"Dick (what my friends and I call him) and I have been officially dating for about a month; I’m queer and poly so we’re ethically nonmonogamous...."

"I’d been celibate for the first six months of 2019 — I had been having a lot of meaningless sex and finding myself trying to force feelings for people I didn’t care about. Then came Dick. We met at graduate school. He found out I was celibate and made it clear he enjoyed tempting me. After a month of flirting, I relented. Then a woman he’d been flirting with found out, and caused drama, flirting aggressively and nonstop with him and trying to make me feel like shit about myself. He cut ties with her and apologized profusely. We were good again for a couple days, before he went on a date with another woman and claimed to be in love with her. Two weeks later, that all blew up too and he came crawling back. Against my better judgement I gave him a third chance — and it’s been wonderful so far."

From "The Polyamorous Woman Coming Off 6 Months of Celibacy," a "Sex Diaries" piece at The Cut, i.e., New York Magazine, to which I subscribe and you probably don't. Why am I blogging this? I was interested in the phrase "I’m queer and poly so we’re ethically nonmonogamous." Where do people get the idea of proclaiming themselves "ethical"? There no talk of ethics in this diary. Similarly, when do people proclaim themselves "celibate"? Is it just a matter of going without until something good enough comes along or is must there be some substance to this way of life before the term "celibate" comes along? When do you declare it and why? All I see here is that "He found out" and it put him in a condition of "enjoy[ing] tempting me," which makes it sound like the old playing hard to get.