I Don't Even Know (Wattpad Rants)

Slutshaming is Toxic and Problematic: Please STOP Pt. 1

Okay, guys.

This is an issue that I've been bottling up for a long, long time, and I think it's finally time to talk about it.

I'm going to keep this chapter a little bit more serious than usual because this is a real issue, and as someone who has actually been affected by the damaging message, I need everyone to see why this is a problem.

Let me start this out by saying that hiding behind the thinly-veiled shield of "it's just a story, and if you take it literally, you're a snowflake who is dumb" argument does not make this issue any less harmful or damaging to young audiences.

Firstly, let me remind you all that a majority of Wattpad users are teenage girls. So, you have to understand how disturbing it is that a site populated by young girls is filled to the brim with said young girls spreading so much hate and misogyny towards other girls. Young, impressionable girls come on this site, see the girl-hate and slut-shaming then regurgitate the same sentiment in their own writing, and this is a PROBLEM. It's an even bigger issue if the author is an adult because like...WTF ARE YOU TEACHING YOUR AUDIENCE?

Now, I'm not going constrain this issue to Wattpad, because I need to talk about how messed up our society is when it comes to sexuality in girls and women (I know there are issues for men, too but that's not the point of this chapter). Because, honestly, there's a reason that slut-shaming and virgin-glorifying is so rampant in this site, and it has to do with the realm outside of Wattpad.

But, don't worry. I'll try not to make it political. I'll also be opening up about some of my own experiences and telling you why I believe that having these themes in fiction is not as harmless as some people want to believe. Just because it's in a fictional world with dragons and magic doesn't mean that it doesn't have elements of the real world or that themes of real-world beliefs aren't present. Authorial intent is a whole other issue, though, so I'm just going to skip over it.

Also, I will be talking about this from a heterosexual perspective because a) I feel I have no right to discuss these issues in the LGBTQ+ community considering I don't have the experience and b) I feel like the issue of slut-shaming in the LGBTQ+ community is much more complex and has a lot more layers that I can't cover in this chapter. Also, slut-shaming in general is deeply rooted in how heteronormative our world is, so I will keep it simple and talk about issues stemming from there.

[So, I wanted to keep this topic restricted to one chapter, but it ended up becoming way too long and I didn't want to drop a monster of a chapter on my readers. I asked what length you would prefer to read, and the few who commented said shorter, split-up parts, which is why I'm making this a series. I tried to split this in a way that makes sense, so hopefully it'll make sense by the final part. Even doing so, all the parts ended up being quite long, so be prepared.]

Anyway, let's get started.

(As a side note, for those of you who aren't sure what slut-shaming is, it's when a usually female character who is sexually promiscuous is belittled, bullied, and judged by another character, most commonly by the virgin MC and the equally sexually promiscuous bad boy for her sleeping around and wearing revealing clothes. I.e. for not conforming into women's expectation to "preserve" their bodies.)

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💠 Virgins vs Sluts in Wattpad

I'm going to start things off easy by staying in the realm of Wattpad to talk about the trope of "Virgins vs Sluts". I'm not sure if there's an actual name for it (guess slut-shaming is the closest term), so that's what I'm going refer to it for now.

Now, let me tell you why I viscerally hate this trope. Let's say, just for a few delusional moments, that slut-shaming does not happen in the real world and is something that only ever happens in fiction. It's still a horrible trope that I wish would burn in hell.