Brave Girls Don't Slut-shame

I knew I'd be called a slut if I had sex as a teen.  So I made a pledge that I would wait until after my eighteenth birthday to lose my virginity.  Except, the thing was, I wanted to have sex.  I was a normal girl with raging hormones and a cute boyfriend.  It wasn't just that I wanted to give in to my instincts, I also wanted to know what all the fuss was about.  On TV, people were having sex.  Many of my friends were having sex.  I had sex ed in school.  In the books I was reading?  Sex.

But I didn't want to be called a slut.

All girls face this dilemma as teens.  Slutshaming is real and it's everywhere.  But I was surprised to find it on Goodreads.  That's right *sigh* Goodreads.  According to Wikipedia, "Goodreads' mission is to help people find and share books they love... [and] to improve the process of reading and learning throughout the world.

So that's cool.  But this week, I came across a blogger named Alexandra Duncan who posted about finding her book on a Goodreads shelf called, "Slut.".  The slut-shelf is made up of mostly YA books where a female main character engages in premarital sex.  

When I was afraid of being a teenage slut, I was seventeen, twenty-six years ago...in 1987, people. Why is this still a thing?  

Like the leggings and yoga pants debacle at my daughter's school, the sexuality of girls continues to be something mocked and openly shamed.  What can parents, educators and writers do about changing this?  Ms. Duncan is hosting a "Slutshelf Giveaway," she's encouraging other bloggers to post about this, host additional giveaways and to use Twitter as a tool to engage conversation and advocate for girls.  

Here's my giveaway.  Post a reply to the blog and you will automatically be entered to win a book by one of the fabulous members of Brave Girls Alliance, a collective of advocates for girls and women.

I'm in.  Are you?