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Dear Betty,

I am a student at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan; a sex-positive feminist and a huge fan of yours! Last semester I met a like-minded young woman, Maria, who has become a great friend of mine and we share our love for you and often discuss sex and various issues surrounding women. We have recently come across an issue that is bothering us both quite a bit.

A young woman, and a Wayne State student, posted on her facebook a status that read "Control your whoremones, slut." I stared in awe at not only this but the 25 (yes, twenty five) "likes" that the status received from fellow students. I had to express my dislike to the poster, obviously, and was promptly questioned.

It is not only this one incident- Maria and I know about and have discussed this issue before but have never been faced with it in such an overt and... bothersome way, for lack of a better term. We care about our school and women and sex- and we are so disappointed by what we are seeing and hearing.

So our question for you is, what do we do? How do we combat this mentality, how do we respond and how do we deal with this issue without becoming overly frustrated? How can we make our University a better one in this regard? When we asked these questions of ourselves, we knew we had to ask Betty! Thank you so much for your time and any help you can provide.

With so much love,

C (and M)

Greetings C and M,

Yes, the slippery slope of Christian sex negative propaganda with a new batch of Repugs in Congress will demand our attention and rebuttal to push back on the "Slut stigma." This will always be with us to some degree as long as organized religions exist in America.

One of the big problems with feminism is that we are still fighting old battles that we thought were already won such as keeping abortion legal, making contraception more easily available and getting equal pay for equal work. Even back in the seventies when I was pushing for women's sexual liberation, I was told it was too soon, we had bigger battles to fight and besides, my message would turn away potential members because marriage to a faithful husband was most women's ideal. In spite of the apparent failure of this "ideal", we are still stuck in the same place.

What helped then can also help your generation today: we called it "consciousness raising" then which was a difficult tag line. Just like our Dems today who don't know how to successfully brand an idea to give it more appeal. But the idea is still solid and what to call it is still a problem. We need to intrigue more women to listen up and get involved.

To gather groups of like-minded women to meet on a regular basis and share their stories. In the Bodysex workshops I ran for 25 years the opening question was "How do you feel about your body and orgasms?" First person sharing was the healing that created new energy toward change.

Another idea that several college women used was to show one of my DVD's and then open up the small group to discussion. We learn from one another that we are not alone. As we share our stories we also get new ideas of what to try next. In order to push back against the slut stigma we need to speak out but first we need to know we have allies.

Share the latest Marie Clair article on the number of sex partners women claim to have had. Carlin came in with 100 at the age of 37. Having come of age during America's Sexual Revolution I can boast of more than a 1000 but then that was before AIDS which slowed down our sexual freedom. Now that your generation has mastered safe sex, it will return slowly but surely.

Sexual liberation is not about racking up numbers! Rather it's about CHOICE. If a woman chooses to do the old fashioned marriage til death do us part, that's her choice. For those of us who prefer to remain single and have multiple lovers, that too is choice. The freedom to chose is what it's all about.

How about "Sluts R Us" for our new sex positive movement? Or, Fucking like a Feminist? Just kidding. We must come up with a tag line that appeals to the largest number of young and older women alike. "The Orgasmic Sisterhood" has a nice ring to it.

Carlin and I are currently discussing some kind of online chat to reach out to your generation. It's clear the Vagina Monologues will not produce any meaningful change other than to further entrench the unfortunate misnaming of our sex organ. So stay tuned to www.dodsonandross.com. We're on it.

Dr. Betty