the slut/badass conundrum*

The art of female badassing is difficult to master.  One of the most evil forces trying to stop women from kicking ass like a female is the slut factor.  Being a woman is sexy.  Looking sexy is the whip cream on top of the accomplishment sundae.  Meagan Fox would be a sweet mechanic in Transformers if she wore a baseball hat and carhartt overalls but what makes her the f-ing shinz is that she fixes bikes in hot cutoffs and tousled waves.  She doesn't have to down play her female sexual power to be taken seriously because she can produce some serious work.  My question is, how many woman see her in those shorts and immediately write her off as a slut?

The reason I'm thinking about the slut/badass conundrum is because of my personal love of pillow fights.  Before moving to Jackson I had a lot of feminine prejudice against sexy women.  You would think that living in LA would have made me respect out rightly sexy woman, since the typical LAite tends to overindulge in sexual power.  The problem is that a lot of the LAites don't back their sexiness with intelligence, power, niceness, and drive.  Or maybe they do so much that I was too intimidated to notice.  I'll have to do further investigation on that topic.  When I got to Jackson, though, I met some seriously sexy hardballers.  My immediate best friend, K , is a 5'10" serious hottie, with lips like Angelina Jolie and legs up to my ribs.  She looks hot all the time.  Not booty hanging outta her shorts, giving it all way, nasty hot, but the girl's got a great body and she appropriately shows it off.  Hating her was a huge temptation, but she helped me ski, taught me how to make a bloody mary from scratch, introduced me to the power to knee high socks, drove me around the icy roads, and made it all look good.  This girl is from Texas and isn't afraid to raise chickens, build stuff, mow 5 acres of land, and lift what needs to be lifted.    While she never really convinced me that it's better to lift stuff yourself rather than tricking a man into lifting it, she did teach me that their is no reason to not look foxy while doing the dirty work.  

The moment I realize that K had smooshed my prejudices against obviously hot girls in boob shirts who like to take shots and go "whoo"  was the night she invited me over to hot tub with her boyfriend and a couple of friends.  I was the first to arrive.  After setting ourselves up with some cocktails, we put on some music and started the waiting game.    We're goofing off, listening to pop music and talking about the silly sexiness of hot tubs.  K gets the brilliant idea of pretending like we are having a pillow fight in our bikinis when her boyfriend arrives.  She's pretty sure he will pass out from excitement and we will be able to giggle about it for years to come.  As we started testing out our hilarious pillow moves, a strange thing happened.  We started having the time of our lives.  The reason slutty girls are always giggling in teen movies as they pillow fight is because pillow fighting is an amazingly fun/goofy/riotous past time.  There we were, in bikinis, alone, jumping off couches, trying to beat the crap out of each other and I was laughing so hard I thought either my ab muscles were going to give out or I was going to wet myself.  Perhaps, even both, chain reaction style.  I felt like a my carefree nine year old self at a slumber party.  

The Argument: 

Let's take a look at some masculine badass past times:  Dirt bikes.  Climbing shit and jumping off it (paragliding, skiing, etc.).  Blowing stuff up.  Pretty much the same activities associated with the deep desires of the common eleven year old boy.  In a lot of ways, badasses are just people who refuse to stop having the physically reckless fun of youth.  Hell, even Cool Hand Luke ate 50 eggs.  If eating contest aren't juvenile...

Awesome female pastimes that become slutty as we get older:  pillow fights, jumping on trampolines, cartwheel/splits contests, co-ed slumber parties, dressing up like barbies, etc., etc., etc.

Why should woman be held back from having a good time?  Girls always want to be pretty and feel like girls.  Woman always want to push themselves to the ultimate, whether it's starting a business, changing our own oil, cliff jumping, or learning to shake it like Beyonce.  Let's not let our desire to look good stop us from doing whatever we want.  Let's look like goddesses and act like badasses.  

*this article in no way encourages sexual promiscuity.  giving it up like it isn't worth anything is sluttacular and not to be done.