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Why are sluts shamed?

I met my first slut back in my first year at university, when I was young and innocent and just a few months away from finally losing my pesky virginity. Well, I say “losing” – I actually threw it away with the glee of a miraculously healed paraplegic tossing aside his crutches. (not too insensitive?) Virginity was a stigma to me, and I wouldn’t have wished it on my worst enemy.

She was quite attractive (despite that typical ‘80s perm that made women look like a poodle had exploded on their heads), friendly, flirty and unabashedly open about the fact that she really, really liked sex a lot.

And so did I! Only in theory, of course, but hey, we had something in common. My attempt at flirting with her was a heroic failure (I was barely out of my teens and she was way out of my league), but in the conversation she told me a few stories that would make a statue blush and gave me my first experience with lube, rubbing it gently on my arm to show me how soft and silky it was.
I thought she was awesome. She was only about a year older than me, but I regarded her with a kind of wonder, envy and admiration for having all the sex I wish I could.

To this day, I still love sluts, and I only ever use the word positively. Sluts changed my life. They provided me with opportunities where I thought there were none (often just before the barman called last rounds) and left me with truckloads of memories and stories to tell.

And I'm not just talking about casual flings - some of my best serious, long term relationships have been with sluts. Obviously, I have a type.Which is why I’m completely confused by slut shaming, and how it had grown into a huge cultural phenomenon.  Although this form of bullying has probably been around since we first learnt to grunt at each other, the term was only first defined in 2010. It had to be. Once a tactic mostly used by angry, conservative authority figures like parents, preachers and teachers, it’s now an unfortunate part of youth culture.

I can at least partially understand why spiteful women and girls would slut shame their own gender. Like all malicious bullies, they victimise their peers to boost their self-esteem. Or perhaps it’s envy or even a perceived sexual threat. Whatever the reason, they’re loathsome bitches, and too many men (pretty much all heterosexual) have seen their behaviour as a licence to do the same thing – not to their own gender, but to women.
BUT WHY? It makes absolutely NO SENSE for a straight man to slut shame a woman. What could he possibly get out of it? Are slut shaming men out on a mission to never get laid again? Are they part of a cult? Is their ultimate plan to chop off their balls, drink poison and wait for appropriately dressed space aliens to take them to their new home? Yes, their behaviour seems that ludicrous to me.

So here’s a message on behalf of all non-crazy straight men to slut shamers everywhere:  CUT THAT SHIT OUT.  Newsflash, assholes: women in skimpy clothing is a Good Thing. Women who are sexually liberated are fucking awesome. Sluts should be celebrated, protected and sincerely thanked.

Now stop acting like spiteful, cruel puritans. You’re just ruining it for the rest of us.
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