I think it may depend on location. I'm currently even in the deep south, but the grad students at the university I'm at (of either gender) don't seem to have any problem at all having flings.

Not being one of them, I may be missing something, of course, but I don't hear any derogatory comments about them. The worst I've seen is a certain general amusement when one picks a partner... poorly, and a spectacular explosion results.

I think there was a little more whispered comment about the married student couple we had who happened to be goth swingers, but even then, it was more of a "whoa, those guys are weird", more than a "someone burn those filthy sluts" kind of vibe.

Even our religious nuts tend to keep their opinions to themselves about that kind of thing.

The virgin/whore dichotomy is imposed on the behavior that people exhibit. Using it to describe the ways people should act surely helps siphon people off into one category or anther, but ultimately, anyone in the "middle" is going to be categorized anyway. Casual sex and romance aren't dependent on the virgin/whore dichotomy. A lot of attitudes toward sex are.

Zed, your experience has been my experience. I've never really heard anyone classified as a whore or made to feel like crap about it. Even a friend of mine who has had on occasion numerous partners in a single evening (including trysts in a bars bathroom) is well liked and generally accepted.

Me and a friend were discussing this just this weekend, and she said, "Girls don't call other girls whores because it just shows their jealousy (about not having as many sexual partners" and "Guys don't call girls whores, because then they know they won't get very much promiscuous sex" so her conclusion was "Girls aren't called whores very often".

So in my experience the women that I hear talked about most in terms of negative gossip are the serial monogamists. No one seems to care if people are sleeping around but everyone has an opinion about the shortcomings of someone who "can't be alone". Has anyone else noticed this?

Yeah, I've definitely noticed that buglover. That's DoubleTrue for men.

Eshew, your friends logic seemed... a little...skewed. heh.

In first year university I lived on a floor that was all about 'free love'. There were, however, 3 or 4 people on the floor that were really judgemental about it and did call all the girls whores, and would really gossip about it.

I in part agree with Zed on location, and I think it really depends on how you carry yourself. The girls on the floor that dressed more provocative were the ones getting called slut, not me and the girls that dress more conservative.

But us girls having fun with sex and clothes aren't what keeps the dichotomy alive, its very much people's conservative opinion about sex.

the article pretty clearly dileneates between fuck buddies and one night stands. in my experience, people generally are much less judgemental about the friends with benefits scenario than they are about one night stands, particularly if the one night stands are frequent occurances. i'm not sure why this is the case.

i think teh attitudes are more a generational issue, and would be interested in seeing how the age groups responded in the survey. very few of my friends my age are prudish about multiple partners or sexual "deviancy", but my older friends do seem to be more conservative.

oh, and as a very general personal note, nearly all of the australians i know are much more liberal on a number of different issues than americans. it would be interesting to see the results of the same survey carried out in the US.

I've had plenty of casual sex in my life, and I discovered that in general, the people who were the most judgmental towards me were the people who didn't have the confidence in themselves to do the same thing and the people who were too afraid that someone would judge them the way they judged me.
I don't feel there is anything wrong with having casual sex, either as one night stands or as booty calls so long as everyone involved is safe and understands what's (not) expected.
I had the "what if we really dated" moments, but since only the sex was fulfilling, I didn't see the point of pursuing it further. I know that I did on occasion wonder whether the men involved in my one night stands thought of me as a whore, but my sense of fairness figured that name calling goes both ways.

i'm one of those "serial monogomists" and i definitely get negative comments about it. mostly from an ex-boyfriend who loved to talk about the benefits of "single time" and sleeping with different people. but i'm sure had i had some of that single time before i met my current boyfriend, the ex would have been calling me a whore!

i think people are labled for many different reasons but the biggest being their own insecurities. it's rare that i see someone comfortable with their own lifestyle criticizing that of another.

I don't see how people making "booty calls" to a trusted friend are going to be condemned as "sluts" even in conservative communities, unless somebody who knows of the activity gossips or broadcasts that fact. Indeed, that's probably one of the advantages of the friends-with-benefits scenario for those who partake in it.

If the post is asking whether it is possible for a woman to have truly casual sex even in a friends-with-benefits scenario where nobody else is aware, that gets perilously close to Catherine MacKinnon's position that the culture is so patriarchal that almost all heterosexual sex is bad for women. I'm not sure too many people accept THAT view.

Kian- 3 or 4 girls out of an entire dormitory floor is a quite small minority faction. If the majority of girls are taking part in the activity, and a vastly small minority are gossiping about it, then I think you would find that the gossips don't hold power over those being gossipped about.

And I think if you were to ask any of the girls that were promiscuous why the girls were gossiping...a common answer would be "they're just jealous."

I don't see how your example and my friends logic are incongruous?

Veela-Exactly me and my friends points. If someone is labeling people as a whore, it's unnattractive because it spotlights the fact that they have insecurities.

The attitude that it's wrong to label people based on their sexuality is becoming more and more prevalent in the younger generations (if it isn't the most prevalent attitude).

In fact the backlash has been to ostracize people for being monogamous, and I have seen that take place. Girls asked by other girls why they don't ditch their boyfriend for some fun time...guys doing the same to guys...etc.

Eshew...our dorm floor had 25 people living on it all together. So 3-4 people is a reasonable enough amount. And on our floor, the answer wasn't "they're jealous" it was "it's just not their thing".

Our floor wasn't that much like highschool. It's not like we didn't hear the gossip, they said it straight to our faces, and it just turned into an 'agree to disagree' discussion about promiscuity.

Before I look through any of the other comments, I want to say that I think we'd be perpetuating negative societal views if we changed our decisions in this respect based on them -- i.e., if we *didn't* persue a casual relationship that we wanted to, solely because we were aware of the "whore" dynamic surrounding it. (Similarly, if we *did* choose to have a relationship when we wouldn't have otherwise, for fear of perpetuating the notion of women as virginal, it would be the same).

Also, I'm surprised it's only 50%, that seems kind of low.

Well, if you agreed to disagree, than they didn't exactly call you whores or ostracize you for your behavior, so it still fits in line with my explanation.

Having a philisophical disagreement isn't the same as calling someone a whore or ostracizing them for their behavior...or even pressuring them to change.

Since you felt no pressure at all to change your behavior, your example still falls in line with mine and my friends discussion.

Who said they didn't call us whores? They did. We just took it for what it was and felt comfortable enough with what we were doing to not let their opinions of us change our views about ourselves.

There was pressure to change our behavior, but I personally, didn't. Others did. Not everyone was okay with being called a whore, where as me and the others were comfortable enough with who we were/are to maintain our 'behavior'.

Generally called "fuck friends" ... and among adults, such immature tags as whore, slut etc do not exist here, not really a part of our national psyche.

naiserie: Glad you said it, 'cause quite frankly, I just don't get American attitudes to a whole host of issues, especially sex.

Not true---

Americans are coming along...only one out of all the anecdotes here mentions a negative attitude towards sex here.

Personally, I find the Australian attitude towards manythings border line vulgar...

And if liberal includes liberally racially insulting aboriginals (all of my australian friends seem to be borderline racist), than yes Australians are more liberal than us ;)

Eshew Obfuscation: Yes we are rude, crude and anything else you would like to throw at us. But as this article was referring to Australian attitudes about casual sex. I was simply trying to point out that the words whore & slut are never used by adults in our society in a serious vein. Especially as both sexes benefit from our casual attitudes.

Yes Australians have a lot of crap jokes about Kooris and everyone else for that matter, but that wasn't the subject matter ... besides we do not have the racial problems that exist in the US because whilst we joke around and make all sorts of politically incorrect statments in the final analysis we could't give a flying fuck who anyone is.

New Zealand would have to be the most egalitarian society on the face of this earth and both Pakeha & Maori openly knock each other ... you just don't get the joke ... too busy being offended.

Not true: “besides we do not have the racial problems that exist in the US because� Wait a minute! Wasn’t t only recently there were racial riots in Australia?!! And as for racism against aborigines, here judge fro yourself: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1739753,00.html

Not true: That really smacks of Canadian denial of racism in our society, because "we don't have it in Canada." Racism and discrimination exists everywhere.

Well don't tell me you are actually believe everything you read and see in the media ... surely you know better than that.

I live here, you don't ... and travel from one end of the metropolitan region to the other every week day (ie 3hrs there and 2 1/2hrs back). We have people from about 160 different cultural backgrounds and we all get along just fine.

As for the so called racial riots ... as I have said before there is a minority of about 1000 young Lebanese Muslims who were under the impression that they were above the law ... they assaulted a lifeguard on a peaceful city beach, finally enough was enough. Primarily due to police never doing anything about it ... now they do. Nobody was killed, just a bunch of young hooligans who thought they could do whatever they liked ... a lot of cars were trashed though ... definitely not as dramatic as riots in other countries.

Everywhere may have racism of one form or another but nowhere has racism like the US and you wouldn't understand because you only perceive racism by you own standards. Disrearding Goverment racism ... the majority of people are not racist, except the aforementioned young Lebanese Muslims louts who hate everyone and for no particular reason other than they think they are superior.

Everywhere may have racism of one form or another but nowhere has racism like the US and you wouldn't understand because you only perceive racism by you own standards.

Honestly, I don't know how much racism there is in Australia and New Zealand, and how it compares with the US and Canada. What I do know is that Europeans are noticeably more xenophobic than Americans, and the level of ghettoization and discrimination is higher in Europe than in North America, despite the USA's wanton income inequality.

"Europeans are noticeably more xenophobic"

Well, well Europeans, excuse me but are there not about 45 countries that comprise Europe. I wonder are you talking about the Dutch, perhaps the French or maybe Andorrans.

Besides, xenophobia and racism are not necessarily synonymous. But just for sport, here is a poll

True we don’t live in Australia, but you don’t live in the US either. I hardly find your poll reliable. People in the US are generally very accepting of foreign cultures. Immigrants’ assimilation or rather lack there of is not such a big problem here. By the second generation everybody is really American. Racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, they are really different names for the same phenomena, namely hatred and fear of “the other�. For me “Lebanese Muslim louts� already reeks of racism.

The "poll" was for "sport", hardly valid when only 250 or so people vote, fuck I was being light-hearted ... get over yourself. That's part of the problem, people focus so much on the negative and take issue where none needs to be made.

The original comment I made was simply pointing out that "whore" and "slut" were not a part of adult vocabulary when it came to "casual sex" as per the topic, which I might add was referring to an Australian article. Then came the barrage and it evolved into this crap.

"Slut" isn't used to refer to actual sexual activity, it's used to denigrate a girl or woman who is particularly (or precociously) developed, or to disparage female appearance. Thus, Pamela Anderson is said to dress like a slut, even when married or monogamous.

I haven't heard anyone seriously use either whore or slut since high school, more than 20 years ago. I don't think women who enjoy casual sex are exempt from societal pressure, instead, I think they have found a society who's mores accord with their own.

Not True,

Well, my post was only in response to “we do not have the racial problems that exist in the US…�, and not in response to whatever you had to say about the use of the word “slut� in Australian vocabulary. And yes it is completely off topic but you didn’t have to make those comments if you didn’t want to get into “this crap�. I didn’t start the conversation about racism in Australia, which doesn’t have anything to do with the topic of the article, but when you post a comment you can expect people to respond. No need to get all flustered.