Is being a hoe a bad thing?

[SilverFalcon92]

I wanna know is being a hoe a bad thing or a good thing because I been hearing a mix of things for example a guy can sleep with a bunch of women and everybody praise him for having a high body count and for a women it’ll be a bad thing for them to be a hoe. It’s like a double standard a guy being a virgin is bad thing but for a women to be a virgin is a good thing. I never understood that logic I’ll want somebody explain to me why is that the case?

[lilikoi]

Hi SilverFalcon92,

Thanks for your question! The short answer to your question is, no. Being a "hoe" is definitely not a bad thing! The term itself exists to categorize people's sexual expression when every person experiences sex uniquely. So long as what you are doing is consentual and you are listening to your body, you are doing great!

Good comprehensive sex-ed will combat the shame our culture places on sexuality, sexual desire, and self-expression. We have a number of great articles about this and the gendered double standard you mention! They will do a much better job at giving a better explanation to answer your question.

• How do I behave sexually without someone thinking I'm a slut?

• Because yes, it really DOES happen: A thank you to SlutWalks
  

• Everything Old is New Again: A Brief History of Casual Sex and Cultural Attitudes

• Like a Virgin: What Having Sex and First Time(s) Have Meant to Me

[Heather]

Hi there, SilverFalcon.

I'll also ask that you please not call women or other people "hoes" here, and remind you that terms like that, and like calling a number of someone's partners a "body count" are ways of talking about people and sexuality that seek to stigmatize and shame people for exploring pleasure and connection as they please, rather than by someone else's arbitrary standards, most typically socio-sexual standards created to control people by making them scared of being stigmatized like this.

[SilverFalcon92]

Hey Heather
Hey I wasn’t trying to judge and shame people. I didn’t know any other way to ask that question without saying those words. I don’t know maybe I should’ve ask why society blames people for having a high body count and sleeping with a lot of people instead of flat out saying the word "hoe" and it’s very common for people to say that word. I was just curious of why people shame those people for sleeping around with a bunch of people.

[amber]

Hi SilverFalcon92,

Thank you for hearing us on our rules against stigmatizing language. Even without the intention, lots of words carry weight that can cause harm.

Were you able to read through any of the articles lilikoi shared? I think they are a great start into understanding shame around sex.

[Heather]

I'd also add here -- and I swear, I don't mean to nitpick -- that calling how many partners any of us have had a "body count" is also super sex negative, on top of really objectifying. We have sex with people, not bodies, and this was intimate close contact with the aim of pleasure, not murder! Sleeping around, too, is also not a neutral term.

If we want to talk about sex and our partners in ways that support sex as neutral or positive, and that don't enable the sex-shaming so prevalent in our culture, we can just talk about our past or previous partners the same way we talk about our past or previous friends. The fact that what we've been doing is engaging in sex with each other isn't ultimately or universally different than say, living together or hiking or having dinners or long conversations or going to funerals with each other, save that some people and cultures view sex as a radically different kind of connection or intimacy, even though it just isn't.

Like mentioned earlier, why people or cultures view people having multiple partners -- or anyone's objective idea of what is "too many" partners -- as a bad thing is that doing that means bucking certain conventions or beliefs about sex that are mostly intended to control people (especially when those people aren't cishet men) through shame or repression. What kind of experience people have or have had with multiple partners isn't ever something universally good, bad or otherwise, because these are personal and individual experiences. What that's been like for someone is something only any one person can tell you, and their answer can be radically different than the next person's.