There's More than One Way to Skin a Slut

My first kink was sex in public places. I gave head in cars and got laid in fields. My casual years followed. I met men everywhere in those days. My sex life was like Days of Our Lives, only with more penises. I spent five days holed up in a five-star hotel with a man I’d met in a bookstore. One day he checked out and vanished without a word.

Sometimes, you get thrown into a reject pile the moment a man has used you up.

You can play with lust in a thousand meaningless ways. I’ve experienced enough sexual emptiness to fuel years of obsession, and I never, ever want to feel that sick inside again. It left me feeling like you do on a humid, hot, beachside day when the salt is sticky on your skin and everything feels filthy—That’s what empty sex makes me feel.

I relegated my soap opera sex life to the past when I found true love. Like Cinderella, I left my sparkly dress behind me and returned to a warm, cosy fireplace. I didn’t leave my sluttiness behind me, though. I’d argue that my “Days of Our Lives” adventures weren’t sluttiness at all. They were a salve I was using to defocus from my own feelings. I prefer to relegate my wild days to the past. I never want to use sex like a drug again.

I became a committed monogamous after that. In a safe environment where there was love, my whorishness could finally come out. Every man I’ve ever loved has also loved the slut in me, but she wasn’t built for anonymous encounters. She wanted a sense of safety. I’m only whorish if there is love. That fills the void and shoves out the darkness.

Empty sex wasn’t to my taste. I’m emotionally porous, so every man leaves some of his identity in my very cells. That’s when I found BDSM. You might think that I’d become even sluttier in the kink scene, but this site, this community, these men, and these writings all taught me how to express my sexuality in a way that makes me feel whole.

It taught me how to choose men who wouldn’t leave me in a reject pile.

It assigned value to my sexuality. It pushed out the emptiness.

It gave me the room to find my real inner slut—the one who’s in touch with her wholeness. The one who knows that whorishness is a commodity that should be earned.

I became more discerning, not less.

My soap opera sex life was just an outward manifestation of my shame. Once I got in touch with my sexuality, I didn’t need to be compulsive. I wasn’t trying to numb myself, so there was no point. These days, I’m perfectly comfortable being me. I’m still a slut, but my sluttiness is built from traits that are uniquely mine, and not one of them makes me feel empty. Not one of them makes me feel ashamed.