What happens when your relationship is ~chill~, except that your partner is insecure about your #trueslut identity? By Karley Sciortino. Continue reading “Ask Slutever: I Love My Boyfriend, But I Think He’s Low-Key Slut-Shaming Me”
How can I be a slut without being terrified of STDs? What are my actual chances of getting HIV? Should I ever give a BJ with a condom? Here, Dr. Zhana—sex researcher and the human sexuality professor at NYU—tells us everything we need to know. Continue reading “Ask a Sex Researcher: How Can I Be a Slut Without Getting an STD?”
It’s a common assumption: gay men fuck the most and lesbians fuck the least, with straight people falling somewhere in the middle. But is that true, and if so, why? Dulcinea Pitagora—sexologist and the creator of Kink Doctor—goes deep on this one! Continue reading “Ask a Sexologist: Are Women “Less Promiscuous” than Men because of Biology, or Societal Oppression?”
Weekly sex news from Slutever. This week’s link roundup touches on everything from how your anti-depressants could be affecting you sex life, to Pornhub-synced sex toys. Happy reading, sluts! Continue reading “This Week in Sex – June 30”
Are men more hardwired to be monogamous than women? And will VR porn be the new Netflix? All of this and more was discussed as last week’s Future of Sex’s Summer Series in NYC. Alexandra Warrick went to investigate. Continue reading “Unraveling Female Promiscuity: Future of Sex Summer Series”
My new column for Vogue is about my history of being attracted to sex maniacs. But what IS it about sex maniacs that is so darn sexy? Read here :)
We’ve all been endlessly briefed on the benefits of sleeping with someone we love, but what can we get out of fucking a totally random person (besides feeling like a slutty secret agent)? By Karley Sciortino. Image by Petra Collins. Continue reading “The Benefits of a Random Hookup”
After a break-up, should we give ourselves a break for being desperate, drunk and delusional? In other words, are rebounds chill or nah? Read my latest Breathless column for Vogue magazine HERE :) – Karley Sciortino
Here’s a collection of the first week of Slutever’s new Lonely Sluts Personals ads—connecting kinky sluts the world over. Unite! Continue reading “Lonely Sluts Personals: Vol 1”
Dear Slutever,
I’m an 18-year-old girl, and I’ve been in a relationship with my girlfriend for 13 months now. This is the first serious relationship I’ve been in. However, my friend said he wanted to give me an experience with a guy, so we planned to have sex. I was hesitant, but I went with it. However now I have a lot of regret because when I told my girlfriend what happened she was really mad at me, of course, even though before it happened I had told her I wanted to just be friends for a while. But she told her family what happened, even though I told her not to. And so now when I see them I feel judged and embarrassed.
Thankfully my girlfriend has forgiven me, but how do I deal with the shame and guilt? I try to move on but I can’t help feeling horrible about it. I wanted to be this perfect girl for my girlfriend’s family, but I feel like they hate me, even though my girlfriend says they don’t. She still wants to propose to me soon and we love each other a lot, but I don’t want to carry this guilt forever. She’s in her early 20s, and at times I feel like she deserves better, but she says I’m the best for her. What should I do?
Xo So ashamed
OK the first thing you should do is chill out. You’re beating yourself up over something that is a non-issue. So you fucked some guy during a period where you hadn’t promised monogamy to your girlfriend—what’s the problem? You didn’t cheat, and there is nothing inherently wrong or immoral of guilt-worthy about having sex. It’s important to remember that just because your actions made someone else feel hurt or jealous, it doesn’t necessarily mean that what you did was wrong. For example, in my last relationship, my girlfriend and I broke up for 4 months, and then got back together. When I found out that she had been seeing someone else during period, it made me feel fucking awful and angry, but she hadn’t done anything wrong. I was just being a possessive monster. Annoyingly, the people we love don’t stop existing (or having sex) when we’re not around them.
You did nothing wrong. Seriously, say it—”I did nothing wrong.” (I feel like Robin Williams in that scene from Good Will Hunting.) You’re 18—this is a time for experimentation and sexual self-discovery and sexual stupidity and general YOLO. It’s not a time for worrying about what your pseudo-in-laws think of you. Save that for middle age! Also, it’s imperative that you DO NOT get married to your girlfriend You are 18! That’s basically an embryo. You have so many relationships and hook-ups and breakups and threesomes and awkward one-night-stands and bar bathroom blow-jobs ahead of you, and it would be a tragedy to miss out on any of those. When we’re old, we’re far more likely to regret the things we didn’t do, than the things we did.
Also, who is this “perfect girl” that you speak of? If you mean a pure, passive, demure, 50s fantasy woman, well, that woman doesn’t exist (thank god). There is no such thing as the perfect girl, and anyone who believes that one’s goodness or respectability has anything to do with how many people they’ve slept with is either a prude or an idiot. You shouldn’t be ashamed about your sexual experiences, you should be proud of them! I think it’s so cool that you’re in an openly gay relationship at 18, but felt curious to explore sex with guys too, and went out and made it happen. That’s baller. And you said it yourself—your girlfriend has forgiven you, and she says her parents don’t hate you. So all of this guilt and shame is coming from you.
A while back I wrote an article for Vogue where I talked about dealing with some guilt about my sluttiness when I was younger. In the article, I asked my friend Zhana Vrangalova, a sex researcher who studies casual sex and mental health: How much of the shame or negativity we feel associated with sex is inherently ours, and how much of it is a social construct? Zhana told me: “It’s hard to pinpoint the cause of the guilt and shame of highly sexually people, because we live in a sex-negative culture that conflates having a lot of sex with being a bad person.” So basically, remember that if you feel bad about a sexual experience, it’s not your fault—it’s society’s fault! Lol. This is why it’s important to surround yourself with sex-positive people who would never dream of judging you for your sexual curiosity, and to read pro-sex feminist writing… like this website, for example ;)
By Karley Sciortino
Main image by Petra Collins
