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Why More Women Need to Be “Sluts”
It’s time to dismantle the virginity cult
I want women to have more sexual experiences. Not to please men, but for themselves. By sexual experiences, I mean anything that feels physically good and arouses sexual feeling. This does not necessarily mean penetrative (penis-vagina) intercourse. Only if you want that. I want women to control these experiences, and to do that in ways that bring them pleasure.
The reason I want this is to dismantle the virginity cult. The idea that women’s worth is tied to their virginity is extremely dangerous and harmful to women. It is the reason more than 230 million women and girls worldwide have undergone female genital mutilation — the deliberate destruction of their genitalia so that they won’t experience pleasure in sex; it’s the reason 50,000 women a year (including three a day in the U.S.) are killed by their intimate partners and family members — even their own mothers, fathers, and brothers!— in “honor” killings and dowry disputes and romantic relationships gone bad, all having to do with controlling women — with thinking their sexuality is the purview of others and is inherently bad.
Fuck that.
No one should control a woman’s sexuality except the woman herself. And newsflash: sex is not inherently bad. It’s not bad unless you (or your…
