SELF-LOVE, AUTHENTICITY

How Being Called A Slut Changed The Trajectory Of My Life

I’m not that four-letter word.

When I was young, I thought Grace Kelly and Jackie Kennedy embodied what it meant to be a real woman. They glide into rooms. Their nails are beautifully manicured. Their speech flows with gentle kindness. Their hair is perfect. They drip with elegance.

I can’t imagine them ever getting sweaty or messy, not even when having sex.

But alas, I’m not one of those women. I often bolt into rooms. My cuticles need tending. My words come out in fits and starts and often need white-out. I failed hair and makeup 101. I’m quite certain I’ll never be described as elegant.

And I most certainly get sweaty and messy, especially when having sex.

Growing up, I was a girl with dirty fingernails. I explored the world with my whole body — with my eyes, ears, and especially my hands and skin. I loved to touch things. Trees. Grass. Dirt. I loved being barefoot.

I could never wash dishes or do gardening with gloves. I needed to feel the hot, soapy water. The smoothness of the plates. The rough, wooden handle of the trowel. The stickiness of the dirt.

As I grew older, my need to experience the world with my hands and skin included wanting to explore the bodies of guys and have them explore mine as well.

I loved touching them and having them touch me. I loved the smell and feel of their skin. I loved their strength. I loved the sensation of their rough hands and tender lips on my body.

And then, one day after such an exploration, I was called a slut. I felt so ashamed and embarrassed for who I was and what I loved.

So I started hiding that part of me. I didn’t want to be called that four-letter word ever again.

I decided to change who I was and become what I thought a good woman should be — a woman a man would be proud to take home to meet his mother. A woman that didn’t get messy and dirty, especially with men. I became a people-pleaser. I decided not to make waves.

I tried to emulate Grace and Jackie. I tried to be elegant and gentle. I tried to be demure and graceful. I hid how much I wanted to touch and be touched. I concealed how much I wanted raw, messy, sweaty, beautiful sex.

Lots of raw, messy, sweaty, beautiful sex.

And because I hid who I really was, I attracted a man who didn’t want the woman I really was. I married someone who didn’t want raw, messy, sweaty, beautiful sex. I married someone who didn’t seem to want much sex at all. Someone who rarely took his tee-shirt off during sex. Someone who could never really be naked.

Yet, as much as I tried to hide her, that woman still lived inside me. And at age 48, she came roaring out when I had my affair.

Recently, I wrote an essay about how I clung to my affair because I hadn’t yet healed my boundaryless people-pleasing ways, but what I wrote was only partially true. There was another reason I clung to my affair. A bigger reason.

After reading Yael Wolfe’s beautiful essay “Live Your Life as a Woman who loves Sex”, I realized what that bigger reason was. The woman she describes in her essay is exactly who I am. When I wrote my piece, I still wasn’t facing my truth.

The other reason I clung to the affair — the bigger reason — was because the woman inside me who loves raw, messy, sweaty, beautiful sex was finally unleashed. I finally got what I need and crave. The real me came back to life.

With my affair partner, I was able to be my authentic self. And I clung to him because I didn’t want that to end. My affair made me realize I cannot go back to living any other way.

Yael’s essay inspired me to see it’s time to embrace this truth.

I am not Grace or Jackie. I don’t glide into rooms. I am certainly not elegant.

I am Kasey. I am still that young girl with dirty fingernails who embraces all of life with her eyes, ears, and hands. I am a woman who needs to do the same with a man. I am a woman who loves raw, messy, sweaty, beautiful sex.

I will no longer be ashamed or embarrassed for who I am.

I am not that four-letter word.

Kasey Sparks, © 2021

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