Molly Gibson

Stop the Slut Shaming

She opened her eyes, slowly drifting into consciousness, head
pounding and thoughts cloudy from one too many vodka Red Bulls the
night before. She started to think about the work she needed to finish
todayFluid Mechanics homework, History of Islamophobia essay, shit
but then let herself push reality out of her mind and fall back into a
half-asleep, dreamlike state. For now, all she wanted to do was enjoy
the comfort of a strangers arms wrapped around her. She liked the
feeling of his warm breath on the back of her neck; his scruffy,
unshaven face against hers; his strong hands intertwined with her
delicate ones. She didnt know his last name; she wasnt even sure
she remembered his first (but she felt pretty confident that it was
Mike). The only things she did know about him was that he was in Phi
Psi, a Finance major, and a Blackhawks fan (judging from the Kane
jersey hanging above his bed). But it didnt matter, she didnt need to
know moreSteph felt content. This wasnt the first time shed gone
home with a guy she met at a bar, and besides, like her, he was a
student at the University of Michigan, so she knew he wasnt totally
random. She loved the anonymity of a one-night stand. What could
be better? Great sex without any of the emotional bullshit, and a lot of
free drinks in the process.

Stephanie finally forced herself to sit up, and Mike followed,

rubbing his eyes and yawning. He smiled at her. The two of them
made small talk about their tailgate plans for Saturdays football game
against Ohio, their respective majors (he was impressed by Mechanical
Engineering), and their hometowns (as shed expected, he was from
Chicago). Deciding that it really was time to get back to her work,
Steph got out of his bed to collect her clothes. She slipped her black
dress over her head and stepped back into her stilettos, put her
number in Mikes phone, and thanked him for a good night as she
quietly shut the door behind her.

Steph has been my best friend since we were fourteen, and shes
one of the most confident, intelligent, and beautiful people I know. She
was always our crazy friend in high school, known for acting before
thinking and chronically making mistakes, but Ive never met someone
who is so unapologetically herself. She hates when anyone tells her
how she should be acting, and I cant remember a time in which she
was fazed by someone elses judgment. Thats why I was so surprised
when she called me crying on this particular Friday morning, only an
hour after she had sent me a grinning, makeup-smudged picture of
herself with the caption Walk of shame from Phi Psi.
Steph had walked into her sorority house expecting the normal
weekend morning routine: sitting around the kitchen table with her

best friends, eating bagels to cure their hangovers as they recounted

the previous nights adventures. She ran up the stairs two at a time,
excited to change back into sweats and find her friends, but stopped
short in the hallway when she overheard her name. Stephanie is too
slutty, came a voice from behind the closed door. Steph felt heat rise
to her face. She knew she would be upset if she heard more, but she
leaned in despite herself. We all like to go out and have fun, but that
girl really needs to tone it downdid you see what she was wearing
last night? Its unnecessary to show so much cleavage when half the
boys at this school have already seen her naked. Another voice
chimed in: I feel bad for any guy she fucks...He probably doesnt know
how many STDs she must have. Stephanie felt her world crash down
around her. She couldnt believe what she was hearing. Shed never
heard anyone be so mean, let alone girls she had grown so close with
in her two years at U Mich.
When she told me what had happened, I was appalled. All of my
friends from high school loved living vicariously through Stephs wild
sexual escapadesthe captain of the football team in a fourth floor
classroom, the attractive young Calculus teacher that occasionally
slept in our dormand we would never think to judge her for it. It
seemed absurd to me that her college friends werent the same way.
The more I thought about it, though, I realized that our accepting
nature in high school was far more unusual than Stephanies friends

harsh words. Young women are relentlessly willing to judge each other.
I used to not think twice when my own college friends discussed how
slutty another girls outfit waspetty conversation was just a
necessary part of being a girluntil I realized how hurtful and
destructive these words could be.
The problem isnt that Stephanies friends, or girls in general, are
cruel; its bigger than that. The problem is that our culture insists that
we should chastise each other for not adhering to society s strict set of
rules on sexual behaviorrules so engrained into our heads that we
seldom question them. Rules that define what a woman should wear,
how she should act, and who she can (or, more accurately, cant) sleep
with. And although the invention of birth control and the sexual
revolution in the 1960s helped demolish the taboo surrounding
premarital sex, we still live in a society that suppresses sexual freedom
for women. Women are led to believe that their self-worth depends on
how desirable they are to men, so the natural response is to feel
defensive when another woman feels confident in her sexuality. Girls
are quick to bad-mouth their friend behind her back in order to prove
to themselves that they are above her. Theyre afraid that if they
condone her promiscuity then they too will be judged, so they separate
her into a different, lesser category of girl: a slut.
While I usually take a neutral stance on feminist issues (this is
not to say, by any means, that I dont believe in gender equality, but

Im not planning on burning my bra anytime soon), I absolutely believe

that women should have the same sexual freedom that men do. Slut
shaming is a phrase that describes the act of making a woman feel
guilty or inferior for her sexual behavior, and its one of the most
pervasive types of sexism in our society today. While men are
rewarded for their sexual conquests by being labeled as a stud,
women are viciously attacked for doing the exact same thing. I have a
male friend who is affectionately referred to as Slut by his fraternity
brothers, because he brings home a lot of girls, yet that same friend
once told me he didnt want to date a girl whod hooked up with too
many guys because his friends would judge him for having an easy
girlfriend (and then he added, unless she was, like, really hot).
Referring to a man as a slut is widely accepted as funny and even
glorifying, but the word is never meant as anything short of destructive
when referring to a woman.
Slut shaming isnt limited to condemning a girl for her behavior;
often its as superficial as what shes wearing. There seem to be
countless groups on campus and in the media that promote healthy
self-image and tell girls to love their bodies, but if a confident girl
wears an outfit to a party that is too tight or too revealing, her peers
immediately label her as a slut. Were supposed to love our bodies,
but only to a pointif we show them off, it means we are conceited,
seeking attention, or have low self-esteem. A respectable girl covers

up; a girl who wears her skirt too short is asking for it. When society
differentiates between what good girls wear from what bad girls
wear, it allows men to convince themselves that the latter type of
woman doesnt deserve respect, which leads to sexual assault. Slut
shaming often leads to victim blamingmaking a girl feel like she
deserved to get raped because of her actions or clothingwhich both
lets the rapist off the hook and is extremely traumatic to the victim.
While investigating the rape of a young woman in Toronto in January of
2011, a male police officer stated, Women should avoid dressing like
sluts in order not to be victimized. This is like saying a person should
avoid owning nice things if he doesnt want to be robbed. A girl should
be able to wear as much or as little clothing as she wants; if she feels
most confident in a skin-tight dress, it does not mean she is asking to
be sexually assaulted.
In a research study at Cornell, two different groups of female
college students were asked to read a vignette about an imaginary
peer, Joan, then rate their feelings towards her. To one group, Joan was
described as having two sexual partners in her lifetime; in the other,
she had twenty sexual partners. The Joan who had twenty partners
was consistently rated as less emotionally stable, competent, warm,
and dominant than the Joan whod only had two partners. Its deeply
ingrained in our culture to let a womans sexual activity determine who
she is as a person. This is infuriating. It is Joans vagina, and its up to

her what she wants to do with it. The number of sexual partners she
has been with does not say anything about her other qualities, and it
does not mean she does not deserve the same respect as everyone
else. Most importantly, its no one elses business.
*****
Slut shaming is particularly prevalent on college campuses,
because we live in an isolated sphere of young adults who have little to
worry about other than good grades and social prosperity (this is, of
course, a vast generalization, but relatively accurate within my own
experience at Wash U). College is a time in which many men and
women begin exploring their sexuality, and subsequently there arises a
borderline-obsessive curiosity about their peers hookup activity. At
any university, especially one as small as Wash U, students inevitably
develop reputations based on whom they have slept withreputations
that might pop up after one promiscuous weekend freshman year, yet
will stick around until graduation. In the case of girls, these
reputations are not sought after, because they almost always only
result in ridicule or social condemnation. Many aspects of hookup
culture at college perpetuate the stereotype that female sexual
freedom is to be scorned, even when they arent meant as harmful.
Stephanie is so willing to refer to her walk of shame as such because
this has become the standard phrase to describe returning home after
spending the night with a sexual partner. Steph wasnt shameful, as

any girl who makes the conscious decision to sleep out shouldnt be, so
why do we call it this? If Mike had slept in Stephs room instead, his
own walk home would not receive the same title.
Although both men and women are guilty of partaking in slut
shaming, I cant help but think that if girls started respecting each
others decisions, our opposite gender would eventually follow suit. Its
possible that Im just more sensitive towards the female side of this
problem because Im immersed in it, a consequence of spending most
of my time with other twenty-year-old girls. While I love the women in
my sorority and theyve provided me with an invaluable support
system during my time at college, I truly hate the necessary evil that is
rush. Sorority rush is a weeklong excuse for girls to judge each other
based on superficial conversations and pre-existing reputations.
Freshmen girls have to walk on tiptoes for their first semester at
college for fear that upperclassmen sorority girls are judging their
every move, which, more often than not, they are. And if the cute
sophomore boy that Sarah hooks up with in her first month of school
recently had a bad breakup with a Tri Delt, then Sarah can say goodbye
to her chances of getting a bid to that sorority. The amount of times
that I heard girls say, Annie seems really cool, but apparently shes
already slept with half of the football team, or we have to cut her, we
dont need our reputation to be any sluttier, during rush was
horrifying. Who cares? If a freshman girl managed to hook up with half

of the football team in one semester, shes probably having a good

time. Her affinity for football players doesnt say anything about the
kind of sister she would be, and it shouldnt determine what sorority
gives her a bid.
Our society places a huge stigma on sex, especially for girls. A
woman is expected only to give it up if shes in a monogamous
relationship with a man whom she loves and trusts; to do otherwise
means that she lacks self-respect and therefore doesnt deserve the
respect of her peers. Jenna Marbles, a YouTube star with over eight
million subscribers, recently posted a video titled Things I Dont
Understand About Girls Part 2: Slut Edition in which she refers to
women who have casual sex as lonely, sad, and stupid. Hooking up
with a bunch of dudes doesnt make you cool, she says, as if girls
made decisions about their sexual behavior based on whether or not it
would make them cool. Women who act on their sexual desires dont
do so to impress their friends; they do so for personal gratification.
She states that you can look like a slut, act like a slut, but I will only
judge you by the number of dicks you put in your body on a regular
basis. Or, Jenna, you could just not judge any girl for what she
chooses to do with her body. Jenna makes a lot of comparisons in her
video about sluts versus normal girls, perpetuating the stereotype that
a woman who chooses to dress promiscuously or sleep with someone
she isnt in a relationship with is lesser than a normal girl.

Its true that promiscuous behavior can be risky, both mentally

and physically. There is an obvious danger of contracting an STD or
becoming pregnant, but these can be mostly avoided by practicing
safe sex. Emotional safety is not as easy to protect. Many girls,
especially college-aged women, are constantly dealing with body
image problems. It is definitely not healthy for a girl to sleep with a lot
of guys because she thinks it will help her deal with her insecurities, or
because she thinks it will result in more attention from men. That girl
is suffering from a lack of confidence, and her actions might end up
hurting her more in the long run, but that does not mean that she
deserves to be shamed for them. To call her a slut does nothing but
extend her self-loathing, when what she really needs is support.
On the other hand, growing up with Stephanie taught me that
women can have healthy sex lives outside of monogamous
relationships. We do not have the right to assume that any girl who
shows a lot of cleavage or doesnt know the last name of the guy shes
sleeping with is doing so because shes insecure. Maybe shes having
a lot of sex because she likes having sex. Women are allowed to enjoy
having an orgasm; in fact, if were being told to love our bodies, theres
no better way to do so. While Steph isnt proud of all of her decisions
in hindsight (the Calculus teacher seemed like an exciting dirty little
secret at the time; we now agree that it was very creepy on his part),

she knows that, whether good or bad, her sexual experiences dont
define her.