Jaclyn Friedman Proclaims Herself a Slut

Yesterday I wrote a post about Jaclyn Friedman's discovery of her inner slut. (Scroll down for post and comments.) Apparently, Ms. Friedman took some serious offense to my post and goaded her minions to attack it.

This they dutifully did, in the comments section of the post. Rarely has that section seen such passion or incivility. I am sorry to say that Ms. Friedman's minions are neither great minds nor great wits.

I do, however, appreciate the attention. So, thank you, Jaclyn Friedman. You have earned a follow-up post.

Apparently, her minions' best developed intellectual resource is name calling. If I do not agree that slutty behavior is therapeutic-- which is Friedman's central point-- then I must be a judgmental misogynist or worse.

Apparently, encouraging young women to go out and develop their sluthood shows respect.

Go figure!

To those of us of a more advanced age their comments bring to mind Charles De Gaulle's famous quote: Le reforme, oui; le chienlit, non.

But that is neither here nor there. I do want to reply to some of the arguments raised against my post, but I do not want to bury it in the comments section. So here goes.

I think it fair to say that the word "slut," even used by someone who proudly proclaims herself to be one, still retains a negative emotional charge. That many commenters would think that I, by my lonesome, could define the word or its usage or its connotations is flattering indeed.

If they believe that Friedman and her minions can change the meanings or usages of words by their lonesome, they are suffering an extremely narcissistic illusion.

People still get agitated when you suggest that a woman is a slut, because they understand that words mean something and that labels have consequences.

Clearly, Friedman is trying to remove the negative connotation from the word. She is trying to make sluttiness a positive, liberating, and therapeutic experience.

I would not deny that the connotations of words change over time. The way people use and abuse language often produces subtle, but meaningful, changes.

The way language is used resembles a marketplace. And just like a real market it contains many participants and players. The fact that one person, or small group of people, does not like the connotations attached to a word does not change the way the word is used.

If you believe that your experience is more positive than the word "slut" suggests, then try using a different word.

I agree with Friedman that teenage girls ought not to be hounded to death by being called sluts. I also do not think that they should be sexting or otherwise behaving in ways that might attract the label.

Neither I nor the rest of the patriarchy has very much control over the behavior of teenage girls. I fear that they will read people like Friedman and decide that they should embrace their inner slut. If they do they will suffer unexpected social and romantic consequences. Social consequences that they are ill prepared to deal with.

Should teenage girls be led on by a false promise of liberation into a situation that neither they nor Jaclyn Friedman can control? I think not.

If they know the consequences of their behavior, if they are old enough to understand these consequences, and if they fully understand the consequences of advertising their sluthood, then the choice is freely theirs.

The cold, hard truth is that if you jump in an empty swimming pool you are going to get hurt. If your friends are goading you on, that is not a good thing. If someone comes forth to say that the picture painted on the bottom of the pool creates a mirage that looks like water, he is not trying to spoil your fun, but to protect you.

And trust me, the pool is equally empty whether I say it or not. Reality does not bend to the demands of your ideology.

I find it hard to believe that anyone still believes that advertising your slutty behavior will have no effect on your ability to engage a long term relationship. If they do, then they should simply get out of their cave and try a few moments in the sun.

Friedman understands it. She says so.Why would people defend her article by saying that it does not.

As for some of the specific points, many of which revealed that Friedman's minions do not read very carefully, I did state clearly that Friedman's dry spell antedated the depressive episode that led her to Casual Encounters.

She had experienced that dry spell as a trauma, and thus, had excluded the possibility of doing as Hephzibah Anderson had done.

And yes, I did note clearly that Hephzibah Anderson did not give up all sexual activity, but only gave up coitus. I wrote that she engaged in what used to be called foreplay, but maybe the reference was too opaque or outmoded.

I am not sure what a "straw slut" is or why my response reveals patriarchal propriety. As I just said, and as I said in the post, sluttiness as a pejorative is far more often used by women against women, by girls against girls.

Keep in mind that Friedman suggests that the experience was therapeutic. She felt it was liberating. She encourages others to embrace it.

Caring about what will happen to the girls who follow her down that "primrose path of dalliance" does not feel to me to be an effort to burn anyone "at the stake of patriarchal propriety."

I offer my compliments to the commenter who came up with that phrase, especially since the most famous woman who was burned at the stake, Joan of Arc, was also called La Pucelle. I will leave you all to look that one up too.

As for the notion that someone can take sovereign possession of her sexuality by giving it away for free, I disagree. Unless of course you want to say that Friedman's gesture is a kind of feminist potlatch.

(FYI, potlatch is an Indian custom where two chiefs compete with each other to show who has more riches. They each burn their possessions, to show that, in our terms, they are so rich that they have it to burn.)

As for the person who wanted to know why Friedman is wrong, I did not go into too much detail because Friedman does it herself. She is wrong because her sluttiness and her public proclamation of same throws up an obstacle in the face of her relationship goal.

It is also wrong, as Friedman knows, and as Susan Walsh mentioned in the comments, because it is dangerous behavior. Her musings about an axe murderer suggests that she has a real fear of the possibilities of such casual encounters.

It may not be the best thing in the world to go out and have a casual encounter. It is probably not the worst either. So be it.
But it is worse if you try to overcome your embarrassment by doing it over and over again, to the point where you come to see it as defining who you are.

The worst idea is announcing your new habit to the world and insisting that the world accept it as a good thing.

Until the thought police arrive you cannot have that level of control over the minds of other people. Nor should you even expect to. It is profoundly disrespectful.

I hope that clarifies things.