SLUT

You guys know I'm something of a feminist. I'm all for women's rights, I'm pro-choice, hell, in some instances I'm pro-abortion (yeah I said it). I don't believe the mentality of being a sub comes from somehow being less than, like God made women weaker or dumber than men. I believe women are equal to men, and should be treated as such, unless and until a woman chooses to be treated differently.

Society, of course, does not agree with me. Women are held to different standards. Women face more difficult choices, and harder-to-meet expectations. Women are judged, labeled, and more often than not, punished for who they are, especially if they are not behaving the way they are "supposed" to.

This still holds true for sexual behavior, especially in the vanilla world. Women are supposed to have one partner at a time. They're supposed to get to know their partners well before deigning to sleep with them. And if the relationship ends, they're expected to mourn the loss of their partner for a certain amount of time before starting the search for a new one.
If a woman doesn't follow these edicts, she's in trouble. Her reputation crumbles. She's labeled a whore, a tramp, a slut. She's "dirty." She's "cheap." She's less than.
This might be less true in the kink world. But you know what? To a certain extent, it is still true. It's just also somehow seen as okay.

Recently I got into a discussion on Twitter about the SLUT label. See, I know most people's definition of SLUT is a woman who sleeps around with a lot of men. But my argument was that the term SLUT should be about mindset and attitude, not about number of partners. If a woman enjoys having lots of sex, if she's honest about her desires and isn't ashamed to ask for what she wants, then can't she assume the mantle of the SLUT label, regardless of how many people she's fucking at the time?

Let me put it a different way: if a woman labels herself a sub, she's trying to encapsulate her feelings on what kind of person she is: submissive. And it doesn't matter if she has a Dom at the time, or just a top who plays with her now and then for fun. She sees herself as a sub, so she calls herself a sub.
If a woman sees herself as a SLUT, does it really matter how many men she's fucking? Can't she still be a SLUT?

Then I got to thinking some more. And I started to feel ashamed for what I'd thought in the first place.

See, the label SLUT is a negative: it's used to degrade and humiliate women. It paints them as something repugnant, sleazy, and easily discarded. And kinksters like me can try to "claim back" the label, try to put a new spin on it all we want, but the fact is, there is no equal label out there for men, and there's a reason for that: men who fuck a lot of partners are not judged negatively. Women are. That's a fact. And we can rant and rail about it all we want, it's not going to make much of a difference. I'm sorry for sounding pessimistic, but it's true.

You know what a woman who likes sex and wants it all the time should be called? A WOMAN. A healthy, normal, human, WOMAN. Not a slut, whether you want to think being called a slut is good or bad. Not a tramp, not a floozy, and not any other word.
A WOMAN.
Women like sex. Sometimes it's making love, and sometimes it's animalistic fucking. Most of the time, it's somewhere between the two. It's sticky, and messy, and exciting, and fun, and sensual...it can be painful. It can be dangerous. It makes us feel good.
Why should we be labeled for liking sex? Why should we have to face that kind of judgement at all?

I am a woman. I fuck only one man. I fuck him a lot. I like fucking him, and he likes fucking me. I feel no shame in admitting it.
What that makes me is up for interpretation. I haven't decided in my own head yet what to call it. What I have decided is that the label is unimportant.
Maybe that's the best conclusion I can draw right now.