

She chose from different musical genres depending on which emotions she wanted to highlight in any given song — theatrical show tunes for comedy; pop songs for moody, sad or tragic moments; and jazz compositions for falling in love.

A sexy semi-autobiography

Despite the saucy song lyrics, McCarthy says the show is not about promiscuity. Instead, How to be an Ethical Slut celebrates female sexual pleasure, empowerment, the fun of exploration and, above all, bodily autonomy. In the course of her polyamorous odyssey, Blake lies, cheats, loves and hurts but she never needs to seek others’ permission.

“McCarthy’s infectious energy is irresistible … What’s perhaps most surprising about this show isn’t that it’s funny or that it’s feminist or that it’s a rollicking good time,” read one review from the Austin Chronicle. “It’s that there’s a real message lying at its heart about love in all forms.”

“[The play is about] what we see in Disney fairy tales about how relationships are supposed to be,” McCarthy says, “and then discovering a whole world of, ‘Oh, it doesn’t have to be just as one cookie-cutter way.’”

McCarthy, who identifies as polyamorous and bisexual, derived the title of her production from the 1997 self-help book The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy. She describes the show’s plot as semi-autobiographical, though characters’ names and professions have been changed.

McCarthy’s friend and colleague Sarah Elizabeth Yorke, the show’s current director, points out that, despite the show’s title, the protagonist Blake does not always act ethically.

“We are with Blake for the ride and we’re rooting for her, but we’re also watching her go through these lessons where she makes mistakes,” Yorke says. “It’s interesting and complex to see one actor take us on this character journey.”

“Real life is chaos; we’re just flying by the seat of our pants,” McCarthy adds. ‘Theatre … has an arc [that] builds and pushes towards a message.”

That message is about owning your truth, being honest with the people that you’re with and being comfortable and confident with who you are, McCarty continues.

“We can only do that through communication with ourselves and with the people around us,” McCarthy notes. “Polyamory is only cheating if you are hiding it from all parties involved.”

That advice applies to all relationships, McCarthy maintains, whether romantic or platonic, polyamorous or monogamous.

A move from corporate America to musical theatre

Having grown up in New Jersey, McCarthy pursued a bachelor’s degree in accounting at Monmouth University after high school. She balanced her business-centered major with minors in Italian and musical theatre. Her college friends affectionately nicknamed McCarthy “the business bitch.”

“I feel very fortunate that I have been able to tap into both sides of my brain,” says McCarthy, who has applied her business aptitude toward marketing herself as an artist and for budgeting and planning productions like How to be an Ethical Slut.

After graduating from college, McCarthy pursued an accounting career but it didn’t stick.

“I have been in and out of corporate America in my career, and ultimately, even though I end up being really good at my job, it’s just it does not fulfill my soul,” she says.

McCarthy decided to pursue work as an acting teacher under the assumption that the experience would make her a better actress. She enrolled at UGA, where she taught acting to undergraduates while pursuing her MFA.

McCarthy developed, wrote and debuted How to be an Ethical Slut during the depths of the COVID pandemic. After she earned her degree, and as soon as it was safe to do so, she started touring her one-woman show, hitting numerous fringe festivals from 2022 to 2023.

The show has won multiple awards including Best of Fest in Hartford, Connecticut; Solo Performer of the Year in Philadelphia; and the Philly Fringe’s Audience Choice Award.

While hitting the fringe circuit, McCarthy briefly based herself in Charlotte, and How to be an Ethical Slut made its Queen City area debut at Stumptown Station in Matthews in 2022. The next year, she moved to Blacksburg, Virginia, for a one-year teaching stint as a Post-MFA Fellow in Acting and Applied Theater at Virginia Tech.

While there, she met and befriended Yorke, who had already directed Claire Tumey’s one-woman show, The Wake of Your Problematic Fav PRTY GRL, during runs in New York City and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the world’s largest arts festival, among other venues. McCarthy and Yorke bonded over their experiences with the genre.

“Brooke asked if I would be interested in coming on as a director and just put an eye on the show,” Yorke recalls. “We had one rehearsal, and within that rehearsal, we both saw how well we worked together and collaborated.”

In January 2024, Yorke signed up as the show’s permanent director. She feels one of her most significant contributions to the show is helping develop a more robust sound design, which helps audiences to recognize when McCarthy is transitioning from one character to another onstage.

With McCarthy bouncing back and forth between so many characters, her connection with the audience becomes increasingly important, Yorke says, as an energetic audience can amp up McCarthy’s performance.

“If Brooke has an audience that is a little quieter or more reserved, she [can] use that,” Yorke says. “In a way, the audience becomes her scene partner.”

After completing her teaching gig at Virginia Tech, McCarthy moved back to Charlotte where she currently acts and teaches acting. With a few years of performing the show under her belt, McCarthy says How to be an Ethical Slut has helped her to own who she is not just as a polyamorous bisexual woman but as a creative and a businesswoman.

“Between corporate accounting and acting in the performance world, there have been times when … I felt that imposter syndrome,” McCarthy says. “[Doing the show] has helped me to embrace my creative side and give me the confidence that I can do this.”

Speaking truth to gaslighting

McCarthy won’t stop spreading her message of sexual and romantic empowerment and satisfaction after How to be an Ethical Slut plays at The Rooster. She has booked the show for performances at BOOM Charlotte arts festival at Camp North End in April as well as Charlotte’s Off-Broadway’s black box theater space at the VAPA Center from May 15-17.

She’s also working on a follow-up to Ethical Slut, a one-woman show titled Gaslighting: The Musical! Like her current show, the new production is partly autobiographical.

“[It’s] inspired by a very dark chapter [in my life] where I was dating and then engaged to … a narcissist,” says McCarthy, adding that the show examines the emotional abuse a narcissist can direct at people to maintain control over them. “Narcissists gaslight and try to destroy you and make your reality disappear in front of you.”

Despite its dark origins, Gaslighting: The Musical! will be an entertaining combination of musical theatre, storytelling, and stand-up comedy presented onstage as a “circus of the mind,” with McCarthy as the ringmaster.

“[My message] as an artist is I went through something horrible, and I do not want anyone to ever go through that again,” McCarthy says.

In the meantime, McCarthy plans to entertain and enlighten audiences with her current erotically charged, sex-positive, dramatic, comedic and empathetic one-woman show.

How to be an Ethical Slut has gained overwhelmingly positive responses from audiences, McCarthy says; only a few reviewers have wrongheadedly slammed the show as a paean to promiscuity, an interpretation that the show’s creator says completely misses the point.

“I hope people come away [from the show] being able to reflect on their own relationships and how they go about showing up honestly in those relationships — not only for the people they’re with but also for themselves,” McCarthy says.

It’s a bold stance, particularly today, when conservative men in power are increasingly trying to push nontraditional sexuality and outspoken, confident women back into the shadows.

Read more: ‘The Wake of Dick Johnson’ Pulls Back the Veil (2019)

McCarthy says she was partially inspired to write this How to be an Ethical Slut from a Queer Theatre History class she took at UGA, where she learned about the bravery displayed by playwrights who chose to write about queer topics that were illegal in a time not so long ago.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that I will keep doing [How to be an Ethical Slut] regardless of what’s going on in the climate around us,” McCarthy says. “With the climate of our country right now, there have been moments where I’ve been a bit nervous about pushing and promoting the show, but if I don’t speak up, who else will?”