Slutever: Dispatches from a Sexually Autonomous Woman in a Post-Shame World

174 Pages·2018·1.47 MB·English

by  Karley Sciortino

Some of the individuals in the book have asked me to respect their anonymity due to the sensitive
nature of the topics discussed. Therefore, I have modified their identities and certain details about
them.
Copyright © 2018 by Karley Sciortino
Cover design by Alix Gutiérrez
Cover illustration by Bruce Emmett
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First Edition: February 2018
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017956265
ISBN 978-1-4789-4476-8 (trade paperback)
ISBN 978-1-47894475-1 (ebook)
E3-20171011-DANF
Table of Contents

Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
MANIFESTO: SLUTTING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM
CHAPTER 1: MADONNA THE WHORE
CHAPTER 2: HARNESSING MY SLUT POWERS
CHAPTER 3: SADOMASOCHIST IN TRAINING
CHAPTER 4: AMORAL TALE
CHAPTER 5: FROM SLUT TO BI
CHAPTER 6: WAIT… WHAT IS SEX, EVEN?
CHAPTER 7: WHAT DO I WANT?
Rejected Book Titles
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Newsletters
To my mother, who I love dearly, but who I might not let
read this book.
MANIFESTO
SLUTTING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM
S
lut” is a great word. It just sounds perfect—so sharp and clear and beautiful.
It’s one of those satisfying four-letter words, like “cunt” and “fuck.” “Slut” also
happens to be an anagram for “lust,” which is one of those divine coincidences
that makes you wonder if God actually exists.
We’re lucky that “slut” is such a great word, because it’s pretty safe to say
that every woman will be called a slut at least once in her lifetime. I, personally,
have the distinct pleasure of being called a slut like twelve times a day—just one
of the many perks of being a sex writer in the age of internet trolls (*hair flip*).
I’m not sure if my brain is wired wrong, or if I’ve simply developed a defense
mechanism after years of harassment for being a professional blow-job blogger,
but now when someone calls me a slut I get bizarrely excited by it. I find
perverse pleasure in knowing that simply by being a woman who openly enjoys
sex, I’m able to incite rage in total randoms. It’s entertaining. And it’s a rite of
passage. Being called a slut means you’ve really made it, ya know? Like you’re
officially a woman.
But what is a slut, anyway? According to the relic known as the Oxford
English Dictionary, “slut” is a pejorative term for a woman who has many
sexual partners. However, in recent years, the word has gone a bit rogue. These
days, it’s often used maliciously as an umbrella term for any woman who’s
openly sexual. Something as PG-13 as texting someone a topless selfie can make
you a metaphorical whore these days. But if you can be slut-shamed while
you’re still a virgin, then how do we define what it means to be a slut? Who
holds the keys to the slut kingdom?
To me, a slut is a person who seeks out visceral experiences through sex.
Being a slut is not necessarily about having a high body count; it’s about being
sexually activated. A slut is someone who has no moral obstacle between
themselves and their desire to enjoy sex. A slut is a person who has sex with
who they want, how they want, and isn’t ashamed about it. Sluts are special.
Sluts are radical. And sluts are also skilled at time management, because we can
handle multiple dicks on rotation, plus our jobs and our blogs and our beauty
routines. It’s not easy, being a ho. Not everyone is qualified for this coveted
position.
And the slut label is unifying. When I meet a girl who self-identifies as a slut,
I immediately feel an affinity with her—like, one of us. It’s like a modern-day
vagina version of the Freemasons, except without the cool secret handshake.
(Unless a hand job counts?) I believe that once we accept this more
contemporary, sophisticated definition of “slut,” it will be easier to accept the
label as a badge of honor.
Unfortunately, much of the world has yet to catch up to our level of slutty
enlightenment. Until they do, we just have to own it. One of the best pieces of
advice my mother ever gave me was: Whenever someone insults you, just smile
and say “thank you” in that wonderfully blasé-slash-potentially clueless tone that
Andy Warhol perfected. For example, I was recently at the STD clinic being
casually diagnosed with throat gonorrhea when the doctor let out an
unnecessarily long sigh. “Well,” he said condescendingly, “I’ve never known a
woman to have gonorrhea in her throat before. Usually we only see that in gay
men.” And I was like, “Wow, thank you!” Followed by, “Did you just assume
my gender?”
So far, my sex life has been—how should I put it…colorful? There’ve been a
lot of ups and downs. And, like, whips and chains, lies and deceit, love and hate,
lust and money. Not to mention bruises, rashes, dungeons, confusion, insecurity,
blackouts, crutches, orgies, doctor’s appointments, boys, girls, toys, trauma,
hotels, jealousy, addiction, mysterious bloodstains—ya know, the usual.
For the most part, I’ve found my sexual curiosity to be a positive trait, as it’s
led me to have experiences that I’m certain I’ll be happy to have had when I die
—from Eyes Wide Shut–style sex parties in hotel penthouses, to being the “first
assistant dildo” on a porn set, to somehow ending up in a prisoner-of-war role
play in Munich with a married couple who didn’t speak a word of English.
Without question, if I weren’t as slutty as I am, my life thus far would have been
far less interesting. As my hooker friend likes to say: “Sluts have more fun.” But
my sluttiness has also been the cause of many existential bathroom-mirror
moments. Over the years, I’ve often found myself stabbing at the ingrown hairs
on my bikini line, thinking: How does my gang-bang fantasy factor into my life
plan about who I think I am… or whatever?
We are taught that our sexual behavior has a vital impact on who we are, our
mental well-being, and how other people perceive us—especially for women.
From a young age, society tells us that when a guy has a lot of sex, he’s a virile
Don Juan who’s just fulfilling his biological urge to spread his seed (gross?). But
if you’re a woman who has a lot of sex, not only are you a slut (in a bad way),
but there’s also something fundamentally wrong with your brain. You couldn’t
possibly just want sex for fun, like guys supposedly do, so the desire must be
coming from low self-esteem, depression, or because you’re “ugly” and can’t get
a boyfriend (as if ugly people don’t have boyfriends?). Talk about gaslighting on
a mega-scale.
Since my teens, part of me has been infatuated with the rebelliousness of
being a girl who sleeps around. But there was another part of me that thought,
Let’s be real—there’s probably something wrong with me. It’s hard to escape
this gloomy self-diagnosis when everyone close to you—from your parents, to
your church, to your friends and boyfriends and even the characters in your
favorite movies—is constantly telling you that if you’re a girl who has a lot of
sex, it means that you’re unequivocally fucked up.
In terms of sexual freedom, we’ve come a long way in recent years. (Hello,
you can say “pussy” on TV now.) But there continue to be lots of mixed
messages floating around. The double standard is finally beginning to fade, but
we’re still a culture with a slut-shaming problem, often made worse (or at least
more public) by social media. Casual sex has become a casual part of the
cultural conversation—women stalk prey on dating apps just like men do—and
yet it’s still taboo to be a woman who has multiple partners. While many women
today are vocally antislut–shaming, very few women are openly slutty.
Basically, society is experiencing growing pains when it comes to female sexual
autonomy. To be a slut or not to be a slut? That is the modern feminist question.
Slutty Heroines
It’s a no-brainer that we’re influenced by the people and stories that make up the
culture around us. And it’s difficult to cite an example, either real or fictional, of
a happy, healthy, promiscuous person—let alone a woman. There’s yet to be a
successful woman in a movie who says, “I’ve got four guys on rotation and feel
great about it,” because that freaks people out. Usually, instead, the story goes
that the slut gets punished—whether she dies in the end, or ends up miserable
and alone, or is slut-shamed off campus—because that’s the narrative our society
is comfortable with. The promiscuous woman is painted as evil, inconsequential,
or disposable. The slut doesn’t get to become a lawyer and live happily ever
after.
Like, have you ever noticed that in basically every horror movie ever made,
the “slutty girl” is the first to get stabbed or eaten by zombies? Yeah, that’s not a
coincidence. The “punished slut” narrative is ubiquitous across film, TV, and
literature. From classic examples like Anna Karenina, Belle du Jour, and The
Scarlet Letter (shout out to Hester Prynne, OG high priestess of slut-shaming) to
modern real-world cases like Monica Lewinsky and the Duke Porn Star, sluts
have been getting fucked—literally and figuratively—since basically the dawn
of time. Writer Tina Fey really hit the nail on the head in Mean Girls, when the
high school sex-ed teacher tells his young female students: “Do not have sex. If
you have sex, you will get pregnant…and die.” Funny, yet morbidly on point.
While men have long been the arbiters of mass media, they are not solely to
blame for the tortured-slut narrative. Women are often also complicit in slut-
shaming. At the risk of sounding like I’m prude-shaming, it seems to me that a
lot of women repress their inner slut because they think that feigning naiveté will
increase their sexual or romantic value. These women are buying into the notion
that overt female sexuality scares men (because men are actually more insecure
about their sexuality than women), and that men need to operate under the
illusion that women are clueless about sex. But this is tragique. When we do
this, not only are we fucking shit up for womankind, but we’re also hurting
ourselves. It’s like faking orgasms—pulling a Sally when some guy is basically
setting your clit on fire means that he’s going to keep doing that for eternity (or
at least until a braver woman comes along and sets him straight). In my opinion,
the woman who is truly perverse is the woman who pretends she’s not sexual to
appease a (thoroughly misguided) man.
Of course, not all women have voracious sexual appetites, or are strategically
wearing ill-fitting turtlenecks to conceal their inner sex maniac. Some women
just aren’t interested in having a ton of sex, and to them I say: “It’s weird that
you’re reading this book, but I respect you!” The unglamorous reality is, we live