We Were All Meant To Be Sluts

Slut is an extremely powerful word, isn’t it? In four letters we have managed to encapsulate all of the shaming we, as humans, connect with female sexuality.

Of course the shaming of sexuality and sexual freedom is not reserved for just women. Society and culture have tried to control and dictate how we wish to love and our ability as men and women to choose what sort of sex we want.

Think of one of the main questions that guides our selection of partner and is a source of much conflict and insecurity. It has ended, and will continue to end relationships before they have even begun:

”How many people have you been with?”

As men and women, we can both feel the cringe if we’ve had a few “too many” sexual partners when this question pops up. It usually comes out of nowhere over a casual drink or during the post-coital cuddle… right when we thought everything was going soooooo great. Boom.

And we freeze. Why? Because this number carries a lot of weight and judgment.

The answer to this question is enough to say “No” to a wonderful and viable partner. A system taught someone – and those people taught us – that sexuality and our sexual freedom are reflective of our value systems and strength of character.

Amidst all this drama, do we ever really take the time to appreciate that falling for a beautiful heart is rare?!? And that no matter how that heart got in front of us, we should be appreciative?!? If there were a couple of questionable bangs on the way, is that enough to put the brakes on? We should acknowledge that just ONE tiny shift in their history and that person would not be sharing our gaze.

Wow. Deep. Shit.

“Oh wait, you’ve slept with more than seven people?! OMG. You’re basically a parking lot. I can’t date you. I can’t love you.”

If sexuality and sexual freedom brings our character into question, then what do we think about the many wise and amazing human beings who found themselves and learned their lessons through sexual exploration and being open-minded about making mistakes? Do these folks lack character? Does experience really make us wiser? Or is wisdom only reserved for wholesome choices that are approved by religion and the culture police?

This fear of sexuality has very much framed how we look at relationships and the stories we’ve been told about what is “right” and “wrong”.

A little white lie won’t hurt anyone… right?! How about a lot of white lies?

Let me give you some examples:

• Monogamy is the only way
• You need to be married by 30
• You must have kids by 35 (women especially)
• Female sexual freedom is a HUGE NO-NO
• Gay marriage is bad
• Polyamory is shameful
• Every relationship needs to last forever, if they don’t, we are failures
• Divorce is bad
• Being in a relationship is more important than being happy and single
• Sexuality is bad. Discovering your sexuality is worse. And sharing your body with more than one person is immoral. Especially if you’re a woman.

And fear of sexual freedom underpins each and every one of these beliefs. From the moment of conception, these beliefs are indoctrinated into us through media, religion and culture – all the source of much guilt and shame.

And on top of that, we are so afraid of female sexual freedom that we have built systems around controlling it.

But what is the fear of embracing sex? 

What is the fear of gay people falling in love and entering the union of marriage? Is marriage really that sacred? The divine heterosexuals who rule the institution of marriage are divorcing at a rate of 50% and even those who remain married are often addicted to pornography and are busy perusing the profiles of other married people on Ashley Maddison.

Now don’t get me wrong, marriage is a beautiful thing. There are plenty of people who are happily married, build amazing families, and have wonderful lives. Their lives and way of living are not the issue. I think a conscious partnership is amazing and I can’t wait to build a family with someone special.

The real problem stems from the Ivory Tower of the heterosexual marriage union that seems to be threatened by sexual freedom. There’s a fear that families, religion, and society, will all come crumbling down around us should we embrace the sexuality born unto us as an innate human right.

It’s inevitable that systems will come crashing down which are built on the foundation of false truths.

The craziest part of the obsession to preserve this pretend world is that we have all been cheating the system and going behind its back anyways. But it’s ok to cheat the system, isn’t it?! As long as no one is found out, right? We’re told to hide our unmarried pregnant daughters from our so called “friends” and co-religionists because it will bring shame to the family.

We can’t tell our parents or family about the woman or man we’ve fallen in love with because she/he’s from a different culture or religion.

We reject our children because of their sexual orientation and we scoff at interracial marriage.

We would rather see two people who do not love each other get married to satisfy a system that does not allow them to love on their own terms.

We mutilate female genitalia and shame the feminine desire to explore THEIR bodies. THEIR BODIES! How ridiculous is that?!

All because of what?! To preserve a way of living that does not even embrace the very innate desire for sexual freedom and exploration? One that is not even built on love, kindness and acceptance.

This system seems doomed to fail, does it not?

Our innate sexual desire is evident in our engagement of movies and media. The fanfare of “Fifty Shades of Grey” is not because we just like horrible writing and bad acting. It is because it represents our very deepest truth: EACH and EVERY ONE of us has a freak flag. And almost none of us let it fly. So we become addicted to the porn movies where the (bad) actors are doing everything we wish we were doing. Is there not a potential danger to ignoring our needs and hiding from our desires?

Absolutely. And the proof is all around us.

What do we think sexual repression manifests as? I don’t need to be a scientist to come to the conclusion that rape, aggression, molestation of children, and fetishes that are hidden in the corridors of Craigslist, are in some way related to the inability for us to just be ourselves.

Imagine if we all lived by the ACTUAL truth:

There is no one way to do anything. And anyone who claims to have it all figured out is the very person to run from.

Imagine if it was ok for everyone to not know and to search for knowledge through experience. Imagine if we just did the best we could, each and every day.

Imagine if we were told to just play, see, and feel.

To find out what works for US.

Imagine if our mistakes were embraced, and better yet, encouraged!

Imagine if we were taught that by finding out what we do not want it will just further reinforce what we DO want.

Imagine a world where we got to choose and that our choices did not have to be the same as everyone else’s.

That all of our decisions just need to be guided by our human capacity and desire to be kind. If every decision we made were based on the answer to the question:

“What would love do?”

I don’t know everything but I do know this:

You are the expert of you. You know you better than anyone. You know how you love. You know what feels good, and you know what your heart beats for.

You know what you want to try and what you are curious about.

You know what you seek. And the most beautiful thing of all, is that you are not committed to a life sentence because you made a decision when you did not know what you know today.

There is no “right way”. There is only your way. And no one knows your life better than you.

Live YOUR truth.