Everybody, come get your Whore Score
Wednesday, 26 July 2006 15:47![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
earthbelow
Something I heard to day (not divulging for privacy reason) made me start thinking about the idea of someone of being "a whore". What makes you a whore - if anything.
I really started parsing it out in my head.
Is it the number of men you've slept with? Is it the reasons you've slept with them? Is it a nice neat formula where you plug in the number and you rate the reason from a 1 (slept with them for money, drugs) to 10 (slept with them because they were my husband and we wanted to make babies as Jesus intended) and you get your slut number - no, better your Whore Score - and there you are.
Does the Whore Score go up if you've had sex or sexual contact with both sexes?
Does it go down if you're smarter or prettier or more famous than the rest of us?
Can you sleep with 100 guys, but if you always did it for the "right" reason, are you just really lucky? Can you sleep with two or three for the wrong ones and be a whore?
Does the label last forever? Can you work it off or take points off for good behavior off your Whore Score like it was your driver's license? When you're 80, do you still get judged by the 10 or 20 or 50 people you slept with when you were in your twenties and thirties?
I think I'm changing my definition of "whore". I think I'm now changing it to a word that means absolutely nothing because nobody can tell me where it comes from or why we need it. Why do we need to know who's sexually good and sexually bad?
And it pisses me off to no end that on shows like "Sex in the City", those women sleep with an astonishing number of men. Yet, try that in real life and you're the office slut. No, really. Go out and sleep with as many men as, say, Samantha. Or if you're timid, try one of the other three characters. Brag about it. See how many people look at you like you're *filthy*.
Only way out of this problem I see is to just decide that there's no such thing as a whore or that your sexual activities somehow define your worth as a person. There are no whores. There are no sluts. There are only people. People who maybe are using sex to get something, who maybe just want to be touched, who maybe don't know better, who maybe don't know what their options are, who maybe don't believe they can do any better.
But a slut?
No such thing.
So, maybe next time you have the urge to say "that person's such a slut" or "wow, that person has slept with everyone, the whore", you could refrain.
Instead you could ask yourself the question, "Does it really matter how many people that person has been with?"
And if you answer yes, take a long, hard think about *why* it matters. Because I think you'll find it really doesn't. Not in the grand scheme of things.
I really started parsing it out in my head.
Is it the number of men you've slept with? Is it the reasons you've slept with them? Is it a nice neat formula where you plug in the number and you rate the reason from a 1 (slept with them for money, drugs) to 10 (slept with them because they were my husband and we wanted to make babies as Jesus intended) and you get your slut number - no, better your Whore Score - and there you are.
Does the Whore Score go up if you've had sex or sexual contact with both sexes?
Does it go down if you're smarter or prettier or more famous than the rest of us?
Can you sleep with 100 guys, but if you always did it for the "right" reason, are you just really lucky? Can you sleep with two or three for the wrong ones and be a whore?
Does the label last forever? Can you work it off or take points off for good behavior off your Whore Score like it was your driver's license? When you're 80, do you still get judged by the 10 or 20 or 50 people you slept with when you were in your twenties and thirties?
I think I'm changing my definition of "whore". I think I'm now changing it to a word that means absolutely nothing because nobody can tell me where it comes from or why we need it. Why do we need to know who's sexually good and sexually bad?
And it pisses me off to no end that on shows like "Sex in the City", those women sleep with an astonishing number of men. Yet, try that in real life and you're the office slut. No, really. Go out and sleep with as many men as, say, Samantha. Or if you're timid, try one of the other three characters. Brag about it. See how many people look at you like you're *filthy*.
Only way out of this problem I see is to just decide that there's no such thing as a whore or that your sexual activities somehow define your worth as a person. There are no whores. There are no sluts. There are only people. People who maybe are using sex to get something, who maybe just want to be touched, who maybe don't know better, who maybe don't know what their options are, who maybe don't believe they can do any better.
But a slut?
No such thing.
So, maybe next time you have the urge to say "that person's such a slut" or "wow, that person has slept with everyone, the whore", you could refrain.
Instead you could ask yourself the question, "Does it really matter how many people that person has been with?"
And if you answer yes, take a long, hard think about *why* it matters. Because I think you'll find it really doesn't. Not in the grand scheme of things.
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no subject
Date: 27 Jul 2006 01:11 (UTC)I think it all comes down to patriarchal hegemony, and the basic truth that chauvinism stems from a deep fear of the female body -so for years, the paragon of female sexual behaviour has been "lie back and think of England," and any woman who actually appears to *enjoy* sex is seen as some kind of mutant...
Sorry, I'm kind of drunk and ranty.
no subject
Date: 27 Jul 2006 03:31 (UTC)Notice we really don't even have a word for it. I suppose "philanderer" is one, but not a word with the same kind of punch and social connotations as "whore" or "slut".
the paragon of female sexual behaviour has been "lie back and think of England,"
Wouldn't thinking of England just make things worse? *ducks*
Also, it makes me think of a line from Will & Grace. "You'll do what any other self respecting woman does - lay back, point your heels to Jesus and think of handbags!"
I think it all comes down to patriarchal hegemony, and the basic truth that chauvinism stems from a deep fear of the female body
I'm not sure why men are so afraid of women's bodies. Seeing as how a) we all come from one and b) they're quite nice and c) who the frell is whacked out enough to be scared of boobs?
Anyway, I ♥ your brain even when you're drunk and ranty.