We Need To Stop Using “Self Respect” As An Excuse For Slut Shaming
Slut shaming takes many forms. It’s in the way we attack women’s Halloween costume choices every October or the way we call women thots if we think they have sex “too often.”
There’s no number of partners at which a woman officially becomes a slut. An abstinent woman can be seen as slutty because of her clothes or because she was at a party, and those markers are so often used to justify rape — like when a judge berated a rape victim, claiming that young women just like to get drunk and have sex.
Sluttiness is an arbitrary standard and it plays into respectability politics. It says that women need to behave a certain way just to deserve respect or to not be raped, when those things shouldn’t be conditional. Everyone deserves respect, and it should go without saying that no one deserves to be raped.
One type of slut shaming that goes under the radar comes from people who don’t even realize they’re doing it: the concern trolls.
These are people who, instead of saying, “What a whore,” will say, “I just wish she would respect herself.”
They frame their slut shaming like compassion and it’s just as problematic, but without the guilt of being a shit person. It’s like slut shaming lite. It allows them to look at a person who has a lot of sex and say, “I’m not slut shaming her, I just want her to respect herself.” which implies that women who have sex differently are automatically disrespecting themselves.
READ MORE: It’s Time To Stop Judging Girls For Their Slutty Halloween Costumes
For the record, I respect myself. Most women who DGAF about body count would say the same thing. When you claim that your idea of respect should belong to everyone, you’re saying you get to decide how other people express self respect. But the key word is self. It’s an individual experience. It would be equally as ill-received if we told women their value was tied to having a lot of sex, but that’s something we only communicate to men apparently.
There are a bunch of myths about women’s bodies that feed into slut shaming, from thinking vaginas can stretch irreparably to the belief that the presence of a hymen determines purity. When I stopped believing those things, I stopped shaming myself and stepped into a place of respecting myself more. Being a kind and intelligent person matters way more than how many people I’ve slept with, and that’s how all of us should see it.
READ MORE: 13 Girls Tell Us Why They Have Sex On The First Date
The unique way we shame women doesn’t need to be the way it is. When a woman’s sexuality is no longer seen as a blank sheet of paper that men scribble on until it’s unusable, we can stop extending false compassion to women who are enjoying it. Finally.
