What the slut sign?

By Ali Reynolds, guest blogger

“A slut: a woman with the morals of a man.”

“Wait, what?” was the first reaction I had to reading this. It was painted on a sign for sale at a store. If you were wondering, the price was $29.99.

I was looking at this wondering what this statement was supposed to be saying. After sitting and looking at it for quite some time, it dawned on me: I have no idea what this means.

This could mean so many things, for both men and women. For men, this is implying that we as a society assume men have really low morals. We accept the fact that they are men, the “boys will be boys” theory, and let them be the jerks we see them as. We, with this statement, are granting men the right to say, “Yeah, I can be a real meathead because that is the way I am supposed to be.”

Disgusting. It is just horrifying to me that we assume and allow men to think that they can be such jerks because it is programmed into them. That is completely unfair to all my male friends who are sweethearts and just want someone to love. Sure, I know guys who have been with only one partner and I know guys who have been with many. They make their life choices. I don’t care how many partners they have slept with, only that they treat each and every one with the respect any human deserves. As long as every relationship is healthy and respectful, I don’t care what happens.

Then this sign also focuses on how we see women. The definition of slut has always been altered slightly, but to many people, it mostly means the same thing. It means that the girl being called slut sleeps around with a lot of partners and doesn’t care about any of them. Ergo, they act like men.

This statement says a lot of how we view women. Apparently if a woman has multiple partners in her lifetime, she is dirty and less of a woman than anyone else. Society views women as an object that should attract all men, but should only choose one to serve and be with forever. That doesn’t make sense at all.

Why can’t I, as a woman, decide that I want to meet people and know them on an intimate level? Then, when I find fitting, why can’t I say goodbye to that person and move on to being with someone else that makes me happy? Why can I only have one shot at being with someone in the intimate way sex provides?

This whole idea of lowering our standards and morals as humans in order to be able to enjoy sex is just incredibly hard to understand. Sex is a part of our society, there is no away around it. And that is what this sign is saying. This sign, to me, is saying that in order for a woman to enjoy the act of sex or making love, she has to lower her morals and standards to the assumed level of a man’s.

Society doesn’t make sense. That sign doesn’t make sense. I didn’t buy it.