The Specter of the Slut

How sexual promiscuity intersects with "alpha female" behaviors

As any consistent reader of my notes will know, I adore Cartoons Hate Her and read nearly every post she writes, and I’ve been particularly entertained by her last two-parter: Men Yearn for the Alpha Female and The Dumbest Argument Against my Alpha Female Article.

From the first:

Despite having quite a few differences, men and women share one goal: to attain the highest-value partner they can. Granted, this changes a bit over time. I don’t think single people in their thirties are meticulously calculating how high-value their partner is, and by then, compatibility is about much more than just initial attraction. But value still matters—attraction still matters. The lizard brain still matters. And while men’s lizard brains are very focused on physical attraction, it’s actually not everything. A hot woman who presents zero challenge—who is not only constantly available, but demure and agreeable—is off-putting. She’s the uncanny valley of hot women. Men are left wondering what’s wrong with her.

From the second:

There’s a reason I didn’t say “Men love bossy bitches!” It’s because that wasn’t the behavior to which I was referring. Women don’t even really love “assholes” either, they love confident, charismatic men with lots of options, who tend not to be as invested in them as a result of those options.

By “alpha female,” I was referring to the behavior of having—or at least appearing to have—other options. Not necessarily other men waiting in the wing, but a life outside a man. I was talking about being able to stand up for yourself, put your foot down, or say no—not for the purpose of being disagreeable and argumentative, but because you actually care about something. I was also referring to basic intellectual curiosity—the ability to have a spirited debate about something without mindlessly agreeing to everything your boyfriend says. None of this is “bossy bitch” behavior. And I’m sure plenty of men claim not to like this—because life is a whole lot easier for them if women never challenge them or advocate for themselves. But “making life easy” doesn’t necessarily translate to attraction (men who spinelessly submit to their girlfriends and shower them with gifts also make life very easy, but they don’t inspire much self-lubrication.) And it doesn’t correlate to romantic success.

This pair of posts delighted me because they had the particular click I associate with relevance to my own life, on a subject that stymied me for years - my own dating experiences.

I’m entertained by the sort of controversial ways that I suspect it applies to my own history.

I rarely consider myself a slut by most traditional definitions because I was a very faithful Mormon until I was 25, and I didn’t particularly like dealing with sexual expectations outside the church after I stopped practicing (as readers may know from this post).

However, I’ve kissed a lot of people. An eye popping number of people. I’ve made out with almost as many people. I love making out more than most people I know - if you trust my vibe sense - and especially more than people who weren’t raised Mormon.

Some of you may already be scoffing, as I did and have myself for years. Slut shaming for a literal high body count is ridiculous enough, but to even consider that anyone serious would attach “sluttiness” to making out? Beyond ridiculous.

But hear me out - I think that sluttiness is easily reduced to a black and white piv sex-centric framework, and is pretty easy to discard as something that only matters to prudes. I agree that that model is kind of silly, but I think the real model is more interested in the felt meaning [scare quotes: “lived experience”] than it is in the literal actions taken between two people. Thus there are some people (who are we kidding, women, they’re usually on the slut chopping block) who have or have had piv sex with plenty of people and do not experience the *quavering sepulchral tone* Slut Penalty. If my model is right, there are also some women who catch that slut penalty without ever taking their clothes off.

And I think Cartoons Hate Her’s post may point to the reason for these differences.