Whore. Slut. Hoe.

The Internet comments section should almost always be avoided. With few exceptions, these forums are filled with virulent nastiness, and horrendous grammar and spelling. Despite knowing this, I allowed myself to be engaged in conversation (if you can even call it that) on a recent post by Texts From Last Night. For those unfamiliar, TFLN receives submissions of text messages and posts them on social media. The texts almost always cheekily detail drunken misadventures and sexual exploits.

In the text in question, the author writes about coordinating their various dates- one for a spanking and one for sex. Despite the text being wholly gender neutral, the comments section exploded with a long stream of slurs accusing this *obviously* woman of being a slut, among other things. It could just as easily have been a man, but aside from a few reasonable people, everyone immediately decided that this 1) was a woman and that 2) her sexual choices should be judged with incredible harshness.

There were some concern trolls, people without actual medical or epidemiological training, who felt the need to assert that this person was obviously a petri dish of disease, although in the text they mention that they've directed their sexual partner to pick up condoms. Sure, condoms don't protect you 100% but using them makes you considerably safer than not. As one commenter also pointed out, people who are in to kink as a lifestyle are also usually very aware of their sexual health. They are far more likely to be tested regularly and to know their status at all times.

The rest of the group chose to glom on to judging this "woman's" value and morality based on her desire to have multiple sexual partners. Vilifying women for enjoying sex is a nauseatingly tired double standard that I'm done with. I don't have a single bit of patience left for that bullshit. The world is ready for women to finally have full agency over their whole beings, including their sex. It's time and it's happening, and some individuals, both men and (sadly) women, are mad as hell about it. And I don't understand why.

Men who have sex with women, don't you like having sex with women? Isn't that something you want to do? Isn't it something you think about regularly and are usually hustling to obtain? Then WHY IN THE FUCK WOULD YOU SHAME WOMEN AROUND SEX? Don't you see how counterproductive that is? Some of you go out to bars or clubs on the weekend hoping to get laid, and if you do manage to have sex with a woman, do you automatically refuse to respect her because she slept with you? I've seen so many men in these threads comment that they could never respect a woman who slept with them right away, or respect a woman who gave them a blow job. Blow jobs are "demeaning." Women who sleep with men right away are "easy" or "desperate." But you *want* to have sex with them, you *like* getting blow jobs, and if they give you what you want then you will not respect them. Because they've done something demeaning and desperate. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? Mixed messages much?

Then of course if you turn a guy down for sex, or aren't a blow job kind of girl, you are also in the wrong. We know we're being judged for our sexual choices. How could women miss that when even other women will call you a slut? So there is an understandable hesitancy to appear easy. No one wants to be judged. It feels bad. And then so called Nice Guys complain bitterly to women about how we're grouping them in with the rest. #NOTALLMEN they cry! "Some of us are Nice Guys!! Don't lump us in with the others! What a bigoted slut you are!!"

This is not an exaggeration. Nice Guys say shit like this everyday on the accounts of many of the feminist bloggers I follow. They are worse offenders than men who just straight up honestly hate women.

On one hand, I can't blame them. I know that the patriarchy teaches men that a huge portion of their value and identity as a man lies in their ability to get and please women. A woman with full agency over her person can say Yes but she can just as easily say No, and that's a huge risk for masculine identity. The story goes that if you, as a hetero man, can't obtain sex from women it makes you less of a man. Rejection of all kinds hurts, but this cuts deep into gender identity and that's a particularly vulnerable, sensitive area to have challenged. Of course men might be inclined to react poorly to women not affirming their masculinity by having sex with them. There's a lot at stake when your sex is saddled with that much emotional baggage.

On the other hand, I'm tired of women's bodies being battlegrounds upon which the war of masculinity is fought. We don't exist to affirm your identity! We're not here to please you! As adults, it's on each of us to spend time exploring who we are beyond the identities imposed upon us by gender, family, culture, ethnicity, nationality, etc. Being a man means so much more than fucking bitches and getting money...right? Doesn't it? Wouldn't that be so depressing if that's all there was?

And of course there is more. If nothing else, homosexuality informs us that masculinity is not defined by men having sex with women. Homosexual men don't generally have sex with women and they're still men. Being a man is so much more than what you do with your penis, fellas. It's up to you to discover what that is without leaning on others to define you.

Experience has taught that of course it's #notallmen. I'm not a rigid, extremist idiot, and I have so many lovely men in my life who do well by women. What sets these men apart is that they don't operate in the world with a sense of entitlement to women's time and attention. They have made the effort to get to know themselves, and their identities don't depend on how others respond to them. They have work they enjoy, friends, faith, passions and hobbies. Basically, they're well rounded individuals. Men and women alike are tasked with doing this work to know ourselves well, growing the beauty and working out what isn't working.

This inner examination and awareness can be difficult, though. It requires quite a bit of vulnerability to face yourself honestly and learn who you really are beyond constructs and expectations. So angry men and women, mired in their own patriarchal oppression, opt to say awful things about strangers on the Internet to make themselves feel better...I suppose. Is that the purpose? I wonder if that works for any length of time. Has tearing someone else down ever built anyone up? Does anyone benefit from this?

No.

So stop. Stop being awful to each other, in general, but please stop raging against the free expression of female sexuality. What are you hoping to accomplish by putting women down for enjoying sex? You do realize that this hurts you, too, men who want to have sex with women? People don't like doing things they feel shame around. If you shame female sexuality, women aren't going to feel good about having sex with you and you will be having less sex. This is a terrible game plan. You're doing it wrong.

Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to think deeply about how you view sex in general, female sexuality specifically, and how all this plays in to your masculine identity. For women, you have homework, too! I challenge you to think deeply about how you view sex in general, female sexuality specifically, and how all this plays into your feminine identity.

How you view others and how you choose to treat them as a result says everything about you and nothing about them. Calling someone a whore doesn't do a damn bit of good for this world. Knock it off. Do better.

Men, if you want to help, please start calling out other men for their disrespectful behavior towards women. We need your voices and support. The bigoted men whom we women try to dialogue with are stubbornly hateful. They will not listen to us. But, perhaps, they'll listen to you.

If you happen to be a really good man who was raised or has learned how to nurture, please find a way to teach other men. If you're a man who wants to learn this, find a mentor- a well respected man who loves well.

We can build a better world for us all, but it'll only be done with love. It starts today, with you.

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