I Regret Being A (Low Grade) Slut

Bridget Phetasy brought a little hope to everyone who is waiting for women to get tired of being sluts, with all the predictable bad consequences.

I’m one of those sluts. …

It’s a tough needle to thread. I’m grateful for the ability to control my reproductive cycle and make my own money. But that freedom has come at a price. The dark side of the sexual revolution is that even though it liberated women—unyoking sex from consequences has primarily benefited men.

I was first inspired to write this piece when a 19-year-old woman I used to wait tables with asked me: “Bridget, have you ever regretted having sex with a man?”

I laughed. “Yeah. All of them.”

She was brought up a Catholic no-sex-before-marriage girl.

Long before I ever had sex, I felt ashamed of my natural sexual urges and awkward in my blossoming female body. Growing up Catholic, all I remember about sex was feeling bad about it before I even knew what “it” was. I only knew that sex before marriage was wrong. Even the thought of a sexual act or masturbation filled me with debilitating guilt. The first time I kissed a boy, I was convinced I’d be punished. Struck down by an angry, misogynistic God.

As I got older, I was told to guard my virginity. Well-meaning mothers and aunts were clear that I needed to withhold sex in order to get a man to love and respect me. Sex was a commodity, a priceless gem I had to hang on to that increased in value the longer I held it. It made me feel like property. And although I don’t think that was the intention of the wise women who had learned their own lessons the hard way, for me, sex became inextricably linked to my self-worth.

The shame and guilt I grew up with regarding sex felt oppressive. I resented the double standard that men could be promiscuous and it would raise their status and a woman would be slut-shamed for similar behavior. My burgeoning sexuality would unfold as a reaction to these repressive religious orthodoxies, old school notions of sexual status, and trauma.

Now age 43, she is on her second husband. What happened to the first? Most women will not get any second chances going forward. It is becoming conventional wisdom among men that, whatever a woman says, it is 90% likely that she blew up the family and her husband for no good reason (“I’m not haaaaaaappy”), and you do not want to marry women who already have a track record of blowing up their families and husbands for no good reason, plus the detritus and wreckage that results (children of single moms).

At this point, you might expect a little reflection on the principles she was taught as a girl, and why they existed for centuries and even millennia. After all this experience, what would she tell her own daughter?

This is a tragedy.

I’m not suggesting we return to some Victorian era notion of sex or some 1950s era ideal about gender roles. I’m now 43-years-old and I’m in the first truly healthy, intimate relationship in my life with my (second) husband. We recently had a daughter. And in the wake of her birth I’ve been thinking a lot about the conversations I’m going to have with her and the conversations I wish I could go back in time and have with a young Bridget.

I’d tell her:

Sex can be empowering when you’re coming from a position of healthy self-esteem. If you’re coming from a place of trauma or insecurity, casual sex won’t heal that. In fact, it might set you back and undermine any progress regarding your feelings of self-worth. If you know your value, you’re less likely to sleep with someone who doesn’t value you. Cherish yourself and you will be cherished.

You shouldn’t have to withhold sex for a man to respect you; he should respect you regardless. Sexual empowerment has nothing to do with how many people you do or don’t sleep with—it has to do with how comfortable you are in your skin—no matter your decision. It’s not about waiting until you’re in love to have sex; it’s about making sure that first, you love yourself.

Don’t ignore that nagging gut instinct telling you “sexual liberation” leaves you feeling unfulfilled. You can still be sex-positive and accept that for you, sex can’t be liberated from intimacy and a meaningful relationship.

I regret being a slut. I regret it because I regret that those men can say they slept with me.

Still, that’s how I know I finally value myself.

Every woman should feel this way: Sleeping with me is a privilege. And you have to be worthy.

You gotta be kidding me. Basically, she says: “You should be a slut too, but be a higher class slut than I was.”

In other words, “I have high standards,” which is very popular these days among women age 25+.

Basically, she wants to be a slut with better-looking guys. She wants to swipe left on not only 90% of men on Tinder, but 98%. Or, you have to buy her dinner before she has sex with you. She doesn’t make the connection that, if you are one of the 2% of guys that all the women “with high standards” want to have sex with, you can treat them poorly. Actually, poor treatment is a chief indicator of high status for women, such that, if you just treat women poorly, they assume that you are high status, even if that is not the case at all. (Basically, this is a core element of “game,” which works, or men wouldn’t do it.) Cause and Effect.

This is why Matriarchy Does Not Exist. Women crash and burn, but they can’t figure out the reasons why they crashed and burned. They cannot create structures, or Frame. They can just complain about the outcomes. At the end of the day — or, I should say, at the end of about 25 years of dating and marriage — she continues to uphold the current Feminist “frame,” the Tribe that she has decided to join (mainstream Leftist), hoping that a few minor tweaks (“higher standards”) will somehow create dramatically different outcomes. They will not.

This is why I tell girls: No sex before marriage. (No kissing, actually, since kissing is basically foreplay.) Find a husband. Get married young, ideally around 18-20. Have a lot of children.