Should You Be A Slut?

I sat cross-legged on an off-white couch, eyeing the clock at my weekly therapy appointment. It’s not that I don’t enjoy therapy. I actually find it very balancing. It’s probably similar to what Instagram yogis experience after bikram, or their urgent morning shit from their all green smoothie diet.

A release. Cleansing.

Therapy is how I stay on track. A small way I’ve found to keep my zig-zaggy ducks in a row.

But no, this day was different. I was ready for the sesh to be finito.

I love my therapist, truly. The woman is a fiery redhead who provides the tough love a gal like me needs. But there are certain things she just can’t give me…And shouldn’t for ethical reasons.

And by that, I mean dick. A good, throbbing pene.

The 55 minutes eventually finished, I thanked her, made a vaguely inappropriate joke, and bolted back to my apartment. I had roughly 45 minutes to reapply my lipstick, make sure my condom supply was bountiful, and slam back a few at the bar beneath my building before my date arrived.

You know, date might be too generous of a word. Friday night lay would be more accurate.

The combination of these two things, therapy and sex, are my juice. Yet both are stigmatized. A girl needs to talk to someone once a week? She’s crazy. A girl needs frequent casual sex? She’s a slut.

Well then, Crazy Slut, reporting for duty. (And by duty, I do mean dick)

The first time I was called a slut I was fifteen.

I hadn’t done anything remotely sexual, except an unfortunately sloppy make-out attempt with Bobby behind the local 7-11. I say attempt because we both had braces and whatever we were doing isn’t what I would now qualify as kissing. Just a smashing of metal and hormones.

My lack of experience didn’t stop a man in a truck from commenting on my OBVIOUS promiscuity, my short-shorts a clear indicator that I was the town whore. In a sweltering 90 degrees, I decided on a pair of jean shorts and modest graphic t-shirt. I was walking home from school, a high school sophomore at the time, when the man leaned out his window to cat-call me.

I didn’t respond, just continued walking. This angered the Fragile Straight White Male and he proceeded to call me a “dirty slut.”

As an adult woman, I don’t actually think my sexual appetite is that different from others. But upon graduating from college, I decided to stop fearing the word slut. After all, there were times in my life it had felt like just being a woman was enough to be given the S label.

If being a slut meant enjoying my sex life how I wanted to enjoy it, then I was going to be a slut. No, I don’t always know the last names of men I’ve slept with. And furthermore, I don’t need to. Because that is my decision. Sex matters between the two consenting adults. No one else. People don’t get a say in how you get off.

If I want to be rammed by a stranger, that’s my prerogative.

If I find my combo of counseling and healthy sex the thing that keeps me happy, congratu-fucking-lations to me on figuring it out.

To be a slut is to make your pleasure a priority. And if that’s wrong, then being right sounds like a reaaaaal bore.