There are a few important experiences that seem to be universal amongst women. Some are funny like period stories or happy like the joy from matching underwear, but unfortunately it seems as if every woman has one unique experience despite her character: being called a slut.
The word "slut" makes appearances across literature and culture for the past few hundred years. Chaucer uses the word "sluttish" to define an unkempt man. Most of the word's etymology plays to this idea of someone (male or female) that appears dirty, untidy or careless. So why has this word dating back to the 15th century meaning messy transformed into a derogatory term used to put down a woman for her sexual activity.
Not only has this word vastly changed from its original meaning, it no longer really makes any quantifiable sense. If you google the word slut you'll find out that a slut is a noun, meaning a woman who has many casual sexual partners. Synonyms include: whore, prostitute, floozy, tramp and harlot. Yet if you take a toll of middle school to college aged boy, a slut appears to be anyone who has the pleasure of owning a vagina, despite sexual experience, tendencies or 'morals'.
The thing that confuses me personally about the term slut is how to quantify it. At what number of sexual partners does one become a scarlet letter harlot? Is time a factor? What about things like environmental factors? Or events such as cheating or age or acts? There doesn't seem to be a defining line or circumstance to call one a slut. When a girl reaches a certain number does she just go from a sweet innocent schoolgirl to Britney in the "...Baby One More Time" video? (Honestly I really hope so). How much would be considered too much? Do you get to 69 and a little troll pops out of your clam shack to post a foreclosure sign over your vagina? Or like after so many will your morals be so compromised that you'll start kicking kittens?
It seems like a silly concept trying to say that a woman is morally compromised due to the number of penises (or whatever dittles your skittles) comes in contact with her magic fun place. There's also the double standard of how a girl having a lot of sex with the same person is viewed differently than a woman who has the same amount of sex but with different partners. I came to this thought process while my guy friends were trying to, I shit you not, calculate how many miles of dick this girl they knew had taken in the past year. Let's do this math: (let's keep in mind I'm an English major for a reason, the math may not pan out as well as I think it will).
This girl apparently slept with around 45 men x six inches on average per man (they're being a bit generous in my opinion) x 300 thrusts per outing = 81,000 inches of dick which is about one mile. Homegirl has taken a mile of dick, I can barely run that far respect honestly.
Now let's take an average girl in a relationship who might have sex once a day for around a year (well take out 84 days for period reasons and sick days and time apart and general apathy) and it turns out to be around eight miles.
Yet a girl in a relationship or at least having one partner is still seen as being less slutty even though she's having eight times more sex. And a lot of times girls get called sluts not even for a definite number of sexual partners but by their actions. Sometimes boys will call girls sluts for rejecting them or for not sending nudes (A1 logic right there) but the worst offense of action based slut calling is girls to other girls. Most to all English speaking women are guilty of calling another girl a slut. This is the main issue with the word, this is where it gets its power.
We have this tendency to call a girl a slut when we're jealous, or we don't like something about her. This makes it okay for boys to use it too, but instead of using it as a silly word to make us feel better when our ex moves on, they use it to devalue and dehumanize us, to rank us. To make us feel like we our lesser humans for exploring our sexualities and acting on it the same way that they do. When in actuality they don't want girl to be so careless with sex because they want it validated that they're special, and they need the comfort in knowing that we won't try to hit and quite like they pretend to do. When in all actuality does it really mean anything?
I recommend taking a little self-journey to figure out why you might be uncomfortable with women and casual sex. And if you're answer something along the lines of "girls shouldn't act like that" I would keep asking yourself why you were made to believe that. At the end of the day if no one is getting hurt and everyone is being safe and consenting, who the fuck cares. Mind your own goddamn business and judge people on real qualities like reliability, listening skills, and not playing country when handed the aux cord.
Stay Slutty
