Silent Slut Shaming
Where ghosting was born.
Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a healing newsletter for 80s babies by Shani Silver. This newsletter does not publish free content, but if you’d like to read it you can subscribe here. Thank you for enjoying the work of independent writers.
There’s hope I think, for the young ones. They might grow up with sex narratives that keep them free. We didn’t. We grew up with sex narratives that told us sex was something women “give” to men, and if you do, that’s like…really bad, unless you’re married, then you should “give” sex to your husband whenever he wants, or that becomes the really bad thing—got it? The narratives of our youth put women at a sexual deficit, where our desire came with shame, and a man’s desire came with a right to orgasm. As much as I’m able to rewrite these narratives for myself now, it’s hard to repaint a house when some asshole is right behind you, rolling over your work with any color he wants.
This is the longest of shots, but if you’re reading this and you’re 16, “blue balls” aren’t real. They’re just code for feeling sexually disappointed. Have you ever felt sexually disappointed? It’s the same thing. This stupid, vulgar term is just a narrative designed to make girls feel obligated to satisfy boys. I hope, if you’re 16, my explanation sounds comical to you. I hope the idea of you feeling sexually obligated to a man would never cross your mind in a thousand years. But in my years, I was socially groomed to suppress my desire, while elevating and satisfying a man’s. In my opinion, that’s how ghosts were born.