Condoms, Women, and Sexuality: A Civil Issue?

People like to get down and dirty, whether it is with a boyfriend/girlfriend, a buddy, a random person, or a spouse. Judging from our population of 6-7 billion people and the existence of a physical sensation known as “orgasm”, it is a pleasurable activity. When people can’t have sex, they often masturbate, judging from the large pornographic film industry and Pure Romance’s top-of-the-line sex toys. At some point between now and the time humans came to be on this planet, a certain major religion came along to offer explanations for the questions science couldn’t answer. At some point, somebody decided that having sex is bad, especially before marriage, and that the best thing someone can do is become a nun and devote their lives to the existence of a “God” that may or may not exist. Whether you like it or not, there is no more evidence for the existence of “God” than against it.

                Am I insulting the religion followed by the majority of people in American culture? Not at all. Sex is a personal choice, and that’s why I would prefer it if this country’s moral backings would stay out of people’s business. I can have sex when I want, with whoever consents to “do it” with me. It’s the land of the free, the home of the brave, but if you don’t make certain moral “cuts”, freedom isn’t free.  There’s the purity cut, the ethnicity cut, the religious cut, the sexuality cut, the intelligence cut, and the wealth cut. If someone doesn’t make a cut, they are susceptible to discrimination (which can often manifest in death). Why don’t we stop attaching values to human beings like they are objects?

I would like to focus on the term “slut” and its adjective counterpart “slutty”. For future refernce, I would like remind people that “slut” is a derogatory term, meaning it is used to lessen the merit or value of a human being (discrimination). The word is destructive in nature, not uplifting. That’s why people generally call their significant others “honey” and “sweet pea” instead of “slut” or “dumb whorer”. The meanings of words change over time, but “slut” is predominantly used to degrade a woman.

Promiscuity is harmless by definition. It’s only problematic because it lacks concordance with the major moral backings of society. By labeling a woman a slut, you are insulting her simply because she is taking advantage of two of her constitutional rights: liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The term should not be used at all because it is hurtful, but the world wouldn’t be as controversial and interesting without freedom of speech. That being said, let’s pretend that the word is not inherently offensive. I’d like to whip out the definition of “slut” from my massive Oxford English Dictionary. This is what it says:

Slut  /slut/ n.derog. a slovenly woman .

Just in case you don’t know what slovenly means, here you go:

Slovenly /slúvenlee/ adj. & adv. *adj. careless and untidy; unmethodical

According to the definition, the term “slut” cannot be accurately applied to women who carry condoms, unless you think abortions and/or unplanned pregnancies are a more careful and methodical choice. I don’t have to post a poll to know that most people prefer condoms to killing fetuses and unwanted baby booms. Fun fact: the first condom company introduced their sexual device with the slogan “Now women can have sex without getting pregnant, which is what men have been doing for years!” Even if that fun fact was a product of my imagination, something that is done as a precaution or preventative measure (wearing condoms) is inherently intelligent. What is the smart thing to do when you ride a bike? Wear a helmet. What is the smart thing to do when you have sex? Use protection.

                                I’m a little bit confused about why a woman would be called a slut for carrying condoms, but men would not (double standard?). “Slut” specifically refers to females, granted, but “man-slut” isn’t in the dictionary and therefore there is no equivalent term provided for men. Also, man-slut isn’t typically used to describe condom-carrying men. In fact, the title of “man-slut” generally has to be earned by a certain number of notches on the good ol’ belt. I’m a little disappointed that women aren’t held to the same standards as men when it comes to sluthood. We don’t usually have to work as hard.

What is the correlation between condom carriers and number of sexual partners? Hard to prove, but I do know that virgins can (and do) carry condoms, making the label “slut” even more inaccurate. My defense thus far has worked with my dictionary definition, but what about a more common “street” definition? “Slut” can often mean sexually promiscuous. HUGE NEWS: carrying condoms has absolutely no correlation with the number of people someone “gets sexy” with. I know a virgin who always carries a condom, actually. She’s waiting for her night of passion with Ryan Getzlaf of the Anaheim Ducks.

Condom-carrying cannot prove that someone is a “slut” by either definition, but even if it could, the word is discriminatory. If we are going to criticize people for having (or wanting to have) sex, we might as well criticize lions, bears, birds, bees, dogs, monkeys, and every other sexual creature on the planet. Sex is personal. Sex is natural. It can be harmful under conditions such as:

1)      Rape

2)      Irresponsible practices (ex: spreading an STD, which is prevented by condoms and honesty)

3)      Infidelity (If we are questioning our country’s morality here, let’s look at www.ashleymadison.com, a popular website that condones cheating with the slogan “Life’s short, have an affair” which I would like to contradict with “Life’s short, you don’t have to get married”)

If a girl wants to carry condoms, good for her. If she likes sex just as much as you do, good for her (you’ll have more in common that way). When women buy condoms, it takes some of the burden off men—saves them a trip and/or some cash. Whether the condom is for a booty call, a boyfriend, future prince charming, or Ryan Getzlaf is none of my business. My business is that ya’ll keep it safe, baby boys and girls. Life as a mistake baby isn’t pretty…I would know. Our fathers keep telling us “I should have worn a condom, but your mother was such a slut that she didn’t have one” and then we end up writing articles like these.

I rest my case.