In 1928, anthropologist Margret Mead horrified thousands of American readers with her book "Coming of Age in Samoa." In her work, Mead suggested that the Samoan practice of allowing adolescent girls to freely explore their sexuality with many partners before settling into married domestic life contributes to their relative ease and happiness in transitioning from girlhood to adulthood. 

For decades, critics have argued about the validity of her findings, but regardless of whether or not she fully understood Samoan sexuality, her ideas about the benefits of greater acceptance towards feminine sexuality remain enticing. 

In today’s world, where women are getting married and having children later in life, letting go of stigmas against women who engage in premarital sex is imperative. 

Society has long embraced the idea that men should have a chance to “sow their wild oats” before settling down. However, women have not enjoyed the same sexual freedoms. 

Even in modern times, women with a reputation of sleeping around face tremendous stigmatization, while similar behaviors are accepted and even expected in men. This double standard of promiscuity is not just evident from a cultural standpoint, but from a linguistic one as well. 

Women who embrace their sexuality have historically been seen as “loose,” a label that comes with moral implications as well as sexual ones. But nowadays people have become more blunt in their criticism, referring outright to women with various sexual partners as sluts, whores, skanks or tramps.

Urban Dictionary’s most popular definition of “slut,” with over 72,000 likes, is “a woman with the morals of a man.”

While a woman’s entire sense of morality—sexual and otherwise—comes into question if she has numerous sexual partners, men who do the same do not face the same degree of scorn. There is no linguistic equivalent of “slut” that applies to men, no word that encompasses the same level of moral disdain or implicaton of licentiousness.

A man with many sexual partners can be referred to as a “ladies’ man” or a “player,” but these words are comparatively tame. Out of men’s mouths, these labels can even be complimentary, indicating that the “ladies’ man” in question has the ability to attract any woman he wants. 

Historically, “sluts” have not had it so easy.  

Fifteen years ago, pop culture began trying to rectify attitudes towards promiscuous women. With "Sex and the City," Samantha Jones became one of the first sex-loving women to win herself a spot in the hearts of millions of Americans.  Here was a woman who took her sexual pleasures seriously, but was not willing to compromise her girlfriends or career for the sake of men. Her sexual exploits were hilarious and occasionally off-putting, but her openness and self-assurance are what made her such an iconic character. 

"Sex and the City" made way for "Girls," a show that pushed the envelope even further. "Girls" has succeeded in showing that you don’t need to be a total sexpot to love sex. Enter Lena Dunham. Through her character of Hannah, she has shown that women of all shapes and sizes can create the sex lives that they want without feeling ashamed or self-conscious. 

And yet, societally, we still need to come further, to extend our tolerance a bit more. In a recent Cornell University study of 751 participants, women rated other women with 20 past sexual partners more harshly on nine out of ten friendship attributes than they rated women with only two past sexual partners. Regardless of their own sexual history, according to this study, most women and men would not choose to be friends with a very sexually active character like Samantha Jones.

Television presents viewers with kind, funny women who love sex, but are no worse because of it; and yet we continue to judge them and to judge each other. 

By no means am I saying that all women should be having lots of sex with various men whom they may or may not be in relationships with. I am merely saying that every person’s sexuality—male or female, gay or straight, abstinent or sexually active—is their choice, and we could all stand to be more accepting of these choices. 

We should evaluate our friends and acquaintances based on our personal relationships with them, not on their bedroom politics. We should allow the word “slut” to be forgotten from our vocabularies. 

 

Reach Contributor Sara Newman here; follow her here.