Unrepentant SLUT Series: The Rule of Three

I've decided to continue on with my slutty slut series because I am having such a fabulous time by brining up some really great memories! Here goes:

I once told a "feminist" friend about my dilemma when my ex-boyfriend dumped me because I told him how many men I had sex with. You know, the guy that I wrote about in my last post?

My former friend was about ten years older than me and she thought that it was about time that she would school me on the sexual differences between men and women.

"You see, it's called the rule of three. Men always take the actual number of women and multiply by three, and that's the number that they tell people regarding the amount of women that they have slept with. Women, on the other hand, take the actual number of men that they've slept with and divide it by three, and that's the number of men that they claim that they've slept with. Women never tell the exact number of men that they've been with!"

I was just a young twenty-one years of age at the time and a bit perplexed as to why anyone would divide the number of men they'd slept with by three. I didn't feel that there was anything wrong with sleeping with as many men (or women) as you damn well please.

"Why on Earth would a woman want to divide her number by three?" I asked.

"Because you don't want anyone to think that you are a slut, including your friends!" she clarified.

I'm sorry, I thought that we were in the day and age that we are, um, supposed to be honest to our partners about our sexual habits as well as how many partners that we have been with? You know, considering that people can get HIV and other sexually transmitted disease! Oh, silly me!

It's strange, sad and unfortunate that women feel that they have to lie about the number of partners that they have been with. If you have friends or loved ones who are that damn judgmental, then I suggest you find yourself some new friends-that's what any self-respecting bad ass would do!!

Unrepentant SLUT Series: Absolutely No Regrets

Yesterday I kicked off my Unrepentant SLUT series. Today I've decided to take a walk down memory lane and explore how the term "slut" has played out in my life. Here it goes:

I lost my virginity when I was fourteen to a boy named Jesus* over a superbowl bet. No, seriously. When the boys found out about it at school, they ran my name through the mud and created a derivation of my name, which included the word "slut". It wasn't long after that when the girls at school jumped on the bandwagon and isolated me. 

I can remember sitting in class and listening to the teacher lecture about Hester Prynne in "The Scarlet Letter". I remember being angry because Hester was isolated, punished and humiliated for having had an extramarital affair while the man who she had an affair with walked away with his reputation intact. "The Scarlet Letter" was the turning point for me, the moment when I decided that I would never let anyone make me feel ashamed of my sexuality.

 

Over the years it's not as if people haven't tried to denigrate me for my sexuality. When my own mother found out that I had lost my virginity, she locked me in my room for two straight weeks. When I came out to get water one night, she looked at me with hate on her face and said, "You disgust me. You make me sick. You're nothing but a slut". I can go on and on about examples from ex-friends, co-workers, people in the online community, non-sex-positive feminists and so on. And I've decided that people can kiss my ass if they don't like it. 

I'd have to say that the most slut defining moment for me was when at the age of twenty I dated a guy named Orlando*. At one point Orlando asked me how many men I had slept with and I told him twelve. He immediately dumped me. A day later he called to explain his actions. 

"I just can't date a woman who doesn't know how to keep her legs shut. I want to give you a word of advice. If you want a man to get serious with you, then you need to lie to guys in the future and tell them that you are a virgin. Later after they fall in love with you, you can tell him that you were with a few guys before but you didn't want him to think that you were a slut", he explained. 

I kid you not. I wrote down a summary of what he said as soon as I got off the phone with him.

I told him, "I will NEVER lie about how many men I have slept with. If a man doesn't like it, he can kiss my ass".  And then I called his uncle, asked him out on a couple of dates and fucked the shit out of him. And later the same with his best friend. 

I will never allow anyone to make me feel bad for my sexuality. I will never make myself feel bad or regret any of my sexual experiences, even if I have made poor decisions regarding certain partners throughout my life. 

So, here's to you, Orlando~thirteen years later and I'm still slutting around while you are stuck in a miserable marriage. Oh, and by the way, since I've been with you, I've actually lost track of how many partners I've had so I guess I won't ever have to give another man an exact number of my sexual partners. 

Absolutely, absolutely no regrets. 

*Maybe, just maybe it's a real name.

Who You Callin' a SLUT!?

Any woman in power or woman who has thumbed her nose at convention has probably been called a SLUT. Been there, done that, used to hate it, and now I just laugh my ass off. 

As if there is something wrong with a sexually active woman? Ha, and people lament the plight of women in the Middle East (sarcasm intended). 

I've been thinking about this "slut" issue for quite a while now, ever since I read the book "Loose Girl: A Tale of Promiscuity". I've been meaning to read the book  "Slut! Growing Up Female With a Bad Reputation" for a while now and I have just gotten around to recently ordering it.  I look forward to hearing the personal stories in the book as well as stories of any woman with big enough ovaries to leave a comment here. Confess, repent, let it all out, sista!

So I'd like to take a little stroll down memory lane and examine this "slut" issue and how it has played out in my life-the good, the scandalous, and the ugly. I would have to honestly say that it has had a significant impact on my life. I've prepared a couple of posts that I'll be uploading over the next couple of days about my personal experiences. In the meantime, I want to pose the following questions:

• Have you ever been called a slut? 
• Who is your favorite woman who has expressed absolute lack of remorse regarding being promiscuous? 
• Are you a slut-say it loud and say it proud?

Stay tuned!

Tales of a Wee Little Badass

Ever since I was a little girl I always had an obsession with women who were different than the "average woman".  When I was a wee little girl I was smacked on the knuckles by the nuns far too many times for asking why everyone always blamed Eve for everything. When I was nine years old, I was given a spanking at school because I wrote a paper in class that I thought that Adam was the weak one because he ate the apple and that Eve was merely curious. I was sent to confess my sins to the priest and was sent home for the day.

Growing up as a little feminist bad-ass in a Catholic school was very difficult until they finally ended up kicking me out, thank Goddess. From a very young age, I can remember asking my mother why the man was the one who led the services and not the nuns. I would constantly get in trouble when I asked questions as to why females were portrayed somewhat negatively in the bible. They tried to brainwash me, but I've been known to have an extremely strong character and thumbed my nose at all that they taught me about being a good little girl.

As a young Latina growing up in Los Angeles, I rarely had role models of women who rejected conventional gender roles. Most of the women in my immigrant neighborhood catered to their husbands and sons, my young friends catered to the boys in the neighborhood while practically doing backflips to get pregnant, and my teachers pretty much expected me to grow up and wipe a man's ass. Frustrating and depressing, to say the least.

The only refuge I had were my books and occasional shows on television. The first book that made my heart jump for joy about being a bad-ass little girl was The Paper Bag Princess. I've blogged about the book before, and the first time I read it as a child it was like a little light bulb went off in my head that I was not the only girl who was different than the others. It was the first time that I had ever seen a girl or woman who was portrayed in a powerful light. 

I later graduated to reading all of the Nancy Drew books, which I can't currently recall, but I remember loving as a child. I also fell in love with Anne Frank and Wonderwoman. I didn't have many other examples of strong, independent women and girls until I was in high school. After reading The Scarlet Letter in high school,  I made a pact to myself that I would never let anyone make me feel ashamed for my sexuality. The book The Awakening was the first time that I had ever heard about a woman who was not happy with being a wife or mother and would rather commit suicide than live a constricted life. 

These small little glimpses of unconventional women that I read growing up were life savers for me. Young girls who don't fit the typical mold can be prone to depression and might internalize that there is something wrong with them because they are different than other girls. 

I've been running in search of strong, unconventional, and diverse women for years. I look for them everywhere-in books, on television, in music, in real life and make believe. It's something that I need to nourish my soul on those days when I walk around and am reminded that I am different than the average woman in society. It's my own personal brand of therapy and sometimes the only thing I can do to maintain my sanity in a world of fools. 

Am I the only woman who was in this predicament as a child??

A Male's Perspective: Clarice-Part I

Today we're featuring our second guest blogger....Inkognegro! I asked him to post about the biggest, baddest bitch who has ever influenced his life and I hope you enjoy part one of his story: 

I am often asked how it is my understanding of women is so progressive.   My usual wink-and-a-nod response is “Good Home Training” but the reality is much more complex.  While my mother did represent a valuable role model for me to see the power of a strong woman, she isn’t the one that opened my eyes.   That “lead by example” mode was easily counteracted by a patriarchal day-to-day life that dominated my formative years.   My moment of clarity wasn’t courtesy of a teacher, family member, or church member.  Ironically enough, my moment of clarity was courtesy of a woman who was supposed to be my subordinate. 

The year was 1989, and I had just arrived in Hartford, CT for the first year of my college internship at a major insurance company.  As a person who was completely new to any sense of Corporate America, who had never known a male family member to put on a suit and tie to go to work five days a week, I was a virgin in more ways than one.  I had at least gone to a few workshops on how to dress for success and had been to church so much that wearing a suit and tie didn’t make me uncomfortable.  But I was a boy who knew school and church.  Occupying a lead cubicle (what the hell is a cubicle?)  in a pod (What am I a pea now?) and having an administrative assistant (that I shared with my mentor, but still….WOW) was a culture shock that totally neutered any of the usual ego driven bravado I usually carried around with me.  On that fateful May afternoon, I was a sheep being led to some kind of exotic slaughter.  And there I sat in the conference room with all the other sheep waiting for our respective shepherds.

Clarice was a woman of uncommon grace.  Some women are well schooled and trained in all the scholastic, cultural, and physical rigors of learning the savoir-faire that goes into being a woman of the ages.  It was plain to see from the second Clarice called my name out of orientation that she was a natural in every sense.  I looked up from my orientation handbook and locked eyes with a set of dark brown eyes that defied the glasses that aided them to diminish the degree to which they sparkled.  I knew enough about Black women to know that if they looked 25 they could be almost forty so I didn’t even bother to guesstimate her age.  I settled on the fact that she might be old enough to be my mother and was probably my boss and defaulted to the manner in which I treat elders.

I stood and humbly acknowledged her smooth southern twanged alto with a snap to attention and a strong but deferential “Yes ma’am”.   The fact that I had no idea where I was going allowed me to walk a half step behind her and behold her walk, a walk that was equal parts Military General, Runway Model, and Gangster; a walk that evoked leadership in every possible facet.  I had known Clarice for 3 minutes and I had already decided I would do whatever she said.  And for the next 12 weeks, I did.

Stay tuned for Inkognegro's sequel. You can find him on twitter here, or read his blog here.