Now Playing: That's What You Get by Paramore (that's what you get when you let your heart win, I drowned out all my sense with the sound of it's beating)
The word whore has been misused in modern society. I am a whore, but not in the way people put it. The greatest women in history were whores. I am a whore in that I love conversation, I love people and yes, I love men. I am a whore because I'm not afraid of sex, or sexuality. I am a whore because people aren't intimidated by talent or intelligence or any real power - they're intimidated because I'm not afraid to try to be the woman that I think I should be. And so, they pick on the low-hanging fruit - my gender, and any perceived elements of my private life.
Women are supposed to be afraid, or at the very least disinterested, in sex and men and blah blah. We're supposed to be interested in the mushy stuff, the sticky sweet stuff - falling in love, getting married, starting a family, happily ever after. Which is all well and good, but...sex is the elephant in the room for every single one of these fantasies. And then we're told the lie that men don't care for any of the above and are just after sex, sex and more sex. Can neither gender walk the middle line?
Why are we so scared of a woman who is interested in sex? It's worse when you're young, and inexperienced, and a virgin - people think you're crazy to be, well, boy-crazy. Why? Women have hormones and desires and nerve endings just like men, but it's only men who are allowed to openly indulge. For women, it's still the Prohibition for us. Everyone knows all of this. But nobody's allowed to say it.
People will think you are a slut - that is the worst threat or warning you can tell a sixteen year old girl who's defiantly ripping ladders in her stockings or rolling her shorts up as soon as she's out of view of the house. So? So what? Since when has it been illegal for a teenage girl to be interested in sex, and since when has a certain behaviour or dress given people the right to make assumptions? Do they ever tell shit like that to boys when they're running around in nothing but boxers and a six pack? What's the point of women's liberation, what's the point of civic freedom, if I can't walk around wearing something pretty without people whispering behind my back? Or, more importantly, is what they're whispering necessarily bad?
Reinforcing the stereotype of women being afraid or uninterested in sex, as helpless little dolls who have to put up barriers against the desires of men, is just as damaging to the status of women as objectification. Either way, it's a suppression of sexuality, and therefore a suppression of rights. The look of shock on people's faces when they realize that I wouldn't necessarily run screaming at the prospect of sex is just as insulting as when people whistle at me or stare at my chest.
Sexuality is empowering. Or, at least, it should be. But there are so few ways to express your sexuality when you're a teenage girl, even if you are popular with boys, even if you do have a boyfriend. It's so stigmatized and tied up with taboos that quite frankly, it's scary. It's scary dressing up and being myself, it's scary to engage in conversation and be open and honest and maybe just a little flirtatious. The fact that sex and women and independence aren't normalized into society is evidence of continued societal discrimination and gender inequality. Men think about sex all the time. Guess what? So do women.
In history women rose to the occasion in a man's world by living up to potential - intellectually, emotionally, politically, and, yes, sexually, too. My skirt's not too short. My humour is not too crude. You can't be too interested in anything. Knowledge is knowledge, right? Experiences are experiences.
Forgive me for being a woman. No...forgive me for being human.
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