A little while ago, in an entry entitled The Glittery HooHa, Jennifer Crusie talked about a slutty hero who sleeps with at least twelve women before he gets to the heroine. The question that immediately popped up in my mind was: What exactly did she mean by that? Twelve women at once? Twelve women in a day? Twelve women over the course of the story before he gets to the heroine? Or just twelve women total over the course of his life?
Because if she meant the last, the hero doesn’t seem to strike me as especially promiscuous. Shit, I outstripped the dozen (hell, I outstripped the baker’s dozen) a little while ago. Though it’s entirely possible this means I’m a slutbag of the highest order.
This brought up all sorts of interesting questions for me: where are our slut lines drawn? Are they different depending on gender? Is it determined solely by number, or the way in which the character engages in the sexual encounters? Is sluttiness morally charged? Is the morality different depending on gender as well?
The number thing was especially slippery for me. I don’t, as far as I know, consciously subscribe to sexual double standards, so I don’t view a woman who’s slept with 10 people as being sluttier than a man who’s slept with as many, though the implications are different for a historical romance vs. a contemporary—it was somewhat easier for a high-born dude to reach that number than a gently-reared woman, for one, which means the woman had to have been exceptionally powerful, or exceptionally enterprising, or both.
The manner in which the sex is conducted also affects somebody’s slut rating. Were they emotionally attached to all their sexual partners? In the strange space of My Head, this makes them serially monogamous, not slutty. Sluttiness, to me, means taking on lovers solely for the sake of sexual pleasure.
Keep in mind, sluttiness is not really a morally charged issue for me. I’m all for fictional (and non-fictional) characters enjoying the fizznuckin’ for its own sake, and I certainly don’t think having many sexual partners is indicative of some kind of moral turpitude, though after a certain number, the phrase “germ farm” does tend to crop up—and again, this is especially true of historical romances.
So how many partners before somebody is considered a slut, assuming it’s over the lifetime of a character before they meet their True Lurve? I finally settled on an entirely arbitrary number: 30. If you’ve slept with more than 30 people, you’re slutty in my book. Condoms and confetti for everybuddy!
What’s your slut number?
Edited to Add:
Piezocuttlefish came up with a pretty awesome mathematical formula in the comments. Check it:
So, it’s possibly to have been a slut but to no longer be one, so one must include some sort of partners during a rolling time period. Also, people below a certain age are difficult to conceive as sluts, regardless of how accurate the internal designation may be. In my concept, if you’re eleven years old, no matter how many people you’re boinking, you may well be a slut-in-making, but you’re not there yet. Also, there’s a concept of age at play. If someone in high school boinks five people in a year, he may just be an average, exploring teenager. If a 50 year old boinks five people in a year, he’s got some serious play going on. Somehow, we have to take all these into account.
The rolling period is as follows:
high school or earlier: three months
college: five months
higher education or under 30: nine months
30 – 49: one year
50+: two yearsSQ == Slut Quotient
n == total number of sex partners
nr == number of sex partners in the effective rolling period.
ea == effective age, which I’m defining as years of age minus eleven, raised to the two-thirds power.SQ(n,ea,nr) = n / (5 * ea) + nr / 10
If your SQ is >=1, you’re probably going to be seen as a slut.
My SQ, by the way, is approximately 1.26. Vive la sluttihood!
Hmmm…good question.
To me, there is good slutty and bad slutty. Good slutty is when you dress up as slutty as you can and then have a daring little adventure with the one you love. Good slutty is fun and adds spice to a relationship.
Bad slutty isn’t a number. It’s a behavior where a woman pursues sex with a man and absolutely knows he is married or in some kind of committed relationship. And the more the potential harm that can happen, like the abandonment of small children, or compromising the health of the innocent partner with VD, the more slutty she is. Men can do this, too, but are called cads.
Cynthia
I’m with Nonnie on this one and especially with manipulative=slutty.
I think everyone should get at least one get out of jail free card, if you know what I mean, ‘cuz sometimes you just gotta.
I do have a functional question though. I had a friend who said two at once was an automatic double, as in 2=4 for your count. Whazzit?
(account22, a little less than that depending)
Isn’t slutty a shorthand to describe sexual behavior that the user of the word finds offensive? And because it is a shorthand it is open to all different kinds of interpretations depending upon your moral framework?
I.e., let’s say girl wants to go out and get laid because she hasn’t had any sex in 3 months. No serious boyfriend and doesn’t have time for one. So she dresses up in skintight skirt, fuck me heels, and heads to a place that is known for its available men (also known as any drink establishment) with condoms and the intention of having a one night stand.
That would certainly be considered slutty by some definitions and by others, not.
It’s a bit akin to what you talked about yesterday and about what readers are talking about over at Romancing the Blog.
There is a conflation (got to find a replacement word for that) of ethics and morality because morality is more rigid and less circumstantial based whereas ethics depends upon the community and the circumstances.
A formula I heard once for the tipping point is the number of years you’ve been sexually active times two. đ I don’t know if I subscribe to it, but it seems like a pretty good average.
15. Halfway there!
I don’t think I have a number, but…
Sex used with the intent to trap, manipulate or harm someone else in some fashion can only be considered slutty.
As long it’s for fun and nobody gets hurt, then I don’t see it as slutty. Certain hookups are always gonna be slutty. You know how sometimes the heroine will have been in love with her sister’s husband for ages, and then the sister dies of some horrible disease (or in a car crash) and then the heroine “inherits” the husband and/or kids, making all her fantasies come true?
I just gotta say it. EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! How can you ever get past the fact that his penis has been in your sister’s vagina? Your dead sister! That so would kill the magical moment. This taboo goes for mother, brother (in case he’s bi), auntie and grandmother (eww!) as well.
In short, if the hero has been fizznuckin’ a close family member, then he may not do the up-n-down with me. Ever.
Uh, I write about a former succubus. She is totally a slut. Well, former slut.
Me? Not that slutty.
Well, I donââŹâ˘t think a number defines sluttiness, although I do think if the word ââŹĹtrainââŹÂ could be used to describe the sexual actââŹÂŚ that would be slutty (not that there is anything wrong with that).
While sluttiness is certainly a state of mind, there’s definitely some sort of threshold beyond which someone will conclude that one is a slut. It can’t be merely a number, though . . . so out comes the mathematics!
So, it’s possibly to have been a slut but to no longer be one, so one must include some sort of partners during a rolling time period. Also, people below a certain age are difficult to conceive as sluts, regardless of how accurate the internal designation may be. In my concept, if you’re eleven years old, no matter how many people you’re boinking, you may well be a slut-in-making, but you’re not there yet. Also, there’s a concept of age at play. If someone in high school boinks five people in a year, he may just be an average, exploring teenager. If a 50 year old boinks five people in a year, he’s got some serious play going on. Somehow, we have to take all these into account.
The rolling period is as follows:
high school or earlier: three months
college: five months
higher education or under 30: nine months
30 – 49: one year
50+: two years
SQ == Slut Quotient
n == total number of sex partners
nr == number of sex partners in the effective rolling period.
ea == effective age, which I’m defining as years of age minus eleven, raised to the two-thirds power.
SQ(n,ea,nr) = n / (5 * ea) + nr / 10
If your SQ is >=1, you’re probably going to be seen as a slut.
This roughly matches your result, Candy. At your age, if you’ve had thirty partners, and two of them were in the last nine months, you’ve not slowed down enough to stop being seen as a slut.
My SQ is about 0.46, as it turns out.
I had a falling out with a childhood friend of mine because she had three relationships in a row with married / engaged / taken men. One can be written off as happenstance but three made her slutty in my mind. She knew they were taken and she went after them anyway.
Years later I heard she managed to marry one of her married men after causing a big scandal and horrible divorce.
First time poster, rather long time lurker.
I’d say it was probably to do with intent and style. For example, dressing in the most provocative way possible is slutty. Have multiple partners when the others are unaware is slutty. Using sex as a means to get things is slutty.
I reckon sluttiness is in some way our perception of what a broad cross-section of people would agree on… Maybe that sounds a little odd. I did a study on sexual behaviours and activities in my final year in college. In the course of that I came across a fascinating piece of research which asked people a question (such as number of sexual partners) and then asked them to compare this against a perceived average (i.e. do you think this is more/less than average for your peer group). Overwhelming results showed that people generally considered themselves less “slutty” than their peer group.
My conclusion is that for a lot of people the slut number is their own number plus a nice handy margin!!
Piezocuttlefish: have I mentioned lately how much I adore you? I should’ve thought to consult you before I wrote this. But some questions:
How did you come up with the Effective Age formula? And why divide the nr by 10?
Also, do you think number of *new* partners should figure into this equation?
If my calculations are correct, my SQ is 1.26. Nice! I am very comfortably within slut territory.
And to those who’ve cracked 30: How ya doin’, Slut McSluttersons? I consider myself a slut, too. Haven’t quite cracked 30, though, but I’m working on it….
Kalen: Interesting question about what constitutes sex. For me, it comes down to this very simple test: Would you have considered yourself as having lost your virginity after performing that act? This can encompass a wide variety of virginities, for example—there’s your girl cherry, your boy cherry, your butt cherry, etc. I tend to be of the “heavy making out is still heavy making out, not sex” camp of defining sex. Oral sex counts if you’re gay, but treads the line with straight people. (My SQ would go up by a little bit if I included people with whom I’d engaged in oral sex but didn’t actually fuck.)
V. interesting that the word “slutty” has lost its negative charge for me, whereas most people still use it pejoratively.
“God protected me from sluttiness with a plain face and a fat ass.”
LOL, that and the fact that I was such a nerd is high school my nickname was Angela Brittanica. I think slutty is defined as whenever you use sex for any other means than 1.) Love 2.) Procreation 3.) Pleasure. If it is used to manipulate, deceive, or hurt another “You is a skank”! Numbers don’t matter, attitude is everything.
PS I don’t consider prostitutes sluts (which some do) because that’s just business baby and like it or not in the real world we all have bills to pay.
I agree with you on the serially monogamous is not slutty assertion. And I don’t have a number, it all depends on the circumstances.
My question is why is it so unromantic for people to think about the LOVE OF THEIR LIFE, boinking someone else?
Who cares what the past number is? The real question should be: are you ever going to sleep with anyone besides me from now on as long as we both/this relationship shall live?
What about 0? Virgins ftw!
I think a lot of the time people use slutty as shorthand for one or more of the following:
1) A person with more sexual confidence than me
2) A person with more sexual experience than me
3) A person who is more open about their sexual past/present than I am
4) A person who is more sexually attractive than me/enjoys more success with the opposite sex
5) A person I am secretly a bit jealous of
Maybe that’s just me, but I think it often has more to do with the person making the judgement than the person being judged.
Candy, just a thought on your comment above about the pejorative connotations of the word slut. I was surprised you mentioned a specific number in your post. By your original definition you weren’t a slut, but now you say that IS how you think of yourself. I’m confused. You defined the category such that you weren’t included, now you’ve backtracked and said there are no negative connotations to the word for you.
I’m ambivalent about whether this sort of “re-owning” of a pejorative word is really possible. I certainly don’t think women’s sexual freedoms have advanced to the point where being called a sexy bitch or a dirty slut would be considered a compliment in most contexts.
Well, I agree context factors in here. I recently read _The Year of Yes_ and the author supports a number divided by age determination, since she feels as many here have suggested “appropriate” numbers for a 16 year old is different than a thirty year old.
But I agree with asrai that really, it should be more about what are the rules that you and I (or H and H) are going to play by now more than what might have gone before.
married79 – ha!
I don’t think you can sum that up in numbers. I know really slutty women that have slept with all of 5 men and yet I think they are sluts; I have friends that are close to three digits and I don’t think they’re slutty at all. :/ Dunno It’s not only how many people one sleeps with but also an attitute thing.
Neasa: I’m not sure how you think I’ve backtracked. In the original post, I wrote that sluttiness isn’t a morally charged term for me—and it isn’t. I noticed it wasn’t entirely clear what I meant, so I wrote my first comment clarifying the dimensions that sluttiness tend to hold for me.
As for my absolute number: I haven’t hit 30 yet, but I’m really not far away (especially if oral sex = sex). Just because I didn’t include myself in the original slut definition doesn’t mean I had some kind of fear of being considered a slut—it’s just that while I think I’ve slept with quite a few people, it hasn’t quite hit slutty proportions quit yet. I really, really like the formula given by piezocuttlefish above, which more accurately reflects one’s sluttiness than an absolute number, and which makes me most definitely a slut—I should edit the post and put that formula in there, actually, because holy crap that was a beautiful bit of geekery.
Also: interesting points about re-claiming pejorative terms. It takes time. Gay people seem to have largely succeeded with the term “queer,” for example. The term “slut” has lost a lot of its charge with my particular group of friends, but our attitudes towards sex and sexuality tend to skew quite a bit more open/liberal from the norm. It probably also helps that many of them are fans of The Ethical Slut.
seriously, I always considered slutty behavior as women who go after men that are taken, not “slutty” because of a specific number of partners.
I call women who’ve had a lot of partners ” lucky” lol
I always thought it was a number for me…probably at the 100 mark. Reading through the answers though got me re-examining my beliefs.
I would say those that said ‘why’ or ‘how’ have very valid points. I would say indiscriminate (as in you’ll do anyone) is one of my big red flags. Not being able to name the father of your kid because he/she was conceived in a gang bang is another. I would consider people that sleep w/committed men, or are themselves married/committed that cheat are slutty in my book. Or, as others have said when you don’t care how your behavior affects others (the abandoned wives/children) as long as you’re happy you qualify.
I like that formula. I would have had a ‘slutty period’ when going through a tough time, but would not be a slut now. Works for me. Though by most everyone’s definition, I never was (my magic #, so far, is 6). I believe though, that if something happened to the current husband, I’d be a big proponent of serial monogamy and my lifetime total would go up.
Sam
I think sluttiness is either: unkind, unfaithful, or unsafe to yourself or your partner[s]. Otherwise anything goes and numbers don’t count.
Personally, I’d like to read a book where it’s the h that’s sexually reckless [for a valid plotty reason.] until the hero comes along.
Am I the only one that read Emeline’s post about the dueling va-jay-jays and heard dueling bangos going off in my head? The song from Deliverance and the topic of sluttiness juxtaposed made my head hurt and my stomach feel nauseous.
Raised as a teen in the late seventies and in college in the early 80’s, when the drinking age was 18 and aids was something that helped you do something and was NOT a disease, in college we were trying to shuck our virginity like it was something inconvenient to get rid of. I went to an all girls college on the East Coast and we routinuely had overnighters at the neighboring men’s college’s after the frat parties were over on the weekend. Were we sluts? We didn’t think so!! Gloria Steinam and all the women’s libbers had set a new wave of freedom for us and birth control paved the way đ Woo hoo!
Sadly, five years later in 1987 my cousin died from aids and the country grew a conscience and sexual freedom changed for women again. ~sigh~ It was wonderful while it lasted, though. I guess I grew up in the last of the *innocent* (blush) age of free sex and burning bras!
So for me the term slut is relative. I can remember when I was able to count them on one hand, then on two hands, then when it went beyond that. Some I don’t remember, some make me blush, some I had relationships with, some I WISH I couldn’t remember their names, but I certainly don’t consider myself a slut.
So, a long way around to get to a short answer: I agree with 30. But I’m also going with Lucinda Betts and rounding it up to 30.5 because I’m sure at some point I’ve done the .5 đ
I agree that it is an attitude thing, not a number.
Entirely juvenile of me, but: one more comment, and we’ll hit 69. EVERYBODY DANCE NOW.
I’ll be your 69 slut.
Also: I say it again.
ĂâŹ.
I’m feeling ridiculously prudish reading all this – I’m basically of the opinion any naughtiness outside of a relationship tends to sluttiness.
That said, me calling anyone a slut is not usually an insult. It’s more like a friendly nickname….
Raised as a teen in the late seventies and in college in the early 80ââŹâ˘s, when the drinking age was 18 and aids was something that helped you do something and was NOT a disease, in college we were trying to shuck our virginity like it was something inconvenient to get rid of.
Oh, how I can relate!
As for the whole “slut index”- I have to agree with those who relate it to feelings. Though I didn’t “do it” with every “Tom, Dick, or Harry” that showed his face at my door- I’m not a prude. That is to say that I had more than enough experience to know when *HE* came into my life.
And to know what to do with it.
And that, my friends, does not make me a slut. It makes me a very “informed” female đ
( had41- Oh NO I didn’t!!!!!!!)
If youââŹâ˘re 30 and youââŹâ˘ve slept with the same number (i.e. 8) then you wouldnââŹâ˘t be called a slut. By me at least
Woohoo! Not a slut, according to Liz C! đ
I think a combo of the age and the recentness is a good point—someone was saying regardless of your total number, you could have previously been a slut, but no longer be one. Which I totally believe. And which implies that even if your current number is low, you could be a slut RIGHT NOW!
I definitely think I am getting sluttier as I get older!
slut = (n)+5, where n is my current total.
I’ll stop at the next one and mouth my apologies, I swear.
Woohoo! Not a slut, according to Liz C!
Hee. Well I should’ve clarified that I tend not to call anybody a slut anymore, but the high school example was what popped into my head because when I was in high school if you’d slept with even more than 1 person you were subject to the moniker.
But, I think that the younger you are and the higher your number is the more likely you are to obtain the slut name.
Anyway, am I the only person for whom slut has lost any and all meaning because of this discussion? I’ve read it and thought it in my head so much that it’s like saying ‘stick’ too many times or something.
This is a difficult question for me to answer, because the word “slut” has two…connotations for me. When I use it, it’s never serious and therefore harmless or intended to be so. But I think the world at large takes “slutty” to be a very judgemental, morally revealing word.
So in that sense, I wouldn’t say it had anything to do with the number of partners or even the motives behind sleeping with people. Slutty, therefore, is mostly synonymous with trashy – it’s someting you’re born with and you won’t ever, ever get rid of it. So it doesn’t matter how many people a girl’s slept with (or WHY she did it) – if she’s tacky and trashy about the whole thing then she’s a slut. Numbers mean nothing. The central issue is self-respect and…well, class.
And of course, when I say this, I mean it for guys as well. But it’s easier to type just one!
So, I guess I agree with Sarah and neasa’s first part.
By the way: just so that credit can be given where credit’s due, I stole the term “fizznuckin’” from Bam/Dionne Galace.
dammit, I was a slut once. Or twice.
confirm: wall99 (ha!)
Ha—I just had a similar conversation to this post this past week when a friend and I were trying to decide whether to sleep together. He was teasing me about being slutty, and I noted that while I may be easy, I am extremely picky, and therefore not slutty. Which is to say, I don’t give it away to everyone who comes along, but for the right people, it doesn’t take much.
Since entering into a consensually nonmononagmous relationship, my ideas about sluttiness have changed. It really is more about attitude than a number.
I have just come up with the perfect definition of SLUT for myself (no pun intended)
What are you when the best oral sex you’ve ever received BAR NONE came along with the WORST (and I mean WORST) 30 seconds of sex you ever had with someone you never talked to again after he drove you back to your friends apartment the next day. ~sigh~
Sadly, it wasn’t a one-night stand. I knew him. He was a friend of a mutual male friend. We became friends. We talked on the phone. He lived about an hour away. I went to visit other friends who lived there and he joined us. We went to the movies. He gave me a ride to his apartment because I didn’t feel good and my friends wanted to go bar hopping. You know the story. It wasn’t supposed to happen. It did. But now my evil friend that set us up keeps reminding me of this mistake every couple of years by mentioning him and how he’s happily married, kids, etc. I’m just glad to know he can actually stay in long enough to impregnate someone—ouch! I slapped myself I’m so mean. Horribly embarrassing memory. I’m sure it was as embarrassing for him as for me. I call him the Half-Minute Man đ But boy, was he talented at other things! Yikes!
Does this make me a slut?
I’m intrigued by the idea of manipulative=slutty, since the way I see it, manipulative is just, well, manipulative and that slutty is more having sex for the sake of physical pleasure (as opposed to, or perhaps even in addition to emotional reasons). I’m guessing the idea of manipulative (and unsafe sex, I found) comes from some sort of crossover with the concept of bitch and other negative female insults. And that once removed from the original negative meaning of simply a woman who sleeps around (a little too free with her favours) since that is a lesser or a non-existance sin, it borrows from other negative female concepts that are still sufficiently disapproved of.
That’s all rather clumsily put, I apologise.
I’m also curious of sluttiness after meeting True Love, during that period when the outcome is still unsure (those wonderful Connie Mason heroes who go limp over their mistresses) and afterwards in the more unorthadox romances.