I don't have enough patience to be a social historian. I only tend to read things that interest me. When I get bored I skim or just watch television. So like many women of my generation and younger, I think I know all about the feminist movement, 'Our Bodies Ourselves', equal rights, etc. etc. But only in the way that I also know about things like World War II, or even Vietnam for that matter. I understand the basic principles, but I didn't live through it and the nuance is a bit lost on me.
My experience with growing up in a liberated generation was basically that I was told I could be or do anything that I wanted to be or do (of course this should be cross-referenced with what I think it means to be an American, but that's not the point of this particular entry). When I got to college, this translated into everyone I knew experimenting with their sexuality before it was run of the mill for everyone you knew to be 'a little bit bisexual'.
A friend of mine and I were talking about 'our numbers' the other day. I mean, how many people does one expect the average 30 year old today to have slept with? Now I felt my number was a bit low personally. And why? Because I based my idea of an average number based on the numbers that I either knew flat out or could tell from deduction from my friends. And my number is definitely on the low end. But then this friend of mine suggested what he thought of as an average number. And it was 1/4 what I thought of as an average number. And please note the gender of each person in this conversation. Me, the female, assumed that my friends and myself (mostly female) should have slept with four times as many people as my male friend thinks he should have slept with.
How does that work? Are men becoming prudes as women take ownership of their sexuality?
You often hear words get thrown around, in particular the dreaded 'slut'. What does that mean? Who decides when a number is too high? Or is it the number that matters at all? Maybe what it means is the behavior. We all know 'when you're sleeping with someone you're having sex with every person they have ever had sex with before you', and while that's true, it's really only mostly true if they are fucking retarded about their sexual behavior. Responsible sexual adults take care of their reproductive health. They get regular check-ups and they use protection. I think sometimes that line is a bit of bullshit to keep horny-toads in line. And I can see how horny-toads can be sluts. Because they are indiscriminate. Because they are sloppy. And lets face it, the majority of the general population are probably horny-toads, okay fair enough.
But a man, or a woman, who has a healthy sexual appetite? Who takes care of themselves and is responsible? 'Slut' is just a slander used by those who are either jealous or afraid. And yes, I say man or woman because I don't think there's a difference between the two. In fact, I tend to have far more respect for a predatorial woman than I do for a predatorial man. I'd be much more likely to call the man a slut than the woman. And maybe that's my own bias shining through. I have more respect for what I think is more difficult. How hard is it really for a good looking man to bed a plethora of women? Men are notorious for being able to distance their emotions from sex. That story is as old as the hills. But a good looking woman who is interested in having sex? Who is able to not fall prey to the 'weakness of her gender' and keep her shit together? That takes cahones my friend.
We're way past the time for gender standards. If you want to critique our hedonistic society, then that's cool. But it's kind of well past the time when we can still hold men and women to different kinds of standards of behavior. Don't you think?
2 comments:
I like the picture.
I don't actually think there's a point at which a girl's numbers would be high enough for me to seriously term her "a slut". The way I see it, pussy is pussy. If I'm denying myself some because of some social prejudices that I don't actually hold myself, it's my loss.
As far as the behaviour, there will always be the girls who are marginally more promiscuous than the rest of them. If people want to call those girls sluts and refuse to touch them, then that's more pussy for me.
Carnal, I know, but that's me. I've been called a manwhore and a slut more times than I can count, probably signifying that people seem to think that my own sexual desires are indiscriminate and loose, even beyond that of most men. Because of that, there are always the girls who refuse to associate themselves with me, but on the other hand, there are those who think that the fact that I'm this much of a horny bastard is a plus. And those are normally the same girls that people call sluts.
Also, in my experience, if some guy's going "don't fuck around with her; she's a slut", the most probable scenario is that he tried to hit it and was rejected, so it seems to him that she's sleeping with everyone except him. It's things like this that skew the definition of the word, and I'm willing to bet that most usage of the word may be borne more from male bitterness than anything else.
I should be in a dark room with a certain girl by the name of Terri for most of today if all goes well. She'd gone and told her friend that she liked me enough to replace her boyfriend with me — which surprised me, but I could deal with that. What threw me was that all that supposed emotion could have been part of some sort of elaborate game in which I was just a mark on a tally sheet, which would have meant a racking up of revenge points for everyone concerned. (Revenge points: I'll explain that one later.)
I'm not a fan of holding double standards. It just makes enemies out of people, and that's not something I enjoy doing.
Hijacking blogs, though, is.
---X
I think what I find interesting is that the attitude you suggest may seem to hold true for many men until they decide to 'settle down' at which time they decide for some reason they want someone 'more pure'. So it was okay for them to run around and poke anything with a hole while they wanted but when it comes to the mother of their potential offspring they want the virgin on the pedestal.
If two players play each other why does their motivation matter? Even if a conquest is a mark on a tally sheet, was anyone hurt during the making of that mark? I suppose if the premise was misleading- ie, the only reason you would go with her was the promise of emotional attachment that was later witheld, then that's crap and deserving of retribution. But on the other hand, if you weren't interested in the emotional attachment and just wanted the play, then where's the harm? Maybe you're just doing each other a favor.
Now... have fun in that dark room, and don't do anything I wouldn't do (that should leave you PLENTY of options).
-K
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