Why Consciously Awake Women Are Sluts
About Me
Candice Holdorf is an erotic writer + performer, as well as a teacher of sexuality + orgasm. She is a regular contributor to Elephant Journal and The Good Men Project and maintains her own blog, The Orgasmic Life. She is passionate about helping people delve into the taboo places in their lives, whether it be though her coaching or her art. She is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and a co-founder of NYC's award-winning, Flux Theatre Ensemble. She received her sexuality coaching training at OneTaste and now teaches the practice of Orgasmic Meditation. She is a recovering anorexic and former yoga teacher. She currently resides in San Francisco with her beloved husband and their two snakes.
About Me
Candice Holdorf is an erotic writer + performer, as well as a teacher of sexuality + orgasm. She is a regular contributor to Elephant Journal and The Good Men Project and maintains her own blog, The Orgasmic Life. She is passionate about helping people delve into the taboo places in their lives, whether it be though her coaching or her art. She is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and a co-founder of NYC's award-winning, Flux Theatre Ensemble. She received her sexuality coaching training at OneTaste and now teaches the practice of Orgasmic Meditation. She is a recovering anorexic and former yoga teacher. She currently resides in San Francisco with her beloved husband and their two snakes.I remember the first time someone called me a slut.
I was 12 years old. It was 7th grade. And I had just completed my usual 7:30am routine in the bathroom mirror.
Partial ponytail affixed to head via fuchsia scrunchie? Check. Strawberry ChapStick plus Lisa Frank lip gloss? Double Check. And that day…a fresh coat of Wet ‘N Wild blue eye shadow and mascara from a recent trip to Drug Emporium.
I stepped out of the girl’s bathroom, ready to take on Algebra, when these two guys (one of whom I had the HUGEST crush on) started giggling.
“What?” I asked, attempting display my best “I-don’t-really-care-what-you-think-of-me” attitude.
“You look like a prostitute,” said one of the boys.
I’d never heard that word before, but it didn’t sound very good.
“What’s that mean?” I asked, again with my signature teenage faux nonchalance.
“You know…a slut. A whore.”
I wanted my face to melt off right there. I was shocked that anyone would think of me that way. I’d never even kissed a guy. Hell, I hadn’t even started my period yet (though if you had asked me back then, I would have pretended otherwise).
I rolled my eyes and walked off in a dismissive huff. But his words stuck with me.
There I was, the epitome of society’s definition of virgin, yet already bearing the cultural shame of being a woman who engaged in a lot of sex.
To add even more confusion to the mix, part of me liked being thought of as someone who was sexually precocious. I yearned to doff the “little girl” image, but I also knew I wasn’t quite ready to “go all the way.” All of this because I decided to experiment with a little makeup.
And so there began the split between my innocent self and the one who felt desire.
Why Consciously Awake Woman Are Sluts, Whores .. And Virgins
Fast forward several years later, I still sometimes feel myself yo-yoing between the poles of virgin and the slut.
Breaking the bondage of shame is a slow process requiring a lot of compassion. However, freedom is found when we embrace the whole of who we are as women. We can do this by stepping out of the current cultural definitions of these words, and rediscovering the roots of their true meanings.
Follow MyTinySecrets on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube ♡
The Virgin
First let’s look at the word virgin. Most of us think of a virgin as a woman who has never had vaginal intercourse.
However, the original Latin meaning of virgin was a woman who was not betrothed, married or bound to any man. Essentially, she was a whole being and sexually autonomous.
It was later, when the patriarchal creators of history, religion and culture tried to strip women of their autonomy, that the term came to mean “a woman who was undefiled by sex.”
Virgin then became (and still is) a social requirement for a woman to be marriageable and it is up to her father to protect this “virtue” before passing her on, like chattel, to a husband, who then carries the burden of guarding her virtue.
At no point within this exchange is a virginal woman erotically free, but must engage with her sex only in relationship to the men around her.
MUST READ: Sexy Consciously Awake Women: Who We Are, What We Want & Need From Men
The Slut
To deter women from losing their patriarchally-defined virgin status, society then created an image of the “dirty” woman with loose morals known as slut.
However, the first known use of the word slut was not in reference to women, but to men.
In 1386 Geoffrey Chaucer used the word sluttish to describe a slovenly man. It didn’t take patriarchy long to refer to women with “slovenly” reputations as sluts but the term’s definition did vacillate for several centuries. Even in the 17th century when Samuel Pepys used slut to describe a young servant girl, it was with affection, not rancor.
These days though, slut is used almost exclusively to describe a woman who enjoys sex at her leisure – and if the term does refer to a man, it is almost always accompanied with the descriptive qualifier “male” in front of the word slut.
MUST READ: Why Prostitutes Should Rule The World
The Whore
Going one step further into our inquiry, we can look at the etymology of whore, a term often used as an interchangeable epithet for slut, and find its roots in the Proto-Germanic word “horaz” meaning “one who desires.”
But again, in keeping with the ideals of modern patriarchy, to display even the slightest inkling of passion or desire, is to betray the revered ideal of virginal womanhood and thus be branded the pejorative interpretation of slut or whore.
All these words, virgin, slut and whore, in their modern day iterations, present a starkly different range of femininity based in shame.
They are not who we are, but shadow aspects born out of oppressive dogma meant to dominate – not to liberate.
In freeing the roots of our language, we too, as women, find ourselves freed from the internal split created between these archetypal aspects of ourselves.
MUST READ: Why Consciously Awake Women Are “Cunts”
The virgin and the slut teach us that both our sexual autonomy and desire are not just acceptable, but noble guides on the heroine’s journey.
In embracing them not as foils, but as partners, we embrace the totality of all that is “woman” and discover that our erotic feminine essence is not born of original sin, but original wisdom.
Author: Candice Holdorf | Featured Artist: Cesar Santo
MUST-WATCH: The Slut [A Poem]
Related Posts
6 Things {Sexy Consciously Awake} Women Want From Sex
5 Signs You’ve Found An Evolved Man & Why You Should Be Scared Sh*tless!
Join The Secret Sunday List & Get 1 FREE Actionable Secret Every Sunday.
But but…
The problem is WOMEN are never expected to clean up the messes they create with their own behavior. If women had to face the consequences of their actions, then fine, I’m all for it. But you ignore how many privileges women have. You ignore the fact that it’s a combination of men, society, and the children of the women who must share the burden of a woman’s sexual consequences. And then you argue that a woman should not even then! What about children born out of wedlock? What about husbands and fathers expected to support unfaithful women and bastard children? What about the incredible burden that is placed on society.
What about them? Many women take care of their young by themselves. Many men step up where other men don’t. At the same time you can say the exact same thing about men spreading their seed all over the earth and never supporting their children.
WHAT Privilege’s?! And what Messes? Like you MEN don’t cause shit just as major as women.
Women carry the consequences of their sexual behavior every single day, and have since the dawn of time. What world are you living in? Men can walk away, but women are responsible for managing their birth control, raising their children, managing their gynecological health, and dealing with emotional and social consequences. And we do it all so well that boneheads like you can’t even see it.
“our erotic feminine essence is not born of original sin, but original wisdom.”
Its neither. Our sins and wisdoms are some thing that each of us as individuals create in our lives through our conduct. It doesn’t come with being a woman.
You are goddamn right….I am a man and i absolutely love when i see women who can be free…People will always put social pressure on both sexes and it doesnt matter who is more hurt, all that matters is how you overcome it for both sexes.My 4 tips for being free are: 1)Have a straight mindset,personality and reality.This is ESSENTIAL! 2)You dont have to be around with people who put social pressure on you.Everyone will try to shame for no reason. 3)Try and learn how to free yourself rather than wait for others (boys or women). 4)Dont go overboard and have limits.–> In my life it is common that i see women near 30 to have established all of this in their lives.Not many examples in 20-25 range…….Just my side of the story(22 y old-male)
Thank you so much for this article, Candice! It sparked my own exploration of these words, which I respectfully offer here:
https://www.opalmccarthy.com/blog/a-woman-names-herself
“While I acknowledge the power in learning the history of, and thus transforming, our understanding of the words “slut,” “whore,” and “virgin,” I am alarmed by what the world will feel like for our daughters if we stop there. These words—in my body and psyche—will always do the dirty work of separation: separating my sacredness from my desire, separating women from their sexuality, casting the sexual woman as an exile from culture. I don’t accept this culture. From wombs and hearts like mine—who gestate a fresh form of imagination—a new culture inclusive of women’s sexual power can be born.”
This book, “Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes And The Myth Of The Slut, tells a story that is at least as urgent and dark as the one above. The author, Emily White, tells about young girls, often completely naive, who are suddenly branded as sluts. Not by just a few ignorant, mean students, but by most of the school community, students and adults. The young women are terrorized, and the school administrators are often unwilling to help. My understanding is that White observed this happening in a school she attended and felt compelled to write about it.
https://www.amazon.com/Fast-Girls-Teenage-Tribes-Myth/dp/0425191761