Personal thoughts on the label "slut"

If someone is between the ages of 15-17 and is having unprotected sex with a lot of people and giving blow jobs for “popularity and social benefits” it’s not your job to label them a slut. In fact, you don’t have to label anyone anything.

To put it crudely, even if someone is sucking off your boyfriend or your brother, it is not your business. Ain’t your dick she’s sucking on. Literally. Your boyfriend’s genitals do not belong to you.

Having sex for reasons other than pleasure, such as to gain popularity isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I would personally prefer to see a world where how much you are liked depends on how good you make people feel (either by being nice or by being physically pleasurable) rather than how violent or cruel you are.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong about being proud over how many sexual partners you have. In my opinion, such a person doesn’t necessarily lack morals or self respect. Morality is not just about sexual purity, it also (shock horror surprise) depends on how well you treat other humans. There’s nothing wrong with letting people know how many people you’ve slept with, if you’re comfortable sharing that information it’s up to the people around you to cope with their own reactions to that news. This paragraph is true for people of any gender or sexuality.

If you’re working in the legal field as a criminal prosecutor, and a so called “slut” has pressed charges against someone for sexual assault and you personally believe that women who have had many sexual partners deserve to be labelled as sluts, then that is going to impact on how hard you fight for that case. You are going to think things like “Oh, she’s a slut she probably said yes anyway but regretted it and is wasting my time with this case.” Your personal bias shouldn’t impinge on the fact that 1) There has been a lack of consent 2) There has been unconsented to penetration 3) That is a punishable crime.

Caling someone a slut is most certainly in this day and age castigating someone for the number of sexual partners they may have, but it is also now a criticism of any behaviour (dress, manner etc) that the person doing the name calling disapproves of. What this label does is creates an environment where it is not okay for women to have sex, where it is not okay for women to be anything other than sexually demure. If the response to this is that “men shouldn’t have a lot of sexual partners either” then you are also seeking to impact upon the sexual freedom of all people, which is just as uncalled for.

Labelling anyone with “slut” and “manwhore” not only add to the overall hate in our society but exhibits a sense of laughable childishness in your evaluation of individuals.

People have different thresholds for sexual satisfaction. We all have drives, hunger and thirst are commonly known ones, and I would say that there is a sexual drive as well. Some people need to eat more than others, some people eat less. Similarly, some people need to have sex more, some people don’t feel that urge as much. Either way, people from across this spectrum deserve respect and none are better than the other.

Let me reiterate. Who someone sleeps with is none of your business. If someone if sleeping with your brother or friend, in my (very unpopular) opinion that is none of your business. Depending on what kind of relationship I would argue that if someone sleeps with your boyfriend, that is also none of your business (but that ties into the assumption of monogamy in a relationship, and is a slightly different issue).

If it’s none of your business, but you choose to make it your business and get upset, then that is your fault. For example, you might not like black people. Upon seeing a black person you have two choices: 1) get upset 2) Be calm. In fact in any situation, you have a choice on how you react to stimuli. If you choose to get upset, then that was your responsibility, thus your fault.

No one deserves to be castigated for the number of sexual partners they have, regardless of gender.