Women Who Enjoy Sex Don’t Have To Be Sluts

The use of one word really annoys me, “Slut”.

When I was growing up it meant a woman (yes just a woman because there’s no equivalent for a man apparently) who would cavort with anyone. By which I mean anything from a grope after a drunken night out to getting naked in public and even sex with pretty much anyone and everyone. But like many things in this world the meaning of the word slut and the context in which it is used has changed dramatically.

For some the label of slut is still laden with negative connotations, but some women have taken on the word and adopted it in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable.

I am all for women empowering themselves and taking ownership of how they are perceived. I also support women enjoying sex, expressing and exploring their own sexuality yet from what I can see the adoption of the word slut does tend to indicate a surrender of your own personality, a surrender of control  to another and the total abrogation of responsibility for your own enjoyment, safety and destiny to another person. Then by implication the only way you can derive enjoyment is to “become the slut” for the enjoyment of your partner or partners.

Maybe my lack of understanding of this is all because I am not submissive in this form. I can be, but only to my partner Suze. On the whole we share power and exchange it between us in the bedroom, though more often than not I am the Top. But submissive doesn’t have to mean debased or humiliated and that’s what I feel calling yourself a slut does.

OK, so for many people that may be their thing, the state of mind that turns them on and pushes all their buttons. I respect that. However while I understand and enjoy BDSM, role playing, power exchange and all sorts of sexual practices I can’t understand the urge to become a “slut” or how anyone would derive pleasure, fulfilment or peace from it. Moreover I can’t get my head round, as a dominant partner how taking that step beyond control and direction into subjugation and humiliation would give me pleasure.

And there it is, it wouldn’t give me pleasure but I’m not everyone. So long as you want to be someone’s slut, and they are not taking advantage of that need in a way that is anything other than mutually agreeable and satisfying then I will not judge. Even if the concept puzzles me.