I will stand in the rain on the corner...

It’s pouring here, the kind of rain that’s perfect for a first date. Two people who’ve just met, or met last week, or who’ve known each other for years and were suddenly drawn to each other by the immense heat of the past week – they’re out on the town, glowing, giving each other those looks. I saw those looks over and over tonight, before the rain started. “I can’t believe you’re with me,” is what that look says, and to anyone who will pay attention, “look! she’s with me!”

And then the rain starts, and sheer summer shirts stick to wet skin, and suddenly everyone is laughing. Rain like this always feels a little absurd because it seems to come from nowhere, and when it comes it isn’t kidding. You’ve got no chance to prepare yourself for this. Couples on first dates stand together under awnings, laughing and wringing out their shirts, proffering jackets, offering to hold umbrellas, gauging the probability that the rain will let up and considering making a run for it, whatever ‘it’ happens to be. And they’re grinning. They look like drowned rats, and yet somehow they just can’t wipe the smiles off their faces. I hope they take advantage of the downpour – few things are more romantic than making out in that kind of driving rain, especially when it comes on the heels of this kind of heat and humidity. I hope they tell their kids one day about getting caught in a downpour on their first date.

I walked home alone, my umbrella stowed away in my bag, my flip-flops squeak-squeaking as I struggled to keep them from sliding off my feet. Rain like this is meant for running through grass and on blacktop in bare feet and rolled up jeans (or, y’know, underwear), seeing who can make the biggest splash. Poorly drained city streets with god knows what in the stormwater aren’t made for that kind of romping. But city streets in summer storms were made for first dates.

(photo: Amanda a la drowned rat, El Yunque PR. Somehow we managed to forget that it would probably rain in the rainforest. Man, that was an awesome day.)

Slut

I’m not really a slut in the classic sense. I’ve had my fair share of sexual partners, sure, but they’ve all been people I’ve known for some length of time and given some thought to. Even my one and only one night stand was with someone I’d known casually for years. Despite the fact that there are people in my life who have more or less called me a slut, and the fact that my mother still worries about my reputation, I’m not what most people would consider a slut.

But there’s a word – a bedroom word – that makes me weak in the knees. Rachel Kramer Bussel thinks everyone has one, and she may be right, but I know for certain that I have one.

It’s slut.


I get a little shivery just typing it, actually. I had fantasies about that word for a year or so before someone finally unleashed it on me. It was one of my most secret fantasies, because (as a 14 year old feminist) my rational brain thought it was horribly degrading. How could I be so turned on by something so against my politics? But one afternoon, after we’d been having sex for about a year and a half, my high school boyfriend pinned my arms above my head and whispered “You’re such a little slut” into my ear.

I went absolutely wild. I locked my eyes with his for a second, and then I was finally able to act out the fantasy I’d been having in my head for years. It’s not a very complex fantasy: the person I’m with calls me a slut, and I say I’m sorry for being such a slut, and then he (or she) has his (or her) way with me (this is one of my few equal-opportunity fantasies). Of course, he brought out the s-word because he’d seen it in porn and read it in erotica, but it didn’t matter to me where it came from. All that mattered was that my dirty little secret was out in the open.

For the rest of the time we dated, he expanded on the “slut” theme. Words like “cockslut” and “cumslut” became part of our bedroom vocabulary. I’ve said a lot of mean things about this particular ex and his sexual prowess in the past several years, but I’ve got to hand it to him: he knew how to talk dirty.

Why Slut? My theory is that it allows me to let my sexually ravenous side out. After all, if the person I’m with knows my dirty little secret – that deep inside of this innocent looking blonde girl is a debauched, wanton harlot just waiting to make her appearance – well then, why hide it?

Years later, I was up against the wall of my dorm room, pants around my ankles, being done with such force that I thought my knees would buckle. Call me slut, I pleaded in my head, tell me I’m your dirty little slut. I wasn’t quite ready to give voice to that taboo desire in the context of my new-ish relationship, though, and apparently my telepathic skills were a little out of practice that evening.

When it was over, we collapsed onto my bed and I curled up against his chest. After a few minutes of conversation about the power-structure of our sexual relationship, he tentatively asked if there was anything I was particularly opposed to. Was he asking what I hoped he was asking? I began a faltering answer, unsure if he really meant what I thought he did, but he cut me off.

“Any words, I mean,” he clarified.

He was asking! I told him in a rush that I wasn’t easily offended and in fact I love being called slut, and he let out a long breath and told me that was the exact word he’d wanted to use, but he hadn’t wanted to offend me. Apparently my slut nature is more obvious to the people I sleep with than I realized! We spent the rest of the evening proving to each other that the label was an appropriate one.

So there, now you all know my dirty little secret. Just for the record, it doesn’t work unless I’m already attracted to you – if someone walked up to me on the street and called me a slut, I’d punch him in the balls and be done with it. But in bed… mmmph. Hearing that word makes any sex better.

Great Moments in Sex Education

I’m a sex educator, but that hasn’t always meant that I’m as careful as I should be. Just like pretty much every other young person I know, my high school self was convinced that she was invincible. As the following story demonstrates, though, by the time I was a sophomore in college the sex-ed message had taken hold.

“Your tits look amazing in that dress,” Virginia said breathlessly, leaning in to me. It sounded so vulgar; coming out of her mouth, that only made it hotter. She had shown up to the party in a black silk slip with a black ribbon around her neck, next to which her skin was that perfect shade of creamy white you always hear described in smutty stories. Her flask was tucked into the lace at the top of her thigh-high stockings. She looked amazing, and she was paying attention to me. My cheeks felt hot. “Your tits look amazing.” How was I supposed to respond to that? “Thanks! Want to go upstairs and do it?” No, no. I didn’t want to scare her away. Everyone said Virginia scared easily when it came to relationships.

I waited until she turned back to the entertainment – drunken college a Capella – before resting my hand on the base of her neck. I traced a pattern there with my fingernail. She shivered. I stopped, just in case I was annoying her, but she pulled my hand back to her neck without even looking at me.

By the time the party moved upstairs to my bedroom I was drunk and desperate to get her out of that little black slip. On my bed, in front of a room full of people, she was taking off my borrowed stilettos and kissing and biting her way up my leg. The rest of the room was oblivious until Virginia reached the back of my knee – and sucked on it. Hard. Let me tell you, if you’ve never had the back of your knee sucked on, you’re missing out. I gasped and cried out, and the entire room turned to look – and then left. Quickly.

I flipped Virginia onto her back, kissed her mouth – hard – and her neck, pulled the straps of her slip down over her shoulders and touched and kissed as much of that creamy white skin of hers as I could manage. She was breathing hard. I was in heaven. I couldn’t believe my luck in having this beautiful, brilliant creature underneath me. I kissed her thighs, slid my hand over her underwear, moved my mouth higher and started to pull the damp material away from her body. My heart was pounding. I’d been looking forward to this moment for months, ever since she’d pushed me up against a door and left me with a hickey that no amount of makeup would cover.

“Wait,” she said, reaching a hand down to stop me. “I have my period.”

I think I laughed. Of course she had her period. “Me too,” I said, letting out a deep breath. I felt like someone had popped my balloon. There’s always a risk of STI transmission during oral sex on a woman, but when there’s blood present that risk is much higher. And did I have any dental dams? Or even a non-lubricated condom for turning into a dental dam? Oh no, that would just have been too convenient. But I was well past feeling invincible at this point – an STI scare or two had ended my days of unnecessary risk, and apparently this thing with Virginia wasn’t supposed to happen after all.

In the long run, it’s okay with me that she and I didn’t end up having the kind of sex I’d imagined that night. It wasn’t okay with me at the time, of course, but I know I made the right decision, because finally – in college – I had gotten the kind of sex education that I should have gotten years before.

Scarleteen, a website devoted to promoting sexual health among young people, provides the exact kind of sex education that young people should be getting. The fact that it’s run independently means that it isn’t subject to the kinds of restrictions that many other youth sex ed sites are (although still subject federal “decency” regulations), but it also means that the entire site is completely donor-funded. So, if science-based, realistic, respectful and intelligent sex education is important to you, please consider making a donation!