Boo, you whore
For as long as I can remember I’ve been reduced to the word ‘ho’. Even before I’d started engaging in amorous activities and likely even before my first kiss, the scarlet letter A was cast against me.
Used as a thinly veiled insult when I rejected male advances, when I’d kissed someone and refused to let things go any further and of course when I eventually let someone hit it - I’ve always been branded as something of that nature.
At 26, and with a fairly fun sexual history behind me, I’m aghast as to how the word ho’ can still have such a torrid impact. Even with sexual liberators flooding the net, I’m still led to believe that sitting on a pretty face means that I’ll be put in the for sale bin with the other never-to-be wives. And while I really could give a toss about marriage and becoming someone’s housewife someday, it worries me slightly that a title I care so little for could be swept from underneath me, simply for enjoying orgasms. Had I known how precious virginity and purity were in the hopes of finding a mate, perhaps I’d have set aside my insufferable need to get some and instead focused on… I guess... not getting some?
The other day in an attempt to make someone else feel better, I was told that I’m able to separate my emotions from sex. Which, fair, I get. But it was said in such a tone that led me to think maybe women aren’t allowed to enjoy intercourse as much as men do and that if we do, we’re immediately whores who do not deserve long lasting relationships. Though I’m sure she didn’t say it to be mean or crass, I couldn’t help but wonder how many other people thought of me in such a manner. Her exact words were, “you can’t just ho’ about like Lauren,” and there I found myself checking my sexual past for all its anomalies. Perhaps seeing someone and being ready to bone, wasn’t quite the green light I thought it to be. I was immediately branded a hedonist whose sole aim was pleasure and not a meaningful connection.
It’s as though women aren’t allowed to express a sexual desire and when they are, they’re automatically whores from the planet Ho’, who only suck dick and act as though getting a penis rammed into your vagina is your sole purpose in life. Every day I think to myself, perhaps life would be simpler had I never given into my baser urges. But in the same breath, how dare I not masturbate when I see fit or call on an old friend when times are tough. Women are just as sexual beings as men and while I’m not recommending you sit on everything that comes your way, I don’t see why you shouldn’t have sex as and when you feel it’s right. In SATC, and yes, I’m referring to this show AGAIN, Charlotte is so offended when she’s called a “fucking bitch” and a “fucking whore,” during coitus. I imagine only the prudish would be offended by such statements because I myself might have found it to be something of a turn on, but I digress. So offended by this statement, she runs to her girlfriends to ask if she really is the whore her date screamed at her during intercourse. Completely disregarding the “fucking bitch,” comment might I add. I’m yet to understand why we’re all so hellbent on being regarded as pure or whatever and that if we, as Miranda Hobbes so eloquently puts it, “have had a fair amount of bone in us,” then we’re less than.
Even if she were a “fucking whore,” what does it matter? Should she not be allowed to get some when she so desires. And why is it that men don’t have the same titles stamped on their penises given they engage in the exact same activity… in reverse.
I’ve routinely told my female friends not to reduce their counterparts to the sexual activities they engage in and when I’m told that someone is “hoeing about,” I scream good on her because at least someone’s getting eaten. Though I understand these titles will likely never be erased from our vocabulary entirely, I know that I’m doing my part to erase that branding cast against women. With so many female rappers championing sexual liberation, I really don’t understand why we still have to pretend that we don’t enjoy it just as much as men, if not more. I for one am entirely grateful to Missy Elliot, Lil Kim, Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B, to name a few, for making sex a lot less taboo. Smashing the patriarchy similarly to Christina Aguilera and Lil Kim in Can’t Hold Us Down. We’re here, we’re horny and we like sex, get over it.
So go, be free, have (safe) sex and orgasm till your hearts content.