So, I'm really sick of thinking about this, but I have to get it off my chest. I have been called a slut this week SO MUCH that I literally am quite befuddled as to how and why this word is still being bandied about so carelessly by people that I thought knew better. Have we, as self-proclaimed feminists and lovers of the opposite sex, just learned how to desensitize ourselves to a word whenever we feel the need to hurt someone else's feelings? Why is that our go-to word?
So, the situation(s) is (are) this: I have this friend, who shall remain nameless (and friendless, consequently), who felt the need to, after waiting a total of one hour before I responded back to him about a hangout sesh that as far as I knew had no timestamp attached to it, REEM me for about 4 more hours instead of just waiting to see why I hadn't responded. I was fully intending to hang out with him. Little background on this: he decided that he was in love with me within the first week of us knowing each other, and somewhere in there decided that I either owed him something because of that, or that anything that I did that WASN'T with him made me a huge "slut." So consequently a lot of name-calling, slut-calling, and general consensus that I was an extremely shitty person ensued. What had I done you ask, that he even KNEW about? I slept with someone in the apartment that we shared that I had known since before he moved in (he lived in the closet of our other roommates room and I barely knew him), I was always busy with my own life in a new town when he tried to hang out, and I hadn't returned his affections. Thus, I was a slut. The more reasoning I tried to do with him, the more stupid I became and the more he berated me about how "promiscuous" I was, even though he really would have no information with which to make that judgement.
Similarly, I ran into a situation with an ex this same week where he took it upon himself to make sure that I knew what a whore he thought I was. All of this came about because he had found out about a time, awhile go, where I had slept with a mutual friend of ours. We actually had a threesome with another friend of ours. I tend to be a very open and experimental person sexually, and sometimes I go through phases and sometimes I don't feel like experimenting sexually. Either way, I did not cheat on him, and in fact before this happened he had dumped me for his ex, as was his usual practice upon reaching the fourth month of our on-again off-again relationship. The way that we met? He was at a party hitting on me and trying to sleep with me while he was dating her, and then afterwards proceeded to cheat on her with me for an extended period of time.
Upon me trying to say that I was sorry and I understand why he was hurt that we kept it from him, but that I didn't feel I had to apologize for doing the actions that I did, his exact words were "just shut up for once slut."
All of this was punctuated by a conversation between a democrat and a republican that I read online which, during all of the usual name-calling, resulted in the word "feminist" being randomly peppered in along with all the other derogatory words for good measure. Excuse me, but when did not being (or not pretending to be for women's rights) a feminist ever get you laid?! And on top of that, when did being a "slut" just mean that you didn't choose to have sex with the man calling you a slut, and so therefore it made it okay to call you one, and when did a man becoming upset at not being the object of your affections justify him believing that you owe him something?
We, as a people, have come further than this, I know we have. So stop. Just stop. You know what you're doing and how you are setting people back and your entire SPECIES at that, and you need to take a step back and GROW THE FUCK UP.
And love each other.
