The Slut Phase

The time between “uhhhh why is there hair here?” and “why does my back hurt, I’ve literally done nothing all day?” should be an era of exploration and pettiness.

I personally disagree with the notion that the ideal time to settle down and “prepare for the rest of adult life” should begin mere years from the genesis of said life. I’m telling you from experience, it’s a dirty trick to fall for.

The word "slut" always seems to throw people into a tissy, and maybe rightfully so, but in this context, my emphasis is on the carefree aspect of sluttiness.

Sluts do not commit themselves to every person showing the slightest bit of attention towards them. A slut is not seeking to permanently merge themselves with a partner in hopes of molding them into someone they can keep. Sluts have sex. Sluts have sex, and they move on.

The differentiation between a slut and a hoe, I feel, is that hoes have sex for material goods; sluts have sex because they want to. A slut will invite you over, kick you out, and move on. They do not have to shift their life to accommodate anyone but themselves.

Of course, I am not advocating having careless, unsafe sex, and I certainly don’t want to seem like I am advising to prioritize sex over love. However, perhaps the purpose should be enjoying the people who come into our lives, and if we happen to stumble upon “the one”, so be it.

I am, what some would call, a "hot pants," by nature. I never went through a “boys are gross” phase, and, quite frankly, realized that girls are pretty not gross as well at a pretty young age. That being said, I was raised in a fairly strict Presbyterian home, and the sheer mention of sex at my house freaked everyone out completely.

In stark contrast, I was always very curious about sexuality, and very open to listening and sharing with anyone who wanted to talk about it.

I had my first real sexual experience at 16 and, like most mothers, mine seemed to be able to sense the change in me and, like a great deal of mothers, she openly resented me for it. I was the kind of young lady that would steal away with her boyfriend during school hours, to make out, beneath a 15-foot crucifix the school kept hanging behind heavy burgundy stage curtains in the auditorium.

My mother married her first love at the age of 18. My romantic life terrified her.

My first official boyfriend was a junior in high school, when I was a sophomore. I met him during our school’s rendition of Oliver!

I played a drunken wench, sitting on the lap of my life-worn John, singing about the struggles of living a life of survival. The irony of this scene being played by two weird prep school kids with half a day’s life experience between them escaped me at the time.

I’d always consciously had very complex goals and high expectations for myself. My parents are individually very successful, and I’ve always been surrounded by successful people, so I always assumed that, as I hit each milestone age, the accomplishments expected to go with each passing year would all but fall into my lap. I was not surprised when I got into college, and I was not surprised to find that it was easy, to the point of being dull for me. I claimed these entitlements so strongly, that I never thought to acquire the skills needed to claim what was mine.

The one thing that did remain consistent in my life, from far too early for it to have been appropriate to present day, was the fact that, for some reason, men liked me. I knew I could go into a store with no money and, if the man at the register admired me, it wouldn’t matter.

I knew that if needed something, and a man who found me attractive had it, I wouldn’t need that thing anymore. It’s something that no one taught me. I’m not even sure that in my youth I’d entirely noticed it as an actuality. I remember playing with this gift like a game.

My best friend in high school and I flirting our way behind the scenes with major sports teams, my good friend in college and I never paying cover to a club — my skills mattered less as I acquired everything I’d thought I needed.

Unfortunately, whether I liked it or whether I didn’t, I had discovered my personal currency. I knew to regurgitate that a man “had to have a j-o-b if he wanted to be with me” and that I was to “want a man, not need a man," but my actions consistently had me using my currency to advance.

When I was 19 years old I ended up reaching out to a man of about 30 years of age, that I’d met on some adventure I shouldn’t have been on. He was a tall, west-coast man, his body covered in piercings and tattoos and his clothes covered in holes.

He hadn’t held down a job in probably a decade at that point, as he’d injured his leg during a tragic LSD trip, as one does, and lost all feeling from thigh to toe due to compartment syndrome. His leg was covered in scars and what looked like cracks, and he loved scaring people by jabbing things into his leg and pretending to be in pain before laughing at his concerned audience. In other words, this guy was a total catch.

I remember one of my mother’s most immediate concerns being that this man did not seem like he wanted to marry me. She was concerned that he seemed to be very attracted, but the fact that this attraction was carnal and temporary was a concern for her and she felt it should be a concern for me as well.

For this reason in part, I had this jobless, injured man take me to a pawn shop, and buy me a promise ring. I’ve always said that I didn’t want to be married, that I wanted to be a judge and travel the world. But it seemed as though, when I looked in my wallet to find the ticket to owning my own life, I could only find the same nagging inclinations to do what I knew. The same currencies.

The truth is, where my family was struggling with my sexuality my 30-year-old savior embraced it. I saw a home where I stood out, living with people who loved but did not like me.

I was offered a home where I could smoke cigarettes and wake up whenever I wanted, having my body explored by an experienced man who’d let me live in his paradise in exchange for being pretty in public, standing next to him. I gave him monogamy and I gave him beauty, in exchange for his resources.

I left him after reconciling with my parents, to much applause and praise for being strong enough to go in “on my own." I re-enrolled in school, spent time with my parents, and by all accounts was back on track. That is, until I began to crave my “freedom," and another man came along, with another place to live. Another monogamous exchange of currency.

And this one, I married.

Since the age of 14, I’ve always had an older man in my life that’s wanted to both fuck me, and guide my path.

They’ve all given me the same message; that I’m “a special kind of girl” and that, for being so special, I deserve their wisdom, and their genitals. And even while educating myself, even while traveling this country and abroad, meeting all kinds of people and learning all that I can, I have always subconsciously practiced that if this “independence thing” doesn’t work out, there’s always that old standby.

I taught myself that independence was finding one man, pledging loyalty to that man, and loving, building, and being with him in exchange for basic needs being met. That the idea of loving to love instead of loving in order to live was too risky, maybe even selfish, for me.

It’s said that beauty in youth is an accident and, as I stare 30 square in the face, I am inclined to agree. I’ve never been a small woman and my confidence in myself is fairly newfound.

Still, somehow, I’ve never struggled with romantic loneliness. I know this is not something that I will experience forever. Men are probably not going to be sliding to the front of the line to pay for my groceries at 45. Not that 45 is not sexy, but I know myself. I know my relationship with donuts.

I do my best to maintain “can fit in an airplane seat” as far as my size, and I won’t lie to myself about aging. Because I wonder, what will my currency be? Who will I be when I can no longer smize my way out of my problems? What am I actually learning and taking from life as I age?

I’ve been so focused on coupling. I’ve neglected to begin to live.

In a perfect world, I never would have left university because of the concerns of those around me. I would not have let my family finding my stash of vibrators in my dorm room deter me from being away at school. I would not have let a man convince me to leave school to let him take care of me on the other side of the country. I never would have agreed to marry the next man who promised to take care of me.

I would not have feared rejecting the offers of stability and family in exchange for my presence. I would know that there’s nothing wrong with being the star of the show and letting extras come and go as they may. Not every walk-on needs a solo and a monologue.

Every woman should experience waking in her own home, with her name on the lease or deed alone, to four separate good morning texts from four different people who are taking their breakfast with a side of thoughts of her. No one should have to worry about a man’s change in mood meaning their whole life must shift. My feeling unable to explore my sexuality safely and openly may have contributed to me being in monogamous, practically contractual relationships that consumed my time and kept me in a “we” mindset that still permeates my thinking.

In an alternate universe, I am still the college freshman wearing six-inch platform leather boots and schoolgirl skirts to class. I still have a collection of vibrators in my dorm room.

I still date, and have phone sex, and engage in meaningless relationships that are going nowhere. I do these things, I shake it off, and I get back to my Student Diversity meetings.

I get home from a date with some dude I won’t call back, and I transfer a small chunk of money from checking to savings to go towards my personal goals. I’m not tempted by men promising to give me a good life, because nothing could take me away from my awesome retro goth-inspired apartment or my erotic bakery business.

I’m a selfish “slut”, and instead of coming and going out of other lives, I’m welcoming and excusing people out of mine. I’m calling shots. I can afford to do so.

When I found out that perhaps my decision to get married was yet another example of my destructive pattern, I won’t lie. I felt entitled to that phase. I was hit with the crushing realization that a woman can give up everything for a man, merge herself with him, and he has the capacity to take that grand gesture of loyalty, crush it down into what he actually needs, and to completely misappropriate what’s left behind.

Why is the idea of experiencing, and living, and becoming an entire person without worrying about giving our time or our energy or our bodies to someone else so scary? Why is the goal always marriage? Why are we so crushed when we realize the one we love is capable of having hobbies or interests or even relationships outside of us? Why are young people so quick to pause working on themselves to take a risk building with someone who “likes” them? Why do we ridicule a 29-year-old woman with a full-time job who dates and travels but is not married, and applaud a woman when she stumbles into some dude, gets engaged, and, no matter how rosy you paint it, stops working on herself as an individual person?

Why is marriage and monogamy not something done in middle age once one is a relatively established person? What is this rush to be owned? Why do our mothers encourage it?

My reaction to his misappropriation was to declare an open polyamorous relationship - one where I may explore relationship options as they come, accepting what I need and rejecting what I don’t. I am focused on saving my own money, rebuilding my own identity, and being open to whatever comes at me specifically, and I wish I’d taken on this mindset sooner. I am open to the idea of love in the future, but the focus this time is on the future, not the love.

I beg of every young person reading this today: take your 20s. Own your 20s. Do not give your 20s to your pastor. Do not give your 20s to your mother.

Do not hand your 20s to some dude you met because you “like him." It’s okay if your apartments sucks. Resist the temptation to couple for the sake of some assumed stability brought by settling down.

A bland one bedroom where you call the shots beats a 4 bedroom home with the wrong partner any day. Don’t be limited by someone else’s expectations too soon simply because it’s the thing to do. We get 30 years to learn this life, 30 years to live it, and 30 years to remember it fondly. Don’t waste your own time.