I was talking to one of my friends the other night, and he was telling me about a girl at his school. He was saying that she was a whore based on her amount of sexual partners. I started to get angry, because at the beginning of this year I took the words “slut” and “whore” out of my vocabulary; I even wrote an article about it. When I told him that I didn’t like using those words, he was confused and wondered why. I explained to him that I find the word whore demeaning, and that I just don’t like using it to describe other women.

I am in no way bashing my friend, but it opened my eyes up to one guy’s perspective on women and their sexuality. In our society, men are praised for getting laid, while women are shamed. How is that fair? If a guy sleeps around, he is praised and in a weird way, respected. Movies such as "American Pie" and "The 40 Year Old Virgin" portray men losing their virginity in a positive light and as a rite of passage. On the other hand, I can’t think of many films that do the same for young women.

My friend then asked if he couldn’t call the girl a whore, then what word could be used to describe her? I simply told him that he shouldn’t be talking about her in the first place. What goes on between her and her partner is nobody’s business but her own. He then brought up a very interesting point; he then asked why it was OK for girls to call guys “f**kboys”, but not OK for guys to call girls whores. This made me stop and think for a moment. I call myself a feminist, but are calling guys “f**kboys” a way of shaming them?

After careful consideration, I realized that he wasn’t completely wrong. Girls automatically assume a guy is a “f**kboy” based on how they’re dressed or who they’re hanging around with. The same criteria are often used when deciding if a girl is a whore or not. This is wrong on both ends, but to answer my friend’s question: no it’s not OK to call a girl a whore. A “f**kboy” is somebody who tricks a girl into thinking he wants a relationship, while in reality he is just looking for a hookup. This is completely different than a girl who just has multiple sexual partners.

So the moral of this story is boys, stop shaming girls for doing what they want with their body, especially if it doesn’t involve you. The word whore is hurtful, and simply unnecessary in my opinion. On the other hand, I also learned to not judge somebody so quickly, based on their outward appearance. Just because a guy is wearing Vineyard Vine, doesn’t necessarily mean he's a total tool.