Slut-shaming: A Lazy Man’s Defense
By: Martha Marvels
Tags: Domestic Violence, Narcissism, Relationships, Self Improvement, Women

Slut-shaming: A Lazy Man’s Defense

Photo by LOGAN WEAVER on Unsplash

The topic of my underwear does not deserve a separate chapter but it does. Black lace or red? I think I prefer the red, against my skin. The red feels nicer, luxurious. Your fingers dance over the lace and tease me through the fabric. Don’t go inside just yet.

Not the hands of my husband he was long gone. My skin recoiled by his touch long before our marriage ended. But yours I welcome, cannot get enough of, long after we have made love, long after we lie together. Our bodies touching, embracing and then you leave, always too soon, always before sunrise, always before breakfast.

Will you ever taste my delicately cooked eggs and smashed ‘avo’ upon my favorite rye toast? A mystery. I think I would be too nervous. What would I say? What would I do with you after we made love again? Talk, I feel uncomfortable and then there’s the morning light, the sun and no hiding. I think you feel the same and perhaps that’s why you don’t stay. Are you afraid of what ifs? I don’t know, I don’t ask why but you know I want you to stay. My red ‘knickers’ are still on the floor the morning after, where you left them.

I became the slut you said I was. Another man in your house, in your pool, in your bed, in your wife. We’re not divorced yet, but definitely separated, we couldn’t be more separated.

I don’t go back to you, although you ask. I was with him at the time, you were at my door but I didn’t want you there and asked you to leave. I knew the second time not to go back, I had learned my lesson, a vey expensive one. I had already made that mistake and I wasn’t going to make it again. Besides I didn’t like you anymore, you annoyed me and I didn’t believe you or believe you wanted me. I thought your intentions were insincere. I did not trust you, I knew you were a liar.

I know you are a liar. I heard my baby tell me I was having affairs back before I was ready for another pair of hands to touch me. You see I was upset, I was heartbroken. Our marriage had ended and I couldn’t face it — less for myself, more for my children. I was feeling a lot of things: guilt, shame, numb, scared but I was not feeling the skin of another. I was still heartbroken. Over 20 years we were together and you told her my G-strings, the ones that you washed only because I was not there. You locked me out of the house. My sexy underwear you said was proof that I was having affairs.

I wore G-strings for all sorts of reasons, because they were there and I needed to do some washing, my more comfortable underwear already worn or to match my bra or not but not because I was having affairs. You confused my daughter, only just a teenager. She thought less of her mother, she thought less of herself and you didn’t consider that. She started to wear baggy clothes, careful to not be a slut, careful to not be like her mother.

The reality of my life was less interesting than the story you created. I was trying to create a peaceful home for my children. I was not thinking of a new man or men, I was just thinking of how to survive with no job, a house I couldn’t afford, children now from a broken family and the guilt I felt because I had created that.

I had created their pain and then you created more pain to put on top of the pain that was already there. You added the pain of a fabricated life that I did not live, not then. The children were already in pain and you added chaos to alter the minds of my children so that they would like me less.

Since then I have added a lover but it came many months later when I was ready, ready for another. I was nervous, I was already over you but I was not over the pain: the toxicity of the legacy you created as you would not just walk away. Not until you had everything.

In you entitled little brain you believe I owe you and I have paid dearly for my sins. You have my children. Is that the last thing on your list? Or is it the money in the trust fund? You can have it, take it. Take everything, have it all but I want my children. That is all.

I want to be mum every second week for the weeks entirety without your accusations: ‘I am a bad mum,’ ‘you are better than me.’ You sound like a two year old and I don’t know why we are fighting like children in the family court. “Who started it?” she asked me. Even the professionals, the ones with titles sound like children.

You poke, poke, poke me until you get a reaction and then you can say, “see she’s moody and erratic.” You took my fucking children, of course I am emotional. You took and took until you had both of them and then you took the dog too. I can’t stand the quiet. The quiet of the house haunts me. I have not even a ghost to keep me company, only my thoughts, the good morning cheer of the birds and the click of my keyboard that is what I have.

Slut shaming is a lazy man’s defense, a go to tactic whether it is true or not and what if it were true or not? What is a slut? A questionable word used against women. Too easy, too frigid, too pure, too slutty, too bitchy, too high maintenance, too highly strung, too needy are words used to attempt to control women’s behavior. But what if I were all of those or none of those or some of these, only words but they define, shape or erode — used intentionally to deplete, bully, to wound. However your words only make me stronger.

You can’ t keep a good woman down, nor should you try.

She will rise and she will not only be stronger, but smarter, a champion at resilience and perseverance. She knows that each time you attack her you do so because you feel week and inferior. You attack her because you need to take from her energy to build upon your own tortured soul.

No longer in the mood for giving, she is an indifferent, impenetrable rock. Smooth to touch, molded by this Earth and stronger than you think, bolder than you think. She’ll strike only when she needs to. Her impact is not yours to take. Her impact is hers no longer dimmed by you but hers - mine.

I am free of your hold, I am emerging and powerful in my own right. My life force reliable, solid to the core.

I am Martha Marvels.