The Slut List

Once a year in my high school, some of the jocks would get together and write up the Slut List: the top ten biggest sluts in the school. It was biased - At least half of the list would be ex-girlfriends whose feelings they were trying to hurt. By the time I was a junior, The Slut List was something everything looked forward to. It would come out sometime after Christmas but before spring break. It was a news item. It was like waiting to hear Oscar nominations. The list would come out and be passed around in classes or by mouth in the halls. Despite the fact that the list was completely biased, we waited for it like commandments from the top of ... whatever mountain Moses met Jesus on. (It's funny because it's not like we needed the list to tell us who got around.) Less than half of the ten girls on the list were actually slutty. The jocks weren't even aware of some of the sluttiest girls, the girls who'd give head for pot, or for a ride home. The girls on the list were girls who dated guys with serious Madonna/whore complexes: as soon as their girlfriend went past second base, the guy was no longer interested because the girl wasn't as nice a girl as he originally thought. So she went on the list. One year, a girl who made the list got a hold of it and brought it to the principal and got a bunch of boys in trouble. Another year, my friend's older sister, who was tough as nails but beautiful in her combat boots and angled-forward haircut, kicked a football player in the balls when he made fun of her for being on the list. (This sparked a winter-long war between the jocks and the punks.) Most girls would be mad, or cry when their name appeared in red chickenscratch on the jagged-edged piece of looseleaf. But then a feminist kind of backlash happened. When I was a junior, one of my friends made it onto the list. I had only known her during that schoolyear, and in the six months since she'd moved there, she'd been with almost ten guys, and fooled around with many more. She knew she deserved to make the list, but when it came out, she was mad. "I'm only number six!" she shrieked in the hallways. She bonded with another girl who didn't make the Top Five either. "Next year," they discussed loudly with each other, "next year I'm going to be at least in the Top Three." "And I want to be Number One!" the other would respond. It was the first time I'd ever personally seen someone take a derogatory thing and turn it around to flaunt it in their attacker's face. The way women have claimed 'cunt' and 'bitch' as compliments in an attempt to take the sting out of it.