Slut-shaming

I read an op-ed in the Globe the other day that brought up some old rage. Rage against the crazy inequality, the nutso double standard that tears us apart.

Slut-shaming undermines women's sexual choices, safety by Leora Tanenbaum

“Slut” is a slippery term; it can be applied to almost any girl or woman. And it is.

When an adolescent girl is called such names, very often she is not sexually active at all.

I wasn't.

Today, when female bodies are constantly displayed, tracked, tagged, and “liked,” many young women have come to believe that their sexualized bodies are their primary source of power, so rationally they flaunt them. They don’t yet realize that the old sexist belief that women must never be as sexually active as men are continues to shape cultural attitudes. 

We live in a culture where Viagra, vacuum constriction devices and penile implants (!!!) are covered by most insurance companies without qualm BUT the entire "right" wing goes rabid bat-shit over the Affordable Care Act covering birth control methods used by women.

What’s this tell you? What’s this bullshit say to our daughter and our granddaughters?
Men get a free ride to Boner-istan but us Vagina Americans, the ones who can, ya know, actually get preggers, with all the risk and pain that entails? What about us?

 If the GOP gets it’s way (and like a tantruming child, they’ve tried 56 times now), those of us who weren’t born in an endless money patch are shit outta luck. (FYI—that’d be the vast majority of us along with our daughters, sisters, nieces and grands)

The republicans are telling me that I’m substandard, a second class citizen whose body, whose needs are to be controlled by men. Hells, the shitstains of the “right” are telling me and every other woman in America that we are nothing more than chattel—property to be managed.

Christ on a FemCap, is this really the life you want for your daughters—to be so ridiculously unequal? To only be able to make choices about their own bodies IF the men in their lives allow it?

I knew a man (he was more of a fetid, loose stooled, slug’s trail on a humid, August Bakersfield sidewalk) who said, (not confessed mind you but stated as though this was AOK and normal), that he couldn’t get it up unless he was certain the woman could get pregnant. Yes, yes, he actually said that. Was he saying that he wanted kids, to be a dad and he wanted it desperately? Was he all set to be emotionally, financially, parentally present for all the kids he sired?  Eh, no. Not at all actually.

A disgusting, control freaking, miscreant like this should have his Viagra paid for by insurance but I shouldn't have my pill covered?

//snort// yeah, that makes loads of sense...in a Bizarro Universe.

But back to that word...”slut.” Men are never called sluts. If they behave in a floozyish manner they're lauded by their peers. Women? Precisely the opposite. How does this even begin to make sense to any but the most entitled, insecure asswipes?

It seems a common enough complaint amongst my married male chums that their wives aren’t as interested in sex as themselves. Of course they aren’t! We’re taught from bairnhood that good girls don’t, that only slatterns, tramps and whores actually like to go mattress dancing. We’re taught to “submit” and be enthusiastic, especially if there’s a diamond in play. After the big white wedding? *shrugs*

Game playing and denial of our very natures is instilled in us from childhood. How is this good for anyone—privileged male, second class citizen females OR any potential children? This is warped fucking shit mon ami!

When I finally stopped trying to be the sex shunning, “good girl,” when I finally decided to be me—not some uptight, insecure, suit and tie wearing, middle American salary man’s version of womanhood—well, boyhowdy, I began to like myself a whole lot more.

Granted, I also had to learn how to defend myself. Most of the time “defense” was just saying no and being OK with someone not wanting to be “friends” anymore because I turned them down (note bene: just because a woman may generally enjoy sex doesn’t mean she wants to do the sweaty Twinkle Tango with everyone. Duh!). Sometimes I had to endure the slings and arrows of outrageous insecure, defensive anger. There was name calling and nasty-ass rumors circulated. Once or twice I had to get physical—that is, I had to belt a dude and run.

Was this fair? No, 'course not. All I can say is this—embrace equality and teach your children well.