A Slut Is Not A Slut
by Tati KalveksA slut is never simply a slut. She’s also a doctor, or a charitable volunteer, or that woman who always wishes you a nice day when she buys her morning coffee.
One might argue that she’s not a slut at all – since the slut in question is invariably a ‘she’. Oh, I know, in this progressive age, one can call a man a slut, a ‘man-whore’, a bounder, without being hauled off to the stocks. Nice one, equality! Unfortunately, we’re still policing someone else’s choices (albeit for banterz). And let’s not forget the difference between man-whores and plain old regular whores: there’s a long, fraught history of women being bartered around like cattle, literally treated as the property of men, and shamed/put to a slow and miserable death for being sexy human beasts like everyone else.
I don’t encounter many men who literally believe that women are the property of their fathers, brothers and (male) partners. But the slut epidemic is a more persistent idea. Men, women and journalists getting up in arms about those Sluts who wantonly drink, dance and wear impractical clothing. The idea that women who get raped are somehow ‘asking for it’; the idea that if a girl accepts the drink you offer, she owes you company in some shape or form. The constant, unavoidable trade of our bodies for men’s gratification, demonstrated with little gifts and rewards, like the man who buys you a coffee; the guy yelling “nice tits” out of his van window as he rushes past; the rapist who doesn’t kill you after.
There are obviously problems with this transactional attitude to female sexuality: the ‘right’ to rape being one, the idea that all women hate sex (except those deviant lesbians) being another. Yet somehow, the issue we get all huffed up over, as a nation, is when women start asking: what about our gratification? Where’s the worth, cry misogynists the world over, in a woman’s cavern of delights, if she goes around town rubbing her gratification on every Tom, Dick and Fanny? What if all the gratification-holes gets dirty and impure?
The army of sluts march into town, hissing at pearl-clutchers and seducing their children, drunk on slut pheromones. The army of sluts will lure you in, you and everyone you love. The army of sluts want to steal your sperm and bathe you in it, like Cleopatra in milk, and drown you, cackles erupting from their loose and flapping lips.
You can tell who they are, the slut comrades, the ladettes. You can tell from their clothes; the low cut tops, tight leggings. Some would suggest that women of a certain build (i.e. the build of a human female) find it hard to wear clothes that don’t show off their curves, but they’re probably slut comrades too. The sneaky ones don’t always dress revealingly, but you can usually tell from the look in their eye. The craftiest ones practice veiling, so you can’t see their eyes, but then you look for the sway in their hips. Some of them have learnt not to sway, to fool you, but then you just look for their drunken totter. Sluts are usually drunk, or on drugs (post-coital hormones, and crack, and the like). When they’re sober, you can identify them by their shrewd behaviour, and when they’re having fun, you can tell they’re sluts because respectable women just don’t laugh or joke.
And then there are the unexpected ones. The nice, quiet girls with pretty hair and steady boyfriends. But they’re sluts too, and you can tell because they’re nice to you, and smile at your jokes when you corner them at parties, and they gave you a funny look once which was probably supposed to signify ‘lust’. They’re gagging for it. Secretly.
You can label just about any woman a slut, using a combination of delusion and tedious interpretations of social norms, such as women being polite (she’s totally into you!) and wearing garments, some of which may suggest that one harbours a body underneath (she’s flaunting her curves!). This very radical suggestion is usually met with protestations of the most impassioned kind. We cling to the belief that some women are Good and some women are Sluts, to enforce the idea that good things happen to good people, and bad to the bad. It doesn’t work like that, of course, but it’s easy to believe, just as long as all the good girls who bad things happen to keep quiet, afraid of judgement.
Some women fit the arbitrary ‘slut’ descriptors: some dress like Julia Roberts, both before and after the Pretty Woman makeover scene. Some cheat on their boyfriends. Some indulge in polyamorous relationships with their boyfriends’ full knowledge. Some bone around because they have low self esteem, others because they’re keen for the peen/vagine. Some women lead men on.
None of those are societal issues. It’s good to have a style. Some people are mean, and some people make bad decisions. Some people have different kinks to other people. Flirting makes some people feel wanted, and men do it too.
Our slut-shaming attempts at social control make little sense. We dislike it when women make advances, but we don’t care a hoot about men catcalling. Isn’t that way less dignified than bedding and conquering a bunch of men? Literally throwing yourself at uninterested people using ‘compliments’? Then again, catcalling isn’t really about sex, it’s about power, and reminding women that they belong to the men who look at them, no matter what they do. And we, as a society, love NOTHING more than reminding women that they’re not as rational, independent or strong as men. Because, penis power!
No, ‘sluts’ don’t exist. Only women who do what they want, dress how they want, go where they want, and bone who they want, if they want to. We joyfully moon in the face of patriarchy. We will not play by these rules.
