Growing Up Female

Women and the "S" Word

When Angelina Jolie recently revealed that she'd only slept with four men in her entire life, it stopped blokes cold in their sexual fantasy tracks. Surely this couldn't be so? Surely the world's most sought after woman couldn't have only done it with four gents, including her two former husbands? What happened to the lesbian romps! The dalliances with co-stars! The frolicking about with other women's husbands!

Of course she wouldn't reveal any of it. After all, modern women are very afraid of one thing: being dubbed with the "S" word.

Being labelled a slut is every woman's nightmare. As Leora Tanenbaum wrote in her book Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation, it causes all sorts of self-esteem issues, not to mention the fact that women are the victims of double standards. While promiscuous men are given the label "stud," promiscuous women are labeled "sluts". They become shunned by other women (either through jealousy or fear of association); they're gawked at by men and are generally unfavoured by the rest of our prudish society.

But how do the gents really feel about such a woman?

I was shocked (and somewhat intrigued) by the response one of my male colleagues gave upon recently meeting someone who had a general reputation for "getting around".

"I want to be with her," he smirked, "just to see what she knows."

I was reminded again of the power of the girl who gets around after a male mate bumped into one at a club a couple of weeks ago and mused with the same sentiment as my colleague: "She's been around the block; I'd love to know what all the fuss is about."

They were interesting responses, and ones I definitely hadn't heard of before. But it kind of made sense. Perhaps women who are promiscuous and not afraid to flaunt it, are impinging on male territory. Perhaps men get threatened that these ladies might "know more" than themselves. Perhaps that's why they're so intrigued.

If we look at evolution however, women aren't supposed to be sluts. As the New York Times recently gushed, "men are promiscuous by nature" and want to spread their seed as far as possible. The women on the other hand are supposed to want to nab a man who will only want to spread his seed with her, and will stick around after he's done so. She isn't supposed to act like a man.

Then I started to wonder how every bloke actually knows all about these women and their sexual conquests behind closed doors in the first place. Is it because men are notorious for kissing and telling? Or is it because when they think they've been with someone who's been around the block, they needn't show the respect they usually would?

I wasn't certain, but either way ladies, perhaps more of us should watch out because apparently the men talk more than we'd care to know about.

And they exaggerate too.

We know that surveys reveal men on average have slept with more women than women have men. As reported in The Times, a British survey says the median for men is 12.7 and for women it's 6.5. And yet this can't be true. Because who the heck would all the men be doing it with ...