That, when dudes try to slut-shame me into silence, as they have done before, one has just done, and will surely do again, I feel forced to defend my "honor" because, otherwise, people, including family (in this case), just might think I am a huge slut. (And, for this reason, I'm creating a family-only facebook account - that way I can have no-holds-barred discussions with people who feel the need to call be a Big Ol Whore.)
That all being said, you know what? Yes, I've had sex before being married, as have upwards of ninety-five percent of the people in this country. (GASP, say the readers, who have given me up for dead!) Why on earth is it that I should feel as if I have to qualify statements about my unimaginable slutitude with the fact that, at any given time, I was only with one person (and that I was engaged in this particular instance)? So what? It wouldn't matter if I had been gang-banging twenty guys at once in a bar restroom; it wouldn't make me any less smart or any less right, and I don't even have the baggage of being a moral scold attached to my slutitude (alleged or otherwise), unlike the right-wing women who are unjustly slut-shamed by the media.
I mean, it's just horseshit when you feel required to interject, 'Hey, I wasn't THAT big of a slut. It was only, like, one guy.'
You know what? Call me a slut. Intimate that I have, at any given point in time, been having regular interludes with upwards of hundreds of men (because that's what women do when they're not wearing ankle-length skirts and baking cookies). I really don't even feel the need to repel that anymore because, so the frick what if I have? What does that have to do with your being a moron? As far as I'm concerned, you can be a virgin (which, as we know, improves IQ because Jesus said so somewhere in the part of the Bible that He only gave to the True Believers), and I can be, no, really, a Big Slut by objective measures (because they totes exist), but if you think that Barack Obama was born in Kenya (which wasn't Kenya at the time), you're still an idiot, and I'm still right.
As someone who has also decided to deny the existence of sexual virtue (thank you Mary Wollstonecraft), I frequently get "slut" leveled at me, but it's generally so transparent an insult that I don't bother defending myself. As in, who called me a slut? Oh right, the guys I play videogames with, who have been trying to get into my pants for a year, and are outraged to think out that I enjoy regular engagements with men who are not them. Or perhaps it was that single conservative girl in my women's studies discussion section, beset on all sides by grinning, snarling feminists, trying to carve out her position as what was moral and right against ridiculous odds. They're jealous (of you, of your partner), or they're so close to doubting their own beliefs that they're flailing desperately to strike any hit at all that will validate them. So why bother? I *am* a "slut" if we go by their morality and their definition, and I couldn't care less if everybody knows it. Because I don't think I've done anything wrong.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm wondering is - why the hell are you getting called a slut? Have you actually just had sex with one dude out of wedlock? Because that's a pretty ridiculous standard to be kept to.
Okay! So that entry inspired me a little. But the reason I'm really here! Is that I saw you posted about old-school BmB/Utopia/other Sandra genius stuff and was like BRETHREN! Were you on The Closet back in the day, by any chance? I'm always excited to find people who I knew on the internet when I was, like, 13, and everyone from The Closet definitely saw me at my most awesome.
Anyway, even if you weren't on the BBS, it is totally awesome to hear from people that loved Keenspace webcomics Back In The Day, so I just wanted to give you an internet high-five and say a big ME TOO.
Hi!
ReplyDeleteHeh, no, I have most certainly not been with only one dude before I got married - in fact, I'm on my second marriage. However, at the time the dude in question was leveling accusations of slutitude about, I was with only one person because I was engaged to him (because getting married at nineteen is EXACTLY what EVERYBODY EVERYWHERE should do). I also don't really have the energy to date multiple people, which is the mean reason that accusing me of promiscuity wouldn't really work; I have been more of a serial monogamist in my single times.
I started reading BmB in, what, 2001? And it had already been running since approximately forever; she's been doing comics since over ten years ago, which makes me feel incredibly old (whopping 25 years old here). I *do* wish that the fan page (I can't even remember what it was called now) that had all the awesome fanfic and fan art on it was still up. It was totally *shibby*. I wasn't on any of the sites, though; I more just read. However, I get the feeling that you will make me feel even older - since you were thirteen around the same time - so I am going to go cry now. (I can't believe that they even removed all vestiges of TiH from the interwebz. I seriously crave to see that again.)
I can't believe myself, that I'm upset that Collin left Fox inbetween FH and OPB. I mean, they've been together in my head since, what, 2003? It's just hard to deal with, even with him as a distant side-part in this comic. And I love Fox. I want to give him a big hug.
Anyhow, squee!
Well, Collin and Fox's breakup, as well as their getting together, mirrors Sandra's own relationship with Avarice, as best I can tell. Av ran the fan site and was a major part of Sandra's life for years; I think they broke up some time last year, which was weird for folks like Del and I (I am still in contact with two people who were on the BmB board back in the day, Delirium and Ciaan) because their relationship was, like, our mental model of a relationship that was not all fucked up.
ReplyDelete25 is not old! I just went to Ciaan's 30th birthday party the other day, we laughed a lot about the good old days when BmB was updating, and we lamented the loss of TiH. I mean, I totally understand why someone would dislike one of their creations enough to de-post it; I did that with a lot of the fic that I wrote when I was much younger. But once you publish something, it becomes part of the public discourse, and so taking it back is kind of impossible. Scary Mik and Harley were just so frickin' great. I wish we could have them back!
Anyway- SHIBBY! Man, I hadn't heard/used that in years. I have got to start saying it again!