Two-Bit Jezebel

Have you checked out Jezebel? It's a Gawker Media site that a sort of bad-girl snarky. There are lots of boob, bra, period and sex topics. I comment from time-to-time, when a topic interests me and I think I have something worthwhile to add to the fray.

Lately the site has been hysterically pro-slut. Now, even though I am not a slut myself, I do know a whole bunch of women who proudly wear that dingy, tattered banner and gleefully crow about their dirty, nasty selves. You're Empowered! You are the boss of your sexuality! Ho and Hum!

Seriously, ladies, you were supposed to work this thing out in your early '20s. Maybe instead of going to great lengths to prove how bad-ass you are, you should consider going to great lengths in therapy. Go on, work out those issues, dirty, dirty girl. Ugly duckling? Grew up Catholic? Victim of abuse as a child? The place to work that shit out is with the help of a licensed, experienced and caring therapist.

But no-o-o-o-o, better to work it out at the strip joint, eh? Easy money. It's not degrading and exploitative if you like it, right? Same with sex. It's all about your needs being met. Love is boring, random hook-ups with total jerks is better. Because you're free, you hear? You don't have to be considerate of others or protective and responsible about your own body. Herpes is "whatevs", right? No big deal. The booze, coke, meth, smack, and whatever else quiets the conscience, don't it?

I feel sorry for sluts. What happens when you are no longer physically attractive to potential lovers and your body is toxic from drugs, booze and all your other carelessness? If you live that long, of course.

So go ahead, mock my totally normal and private sexual identity. Feel free to get upset when I judge you. I'm happy and I don't have a big hole inside me that I'm trying to fill with temporary enthusiasms and Id worshipping. I don't want that kind of attention and my conscience is clear. The only degradation I have to deal with my life is when I have to go to the DMV.

Believe that it will come back to haunt you. Herpes is not "whatevs", dear. I don't have it (or another other STD), but someone close to me does. That person's life — every part of it — is affected, the present complicated and the future not at all what they'd envisioned for themselves. That person has Herpes because of carelessness in their sex life; it isn't a minor annoyance that they would ever consider "whatevs".

So I just had to get all that out. I just can't get on the Slut Machine bandwagon. Do whatever you want with your body, just don't try to pass your hijinks off as normal, ok, cool, popular or whatever. Eventually you'll grow up.