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 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.
