Slut Shamed?

I recently experienced some conflict with a dear friend of mine in regards to a subject that is very important to me. Neither of us is right or wrong in this instance, the situation is complicated and I don’t pretend to have all the answers. This is simply my perspective on events.

So, it finally happened. Something you would think I experience often but oddly don’t, something I write a lot about but often feel impervious to. I was slut shamed. By a close friend, someone I love whom I had always thought encouraged and supported my life choices, because she has always responded that way to me and my stories.

The incident in question was when I fucked Burly Man, the guy with the girlfriend, in the elevator. During the events leading up to the sex itself, my friend had been so encouraging of the whole scenario I figured she was on board with it. She egged us on, telling him not to invite his girlfriend back to her and her boyfriend's place so it could be just the four of us. She all but put out an air mattress and turned off the lights.

After we left her apartment and did the quickie in the elevator, on my drive home I received a text from my friend that simply said "So........."

So, I told her what happened. She wanted details and I provided them, because I know it's thrilling for her and I really don't care to keep anything to myself anymore.

The next day, when I brought up the fact that she had told Burly Man about my blog, she scoffed.

"Well I never thought you'd actually fuck him!"

This stung for a moment, but I wasn’t sure why so I let it go. Later I thought, really? After all the canoodling and groping at the bar and her helping push it further, she didn't think it was even a possibility we might have sex? Truth is, I didn't think we’d actually go through with it either because he seemed pretty adamant about not wanting to cheat on his girlfriend. So I was going to respect that, while respectfully pushing it to the limit. He was the one who stuck his hand down my pants and initiated the kissing that led to fucking in the elevator.

After it happened and I texted her the gory details, she asked,

"How are you?"

“Fine. You know I don't take responsibility for other people's relationships." 
“He should be able to sleep in the same bed with a porn star [and not do anything]," she responded.

I took this to mean she agreed that I wasn’t responsible, that we were on the same page, but when I felt the disapproving vibes coming off of her the next day, I asked her about it.

"Yeah I do disapprove. It went too far."

"What's going too far and why do you get to decide that?" I asked.

"Fucking him in an elevator is going too far!" She laughed through the phone, incredulous that I didn’t obviously see her point. I asked why she had encouraged the hookup if it made her so uncomfortable.

"I can understand it's fun to walk that line," she admitted.

"Don't you see how it's a little crazy that you would encourage me to do it and then disapprove when I actually go through with it?"

She didn't seem to agree that this was a crazy thing to do.

I understood in that moment a couple of things about my friend: that’s she's a person in a long term relationship and it might be fun to live vicariously through me in these moments of wild abandon, but that she maybe has some of her own feelings of guilt about actually living out these fantasies. My problem was, why hadn't she told me she wasn't okay with it beforehand, but also why was she making this my issue? I don't have a boyfriend, and Burly Man's relationship with someone I don't even know is not my problem. I didn't understand under what moral code I was meant to feel guilty for this and why it's okay to want to fuck someone else and cheat on your significant other but the second you act on those impulses you've done something bad. Isn't wanting to do it cheating in itself and following through on it just the natural progression?

I asked why she had never told me before that she disapproved of my life choices.

"I didn't want to hurt your feelings,” she said. “I didn't want to slut shame you." I wondered why it would even occur to her to slut shame me, why I was being slut shamed now for doing something that in my eyes was not a bad thing. Something I didn’t feel bad about then, and I still don’t now. Why should I hold myself accountable for anyone else's moral compass, even hers, which I never before realized bent this way?

In the moment I felt good about this conversation, I felt good that we’d cleared the air between us and set some things straight. But upon further reflection, I realized I was pretty angry and felt wronged by what had transpired. I also realized I was really sad because I felt a great trust had been broken that I wasn't sure we could get back, now that I knew I was being secretly judged by my friend.

The day after this talk, I headed to Portland for a month. Arriving in this new city, I thought I would be filled with wonder and excitement. Instead I felt depressed. I wandered the streets trying to get out of my head, but found myself back where I started. Within a couple days, I got more sick than I have been for as long as I can remember and was bedridden for four days. During these four days, I sweated profusely and moaned, my body aching to the point that I couldn’t stand up. I crawled to the bathroom and threw up and then lay on the floor staring at the ceiling. I felt like absolute shit, but coming out of the sickness was like coming out of an exorcism and I felt oddly cleansed. Like I needed to purge my body and get back to zero in order to move on from this emotional ordeal.

I’ve thought a lot about what happened with my friend and how initially it didn’t feel that bad, how it was subtle enough to sort of fly under the radar, only to emerge with these intense feelings of anger and frustration. And I started to really wonder why women do this to one another. Why we constantly judge one another, but also why we hold single women responsible for other people’s relationships. Why are we so quick to call another woman a “homewrecker,” as though the man in the scenario had no choice, or no self-control, so it’s up to the single woman to hold the line? That’s one of the great benefits of being single—not being beholden to anyone else’s feelings or the rules of a partnership, so why should I take on that responsibility for someone I don’t even know? Maybe I can’t control myself either, maybe women should be allowed to be as impulsive as men are allowed to be. Why are we supposed to always stand on the moral high ground?

I remember what it was like to be in a relationship, to deny certain impulses in order to stay in that relationship past when I maybe should have. I think we all do that—we don’t admit to certain things in ourselves or in the person we’re with until we’re ready to maybe let those things go, or let the relationship go. I guess what I would wish for myself for my next relationship is that I would demand honesty of myself and my partner and have the kind of relationship where I don’t need to keep my desires and fantasies a shameful secret. I don’t know if that’s possible—I haven’t been in a relationship for four years and in that time my views on all of this have changed immensely.

I feel like I have my own moral code and it has a lot more to do with honesty than it does with being “faithful” or “moral” or “good.” I think truth and honesty are harder and nobler goals than any of these things combined. I think we should be honest about our human impulses. And look at them, and talk about them. Rather than sweeping them under the rug and pretending they’re not there. Once we look at these human impulses and moments of vulnerability, we can start to accept ourselves for who we are and forgive each other a little bit more.

Full Disclosure

When you strive to share every personal experience about your body and sex life with the world at large, the response is inevitably mixed. My grandmother recently watched this short film I co-wrote/directed/produced which opens with three young women (me being one of them) talking about sex and masturbation in the kitchen while the men are outside by the grille talking about babies and fatherhood. My grandmother wanted to know if us girls really talk that openly about sex. Yes, I said. We do. This scene was based entirely on real things that my girlfriends and I actually said. My grandmother was amazed.

“In my day, my girlfriends and I just didn’t talk about that stuff,” she said.

But she wasn’t put off by it like I thought she might be. She was simply in awe.

When I was home recently, we had some of my parents’ friends over for Thanksgiving dinner. Our guests included the parents of my best friend growing up. They too had seen my film. The mother of my friend, after a couple glasses of wine, openly expressed that she found it to be a little shocking. That we would actually talk like that. She too wanted to know if it was based in reality. She mentioned that she also found Girls to be shocking in the way they talk about sex. I weighed my options: change the subject or engage. Obviously, I chose the latter.

“I personally love this new openness. I feel like sex has been cloaked in shame for so long, especially for women, and I think it’s good to talk about these things,” I said.

Two of the older women at the table piped up in unison: “We weren’t ashamed. We were just embarrassed.”

“I just feel like, sex is the most natural thing after, what, eating and peeing.” I couldn’t help myself. My parents laughed and shared a look between them, uncomfortable and embarrassed. “Why is something so natural still considered so shameful and like we shouldn’t talk about it?”

My friend’s mother asked her younger daughter (early 20s), also at the table, if she talked as candidly with her girlfriends about sex.

“Yeah.” She blinked, unfazed.

Her mom looked surprised. “Oh. Okay.”

Someone brought up the recent attack on Lena Dunham for being a “sexual predator” for looking into her little sister’s vagina when she was seven.

“I’m so sick of that name Lena Dunham,” said the father of my friend.

“That made me so mad,” I ramped up for my tirade but, looking around the table, realized I had lost my audience. They’re of a different generation, and no matter what I say, I won’t convince them that we should all be talking about sex and masturbation over Thanksgiving dinner. The topic changed to Ferguson and the decision to not indict the cop who shot Michael Brown, something we could all agree was fucked up.

When I first told my mom I was going to write this blog, she was concerned for my safety.

“You’re really going to write about your sex life on the Internet?”

I chose to make the blog anonymous. Not because I was ashamed, but because I wanted the freedom to write about the guys I fucked and if everyone knew I wrote the blog, I felt it would skew my subjects’ behavior towards me or I wouldn’t be comfortable being utterly candid about my experiences, knowing they might read it.

In the early days of the blog, Mom used to read it. Then she called me one day, outraged. She had just read about a particularly heinous interaction with Gaffer Guy that left me crying on the floor, covered in hot soup.

“Why are you sleeping with this asshole who treats you like shit?” She rightfully wanted to know. I didn’t know how to explain the animal magnetism between us, the fact that I couldn’t get enough of him, despite the fact (or maybe because of it) he was a complete asshole.

As I tried to justify myself, Mom started crying. “It’s really hard for me to read about this. I just don’t understand. I mean, do you have to write about this stuff?”

This made me mad and I exploded at her, “Yes, I do! This is my experience! And you know what, you just shouldn’t read it anymore.”

“Yes, I don’t think I will,” she sniffled into the phone.

And that was that. Mom stopped reading my blog. Which was good actually, because it allowed me a new level of freedom to be even more honest and uncensored and not worry about her getting upset. I actually admire the incredible self-control she exhibits in knowing her daughter writes a sex blog and choosing not to read it. From time to time, if I write one I think she will like and that is light on the sex-with-assholes factor, I will recommend it to her.

As for my dad, he too knows I write the blog and he too chooses not to read it. Actually, that second part was my mom’s idea. But one day, Dad called me out of the blue and said, “I read your last blog.”

“Oh, really?” I held for his reaction.

“It was hilarious. The writing is great, and I love the way the story unfolded. That guy is ridiculous.” He was referring to the Studio Exec who picked me up in the park, fresh off his trip to Burning Man.

Dad laughed and started quoting the blog. “I love when [your ex] says ‘rock the cleavage’.” I couldn’t believe Dad was repeating my lines back to me, and laughing about it. I felt so moved I almost cried.

I suddenly feel the powerful urge to “come out,” to put my face on the blog, to publicly become the Slutty Feminist. Because I don’t want to hide. And it’s a different time than when my parents were growing up. My generation is one of disclosure. Any and all information about everyone and everything is at our fingertips, and nothing is private anymore. This is a mixed blessing, but one thing I find wonderful about it is that there is a resource now for shared experiences, and I think people are realizing they’re not alone. There’s a community for everyone, no matter your kinks or weirdness, to be found on the Internet. This is a great thing for female sexuality in particular, which has been shrouded in mystery and ignorance for so many generations. There is finally an outlet for women to share their stories and realize what they thought was weird or unnatural is actually totally normal. God knows sex education isn’t doing a great job of teaching us about our bodies and our desires, so we gotta figure it out for ourselves, on the Internet.

I listen to this wonderful podcast called Guys We Fucked: The Anti-Slut Shaming Podcast and these gals are not hiding behind a pseudonym. They are Corinne Fisher and Krystyna Hutchinson and they are loud and proud about it. Every week, they have a guest on the podcast—usually guys they’ve fucked. It seems from the comments they read in the beginning of each show that a lot of their audience consists of teenage girls, which at first seemed a little dubious because they talk so candidly and explicitly about sex. But then I was like, no, this is good that these young girls are getting this perspective on sex. Because most of their sex education is probably coming from the endless steam of porn on the internet, most of which is made for men by men. I’m glad they’re getting a female side to the story, from two smart funny 20-something NYC gals. At least if they’re being prematurely exposed to sex, they have a chance at a balanced perspective, which is more than I can say for previous generations.

The more I read memoirs like Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants by Jill Soloway and Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham, I realize there is a community out there for women like me. I think that Jill and Lena would relate to my weird musings. Like the fact that every time I’m on a public bus, I imagine everyone as giant genitalia and I can’t help but picture the bus filled with enormous penises and vaginas; the sheer amount of genitalia surrounding us at any given moment never ceases to amaze me. I think about how so many of our interactions in the world can be linked back to our genitals, and how it’s amusing to me that this is the one thing it’s most socially unacceptable to talk about.

Although I’m sure it would make my parents and their friends cringe, I look forward to a time when we can all talk openly about fucking at Thanksgiving dinner. There’s something amazing that happens when people come out of the closet about sex and really start to hash it out. People’s faces light up. They get excited. I get the sense that this is the one thing people have been waiting to talk about, but they’ve never had permission or they’ve always been too embarrassed. It’s amazing to me what happens when I talk to strangers about my blog, because my candidness seems to give them permission to open up and suddenly I’m hearing about the sex lives of people I don’t even know. There’s an instant connection because we’ve skipped through the bullshit small talk and gotten to something real. Sex is something we all do and we all think about a lot of the time—it’s something we literally all have in common. So let’s fucking talk about it! Every time I get together with my girlfriends, of course sex always comes up, and every time we talk about it, I feel like real progress is being made. Sex is a powerful force, and something that women haven’t had ownership of for far too long. Owning it will be the final frontier for women’s equality and liberation. That’s what I think. (mic drop)

Standing with Lena

I'm very disturbed by this recent media/Twitter storm against Lena Dunham regarding the depiction of her childhood sexual curiosity in her new book Not That Kind of Girl. The jump to call her a “sexual predator” for masturbating next to her little sister lying in the same bed, or for looking into her baby sister’s vagina (when she was seven!), is in my opinion grotesque. Somehow I feel like if Lena were a boy, this would not be considered such a shameful offense. The fact that she was a little girl curious about a vagina seems too much for our society to handle, and this I find really sad and upsetting. Even the fact that her curiosity about her sister’s vagina could be misconstrued as sexual in any way is frankly ridiculous.

It makes me reflect on my own childhood and how I was taught from a very young age to have no shame about my sexuality. Whatever I did or asked about, my parents indulged, never shaming me or telling me I was wrong or gross for thinking or feeling a certain way. And I feel like Lena’s upbringing was maybe similar in this way. And so she grew up feeling shameless about her sexuality, which has molded her into who she is today and given us, her audience, the body of work we love in Girls, Tiny Furniture, and now her memoirs.

I’d been working on writing a piece about how my mom bought me a vibrator when I was twelve. This is one of the examples from my childhood that I feel shaped me into the confident, sex-positive woman I am today. Now I find myself questioning if the public would have a different view. I wonder if my honest account of this event could potentially bring down a shitstorm of judgment on me and my mom—judgment that I know actually has nothing to do with me or how I feel about how I was brought up, and has everything to do with other people’s disturbing cultural denial of female sexuality. Because Lena’s sister Grace has clearly not been deeply scarred by these events. They have a wonderful healthy relationship, they’re clearly very close, and she is the first to defend Lena on Twitter, citing heteronormativity as the reason people are up in arms against her.

I just can’t believe the extent to which this has been blown out of proportion. Again, I reflect on my own upbringing. My parents coming to tuck me into bed at night, butt naked. My mom’s diaphragm sitting on the edge of the bathtub. The fact that she bought me a vibrator when I was twelve. To me, these aspects of my growing up naturalized sex and nudity in a way that’s made me more comfortable with my body and my sexuality than most of the women I know, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. The fact that other people might then take my experience and put their own prejudice on it and tell me it’s wrong or sick or that someone should be punished for it—well, I can’t imagine what that must feel like and my heart goes out to Lena.

I was a very sexually curious and precocious child, and the stories I could tell that might be misconstrued are endless. I remember one time my godfather was babysitting me and I took off all my clothes to show him my naked body, and he looked uncomfortable and told me to go get dressed. When I was seven, I flashed my vagina at my best friend’s older brother and he told his mom on me, and I was sent home. In kindergarten, I gave my little male classmate a box of crayons to show me his penis—I had forgotten about this episode until I saw him again in high school and he wouldn’t talk to me for this reason. My best friend and I used to take off our pants and take turns sniffing each other’s butts. One time I kissed my mom on the lips and stuck my tongue in her mouth.

Yes, there’s no older person taking advantage of younger person in any of these stories, but they all involve a child’s curiosity about sex and bodies. And I think what’s really bothering people is not the harmless childish things Lena did to her little sister, but the fact that a little girl might have sexual feelings or curiosity at all. Somehow, as a society, we’ve tricked ourselves into forgetting these moments in our childhoods when we first started having sexy feelings, or we suddenly started paying attention to the junk between our legs—somehow, this is still taboo.

To me, this incident suggests a much larger conversation we need to have, as a culture. Sex education is still not taught in many schools throughout the country, girls continue to be ignorant about their vaginas, sex and nudity are still considered shameful topics of conversation. We can stop beating up Lena Dunham now. We’ve got more important work to do.