#slut shaming

I once had a guy tell me that I “looked like a girl who would be a total whore.” I was wearing baggy jeans, a Harry Potter hoodie, and converse sneakers at the time.I had never kissed anybody, or had any relationships. I was a sophomore in high school, 15, and he was a freshman.

(submitted by anonymous)

I once had a guy tell me, “you make this house feel like a whore house”. That was my stepfather when I was 17; he didn’t believe me that my boyfriend at the time had actually spent the night in the spare room (which he had).

(submitted by anonymous)

I once had a bunch of guys tell me that they didn’t approve of my short skirts (that I had only put on because we were in Jamaica) because it made me look slutty, and then proceed to call me a slut because they found out I was bisexual and couldn’t make up my mind about whether I wanted c*** or p****. Joke’s on you, dearest male cousins, because I’m actually a decent person, which is why girls are happier to flirt with me than any of you.

(submitted by whatanovelconcept)

“Yes i enjoy snorting coke and stabbing sluts. Got a problem?”

Well, your coke habit would explain why you thought it was appropriate to post such a status update…

And what better way to celebrate than with condescension and slut-shaming! 

“Dear slutty freshmen girls, This might come as a surprise to you but, your boobs go inside your shirt… Sincerely, I don’t see any poles here, are you lost?”

“Thing I miss most about the first day of school, being able to say "Well someone got sluttier over summer” “

“Gold fish are exactly like sluts - orange, wet and smell like fish….hahaha I no a cupple of them!”

“Sluts should be called, Humpty Dumpty. First they get humped, then they get dumped.”

“Dear slut, when the dentist said, "Open wide!” he meant your mouth. Not your legs.“

These are all fabulous gems of wit and hilarity. No wonder they are viral status updates!

prisonhannibal:

Using one sheet of a4 i created this zine on the use of derogatory words as an example of why feminism is still needed. I hand sewed the words again using this idea of sewing as something feminine and delicate, but contrasting it with the harsh words.

I took my watercolour experiment and scanned it turning it into a two tone image using pinks and blues, the gender stereotyped colours. 

I looked back on all my research and the articles I had read to decide on 10 key quotes or statements that I wanted to create as 10 typographical posters, and then to go alongside each quote I would expand on it, and explain its meaning. The colours I want to use are shades of blue and pink because of how they stereotypically connote a certain gender - but through my pieces I am attempting to question and break down these stereotypes, then I will black and white for text and also use glitter as it is stereotypically feminine, but again through the text, will be challenging and questioning stereotypes.

Most elected officials probably get excited when actual teenagers come to visit their offices. For all we hear about how young people don’t get involved in civics it must be nice to have young people take an interest in legislative work.

Well, unless you’re Washington State Rep. Mary Dye. She’s apparently interested in turning young people (or perhaps just young women?) off from the  process of governing entirely. 

The Seattle Times has details:

After the students — part of a Pullman-area teen council chapter of Planned Parenthood visiting their lawmakers — advocated for bills that propose to expand insurance coverage for birth control, Dye did some advocating of her own.

Dye asked if the students were virgins and suggested one was not, according to the students and Rachel Todd, a Planned Parenthood worker accompanying the kids.

“After she made the statement about virginity, all of my teens looked at me,” said Todd, an education specialist for Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho. “And I said, ‘You don’t have to answer that. You don’t have to answer that.’”

Perhaps instead of griping about young people not being involved we should blame elected officials like Mary Dye for their apathy instead. 

Every Friday, Boggle adopts the format of a traditional advice column to answer someone’s question in-depth. Have a problem you can’t fit in an ask, but you still want to get Boggle’s input? Write to him here! You will always remain anonymous.

This week: The letter isn’t long, but I knew my response would be. A teenager writes in about sex and shame.

Boggle, I am sixteen. I have had sex with six different people already. Half of them I thought I loved at the time, but the other half, I knew I didn’t love at all. I feel like a whore, and due to this, I have begun to despise myself. Any advice?

You are not a whore. But I am worried about you. Please let me explain why.

Right now a lot of people are telling you what you should do with your body. This never really stops? But it’s definitely at its worst when you’re a teenager, which is especially unfortunate since you probably haven’t had time yet to decide what you want to do with your body. So I am not surprised you feel ashamed, although–and I want to be so, so clear about this, anon–you haven’t done anything to be ashamed of. It's your body. Sex is your decision. Nobody else gets to decide if it’s okay for you to have it. And while there are certainly people who would disagree with me when I say this, I do not believe that the choice to have sex–with one person or a dozen–says anything about you other than that you felt like having sex at the time. Sometimes I just feel like ice cream, you know? It’s not a character indictment.

Okay, obviously the choice to have sex is a bigger deal than the choice to have ice cream. But I’m trying to say something about the inherent moral weight of your decision. The choice to have sex with somebody isn’t inherently good or bad. It’s just a thing you can do, hopefully with an eye towards the potential consequences (emotional and otherwise). And I don’t find the idea of an arbitrary age at which sex magically becomes acceptable very useful. Of course ‘the age of consent’ is important to protect young people from exploitation, but that’s not what I’m talking about right now. I know adults who started having sex at fourteen who have never had anything but positive feelings about it, and adults who started at eighteen or nineteen who later admitted to feeling too young. So the fact that you are sixteen, and you are having sex, with multiple partners, is not why I am worried in and of itself, okay? I respect your right to make your own choices, and I would never, ever judge you for them.

So after all that, I hope it goes without saying that I don’t believe you should feel like you have to be in love with someone to have sex with them. That’s a good rule of thumb for some people, but a lot of other people are perfectly happy having more casual sex, and it doesn’t say anything bad about them. If that’s you, that’s fine! Be safe and have fun!

What I hope for is that you only have sex if you actually want to have sex.

You’ve taken on so much negative emotion because of your sexual behavior that I’m worried that hasn’t always been the case. Now, I’m not talking about rape (statutory rape included); while I don’t know if anything like that has happened to you, I certainly hope it hasn’t, and for the sake of this letter I’m assuming that none of the sex you’ve had has been against your will, or in circumstances where your consent was in any way compromised. But there’s this big, weird, kind of depressing space between “sex that you didn’t want to happen” and “sex that heck yes you wanted to happen” where sex just sort of happens. Because you don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings. Because you want somebody to like you. Because you’re dating, and you feel like sex is something you owe them. Because they want to have sex, and you don't mind if you have sex, so the sex just sort of goes ahead, because you decide that “enh” might as well mean “yes.” Because you’re worried that the other person will stop liking you if you don’t.

These are all really lousy reasons to have sex, especially when you’re young and you’re still kind of figuring out how you feel about this stuff. And they can really do a number on your self-esteem, because you can start to feel like you’re only worth how much sex you’re willing to have. You’re great. Your partners are lucky just to hang out with you. People are going to like you whether you have pants on or not. Sex should be fun, and something you look forward to, not something you do out of obligation or anxiety.

Was any of this actually advice? I think it probably wasn’t. But I hope it has helped you get a new perspective anyway. This stuff is really hard, and confusing, and people get incredibly judgmental about it, but ultimately all of these decisions are up to you. I just want you to stay safe (please stay safe), and do things that will make you happy.

Take care of yourself out there.