"Are you a ho or do you just want others to be?"

(FYI, this is part of this freewriting I'm attemping to do every day. So far, in July, I think I've done 4. Won't be posting them all but on occasion I will be. Hopefully it'll get me at least writing something every day. I also took a cue from probably my favorite piece of writing by Tristan Taormino, this old Boston Phoenix "Rear Guard" column entitled "Shocking the unshockable," about going on Howard Stern.)

Johnny emailed me on MySpace not once but twice yesterday to ask me “Are you a ho or do you just want others to be them? While I know I should probably ignore anything that comes into my MySpace inbox, I feel compelled to answer. My first thought was an indignant “no,” and of course, that’s the easy answer. Does he mean “ho” as in “slut” or “ho” as in “whore?” The first is debatable, the second, well, no. But not only are some of my best friends whores, who have taught me so much and who struggle with issues I’ll never know, but we’re meant to protest, to deny, to distance ourselves so far from “those women.”

But if he means “ho” as in “slut,” well then, there’s another unanswerable question. There’s no winning that game, despite what The New York Times might say, because people are going to make up their minds and answer that for themselves no matter what. There really is no magic formula to become a slut, and it’s not just about numbers. Look at the scorn that was heaped upon Monica Lewinsky—and she could at least say she did it for love! But still, under the desk? Flashing her thong? One can be a virgin and still get labeled a slut, yet many women still try to win at that game, to protest against the slur rather than the question and the division.

We all have to draw those lines for ourselves and figure out what makes us feel good about ourselves, what our goals are, and when and how we want to have sex. It’s been a huge learning curve for me, especially in the last two years; trial and error, emphasis on the error.

As for the second part of the question, I don’t want anyone to “be” anything or do anything sexually—other than what they want to do. That’s what I’m going to look at in Sexual Freedom for All, in terms of how people’s sexual options are constrained, whether legally, through laws banning owning a given number of dildos or vibrators and the inherent anti-sex nature of our obscenity law, which puts “prurient interest” on such a low rung it may as well be “murderous interest,” to social shaming and other ways in which we don’t promote a truly sexually free society. I don’t think defending the right to make our own choices regarding when and how we have sex means that I’m necessarily saying that people should have a certain amount of sex or with a given number of partners. But, for instance, the practice of sleeping with exes solely to keep one’s “number” down, I do find that sad, because it’s playing right into the hands of a question like this.

It’s letting others dictate how you perceive yourself. The problem is, though, they very likely have already decided. So yes, I’m a slut in that I’ve had sex with probably more people than this person would find “acceptable.” You can find naked photos of me online. I’ve written about sex acts I enjoy. But do I feel like a slut? Most of the time, no, and when I do, I try to watch whether it’s in a good or bad way. I can get off on “acting slutty” when the circumstances are right, but most of the time, I’m not dating or having sex and right now don’t plan to for a long while, so no, I don’t feel like a slut at this very moment in time. And what I’ve had to grapple with on a personal level is the consequences of “acting slutty,” and those have given me a lot of pause. Poor choices have meant that I’ve slept with some people who make my skin crawl, who make me want to vomit, who make me want to die. Who make me wish I could be anyone else than the girl who slept with those people. But I’m not and I can’t change the past, only the present.

I might turn the question around to him though. “Do you feel like a ho or do you just want others to be them?” Because I think men rarely ask themselves any of the questions that I’m pretty sure most women grapple with at one time. It’s not just guilt, but confusion, because on the one hand, we are often rewarded for “looking” or “acting slutty,” but on the other, we are castigated. I have a chapter about Monica Lewinsky and Jessica Cutler (and other women too) which will explore this in more depth. There’s that cultural fascination and yet revulsion, within the same breath practically. And from their former lovers, even quite explicitly; one need only look at the responses of Bill Clinton and Robert Steinbuch to see the allure of a girl who wants them and then their quickness to distance themselves.

So my real answer is not that it’s none of your business, but I don’t know, but I can’t live my life in such a way as to try to escape the slings and barbs of someone who’s already predisposed to judging me, because I’ll always lose that game. I could very likely never have sex again and go to a sperm bank and become a mom, and truly, if I had the money, I might do that right now (well, maybe not never have sex again). But there’s no way to “atone” for one’s sluttiness; it’s a mark that stays with you forever, and I think the answer has to be deciding for ourselves whether we will let the word or the judgments matter, whether we will try to live our lives for other people, or for ourselves. That doesn’t mean there aren’t countless factors to consider when deciding whether to have sex with someone; sometimes I’ve ignored every one of them and just jumped in headfirst, and now I probably err on the opposite side. But those are such personal and complex decisions, ones that nobody can dictate for us.