We might try to ignore it in our post-Queer-as-Folk morality, but sluts make the queer world go around. We should be proud of our sexual freedom. We should be proud of a culture where just about anyone can get laid with minimum effort.
You may be above all of that, but the number of bathhouses, gyms, hookup websites and cruising zones speak for themselves. When the average gay man surfs online — frustrated with sociopolitical games that govern our bars, hungry for old kinks mocked today but once celebrated — it’s the sluts they end up unloading with.
Sluts should be hailed as heroes. Instead we chastise them, brand them as dangerous, synonymous with disease and disgust. We may want to hook up with a slut for a little nameless late-night fun, but we don’t want to acknowledge any of their previous exhibitions.
Each person has their own limit to sluttiness — a gauge that yells “too much” when a certain level is reached, that level fluctuating frequently with one’s horniness.
Many men get squeamish when faced with someone (or propped up behind them, as the case may be), whose level of sluttiness exceeds their own; someone whose jumbo bottle of lube (barely touched since the encounter began) is already scratching on empty. Something inside tightens, and they may finish the job, but now more coolly (barring, of course, the true pigs who find the idea of a busy boy ever more exciting). When a partner’s level of slutty behaviour far outreaches our own we may reject them, in a look or in words. But really who are any of us to judge?
We love sluts so much we hate them, or want them as our own personal sluts. Courtesans of classical eras had it right in being open about what they were yet completely secretive about what they did. It’s a luxury not afforded in today’s pornorific waters, which leave nothing to imagination — we all know what sluts get up to, and we all have our limits to how much it pulls or repels.
Some are so repelled that they hide from their own lust completely, chastise those who make merry of it, but somehow still seek it out. Met on places like Squirt or M4M, they like to play coy with talk of dinners, movies, inevitably wanting the slut to perform his duty, unaware of the hypocrisy or a slut’s actual expectations for food.
When two sluts get together they laugh about this — all the other men out to fuck while hiding behind some righteous veneer. Sluts sometimes seek these men out because the sex can be more intense.
But when two sluts get together it’s all giggles and laughs, inside jokes between focussed, professionalized rounds of action — it’s why there’s always that air of camaraderie in bathhouses between the major-league boys hanging in the halls. They talk about common things discovered while going around the bush, well versed enough to not need the details to share in the silliness of it all, a brotherhood of sluts.
In slut school you learn the value of a rubber — your ticket to infinite pleasures. The best sluts always wear a condom. When they don’t it’s because they’re learned enough to know the risks and are prepared to accept the consequences — though, sadly, like all slices of queerdom, many of them take the risk anyways.
In slut school you learn not to judge, recognizing the mistakes made in heat, encouraging better choices in the future. In slut school you learn there’s no difficult position a little stretching each morning can’t cure, and of course you learn the golden rule when it comes to any discussion on playdates: deny, deny, deny. It’s a token of respect for anyone/everyone involved in the event, avoiding any number of social faux pas. Some older graduates have grown jaded, like we all do, showing a bit here and there in public, part of a necessary precaution against being overlooked, but respect for the golden rule always adheres to abolish names, faces and connections.
In an age where we all end up cruising electronically — eventually more than we go out in person — a slut is forced to advertise their extremes, running the risk of being branded negatively by anyone who’s gauge doesn’t comply. In denying any real connection to a slut allows the current boyfriend to maintain bragging rights, while the slut themselves stays content with a notch on the belt. Sluts exist as nameless entities, easily explained away — “He was just some slut, baby. It didn’t mean anything,” just someone for you to unload on or test-drive any variety of kinks on, without commiseration or judgment. Sluts see the fun in all of it and just wanna roll.
Yet there’s some who have found love in the arms of a slut, discovering a new awareness to their own sexual desires or a loyal sex-o-maniac joined to their hip, and they will tell you in smiles the joy of it all. Let their joy be a call to everyone to put the stigmas for last-night’s conquest behind them. Embrace a slut today and do it proudly.
Why you can trust Xtra
