When I was in school, I got a reputation for being a slut. According to my peers, I let guys bang me in the parking garage and I was a lesbian pro carpet muncher. Apparently there wasn’t anything I wasn’t willing to do with anyone who wanted to do it, gender and location be damned.
In the eyes of the all-important, all-seeing, all-judging youth tribunal, whether or not I was actually getting down and dirty all over town was irrelevant: I was a confirmed slut and therefore worthy of their whispers, insults, and, ultimately, ostracization. No one wants to be friends with a teenage skank.
Luckily I was a tough kid with a bunch of weirdo friends who didn’t give a shit what everyone else was saying about me. I made it through those years intact, but middle school wasn’t the last time I’ve had to deal with slut shaming, either of myself or of female friends. That experience and the ones to follow have led me to believe one thing very, very strongly:
We need a Slut Support System.
The Slut Support System is a community of women (and dude allies) who are committed to the safety, wellbeing, and happiness of their friends, regardless and because of how they choose to act in their sexual lives. It’s basically the exact opposite of our usual attitudes and actions toward promiscuous women. Rather than isolating and shunning sluts, women who participate in the Slut Support System provide a community for every chick who’s going through her slutty stage.
And, let’s be real: a slutty stage is pretty much a given for most American women at this point. Whether her time period for fucking around lasts for a week, a year, or an entire lifetime, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone over the age of legal consent who hasn’t been a slut at one point or another.
Anyway, we all have our own slutty styles, right? Personally, my slutty phases seem to alternate with periods of relatively long-term monogamy, both of which involve a whole lot of healthy fucking.
Either because I’m a loudmouthed, unapologetic bitch who doesn’t allow sex-negative people within a 50 mile radius or because of pure luck, I’ve managed to be part of awesome communities of women who have formed my Slut Support System pretty much every time. From those experiences, I’ve developed an outline of what’s needed for a functioning Slut Support System (SSS) and am now ready to franchise the idea, free of cost, for the betterment of all humankind.
Check it.
1. This Is A Judgment-Free Zone
The number one rule of the SSS is that you’re not allowed to scrunch up (or turn up) your nose and say “Eeeeeeew!” Not into anal play? Think gang bangs are taking it too far? Does the idea of golden showers make your vanilla ass squirm? Too bad! Keep that shit to yourself!
Your slutty friend is hearing about how what she does is “nasty” or “gross” or “wrong” from EVERYONE ELSE IN HER LIFE AND ALL OF THE WORLD, so the last thing in the world she needs is to hear it from you, too.
A major part of your job as an SSS member is to be one of the few places where she can talk about all of the things she’s experimenting with and exploring and enjoying, without getting a whole bunch of shit piled on top of her. Sit back, sip your drink, and keep your squicked-outedness to yourself, thank you very much.
1.2 Judgment Free Means Judgment Free
"Judgment free zone” also means that you can’t put down your friends who are choosing not be slutty, assuming that they aren’t putting you down either. A big part of being an SSS member is accepting all of your friend’s sexual choices because the last thing we want to do is pull the exact same shit that the judgy, sex-negative types are doing.
Shit is shit, even if you reverse the direction it’s flowing. Virgins and hos deserve the same amount of respect because, ultimately, we’re talking about body autonomy and choice here, people.
2. No Judgment Doesn’t Mean I’m Not Gonna Call You Out For Being Dumb
Judgment free does not, however, mean you’re putting your stamp of approval on everything your girl does. If she’s making unsafe decisions like fucking around without protection, getting so fucked up on various substances that she can’t remember what or where or who she did, or sleeping with Vladimir Putin (who should never get laid again solely based on his recent actions), it’s your job to call her out on it.
“But, Ruby!” you say. “How do I call her out without being judgy?” While this may seem like a complicated issue, it’s actually super simple. Judging is telling her that SHE is bad and wrong for doing what she does. Watching out for her, on the other hand, is pointing out that the decisions she’s making are putting her in harm’s way.
Judging = YOU are bad.
Helping = These CHOICES are bad.
See the difference?
3. High-Five!
On the flipside, you not only want to make sure you’re calling your girl out on the inevitably dumb shit she’s gonna do sometimes, you also want to congratulation her on the awesome things she’s getting herself into.
(Or, as the case may be, are getting into her.)
One of the worst parts about being a slut without a Slut Support System is the fact that you’re experiencing all kinds of awesome things and you can’t tell anyone about it. Our slutty phases are the only time that we grow and change and learn and yet are expected to keep all of that info to ourselves.
Think about it. How pumped were you after your first threesome? BDSM experience? Same-sex experience? Blowjob, for Christ’s sake? Every new step is thrilling and most of us just want to share what we did the night before.
The best thing you can do for your friend is give her an outlet to share all of the stuff that she’s so excited about right now and then let her know that you think she’s a total fox and badass for being so adventurous and in control of her own sex life.
4. Check-Ins Aren’t Just For Hotels
This is possibly the most important parts of the Slut Support System because it has to do with physical safety. If you’ve followed the three essential SSS elements outlined above, your slutty friend should be feeling more comfortable and safer in her day-to-day, but what about in her nights?
A huge part of being a slut is having very intimate, physical interactions with people you don’t know very well. A slut without a support system is going into potentially dangerous situations on the regular without any backup, which can in turn lead to sexual and physical assaults on one end of the shitty scale and women being pressured to do things that they’re not so into on the other end.
All of that sucks, and not in a good way, ladies.
Luckily, that slut has YOU, SSS member! Any slut who’s part of the SSS knows she can rely on her friends to be her backup team. That can take the form of anything from arranging a check-in call to make sure everything’s going smoothly, a text letting you know she’s arrived at her destination or one informing you that she’s leaving someone’s bed and is on her way home.
Work out a system and stick to it. Be each other’s backup in a situation where a lot of the normal social supports we rely on simply aren’t present.
5. Stand Up For Sluttiness!
When you have an awesome Slut Support System already set up, it can be hard to remember that other women aren’t as lucky as you are. Maybe they’re shy or they’re still in high school or they live in Arkansas. Whatever the reason, there are plenty of women out there who haven’t yet and might not ever find their Slut Support System.
So what can you do about it? My recommendation is to get out there and be vocal. Stand up for sluttiness as a choice that every woman gets to make for herself. When you hear someone making an anti-slut, anti-woman, or anti-choice comment, say something!
This is the hardest part of the SSS because doing it means stepping outside of the safe and awesome community you’ve built to isolate yourself from douchbaggery and stupidity. It’s also super important because it means you’re spreading the good word, Slutty Soldier. The sooner we make it clear that slut-shaming and anti-woman bullshit is NEVER OKAY, the sooner we won’t need to create sub-groups of society in order to get the love and support that we all deserve and need.
And that’s it! The five tenets of a functioning Slut Support System. Spread the word, ladies, and together we can make the world safer, sexier, and more sex-positive for everyone.
It’s really as simple as that.
