Sometimes it is nearly impossible to navigate the wave of my righteous anger. Sometimes when my students tell me that a feminist just “needs to get laid” and that a woman shouldn’t have equal pay because her husband will be working and that it’s fair because women are more often sick than men and have the bad manners to demand maternity leave it is nearly impossible for me to maintain my composure and my professional demeanor. Sometimes it is all I can do to not be angry. Fortunately, I don’t have to bite back my anger right now.

People, women and men alike, get so sick about listening to how the world isn’t fair, how civil rights haven’t been achieved, to how minorities and women are at a disadvantage in the world. People wish that feminists would just shut up and have the good manners to shave their pits, legs, and vagina. To those people I say my cunt is my own and until it ceases to scare you I will continue to talk about it.

Everything that is uniquely feminine is either not discussed in mixed-company, menstruation, or twisted to become a thing of pleasure waiting to be experienced by a man, the hymen. What does the loss of my virginity have to do with anyone but me? How can I ever give my body to another person? I can share it, let them touch it; I can even suffer its violation, but it’s still mine. You give someone a sweater, or a gift card. You don’t give them your body.

People don’t understand what the big deal is. People don’t understand why it matters to call a woman a whore, or a slut. Our reality is defined by our language and our language is full of heterglot--varied meaning. A whore is a woman that takes money for sex and a slut is a woman that is non-discriminating in her sexual partners. But both whores and sluts are the lowest tier of women; they are the women that no one has use for, the women with nothing left to give to anyone else. They are untrustworthy, incapable of love or tenderness, impure. How can sexuality relate to all of those things? How can the activities of my vagina define my moral character? My fists break noses. My feet might break ribs. My fingers can strangle. All of those body parts possess the power for pain, for hurt. My vagina does nothing more than reside between my legs. At best it allows for pleasure, my own and someone else’s. At worst it hurts me.

My sexual choices might be indicative of my immorality, but isn’t the true signifier not the sex itself but my blatant disregard for commitments made to someone else? My lack of ability to consider how my actions might hurt another? Isn’t prostitution more a sign of lack of ownership over one’s body? I don’t need this, why don’t you use it for awhile. But while the sex could be a sign it is not the cause. Minorities make up the vast population of criminals in this country, but we all recognize that it isn’t being a minority that causes it. You aren’t more likely to be evil because you are something other than white. But because minorities make up the vast majority of those living below the poverty line, crime becomes a staple of many communities. The two exist in the same sphere because circumstance has forced them there, not because one inevitably leads to the other.

So it is with women and sex. Women have been powerless throughout the ages; hated for what they are and lusted after for what they are. In a world of survival any weapon becomes one that is acceptable. Our bodies are our greatest asset, even while they are our greatest weakness. A beautiful woman can earn money, attention, even adoration. She also earns jealousy, judgment, and condemnation. But her beauty or her sexual behavior does not make her untrustworthy or incapable of love. Fighting for prestige, power, and acceptance do that. Having to sacrifice her vagina on the alter of hope--hope of money, hope of love, hope of power--does that.

So no. I’m not as much fun as I used to be. I’m louder and angrier than I once was and much less willing to bend. I do this because I am not defined by my vagina. It is simply one more part of me. And I will not be held hostage by a world that uses language without realizing the power in it. I will not sit idly by and watch centuries of misogyny and appropriation of women’s bodies continue through the thoughtless use of words like whore and slut. I do this because, while I might not like every woman I meet, I will not judge her because she is a woman. I will not judge her for how she chooses to use her body. I will judge her on her treatment of others. I will judge her on her dedication to not hurting her fellow human beings. I will judge her on her decency. Just like I judge men.

The world needs comedy to make its tragedies bearable. Many laugh at retards and midgets because we are all so grateful not to be one. Their existence is different from the norm. But most everyone knows better than to take advantage of them because they were born with a disadvantage, lower intelligence or smaller size. You say calling someone a whore is funny. I say what’s the greater tragedy, being born different, or being forced into it?