The other day I was on the train when I unwittingly became engrossed in a conversation that I overheard between a group of teenage girls. Their conversation really struck a chord with me as I felt as though they could be talking about my 16 year old self. They were discussing other girls at their school, girls who they were supposedly friends with, labelling them as sluts for losing their virginity and discussing the reputation that they would gain if they continued to engage in sexual acts with boys in their peer group. It goes without saying that the boys were not judged in this way by the girls, and were probably lauded by their male peers as 'lads', 'players' and the like. So why are teenage girls so horrifically judgemental of other teenage girls for having sex or engaging in other sexual acts when they are more than likely to be indulging their own sexual desires in a few years time?
I feel as though this kind of 'slut shaming' largely diminishes at University, where the majority of your peer group are sexually active and girls feel more able to discuss the fact that (shock horror) we enjoy sex too. In your late teens and early twenties discussing sexual encounters with your female friends appears to have become far more supportive, and a 'You go girl!' kind of response is thankfully a lot more common than being slut shamed. It's great that society has become far more accepting of female sexuality in recent years and this is really evident amongst my university peer group.
However, slut shaming is clearly still an issue amongst girls of secondary school age. Girls who develop earlier are shamed into thinking that they are sluts for being sexually active before their peers and many are bullied, have rumours spread about them and are made to feel dirty or guilty for doing something that is viewed to be so natural later in life. Being labelled as a slut at such a young age can have such a detrimental effect on a girls self-esteem and damage her relationship with sex, as I know all too well. It can even lead to girls feeling so ashamed of themselves that they self-harm or attempt suicide.
Every girl is ready to be sexually active at a different age and I know many girls (like myself) who lost their virginity at a younger age and yet have never had a one night stand. I also know an equal number, if not more, who lost their virginity at University and have had multiple one night stands since, yet these girls don't face slut shaming to the same extent, it is the girls who have sex first that are slut shamed regardless of how many people that they sleep with.
Don't get me wrong, no one should be slut shamed full stop. There is nothing wrong with having a one night stand and the number of people you've slept with doesn't require a label. I'm just making the point that just because you become sexually active at a younger age it doesn't mean that you will necessarily sleep with more people and yet these young girls are being told that they are sluts.
Teenage girls need to be educated on embracing their sexuality and feeling empowered by it rather than feeling ashamed of it. Slut shaming the girls that become sexually active first is damaging, entirely unfair and completely illogical.
