Slutever Read online

  Some of the individuals in the book have asked me to respect their anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the topics discussed. Therefore, I have modified their identities and certain details about them.

  Copyright © 2018 by Karley Sciortino

  Cover design by Alix Gutiérrez

  Cover illustration by Bruce Emmett

  Cover copyright © 2018 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  First Edition: February 2018

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  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017956265

  ISBN 978-1-4789-4476-8 (trade paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-4789-4475-1 (ebook)

  E3-20171011-DANF

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  MANIFESTO: SLUTTING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM

  CHAPTER 1: MADONNA THE WHORE

  CHAPTER 2: HARNESSING MY SLUT POWERS

  CHAPTER 3: SADOMASOCHIST IN TRAINING

  CHAPTER 4: AMORAL TALE

  CHAPTER 5: FROM SLUT TO BI

  CHAPTER 6: WAIT… WHAT IS SEX, EVEN?

  CHAPTER 7: WHAT DO I WANT?

  Rejected Book Titles

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Newsletters

  To my mother, who I love dearly, but who I might not let read this book.

  MANIFESTO

  SLUTTING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM

  Slut” is a great word. It just sounds perfect—so sharp and clear and beautiful. It’s one of those satisfying four-letter words, like “cunt” and “fuck.” “Slut” also happens to be an anagram for “lust,” which is one of those divine coincidences that makes you wonder if God actually exists.

  We’re lucky that “slut” is such a great word, because it’s pretty safe to say that every woman will be called a slut at least once in her lifetime. I, personally, have the distinct pleasure of being called a slut like twelve times a day—just one of the many perks of being a sex writer in the age of internet trolls (*hair flip*). I’m not sure if my brain is wired wrong, or if I’ve simply developed a defense mechanism after years of harassment for being a professional blow-job blogger, but now when someone calls me a slut I get bizarrely excited by it. I find perverse pleasure in knowing that simply by being a woman who openly enjoys sex, I’m able to incite rage in total randoms. It’s entertaining. And it’s a rite of passage. Being called a slut means you’ve really made it, ya know? Like you’re officially a woman.

  But what is a slut, anyway? According to the relic known as the Oxford English Dictionary, “slut” is a pejorative term for a woman who has many sexual partners. However, in recent years, the word has gone a bit rogue. These days, it’s often used maliciously as an umbrella term for any woman who’s openly sexual. Something as PG-13 as texting someone a topless selfie can make you a metaphorical whore these days. But if you can be slut-shamed while you’re still a virgin, then how do we define what it means to be a slut? Who holds the keys to the slut kingdom?

  To me, a slut is a person who seeks out visceral experiences through sex. Being a slut is not necessarily about having a high body count; it’s about being sexually activated. A slut is someone who has no moral obstacle between themselves and their desire to enjoy sex. A slut is a person who has sex with who they want, how they want, and isn’t ashamed about it. Sluts are special. Sluts are radical. And sluts are also skilled at time management, because we can handle multiple dicks on rotation, plus our jobs and our blogs and our beauty routines. It’s not easy, being a ho. Not everyone is qualified for this coveted position.

  And the slut label is unifying. When I meet a girl who self-identifies as a slut, I immediately feel an affinity with her—like, one of us. It’s like a modern-day vagina version of the Freemasons, except without the cool secret handshake. (Unless a hand job counts?) I believe that once we accept this more contemporary, sophisticated definition of “slut,” it will be easier to accept the label as a badge of honor.

  Unfortunately, much of the world has yet to catch up to our level of slutty enlightenment. Until they do, we just have to own it. One of the best pieces of advice my mother ever gave me was: Whenever someone insults you, just smile and say “thank you” in that wonderfully blasé-slash-potentially clueless tone that Andy Warhol perfected. For example, I was recently at the STD clinic being casually diagnosed with throat gonorrhea when the doctor let out an unnecessarily long sigh. “Well,” he said condescendingly, “I’ve never known a woman to have gonorrhea in her throat before. Usually we only see that in gay men.” And I was like, “Wow, thank you!” Followed by, “Did you just assume my gender?”

  So far, my sex life has been—how should I put it…colorful? There’ve been a lot of ups and downs. And, like, whips and chains, lies and deceit, love and hate, lust and money. Not to mention bruises, rashes, dungeons, confusion, insecurity, blackouts, crutches, orgies, doctor’s appointments, boys, girls, toys, trauma, hotels, jealousy, addiction, mysterious bloodstains—ya know, the usual.

  For the most part, I’ve found my sexual curiosity to be a positive trait, as it’s led me to have experiences that I’m certain I’ll be happy to have had when I die—from Eyes Wide Shut–style sex parties in hotel penthouses, to being the “first assistant dildo” on a porn set, to somehow ending up in a prisoner-of-war role play in Munich with a married couple who didn’t speak a word of English. Without question, if I weren’t as slutty as I am, my life thus far would have been far less interesting. As my hooker friend likes to say: “Sluts have more fun.” But my sluttiness has also been the cause of many existential bathroom-mirror moments. Over the years, I’ve often found myself stabbing at the ingrown hairs on my bikini line, thinking: How does my gang-bang fantasy factor into my life plan about who I think I am… or whatever?

  We are taught that our sexual behavior has a vital impact on who we are, our mental well-being, and how other people perceive us—especially for women. From a young age, society tells us that when a guy has a lot of sex, he’s a virile Don Juan who’s just fulfilling his biological urge to spread his seed (gross?). But if you’re a woman who has a lot of sex, not only are you a slut (in a bad way), but there’s also something fundamentally wrong with your brain. You couldn’t possibly just want sex for fun, like guys supposedly do, so the desire must be coming from low self-esteem, depression, or because you’re “ugly” and can’t get a boyfriend (as if ugly people don’t have boyfriends?). Talk about gaslighting on a mega-scale.

  Since my teens, part of me has been infatuated with the rebelliousness of being a girl who sleeps around. But there was another part of me that thought, Let’s be real—there’s
probably something wrong with me. It’s hard to escape this gloomy self-diagnosis when everyone close to you—from your parents, to your church, to your friends and boyfriends and even the characters in your favorite movies—is constantly telling you that if you’re a girl who has a lot of sex, it means that you’re unequivocally fucked up.

  In terms of sexual freedom, we’ve come a long way in recent years. (Hello, you can say “pussy” on TV now.) But there continue to be lots of mixed messages floating around. The double standard is finally beginning to fade, but we’re still a culture with a slut-shaming problem, often made worse (or at least more public) by social media. Casual sex has become a casual part of the cultural conversation—women stalk prey on dating apps just like men do—and yet it’s still taboo to be a woman who has multiple partners. While many women today are vocally antislut–shaming, very few women are openly slutty. Basically, society is experiencing growing pains when it comes to female sexual autonomy. To be a slut or not to be a slut? That is the modern feminist question.

  Slutty Heroines

  It’s a no-brainer that we’re influenced by the people and stories that make up the culture around us. And it’s difficult to cite an example, either real or fictional, of a happy, healthy, promiscuous person—let alone a woman. There’s yet to be a successful woman in a movie who says, “I’ve got four guys on rotation and feel great about it,” because that freaks people out. Usually, instead, the story goes that the slut gets punished—whether she dies in the end, or ends up miserable and alone, or is slut-shamed off campus—because that’s the narrative our society is comfortable with. The promiscuous woman is painted as evil, inconsequential, or disposable. The slut doesn’t get to become a lawyer and live happily ever after.

  Like, have you ever noticed that in basically every horror movie ever made, the “slutty girl” is the first to get stabbed or eaten by zombies? Yeah, that’s not a coincidence. The “punished slut” narrative is ubiquitous across film, TV, and literature. From classic examples like Anna Karenina, Belle du Jour, and The Scarlet Letter (shout out to Hester Prynne, OG high priestess of slut-shaming) to modern real-world cases like Monica Lewinsky and the Duke Porn Star, sluts have been getting fucked—literally and figuratively—since basically the dawn of time. Writer Tina Fey really hit the nail on the head in Mean Girls, when the high school sex-ed teacher tells his young female students: “Do not have sex. If you have sex, you will get pregnant…and die.” Funny, yet morbidly on point.

  While men have long been the arbiters of mass media, they are not solely to blame for the tortured-slut narrative. Women are often also complicit in slut-shaming. At the risk of sounding like I’m prude-shaming, it seems to me that a lot of women repress their inner slut because they think that feigning naiveté will increase their sexual or romantic value. These women are buying into the notion that overt female sexuality scares men (because men are actually more insecure about their sexuality than women), and that men need to operate under the illusion that women are clueless about sex. But this is tragique. When we do this, not only are we fucking shit up for womankind, but we’re also hurting ourselves. It’s like faking orgasms—pulling a Sally when some guy is basically setting your clit on fire means that he’s going to keep doing that for eternity (or at least until a braver woman comes along and sets him straight). In my opinion, the woman who is truly perverse is the woman who pretends she’s not sexual to appease a (thoroughly misguided) man.

  Of course, not all women have voracious sexual appetites, or are strategically wearing ill-fitting turtlenecks to conceal their inner sex maniac. Some women just aren’t interested in having a ton of sex, and to them I say: “It’s weird that you’re reading this book, but I respect you!” The unglamorous reality is, we live in a sex-negative society that conflates having a lot of sex with being a bad person—especially if you have a (supposedly sacred) vagina. Because of this, it can be difficult to separate our own desires (or lack thereof) from a society that tells us that a woman who sleeps around is a skanky loser. Sometimes, when it comes to sex, we end up lying to ourselves about who we are and what we want. Like, who knows—maybe you’re secretly a ho, but you just haven’t allowed yourself to realize it yet. (Something to look forward to.)

  Thankfully, there are a few beacons of light in the otherwise slutless media. An obvious example is Samantha on Sex and the City, whose unapologetic, self-aware slut pride and professional success have made her the reigning queen of women with a high appetite for sex and adventure. There are porn stars like Sasha Grey and Stoya—intelligent women who promote extreme sexual exploration and also speak out about sexual health. I love Amber Rose, Amy Schumer, Rihanna, The Broad City girls, and Chelsea Handler, who all flaunt brazen, more-is-better attitudes toward sex. These women are great, but we need more like them, especially in the mainstream. Like all marginalized groups, sluts need representation, and we are seriously lacking in slutty role models. We need more smart, responsibly promiscuous women, acting as living proof that having a high sexual appetite, and satisfying it, doesn’t mean you’re an awful person or doomed.

  Back when I first started writing about sex, one of my mother’s main concerns—and there were many—was that being open about my slutty adventures online would make it difficult to find a guy to date me. And I have to admit, there was a time when I thought maybe she was right. But the reality is, if someone doesn’t want to date me because I’m a slut, then he’s clearly not the guy for me anyway. I don’t care if some bro finds me less appealing because of how many partners I’ve had, or if he doesn’t want to take me home to his mother, because while my lifestyle may be unattractive to him, his ideals are unattractive to me. In a way, being open about your sexuality actually acts as a filter through which only the enlightened may pass. And besides, there are plenty of sexually open-minded dudes to go around, enough to (at least attempt to) satisfy all the sluts currently roaming the planet. And if I’m wrong about that, well, we’re sexually flexible Millennials—we can just become lesbians.

  Victim Who?

  If you’re a sexually curious woman, along with being called a slut, another unfortunate refrain is: “Are you sure you want to do that?” Some of my greatest hits include: Are you sure you want to fuck that married couple? Are you sure you want to go to that sex party? Are you sure you want to be suspended upside down from the ceiling by a guy with a low-hanging man bun? Are you sure you want to pee into that lawyer’s mouth for $200? The implication, of course, always being: because you might not like it! But it’s like…okay, so what?

  As women, we’re led to believe that a negative sexual experience can be devastating—that if some asshole crosses one of our sexual boundaries, or if we leave the orgy feeling fat and uncomfortable instead of enlightened, that we might never recover. But why do women always have to be the “victims” of sex? Why is it that in nearly every area of our lives we are encouraged to take risks and try new things—to Lean In and play hard—but when it comes to sex, we’re like, “Be safe or you’ll end up traumatized or dead”? These doomsday ideas become self-fulfilling prophecies, cultivating a type of sexual fragility that I don’t think is healthy.

  It’s true that sex can be high-risk. Things go wrong. People get hurt. But just because I had a bad sexual experience doesn’t mean that I’m broken. It means I know to avoid that thing going forward. I’ve done a lot of things in my life that it turned out I didn’t like—like that time, for instance, when I let my boyfriend tie me to a dresser while I watched him have sex with my best friend. Unsurprisingly, it was literally awful, but now at least I can say I’ve done it? The point is, there are far worse things in life than bad sex (like a hangover, for example).

  Of course, sexual assault is real, and should not be tolerated under any circumstances. But assault is separate from the concept of victimhood. Feeling like a victim is a subjective headspace. Think about it this way: Men are taught that there is no such thing as a negative sexual experience. From a young age, boys are es
sentially taught: All sex is good sex; take what you can get; even a bad blow job is a good blow job. Pretty much the only quasi-negative sexual experience that you ever see a man have in a movie is the trope of a guy being tricked into sex with a fat or ugly woman—which, of course, is never traumatic for him, but rather a comical encounter that provides fodder for banter with his friends the next morning. But when a woman is coerced into sex, she spends the rest of the movie crying in the shower and developing a cheesy nineties-throwback self-harm habit.

  It’s no secret that female sexuality has long been policed. But today we’ve created an environment where (allegedly predatory) male sexuality needs to be policed, and (allegedly passive) female sexuality needs to be protected—which seems equally tragic to me. At the heart of the victim narrative is a familiar and unfortunate premise: the idea that, by having sex, men are getting something, whereas women are giving something up. It’s outdated, it’s offensive, and it’s psychologically destructive for women, because it has the power to mislead girls into thinking that having one not-ideal sexual experience means that they have lost a part of themselves. Hello—pitying and victimizing women doesn’t help us; it just dismisses the importance of female sexual agency.

  Back in the mid-1960s, universities set curfews for their female students, whereas men were allowed to stay out as late as they pleased. It was then that a faction of the feminist movement, in part lead by Camille Paglia—the controversial feminist, academic, and writer, who back then was a college student—fought to gain the same freedoms that men had. They rejected the need for special protections, instead wanting autonomy over their private lives. They said: “Give us the freedom to risk rape.” Of course, that sounds jarring. But the point they were making is relevant still: We would rather be free in the world and accept whatever risk comes along with that than be trapped inside, endlessly braiding each other’s hair like passive Rapunzels.