Who Are You Calling a Slut?

Posted by: MetAnotherFrog Admin Tags: single life, sluts, women Posted date: August 7, 2012 | No comment

August 7, 2012

A Guest Post By HLBB

When a woman is happily single (no significant other), for some unfathomable reason she may be labeled a slut. In this case, the word “slut” is used to belittle, insult and shame.

The first time I was slut shamed I was nine. Yes nine. I was friends with an older boy and one day, he asked me to be his girlfriend. I asked if I could think about it, but that we could still play at recess and walk home together after school. This was cool. Or so I thought…

Later that week, I delivered a note to another class, and a bunch of boys started pointing, whistling and laughing. You might assume that I was one of those girls who developed early, but I was stick figured tomboy until, well…twenty. I went back later that afternoon to collect the note, and laugher and pointing continued. One idiot boy shouted, “Are you going to do me next?” Confused, I ignored the comment.

With recess came the whispers and pointing. Finally, another older boy told me that my friend had told all the boys in Grade five and six that we were having sex. That we’d “do it” on the way home, and I was really good at it. In fact, I even offered to “do” a friend.

I had become the school slut at the age of nine.

I hid in the bathroom for the rest of recess. Back in class, I broke down in tears and told Miss Bauer what I had found out. She gave me a big hug (teachers could touch kids back then) and dried my tears. Holding me by the chin she looked me in the eye and said:

“But you know the truth and you can walk with your head held high.”

(I’ve carried those words my whole life.)

For the next week, I tried hard to walk with my head high while the whispers and the pointing continued. On the way back from the bathroom one day, I bumped into HIM. He apologized and said he did it because his friends had teased him about hanging out with a “kid” he couldn’t “score” with. Yes, essentially he was being teased about being put in the friend zone. So, he made me out to be a slut in order to save face.

Back then, my two TV idols were Alexis Carrington and Miss Piggy; I slapped him hard across the face and kicked him in the nuts. With my head held high I walked back to class…

In my teens, my on again off again boyfriend didn’t attend the same school I did; which really bothered the girlfriends of the guys I hung out with. They secretly voted me most “likely to break up a home.” It was rumoured that I was pregnant when I abruptly switched schools. My stick figure came in handy, since I had to show my stomach to a girl to prove I was not having a baby by one of our classmates.

Yup. Still a virgin.

Flash forward to 31. I had spent most of my teens and my twenties in committed relationships and was finally enjoying the single life. (Except for the lots of sex part. Dang.) I had just started her lil’ black book and had been talking to a lot of my male friends to gather material. One day, I got a text from a friend of 10+ years. We had made plans to hang out, and I thought he was texting to confirm or make changes. From the text, I realized he was referencing an earlier conversation we had about him looking for some post breakup ass.

He was asking me.

Offended that he would cross that line, I asked him what gave him the impression that this would be okay.

“I dunno. You seem like the kind of girl who is down for that.”

Angry at that comment, I called another male friend to vent. He explained because I was happily independent and let it be known that I was not looking for a boyfriend, I was essentially saying I was “DTF” and “most likely getting it regularly…from different guys.”

Wait. So because I was happily single, I must therefore be…

A slut?

Was this to make men feel better about my (perceived) rejection of them? By labeling me a slut, they now had a free pass to ask me for sex without even trying to ask me out to dinner first?

“Slut” has become the go to insult…

Reject a guy’s pick up line? “You’re just a slut anyway!”