Slut

Throughout society, it's both socially acceptable and morally righteous to look down upon sluts. For some reason, monogamy is where it's at and g-d fucking help you if you're not planning to end up with only one romantic/sexual partner for the rest of your life. And that's including the "sowing wild oats" thing that's typically granted straight men assigned male at birth. "You're 18? Hell yeah! Go out and get laid. Fuck as many women as you can before it's too late and you settle down with The One." Whereas straight women assigned female at birth are typically told that any inkling of sexual desire that they have is wrong and they should be pure virgins because "men all want nice girls."

(I realize the above is heterosexist, but I strongly doubt society will progress to a point in my lifetime where queer men are encouraged to get laid, since even monogamous queer couples still have to bust their asses to justify their relationships to the hetero population)

Monogamy is not at all a bad thing. To want only one person to be everything you need and want in a partner is totally awesome and that also happens to be the default. If that doesn't appeal to you, you're either afraid of commitment, not ready to settle down, or - if you're a woman - you're a slut.

I used to make jokes about it. I used to use terms like "whore" and "slut" as insults. But then I got older, moved to the east coast, and met people of all sorts of genders and sexual orientations with all sorts of dynamics that veered a hard left from the norm. Queer, polyamorous, kinky, trans, gender variant, slutty people. People who live their lives and have the kind of sex they want with who they want (consensually and responsibly, with very rare exception) without shame or apology.

There's nothing wrong with having sex with multiple people. There's nothing wrong with one-night stands if that's your thing. There's nothing wrong with committed relationships involving more than two people. Hell, you can even fuck people without condoms or barriers if all involved test negative for all STIs and agree that that's an okay thing to do. If everyone's having a good time, communicating, and respecting each other, that's all that matters.

This goes especially for my followers on Tumblr: If you have a problem with sluts - that is, you make jokes or look down upon someone, or use it as a term intended to degrade someone - then you have a problem with Freddie Mercury. If you can't handle that, fine. But it's a fucking insult to callously toss the word "whore" at someone but then rave about Freddie's "perfection". Freddie was a slut, and in hindsight we can all agree that he and a good number of his sexual partners were pretty irresponsible about it by not using protection every time. But I guess he's not like those other whores, the ones who dress skimpy, do drugs, and throw themselves at everyone. No, Freddie was different because he was a cis man who made music (that's called patriarchy, kids, and is a really shitty thing). I'm not sure who decides which celebrities are the worst pieces of shit on the planet for acting however they want and who deserves utmost respect for acting however they want, but I can freely and comfortably admit that my biggest hero in life had faults. Freddie Mercury was, first and foremost, a human being. A human being who drank a lot, had a cocaine addiction, and probably had more going on than any of us will ever know. But at his core he was a generous, charismatic, nice, and very genuine person. I'm not cool with the drug use and the lack of condoms, but enjoying sex with as many people who are legally able and enthusiastically consent as desired is absolutely not a bad thing. And despite living in a culture that's quick to blame rape survivors for getting attacked by male rapists, everyone should have the right to wear whatever clothing they want without being judged.