Uni is meant to be about sexual freedom, so why are girls still being slut shamed?

Sex is probably the most basic and unifying human experience. Nearly everyone has at some point shagged another. We’re talking about it in our group chats, you see people get off with each other on nights out, it’s on TV and hell, even your parents do it. And yet on university campuses slut shaming is still a massive part of student life.

In the last few years there’s been a real push to end the archaic shaming of women having sex with multiple people and horror of horrors – actually enjoying it. In their respective Love Island seasons Megan Barton-Hanson and Maura Higgins were celebrated for their refreshing honesty about how much they love sex. It shouldn’t be groundbreaking, but it was. In music Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion rap explicitly about their sex lives and sexuality. And thought provoking posts around sexuality and preferences are often posted in aesthetic tiles on Instagram.

18 to 24 year olds are frequently thought of as the most accepting and open minded generation, after all, only 54 per cent of us identify as solely attracted to the opposite sex. And to some extent this is reflected in university life. As the first time away from home, many use this time to learn more about themselves and who they really want to sleep with. Students sometimes have shag charts in their kitchen as a bizarre competition of who has slept with the most people. Often students will come out to their university friends but keep their identity secret at home. And if you’re not bothered by sex or feel unsure about it it’s easy to find a space with people who support you. University is meant to be a place of acceptance and security. And yet a survey by Ricky.com found 67 per cent of female students had been shamed for their sexual freedom.

Slut shaming begins for many at school. Girls are called “slags”, “sluts”, “whores” and more by their male counterparts. Rumours go around of the girl who gave a blowjob behind the bike shed or the girl who sent nudes to every boy in her class. Jokes are often made: “a good key can open many locks, but a shit lock is opened by many keys.” By the time you reach university you hope people have left the jokes in year 11. But this is often not the case, in fact it gets worse. This time the people making the jokes are the ones you live with or date. I spoke to a number of female students who have been slut shamed by fellow students.

Anna* was in her first year of university when she went on a night out and was spiked at a nightclub. Her friends took her home and made sure she was safe. The next day when recounting the horrific experience her male flatmate looked her up and down and said: “Well let’s be honest, if anyone’s gonna get raped it’s probably gonna be you.”

When we asked our followers on Instagram who they had been slut shamed by, overwhelmingly they said it was their friends who had made comments or judgements on their sexual activity. If you don’t feel safe with your friends, who are like family at university, what are you supposed to do?

Final year student Sophie recounted a number of times in which a girl in her social circle would often make comments about her sexuality. She told me this friend would say snide comments such as “she’s only using him for an easy shag” or “wow… that’s really… brave” when Sophie mentioned her friends with benefits situation. The comments would often extend to back handed compliments of Sophie’s night out outfits. Though Sophie reckons her friend’s comments were down to jealousy, it’s still not an excuse.

But it’s not just friends who will shame you. In dating many students have found themselves at the receiving end of judgemental comments.

Ameena* describes herself as “a ‘traditionally curvy’ south Asian woman and very openly queer.” Though she usually dates women, on occasion she has dated men. During a first date with a man they were discussing the number of people they’d slept with. When Ameena revealed to her date she didn’t really keep track of the number of people she had been with as she finds it “weird” she said the man had a look “of poorly feigned shock.” A pure shock at the idea of a woman perhaps sleeping with “so” many people, changed his view of Ameena.

If that wasn’t bad enough, when Ameena disclosed she had slept with more women than men he told Ameena he could tell she was “promiscuous”. His comments are a classic example of the fetishisation of women who sleep with other women and the belief they are more “sexual” if they sleep with other women. Ameena asked him to leave and she was left feeling “really gross and it stuck with me until today”.

Slut shaming causes women to feel “hurt, their confidence is reduced and this affects self-image,” psychotherapist and spokesperson for the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) Yuko Nippoda told me. She describes how when given the label of a “slut” people can “start to believe what society identifies them as. The idea stays with them, and they start to feel that they are doing something wrong. In the end, it affects their freedom of expression as they feel ashamed of themselves.”

It’s important to remember Ameena’s date’s comments don’t exist in a vacuum. They’re part of a wider cultural problem in which men feel they have a right to judge women on who they sleep with, how many partners they have or what sexual preferences and styles they have. Judging women for their sexual habits and perceived “promiscuity” has existed since the dawn of time, often linked to religion. You would think with all the progress we’ve made, the centuries old tradition of condemning a woman’s sexuality would have died out by now.

And so, dear men and the occasional female; the next time you laugh at a mate calling a girl a “slag”, or you get annoyed that your date has slept with more people than you or your group chat labels a girl a “whore” for sending nude images you requested, take a long hard look at yourself. Yes, it makes you look like a bit of a dick, but more importantly, your comments most likely come from a place of deep rooted internal misogyny. You can’t call yourself a feminist if you’re still using sex to put women down. So quit with the slut shaming and call it out when you see it. Calling someone a “slag” is a guaranteed way of them not sleeping with you and all you’re doing with these comments is making a woman question her self-worth for engaging in the most basic of human behaviours. Not very sexy is it.

*Names changed to protect identities 

Featured image credit before edits via Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

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