This was a seemingly trivial case but it opened my eyes to what slut shaming will do in much more serious situations.

My story may sound like almost nothing, but at the time, it opened my eyes to what slut shaming is, where it comes from, and more importantly, who engages in slut shaming. I was organizing a joint birthday party with a girl from college, because our birthdays were close enough. When we started to go through the guest list, she pointed to a name asked me: "You invited HER?" "Yes," I said, "she's a good friend. What about her?" After a lot of beating around the bush, my friend said, "You know, she's a, well, you know…" "You wanted to say that she's a slut?" "Yes, that's what I wanted to say." That completely blew my mind. The woman I wanted to invite was sexually active, like many people are in college. What set her apart from a lot of people was that she was pretty open about it. When she felt like it, she'd go out and pick herself "one of the boys" — not strangers, since attending a tech college gave her plenty of male friends and acquaintances to choose from — or call one of her friends up: "Hey, what's up? Want to come over and have sex?" The arrangement was clear to all parties involved, and absolutely self-determined. I believe "friends with benefits" is the term. To hear this behavior called "slutty" was jaw dropping, especially at college. But most of all, I was absolutely stunned to hear another woman do it. I was able to explain to my friend that I found it completely unacceptable to call the invitee a "slut", and that of course, I would be inviting her still. And I believe she understood. But at that time I realized that women who have a self-determined, active sexuality will be slut shamed by all kinds of people. Not because what they do is wrong, but because it breaks out of a role that apparently is rooted deep in our society. And it's unnecessary to even say that had she been a guy, I doubt that anyone, certainly not the woman I hosted the party with, would have had any objections to it. This was a seemingly trivial case; all that was at risk was an invitation to my birthday party. But it opened my eyes to what slut shaming will do in much more serious situations.