You’re sitting with your friends talking about that party last night. The conversation is harmless, until your best friend brings up a girl you don’t know. Before even mentioning her name, your friend goes into a tell-all description of every person this girl has slept with. It’s not a very long list in your opinion, but your other friends are all being very receptive: cringing, inquiring, pulling her up on Instagram and scrolling through her photos in a condescending way.
You start to think about the people you’ve slept with. I mean sure, you don’t think you’ve done anything wrong, but have you had sex with more people than all your friends? Suddenly, you feel embarrassed. If this is how they react to this other girl’s sex life, you feel like you definitely shouldn’t bring up yours.
Girls love to talk about everything, including other girls. Gossiping is a part of nature–it’s often unavoidable. One thing people love to talk about is other people’s sex lives. The term ‘easy’ gets tossed around as if any girl who has sex with multiple partners must have no standards. The worst part is, often girls are deemed this way by other girls who may be going through the exact same thing.
Obviously the idea of casual sex has advanced in modern society compared to how it was perceived just ten years ago. It seems like everyone’s having sex–maybe because of social media and other external influences amping up the idea of people having the freedom to do whatever makes them happy.
But has progress really been made? We are told that times have changed and that sex is our choice, but it doesn’t feel that way. Through gossip, sex has become a way to put one another down. Wearing revealing clothing and posting a scandalous photo on Instagram is seen as a strong negative. Some say by doing this, it’s a woman’s fault that men are always turned on.
Honestly, sex is a great thing. It’s something that humans need and some people enjoy doing. So why does the number of people someone has slept with matter, as long as no one’s getting hurt and is safe?
At the end of the day, if you feel bad about having sex solely because of what other people might think, it’s not worth it. If you want to have sex all the time, if you’re completely opposed to hooking up with random people, or if you don’t want to have sex at all, that’s no one’s business except your own.
Sex needs to stop being a defining trait of people and needs to be seen only for what it is: an act of intimacy between people.
So girls, next time you wake up in someone else’s bed and instantly think about how you’re going to be talked about, or if other girls will find out–take a deep breath. You did not commit a crime. You are not any less of a person you were before this happened. You did something that in the moment made you happy, and you should never second guess yourself for that.