“I am a dirty slut”

I was having a conversation with my new friend. We are both budding erotica writers and were chatting about erotic language. In bantering with me, she described herself as a dirty slut. I was taken aback. For me, the word “slut” had negative connotations and I was uncomfortable with her use of the word.

This got me thinking about words and their connotations. Words can be very powerful, especially in a sexual setting. I have been turned off more than once by an author’s use of the word “snatch” to describe a woman’s pussy, whereas the word “cunt” turns me on. I think this is very personal – what turns one person on is not what turns another one on. We all bring our own history to the language we like.

For me, I thoroughly dislike it when people use the words “smut” or “filth” to describe porn or erotic fiction. Sex should never be seen as something dirty. It’s beautiful and delicious and freeing and sometimes messy, but never dirty. Generally the people who use this type of language view sex as something that should stay hidden in the bedroom and never talked about. They are the types of people who, if they found out that their children’s teacher was into BDSM, would petition for them to be fired.

So when my friend called herself a dirty slut, I wanted to tell her not to put herself down. She is an amazing woman who has allowed herself to indulge her sexual side. She is not a slut – not in the derogatory sense of the word anyway. But I slowly started to come around to her way of thinking. As my friend kept calling herself – and then me – a dirty slut, I noticed that far from being repulsed by the term, it turned me on. So much so that I started using it myself. She changed the connotation of the term for me, turning it from something derogatory into a compliment as an act of liberation. She made me see that far from insulting me – and herself – she is allowing us to embrace the fact that we are sexually charged women, not afraid of our lust and want and sexuality.

Now I am proud to call myself a dirty slut.