The Ethical Slut: the movie!

The Ethical Slut, often called the how-to bible of polyamory, is going to be made into a movie. Here is the press release from Greenery Press, the book's publisher:

For immediate release – January 15

“THE ETHICAL SLUT” — BEST SELLING OPEN-RELATIONSHIP BIBLE
TO BECOME A FEATURE FILM

San Francisco, CA — The best selling manual for open relationships, The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities, has been licensed to Little Taoist Films, to be made into an independent feature film, with principal photography slated to begin in summer 2007.

Authored by Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt [real name Janey Hardy], the book is a groundbreaking explication of the hows and whys of responsible non-monogamy and open sexuality. Published by Greenery Press in 1997, the book has become a blockbuster by small-publishing standards, with more than 75,000 copies in print. The phrase "ethical slut" was coined in the book as a term for an individual open to the possibility of sustainable polyamory. It has become part of common parlance, with more than 60,000 Google hits, its own Wikipedia entry, and its own OKCupid "ethical slut" test.

Moses Ma, writer/director of the forthcoming film, explains, “I’ve been excited about the ideas in the book ever since I first picked it up. The book offers a simple yet truly liberating lesson, that honesty is the best policy when it comes to the foibles of sexuality and modern relationships. Little Taoist Films is dedicated to making the kind of movies that change people’s thinking, and this film is a great place for such a transformative process to begin.”

The film, also titled "The Ethical Slut" will be a romantic comedy that follows the adventures of a conventionally reared Midwesterner as he moves to San Francisco and encounters unconventional sexuality. It will be filmed as a visual homage to the beauty of San Francisco, and will take advantage of new technologies for digital imaging and post production. Craig Pruess, the noted film composer for “Bend it Like Beckham” and “Bride and Prejudice,” who is attached to participate, adds, “It is through spirited projects like these that the promise of independent film can be fulfilled. When movies and music come from the heart, magic can happen.”

For more information about the film or Little Taoist Films, check out www.littletaoist.com. For background information on the book, contact Janet Hardy at Greenery Press, 510/530-1281, jhardy (AT) greenerypress (DOT) com.

Little Taoist Films describes itself as

...an indie film production and entertainment company founded in 2004 by Moses Ma. We’re a privately held company based in San Francisco, California. Our vision is to create Taoist films. By Taoist, we mean simple and beautiful works of art that are spare yet rich and sensual, undogmatic yet devout and spiritual, hopeful but perhaps a bit weary of the common world.

And here's a blurb on Moses Ma:

Moses Ma is driven by vision. He started out as a computer games designer, and ended up designing two of the world's best selling computer games, including Spectre VR, the world's first commercially successful Internet game. Later, when he foresaw the enormous potential of the Internet, he became a developer of Internet standards proposals (Universal Avatars with IBM and Open Community VRML with Mitsubishi). Then, as a Fellow at CommerceNet, he predicted the B2B explosion, coined the term eMarkets, co-produced the B2B Big Bang! conference, and started up Bizbots, an Internet dotcom that built next generation electronic marketplaces. After a fun and action-packed recession, he is now at Next Generation Ventures, a San Francisco-based venture accelerator, where he tells people he is a reformed technologist and seeks new opportunities based on venture ethnographics, customer-centric thinking and radical simplicity in design. Moses got his BS from Caltech, where he studied theoretical physics.

Update: A revised and expanded second edition of the book is in the works, says author Dossie Easton.

Update December 29, 2008: Moses Ma says that the current economic downturn has put the movie project on hold. He is still eager to do it and is looking for investors.