SEXUALITY & RELATIONSHIPS
Men Love Sluts: How the Fear of Bigger Penises Fuels Slut-Shaming
Sexual due diligence, penis metrics, dick discernment, and how the sexual shaming of women hurts both sexes.
Table of Contents
2. Men Don’t Want to Be Treated Like Women
3. How Women React to Slut-Shaming
In 1996 I was eighteen years old and had been a stripper for two years already. I hung out with a group of drug dealers, pimps, professional athletes, and a crew of four other strippers I booked for private dances with some of my rich and famous friends, who I met in the private gentlemen’s club where I worked daily double shifts. I’d been living on my own since I was sixteen years old and pulling in no less than a thousand dollars a day. I was a troubled teenage dropout, a runaway, and one hell of a hustler.
Around that time, many young women, like myself, were becoming brazenly unapologetic about their sexuality. In my peer group, we railed against society for its judgment of sexually autonomous women and refused to be judged and shamed by patriarchal conformists. Back then, we just called it not giving a fuck, and we had no idea how brave we were. Those were the days of our Lord and Savior, Lil’ Kim, when her piercing lyrics reminded us that our bodies were our own, that we could do with them what we wished, and say fuck anybody who tried to make us feel differently.
In her lyrics, Kim defiantly made anal sex a viable consideration for young black women with the admittance that she could, “Take it in the butt, yes, yes, what.”
Kim assured us sex wasn’t scary or shameful by bragging about her own prowess with, “I used to be scared of the dick, now I throw lips to the shit; handle it like a real bitch.”
She asserted both financial and sexual dominance, demanding to be satisfied as she proclaimed, “Baby, it’s a Big Momma thing. Can’t tell by the diamonds in my rings? That’s how many times I wanna cum, twenty-one, and another one, and another one.”
Lil’ Kim’s rhetoric was sexual napalm, and the fact that it was oozing out of the pretty mouth of a little Black girl from Brooklyn was shocking to much of the world, but to me, Kim was invigorating. Under the guidance of The Notorious B.I.G., she was the maestro of my life’s soundtrack, telling tales of sexual agency that weren’t much different from mine. Even as a teen, I knew the societal rules and bounds that only applied to women were bullshit.
I was already a young feminist.
A decade later, I’d come far from where I started. Approaching my thirtieth birthday, I was a married mother of one, a stepmother to another, living in a million-dollar house I bought with the money I made as a New York Times bestselling author — an honor I earned by writing stories about my wild life and times. If Lil’ Kim’s music were to manifest into a book, it would read a lot like my first one, Confessions of a Video Vixen, published under my pen name (and alter ego) Karrine Steffans, in 2005.
In 2006, I began studying female psychology, the roots of sexual shame, and male ego fragility. With my first book being taught in university Gender and Hip-Hop Studies classes around the country, I became a regular on the university lecture circuit. I was given access to some of the most influential professors on these topics and students trying to understand the resurgence of Black female sexual dominance in art, literature, and music. I learned more than I taught, and it was that on-the-job education, as well as my life experiences, studies, and the teachings of professor Kimberly “Lil’ Kim” Jones, that forged the way for my career as an author, keynote speaker, teacher, and coach.
Around 2007, I developed a concept that seemed obvious to me, although most men and women would deny its validity — men love sluts. The problem is, just as our patriarchal society has made women feel self-conscious about their sex and sexuality, it has made men feel equally as self-conscious about loving and being with sexually autonomous women. In this and many regards, patriarchy hurts men, too.
What Men Really Want is…Everything
As far as I know, straight men want women to satisfy them sexually and make their fantasies come true, among other things. Other than fetishizers, most men never want to feel a woman’s teeth scraping the shaft of his penis when receiving head or be with a woman who begrudgingly takes him into her mouth. I could be wrong, but I think men want women skilled in the art of fellatio. Furthermore, I have never met a man, necrophiliacs exempt, who wants to bed a woman who just lays there like a cold, dead fish, unable or unwilling to move her body and give as good as she gets. If I’m not mistaken, most men want experienced partners who can make them cum, and hard!
But, with the constraints of the patriarchal rules imposed only on women, how the hell is a woman supposed to learn these maneuvers? How is she supposed to gain the experience a man craves if she hasn’t been practicing, and how is she supposed to know various ways to please a man and keep his sexual interest if she hasn’t been with several men already? I mean, not every pony does the same tricks. Having multiple partners allows a woman to learn a multitude of sexual techniques, just as being with an array of women teaches men a variety of ways to please their partners.
This is what I call Sexual Due Diligence.
It is a comprehensive appraisal of the sex we’re having, what works for us, and what doesn’t. Sexual Due Diligence establishes our partners as carnal assets or liabilities and allows us to evaluate their long-term relationship potential. With this education, we gain better Dick Discernment, and with that discernment, we are better equipped to reject paramours who just aren’t good enough for us.
It is this rejection that the fragile male ego cannot risk.
Men want women who know what they’re doing in bed, but men hate to think about other penises and how they measure up in the grand scheme of Penis Politics. The shame they hurl at women for having seen, straddled, or sucked other dicks isn’t really about women being whores. Instead, it’s about sexually educated women, their knowledge of cock variations, and their abilities to judge men’s penises based on the Penis Metrics they gain when performing their Sexual Due Diligence.
If I may address only the men for a moment…if a woman has only seen one or two other penises, the chances of either one of those phalluses being bigger and prettier than yours narrows, and you have an exponential chance of impressing her. Adversely, if she has seen five, ten, fifteen, or fifty penises, she has a sliding scale of Penis Metrics used to judge your so-so schlong, and you have a higher chance of being rejected.
Historically, most men meet rejection with aggression. They form modern-day He-Man Woman Haters Clubs on the internet and in real life, targeting, stalking, shaming, assaulting, and even murdering women who don’t want them. That’s how much men hate being rejected, judged, graded, or downgraded by women. That’s how much men don’t want women to know there are better, more suitable partners available to them. In this patriarchal and oppressive society, sexually educated women are some of the most dangerous, and therefore, the most hated. I should know.
Men Don’t Want To Be Treated Like Women
Men are not accustomed to having their bodies judged or governed. They don’t know what it’s like to have the Supreme Court decide their reproductive rights, whether or not they can determine if they are prepared to be parents, when and how they can acquire birth control, cancer screenings, or basic reproductive care. Men have never been told by commercial ads and the personal care industry that their bodies are disgusting. They were never given Lysol as a douche and warned their spouses would leave them if they didn’t clean out their insides, as seen in the feminine care ads of the 1950s and 1960s. And sure, that was decades ago, during our mother’s and grandmother’s eras — but who do you think raised us and taught us about our bodies? Like every other precious natural resource on the planet, women’s bodies are governed and are always under threat and scrutiny. Men’s egos could never withstand the daily assault women face for their sexual and bodily autonomy, much less being told their dicks are small.
To reduce the risk of rejection, men invented slut-shaming. When women are shamed into not exploring their sexuality, performing their Sexual Due Diligence, and gathering the necessary Penis Metrics to engage better Dick Discernment, deciding what and who is best for them, men face fewer chances of being rejected. This shame is and has been intergenerational, worldwide, and abiding.
For generations, men have told women no one will want to marry them if they have been with too many men, whatever that means, and that they are romantically and socially less desirable for having done so. The dictionary-based definitions of words such as slut, whore, and tramp, begin with a woman who, while there are no words that demean men for their sexual agency. Women have been taught not to openly and honestly discuss their bodies’ natural and sexual functions, while men are often high-fived for locker room talk and shielded behind the bullshit excuse of “boys will be boys.” Women are shamed for the sex they have with consent and for the sex men take from them nonconsensually. If a woman knows too much about sex, she’s a threat. If she doesn’t know enough, she’s a bore. If she gives it up quickly, she’s loose, and if she holds tightly to her virtue, she’s a prude. It’s all so exhausting!
How Women May React to Slut-Shaming
Sometimes, when women are made to feel ashamed of their sexual urges and behaviors, they deny their sexual histories and the education they have gained by performing their Sexual Due Diligence. They pretend they are not sexual beings, denying other women and even their daughters the privilege of learning from their sexual experiences, mistakes, and abuses. They judge themselves harshly and, in turn, judge other women more severely, making them part of the patriarchy they claim to despise.
For some women, sexual shame stops them in their tracks. They settle for men who aren’t right for them in a myriad of ways, including sexually, just to be able to say they’ve only been with one or two men their entire lives. They’ve missed out on the joys and pains of dating and the education that comes from experiencing a variety of relationships and sexual experiences. That education isn’t just on the subject of men and their penises, mind you. It is also an education in love, boundaries, desires, and dislikes. It is an education in a woman’s body and all the things it can do when touched and penetrated in different ways, an education in the vast capabilities of her heart and mind, and of her womanhood overall.
Men Lose When Women Are Slut-Shamed
Some men want women with sexual experience, but they don’t want women to gain that experience by actually having sex. Men know there’s no other way to obtain such insights, however, so they’re entirely okay with sleeping with a sexually experienced and autonomous woman but are pressured by patriarchal constructs never to marry one. This may make sense to some men and women, in theory, but when we take a closer look at what happens when men drink their own patriarchal Kool-Aid, the imminent danger becomes palpable.
After a man (let’s call him Sam) penetrates every woman humanly possible during his bachelor years, he settles down and marries a church mouse, a so-called good girl, a woman he can take home to momma. Let’s call her Mary. Stereotypically, she’s a woman who hasn’t had much or any sexual experience and thinks his penis is the greatest. With her limited relationship and sexual history, and knowledge, she’s completely satisfied with her decision to settle down with Sam.
But he’s a different story.
Without the dark cloud of sexual shame following Sam throughout his life, our new groom felt free to explore his sexuality before marriage. He’s been around, tried a little bit of everything, and he knows what he likes! Unfortunately, his new bride isn’t into anal, deepthroating, or teabagging, and she sure-as-shit doesn’t want to be spanked. So, every night, it’s the missionary position for these two.
On a wild night, doggie-style.
Sexually unsatisfied at home, Sam goes looking for strange and finds himself cruising for available women on hook-up apps — and this is the part where the patriarchal rules touted as protection for women and the American family tears it all apart.
Sam loves to be choked and slapped while his dick is being ridden, and he’s found a few women who are happy to give him what he wants. He is emotionally and physically free with his lovers and divulges secrets he has never told his wife. He isn’t afraid or ashamed to show them his dark side and explore sexual fantasies with them. They are connected by more than just sex. They are connected by unadulterated honesty, a truthfulness Sam wouldn’t feel right sharing with his virginal wife, Mary.
After all, she’s a good girl!
These affairs go on for years until, eventually, Mary finds out her husband has been cheating. In quick succession, she files for divorce, gains custody of their children, gets the house and half the marital assets. Sam is wounded. He’s lost everything and is shamed and ridiculed when their family and friends find out what he’s done. He has failed to protect his wife and children, a tragedy that could have been avoided had he been honest about and married the sort of woman he really wants to be with — a so-called slut — a woman who displays great sexual agency and autonomy, who has probably been slandered for her sexual education, as well as her ability and willingness to choose or reject men based, in part, on sexual compatibility.
Above All Else, Love That Woman
Scenarios like this happen every day, privately and publicly, like in the case of Josh Duggar, each of them unnecessary. Slut-shaming hurts everyone, not just the sexually autonomous women at which degrading slurs are aimed. It hurts the men who are shamed into being with women with whom they are not sexually compatible, one of the most essential facets of intimate relationships, as well as trust, honesty, openness, and respect. All of these vital elements are lost when men marry according to what is expected of them instead of what curls their toes while making them feel happy, safe, and loved.
There is only one way for a woman to become “a freak in the sheets.” At some point, she had to be a freak in the streets, too. So, if you’re a man and you love a woman who can do that tornado-twisty-thing with her tongue that you once saw in a porn movie while she vibrates your shaft by humming a tune, and she loves you back — you better hold on to that woman. It took her years of dating and five or six dicks to learn that trick, and now, you get to reap the rewards of her Sexual Due Diligence.
You see, you may not have been her first, but none of the men before you were man enough to be her last. The one who shuts it down proves he’s virile enough to satisfy a woman who possesses the vast sexual knowledge and power to reject men who fall short of the high standards she has developed by doing the carnal groundwork. This is a woman who knows what she wants, what’s good and what’s trash, and who rejects mediocre men who could never keep her satisfied through the night, much less the rest of her life. And she loves you! Be proud of that, be proud of her, and above all else, love that woman.
