Am I a slut (possibly NSFW)

No, on the contrary! Communicate with him is what you need to do and see if he is considerate of your feelings.

No you’re not a slut. You haven’t told us why you want to stop him. That is important for both you and him to know. Nobody should ever feel compelled to have sex when they don’t want to but is there some negative voice that is preventing you from enjoying what you want to do?

@janbb I’m not exactly sure why, it’s almost like I feel scared. Not of him or of having sex but how it makes me feel afterwards. I feel like such a horrible person and I’ve thought of myself differently ever since my first time. Like I said, it’s enjoyable while it’s happening but as soon as it’s done I feel used and disgusting…

@creepypastagirl So – now you have to try to think about where that “you’re a slut” voice is coming from. Were you or are you very religious? Were you abused in the past? If there is shame associated with pleasurable and meaningful sex, you probably have had shame associated with it from somewhere.. You don’t need to answer here but thinking about where that voice comes from may be the beginning of sorting it out.

@janbb Thank you very much, this is definitely helpful.

No, you’re not a slut. You shouldn’t do it if you don’t want to, but you were conditioned by your authoritarian, patriarchal society to feel guilty for enjoying yourself.

Explore the disgust reaciton. It’s a natural response to risky or socially unacceptable forms of not just sexual arousal. You feel “disgust” when you are near a turd, especially someone else’s. This is your brain doing its absolute best to keep you from doing something dangerous to yourself (namely, come in contact with potentially life-threatening fecal bacteria). If a turd were to go into your mouth, your brain would likely make you vomit to reduce contact with the dangerous foreign object.

You’re legitimately too young to deal with a pregnancy, and you don’t want an STD. You seem to recognize that, and use protection. That might be some of the reason for the feeling of disgust. However, you’re probably dealing with the added strain of guilt from adults telling you that all sex is wrong for someone your age.

The language you use is very powerful.

“I always feel really dirty and shitty about myself afterwards..I feel like such a horrible person…as soon as it’s done, I feel used and disgusting.”

Why not stop having sex for the moment in order to begin to figure out where the language of self-loathing and self-recrimination is coming from? 17 is very young; putting your active sexual life with your boyfriend on hold while you work things out is not unreasonable.

Do you have access to a therapist where you can discuss all this in a safe and non-threatening envirnment.

“I want to do what he wants.” When that conflicts with your needs, as it certainly does, you don’t have to apologize for wanting to do what you want. Put the brakes on, please.

I’d add: the social element to disgust is pretty powerful. Homophobic types often feel disgust around homosexuals, and this is a side-effect of the fact that they’re physically aroused by homosexual acts and it makes them feel guilty and uncomfortable.

@gailcalled I don’t have a therapist but I have “safe” people I can talk it over with.

Sounds good to me. Stop the sex; start the talk.

“Slut” is a word typically used to describe a person (usually a female) with a lot of sexual partners or who behaves like (s)he might have a lot of sexual partners (like wearing provocative clothing or blatantly flirting with a lot of people).

You clearly don’t fit into the above description. I think the word you’re looking for is “tease.” That simply means you lead someone on to think they’re going to get lucky before ultimately turning them down. This is typically done intentionally in the context of the word.

Your boyfriend may feel as though he’s being teased, but don’t beat yourself up. Don’t force yourself to have sex if you really don’t want to. If he is hinting toward sex and you’re not into it, tell him so he knows that it may not happen.

As for your distress over the situation, just relax. A few things could be happening. If there’s no physical reason (like pain) that sex isn’t appealing to you and the physical attraction is there, you may just be psyching yourself out. Maybe your anxiety about this is the real culprit. Or maybe you just have a low libido. No matter what the issue is, a doctor could help you figure it out.

I have a low libido, but no medical condition causing it. I just deal with it; I’ve accepted it. My husband and I only have sex about once a week. He has a healthy libido and would love sex 3+ times per week while I could go months without it, so we compromise. I’d like to have a higher libido, sure, but it’s not the end of the world.

Seems like you are only with 1 person and you wear protection. That doesn’t make you a slut. If anything it makes you more responsible than most young people.

Maybe not a slut, but clearly something is making you feel “dirty and shitty”. Not much worse than feeling dirty and shitty.

People who make love, you said had sex, do not call themselves a slut.Making love is a culmination of thoughts, feelings, a deeper communication and expression of how you feel. So, who would call that person a slut? Some couples have sex for sex sake since they feel sexy, that is okay too. Some people have casual sex, take precautions and also take care to tell the person that they are only there for the sex. That shows a mature person enjoying sex for sex sake. Sex is not something that makes a person slutty or not.

Slut is defined as: a woman who has many casual sexual partners

and

a woman who has a low level of cleanliness.

Perhaps examin, like everyone here suggested your feelings and never have sex simply because you feel bad to say no. I hate the word slut, it is so old fashioned and I really thought as a generation we had outgrown the term.

You are in a relationship with him and aren’t out hooking up with random people I really don’t see anything wrong with it.
Man young women struggle with this kind of feeling.Sometimes people who were brought up strictly feels like this. This isn’t something you can solve on your own. You should find a therapist and start to discuss your feelings. Stop having sex for a little while and acknowledge your feelings for a bit.

I have had similar experiences off and on since I became sexually active 27 years ago (yes, 27 years ago, I’m 45).
I didn’t feel like a “slut” but I did feel like a “tease”. I would hate myself for it afterwards. I would hate that I betrayed myself just to make someone else happy. It’s a very difficult line in my estimation. When you love someone and are attracted to them, you want them to be happy. You want to feel as close as you can to them. On the other hand there are times you don’t want to do it. And in those times you need to honor yourself.
How does one find that balance?
I started having problems like you describe when I was 19. It was with my long term boyfriend (who I eventually married). I went into therapy for it (and other reasons).
It did help some. It didn’t make me want to have sex more. But, it made me learn to take my own needs to heart.
If you have a part of you that is basically shaming you for what you did, that for sure has to be respected and looked into.
In my case it was due to an abusive childhood.
Once in awhile I still have problems feeling shame after having sex when I really wasn’t in the mood. I am not saying that will happen to you. I am in fact very hopeful for you, as you are addressing this now when you are young. You are very aware of what is going on with you emotionally. Talking with your boyfriend and with those you trust is indeed the best way to start.

I would not call you a slut any more than I would call him a pedophile, (depending on where you live, some would label him that if he knowingly has sex and see you as sexual under the age of 18; 17yr 10 month notwithstanding). I would say you are promiscuous. You also come off as confused, as if you feel you have to because that is what everyone else is doing. You say you are sexually attracted to him and like having sex with him, but when the time comes, you don’t care for it, or do it and feel bad. That is the rub when you let that genie out of the bottle; you have a hard time getting it back in. You might feel bad because you feel you are being used for the sex, and some mental part is not being cultivated. Perhaps you are not getting what you feel you ought to be getting out of it, and that you are working more on making him happy than he is making you happy.

Sounds more like christian guilt.

@Hypocrisy_Central ”… promiscuous…”?? WTF? Nothing the OP has written suggests promiscuity……

Psst, @Hypocrisy_Central…

Promiscuous- Having casual sexual relations frequently with different partners; indiscriminate in the choice of sexual partners.

In what way is the OP promiscuous based on what she told us?

It really just sounds like a combination of guilt and the feeling of doing something you don’t wanna do. These are the types of decisions adults make in their everyday lives. If you feel like you can’t get over the guilt and work towards taking control of your own actions, I would advise not having sex anymore until you feel more liberated, which comes with aging into adulthood. However, you do have that choice now to take control and responsibility of your actions, and as long as you’re making smart decisions, the guilt will go away. As far not wanting to have sex, us guys deal with that all the time, we should understand when no means no, and the love with our partner doesn’t die just because we aren’t having sex 7 days a week. Your boyfriend would/should understand that, and you should just talk to him about it. If he reacts negatively, he ain’t the right one.

Hope this doesn’t come off as rude or too blunt lol. Even though it might.

@JoeyOhSoClever Not rude at all. Thank you.

You’re welcome :). So have you decided what you’re going to do?

Promiscuous:
Uninhibited, unrestrained, casual, unchaste, etc. One doesn’t need to be restricted to only being akin to a whore to be promiscuous. I did not hear there was a ”ring on it”.

@Hypocrisy_Central Your morality is very different from that of many other people.

@Hypocrisy_Central So she’s “promiscuous” because she’s having sex someone she’s not married to. Wow.

Yeah @janbb, his morality is different than that of most people in this century.

@JoeyOhSoClever I’m going to talk with him about taking a break from sex and see how he reacts to just spending time together without sex.

You are definitely not a slut. That is a word that has been used to shame girls for enjoying sex just as much as guys do, at a societal level.

An example of what I mean is something I read today about a school’s idea of a fun Valentine’s day activity. The girls were given hearts, one each, to carry during the day. The boys were given none. The girls were only allowed to talk to a boy if they wanted to give him their heart. At the end of the day, the girls received prizes if they kept their heart, the boys received prizes if they had been given one.

One commenter explained ”males are rewarded for collecting female “hearts” and are encouraged to collect as many as they possibly can, but females are only allowed to have one heart to give away, and when they give it away they’re not allowed to play anymore

the correlation of “hearts” to how virginity/sex is treated in society is kind of eerie and definitely sexist”

It sounds like you are feeling dirty after having sex even though you enjoy it because of internalised slut-shaming that is so ingrained into society.

And here’s a quote that might sum up why often girls are so confused about sex:

”don’t be slutty, don’t have sex. but be sexy. if you’re too sexy though and you get raped, then that’s you’re own fault because you’re not actually supposed to listen to us about being sexy, even though we tell you your value is derived from how sexy you are. if you get into a position of power, we will assume that you used your sex appeal to get there and not your brains and we will mock you even though we told you the only thing that mattered was your sex appeal. make yourself accessible to me, but holy shit stop being so desperate and needy. don’t be a tease. if we want to have sex with you, don’t friendzone us, even though we just fucking told you not to have sex.” x

It’s hard. Believe me I know. It’s really hard to try to see what society has conditioned us to believe our whole lives and then to stop believing it. I would love to be able to go out there and have casual sex or a one night stand for fun because I can and I am allowed to and should not be shamed for that, but I know that I would feel guilty and gross the next day, because I can’t help it, because of what so much conditioning has made me feel about women wanting to go out there and get sex.

If you are sexually attracted to him, you’re both consenting, you’re safe, and you enjoy it, there is no reason for you to feel dirty or shitty afterwards. I know it’s easier said than done, though, so just take your time, take a break from sex and talk to your boyfriend about how you’re feeling. It’s cliche for a reason, communication is key. Talk to your friends too. Talk it out. Bitch about society, don’t slut shame yourself or anyone else.