Moodle in Niedersachsen
The Tale of the 13-Year-Old ‘Slut’
It doesn’t take much for me to get riled up when I hear the s-word (slut). It’s hard to believe we live in a time where this word is still thrown around to denigrate women and rob them of their right as human beings to enjoy sex when and where they want it. Even worse, it’s sometimes slung at women who have been essentially forced into prostitution or have been gang raped.
But I must believe it, because it’s more than an occasional outburst from some leftover of the anti-woman, extreme Christian/Muslim/Mormon misogynistic set. It’s still deep in our culture and, really, most cultures throughout the world. Not always obvious, it rides under the surface only to reassert itself under the guise of certain Men’s Rights Movements and military ‘shenanigans’.
So yeah, it strikes me when I read a very long and detailed article in the New York Times about a 13-year-old girl who sent a nude photo by text to her sorta boyfriend, who forwarded it to her ex-friend, who mass texted it to most of the school, who then slapped the label “slut” on this girl.
Yep, it bothers me that a 13-year-old girl feels like she should send a naked picture of herself to her boyfriend. Yes, I believe that ‘sexting’ has gone too far when seventh and eighth graders are sending over-the-top naughty texts to each other, which is just a mirror of our increasingly over-sexualized and yet horribly sexually-repressed society. Yes, I can’t imagine getting caught in a middle-school triangle that leads to this naked photo ending up on hundreds of other student’s cell phones, which will probably follow this girl for at least the rest of her high school life.
But, no, these aren’t the aspects of this drama that I want to focus on.
You’re Just a Slut
It may be hard to shift what most would consider at the very least a young adult concept - slut – to those who have barely hit their teens. But as the text from the girl who spread the picture read: “Ho Alert! If you think this girl is a whore, then text this to all your friends,” it’s obvious this is easier done than said. When I think about it, I don’t have to dig too deep in my memory to recall what great lengths my 13-year-old self (and my 13-year-old female friends) would go to in order to walk the fine line between prude and the death call of S-L-U-T.
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The thing about that not supposed to be interested in anything other than kissing and going to second base (maybe).
It is supposed to be the boys who try and get as far as they can by sitting in the back row of that theater at that chick flick, or playing truth or dare on a Friday night, or plying girls with stolen Bud Light and/or Svedka vodka (Boone’s Farm or wine coolers still in style, anyone?). The girls aren’t supposed to want to try these things as much as the boys and, if they do they are destined to be a nymphomaniac for the rest of their life.
Wait, what’s wrong with being a nymphomaniac?
A Different Time
For a minute, I’d like to imagine a society where a girl sending out a naked photo of herself would be “regarded as a fool or even a boastful stud” (as is true for most boys, at least according to the NYT article).
I’d like to contemplate what it might look like for the sexual development of a girl — not just her physical development, but the actual sexual feelings that come along with that development — to be viewed as just “girls being girls.” I’d like to wonder about the implications of removing any set ideals on what girls should think and how they should behave, along with removing those ideals from boys, too.
Hmm. Suddenly that slut word doesn’t have any power. Doesn’t really make any sense at all.
When I discussed this article with my boyfriend the other day, a memory flooded into my head halfway through the conversation. At 13, I was young for being in the ninth grade, and possibly too young to really experience the first love I thought I was in at the time. We had a dramatic ‘relationship’, Mike and I, that ended tragically for a reason I can’t remember after an adolescence of longing to forget. I do remember at the very end, I found out he had told some of our mutual friends I had sucked his dick.
I was devastated for two reasons:
- I had not, and couldn’t understand why he lied, and
- I was crazily worried everyone was going to think I was a slut. Because I had supposedly given my boyfriend of six months a blow job.
Guess which one bothered me more?
Although I never found out why he said it, I did push him to admit, via three-way calling (yeah, you remember when that first came out) that I had not, in fact, put his cock in my mouth (probably not the exact words). I just couldn’t let that lie follow me around because it would define me as this thing I wasn’t — an easy girl whose goal in life was to have a penis in between my lips.
And the truth was, I wasn’t interested in having sex, or his dick in my mouth, when I was 13. But is that because I was in Sunday school classes with a cool, hip Priest who was understanding about hormones but very clear about the consequences? Or was it because my parents and my teachers and the media had made it very clear I wasn’t supposed to have sexual desires since I was female? Maybe it might have something to do with always being labeled a good, strong, mature girl who knew better from a very young age?
Knowing better certainly wasn’t about connecting to the changes my body was going through. No sireee. Being a good, strong, mature girl meant pushing anything nearing desire way down.
Let’s Get It On
I’m not here to promote the idea that 13-year-olds should be having sex. Quite the opposite. I’m here to break down stereotypes that I believe lead to more kids having sex. As I said earlier, we live in a completely fucked-up-oversexualized-yet-totally-repressed society.
What if sex were taught from a young age — first and second grade — to be a sacred, respected thing? What if every year, schools delved deeply into the emotional aspects of the physical changes kids go through, especially starting in fifth grade? What if both boys and girls were taught that girls also have sexual urges that increase with age, and that their bodies are more complicated than boys when it comes to sex? What if masturbation was taught as a way for these emotional and physical changes to be handled by both boys and girls?
Instead, we live in a society where we shun sex education of all kinds, barely telling kids to use a condom if they are going to do it and usually only in certain ‘at-risk’ populations, and yet Jersey Shore and Teen Mom filter onto the TV screens of 10 year-olds and any kid on a computer can access hardcore porn. Really? Really?
Maybe if we equipped kids with some truth, the insane “reality” shows and “reality” porn wouldn’t mold their views on sex, which perpetuate the ‘get-with-the-girl-who-will-give-it-up-but-not-want-it-too-much’ mentality (among many, many other pathetic beliefs).
But, no. Our reality is that a 13-year-old girl who ‘sexted’ her sorta-boyfriend a naked pic of herself changed schools, and then changed back because the photo had made it to her new school. Because she got bullied.
Cause she is a SLUT, and that’s just the way it is.