Loose Girls

I saw a short interview with a very promiscuous girl on a talk show a few days ago and some of the comments have been engrained in my mind since. Imagine a girl in her early twenties, highly attractive by our society's standards, who wants to start having sex with numerous random guys. She sticks to her plan, creates a website/blog to find men, and actually sleeps with quiet a lot of them through the next few months. By a few months I mean 3 months..and by 'a lot of men' I mean a rough estimate of 35 different guys. Of course, she met many many more of them through her site but for one reason or another, chose not to sleep with them.

So what is wrong with this picture? Is it wrong that she slept with more men in 3 months than most women do in a lifetime? Is this wrong because of the physical dangers involved with meeting strangers online? Or is it wrong simply because she is a woman?

 (Image retrieved from: http://farandhigh.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/View-of-feet-of-couple-having-sex-in-bed-776483.jpg)

We have many terms to describe a man that sleeps around with multiple women; player, stud, smooth-operator, ladies' man, etc. None of these words necessarily have a negative connotation attached to them. Then there are the terms we use to describe a woman that sleeps around; slut, whore, loose girl, dirty tramp...and the list goes on..all the terms being offensive, derogatory and negative.

We live in a world full of double standards, especially when it comes to men and women. These double standards have become a part of daily life and most of us don't even notice it's happening. I have to admit that even though I try to be consciously aware of the world around me, I have fallen for these double standards many times as well.

So back to the topic of promiscuous women. If men are allowed, even encouraged, to explore their sexuality and have multiple sexual partners, why can't women do the same thing? Why is it unacceptable for a woman to explore her sexuality by having multiple partners?

This issue is societal and cultural, but it is also partially in our nature. Majority of the world's cultures do not condone promiscuity in women. Why is that? Well, firstly, women have to be selective by nature. Why do we have sex, in entirely primal terms? In order to reproduce. Yet a woman can technically only get pregnant once a year, whereas a man can impregnate multiple women in a single day. So our female ancestors learned early on that they had to be careful and selective before mating.

To add to this, we live in a male-dominated world where women are always more at risk. Yes, a man can meet a woman online who turns out to be a psycho too, but statistically speaking, it is a much higher chance for a woman to be in harm's way. And if she gets raped by this guy, what will society say? That she brought it upon herself of course--why would any sane woman place herself in that situation? I am a firm believer that rape is NEVER the victim's fault regardless of what they were wearing, what hour of the night they were outside, or if they were alone at a bar. But our society continues to make it the victim's fault, especially if the victim is a woman (and in most cases, it is).

Moreover; men can wear a condom to protect themselves from STDs. A woman does not have the option to wear something to protect herself, she must ask the guy to do so. And if he refuses? Becomes violent? Why haven't we still discovered something for women to protect themselves against an STD without having to ask the guy? Why is even the protection up to the men?

And lastly, how many men who we consider to be "husband material" or "non-player" will actually marry a girl who has slept with 30, 50 or a 100 men? Although most non-promiscuous women ("good-girls") I know will never date or marry a 'player' either so I guess our modern society has broken down the gender segregation when it comes to this aspect of the problem.

Yet most people, including women, will not condone this type of behaviour and will try and find a reason as to why this girl feels the need to sleep with multiple men. Is it because she was sexually abused? Or it must be because she is troubled and punishing herself for something. Or maybe she just needs a thrill in her life..Underlying daddy issues?

(Image retrieved from:http://weheartit.com/entry/21264133)

Has anyone ever considered the fact that a woman has just as much sexual desire as a man, and she has just as much right to explore her sexuality in any way she deems appropriate? Why can't she decide what she wants to do with her own body?

In recent years, there have been a lot of movements to change this outlook. There have been events like "SlutWalks" to change the negativity around the word 'slut' and to make it a term to empower women.

I, however; propose a new term: "oodles" as a gender neutral term that means someone who chooses to have a lot of sex with a lot of partners. Instead of calling her a whore, we can just say "oh, she's oodles". Similarly, instead of calling your player buddy a stud, you can now refer to him as an 'oodles'. This way, we can at least get rid of all the terminology with negative connotations for promiscuous women, and we can stop making the promiscuous men into some sort of heroes. Why the need for an entirely new term? Because it will take us decades, maybe even longer, to remove the connotations attached to the current terminology.

So let's take a new step today and move forward from these antiquated views of sex and women. As long as a woman (or a man) is an adult, has the capacity to make informed decisions, and is not harming anyone, she (or he) should be allowed to do as she/he pleases with her/his own body and sexuality. And while we're at that, can we also stop blaming a woman for her own rape because she was walking at 1am with a skirt on? When is the last time a man walking down the street at 1am in shorts got raped and was then blamed for the rape?

“My sexuality is not an inferior trait that needs to be chaperoned by emotionalism or morality.”   -Alice Bag

~SW