You're Such a WHORE!: My Rant on Slut Shaming

You guessed it! It’s time for Dee to rant about sex again!

                The term slut and all its synonyms have never sat well with me. It’s a reputation-destroying term with no male equivalent. Not to leap onto a feminist soapbox, but I’ve always wondered why in today’s fairly sexually open times we still condemn women who have casual sex (slut-shaming) and reward men who do the same thing. I mean, come on, by now the 1950s goggles are off. We no longer deny that the vast majority of people have premarital sex with at least one partner, more often multiple partners. We know that women do it as often as men.  So why do we high five our bros for picking up a chick at the bar and insult our girls for their one-nighters?

As a single woman and a huge commitment-phobe, I can attest to the ridiculousness of slut-shaming and the double standard. Now, I’ve been lucky enough to have never been criticized for my few casual sex partners…to my face, at least. The people around me tend to be realistic rather than adhering to traditional social mores. But a few weeks ago, I ended up making out with a friend of mine on the dance floor at Ination, and the pictures of it that popped up on Facebook caused a miniature explosion on my phone and Facebook page. Most of the comments were just teasing me for getting “caught in the act,” but I received many concerned texts from completely well-meaning friends saying things like, “Untag yourself! You look like a slut!” and “What will your parents say?”

                I was pretty shocked by the response to what I’m not calling The Pic Seen Round the World. First of all, why the hell would my parents care? I’m 24, not 14. The slut responses threw me off the most, however, mainly because the picture features a very chaste, closed-mouth kiss (though his hand is on my ass.) But mostly I was startled that kissing someone on a dance floor made me a slut. Or even sleeping with someone. What the hell is wrong with that? My single guy friends can sleep with multiple women and nobody blinks an eye, but one picture of a lip lock and I’m “going down a bad path.”

This is the pic people freaked out about. ....No, seriously.

When I was in my consecutive string of long-term relationships, I had a different view of sex. I never condemned those who participated in casual sex. I just thought that I had to be in love to want to have sex with someone-I was just one of those people. Now single, I’ve learned otherwise, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with it.

                This is going to be a really short blog, but I just had to rant about this even though I know slut shaming has been talked into the ground. I’ll never forget when my friend, a womanizer so notorious that I’m surprised they don’t hand out warning flyers with his picture on them during Freshman Orientation, once off-handedly remarked, “I hate sluts. A worthwhile girl doesn’t spread her legs like that.” Yet he sees his consecutive one-night-stands and cheating on his girlfriends of the month as a perfectly acceptable practice during his “never-ending search for love.”

                Girls…fuck the social norms and fuck as much as you want, God dammit.

                Our sex drives are just as strong as men’s, there’s plenty of evidence for that. As long as you’re safe and you aren’t harming anyone, it’s your own fucking business (forgive the pun!) I only follow my own rules: I’m always safe, I’ll never be involved with someone in a relationship, etc, but other than that, I’ll get in bed with whomever I damn well please. I can count the number of sex partners I’ve had on one hand, but if my “body count” were double that, I wouldn’t care.

                Throw away the concept of the Slut, and for that matter, the Manwhore. We are creatures of the senses, and  if there’s harmless pleasure to be had, we will have it. We shouldn’t ruin it with unnecessary guilt.

….DAMMIT.