Living as a modern woman these days seems to come with a daily reminder of one ridiculous gender double standard after the other – and today’s reminder comes in the form of slut shaming.
After sex and relationships podcaster Oloni put out a call out for the ‘juiciest sex stories’ from DLT Malta Festival 2023, the replies came in with tales of women living their best lives.
One response, however, got a rather divided reception. Anonymously, a follower of the podcast divulged her sexual adventures during the festival: ‘the alcohol was flowing and I was ready to hoe out so I ended up having sex with 6 different guys over the 6 days that I was there,’ they posted.
‘On one of the last days of trips I f**ked 3 guys in one day,” they added, going on to describe the highlights of said experiences and the mirror on the ceiling of one of the hotels she stayed at.
While some replied dubbing the story ‘every girl’s dream’ and describing to our anonymous poster as ‘DLT’s Michael Jordan’, others were less supportive, and turned to slut shaming.
‘I’m all for the nasty, but 6 dudes in 6 days is nasty nasty,’ one posted, another adding ‘this ain’t even hot + fly, this is just dirty’.
The misogyny continued, with another (male) user tweeting ‘I can’t be working with mileage like this’ and another generalising tweet reading ‘women are not good people’.
This woman’s behaviour was described as ‘filthy in every way’, an unnecessary and damaging moralisation of her perfectly natural impulse to have sex with multiple partners.
But here’s the clincher – we know very well that if a man had posted online about doing the same thing, or discussed doing so down the pub with his friends, whether or not he was ‘filthy’ or ‘good people’ would not be up for discussion.
The deeply entrenched impulse to shame a woman enjoying and acting out her sexual desires is yet another tiring reminder of the gender-based double standard between men and women.
On top of being paid less and treated less efficiently by our healthcare system than men, women face social sanctioning for embracing their sexuality. If a man had sex with 6 women in 6 days he’d likely be lorded as a legend amongst mortals, because a man’s number of sexual partners gives him currency, while a woman’s makes society question her sexual ‘purity’ – a whole other currency that we should not be ascribing to.
Slut shaming has been proven to affect mental health, being linked to anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and even suicide, and sexual confidence is undeniable, and could make those subjected to it more vulnerable to sexual violence. There’s too much at stake here to base a woman’s worth on her own personal choices when it comes to her body and sexual enjoyment.
Plus, the key takeaway from this woman’s story isn’t even her number of partners, or the details divulged during these encounters. It’s that she’d would ‘do it all again’, and so she should – with no shame from others.