Recently I heard a joke which seemed to both capture our societal attitude towards female sexuality, and struck me in a very heathen sense as being deeply wrong. The joke compared men to keys and women to locks and concluded that a man whose key opens many locks is awesome, while I woman whose lock opened to many keys was worthless.

Everyone seemed to find it funny, but what strikes me as strange funny, rather than amusing funny, is this joke would make total sense to ISIS, whose belief that women are property can thus view a woman’s sexuality as being her husband’s property, and infringing on those property rights would make that property less valuable. As deeply offensive as that attitude is, it is at least consistent with their misogynist ethic.

Whether you stone sluts or merely make jokes about them, the acceptance that women who have the same sexual freedom as men are sluts seems to be accepted quite broadly

I thought rather than arguing about whether we should use the word Slut, be proud of the word, or ban the word, it was time we should decode the word. It is time we took a look at what it means THAT we use the word slut. Heathens understand worth, so we actually understand the mechanism that is at work when we build or tear down our own, or another’s worth, so perhaps we above all should be the ones to decode “Slut” and examine what it says about the society that uses the word.

For a westerner to laugh at that same joke is disturbing. Examine what this paradigm requires to be true. For if a man’s worth is increased by sexual knowledge of many women, and a woman’s worth is decreased by sexual knowledge of many men, then a man is literally taking a woman’s worth away by having sex with her. This is the language of conquest, for in making love we are not exchanging anything, I am taking from you. The job implied by the joke is for men to prove their power or worth by conquering many women, and cautioning women that their worth could be easily lost by such conquest.

So basically western thought still accept the premise that all heterosexual sex is rape. That my wife and I do not make love, I rape her. Those women that I have known over my life I have taken from, not an honest exchange of love and or pleasure, but the outright theft of their worth, as I built mine by taking hers away.

Oddly enough, I have a problem with this. In our own lore I think of the origin of Brisengamen, the necklace by which the goddess Freya renews the earth, the focus of the ever renewing bounty of this earth. To win this necklace, Freya had to sleep with all four of the dwarven smiths who had taken the fallen amber of her tears and the gold from deep in the earth to forge this token of power.

If you wish to apply the label of slut to a woman of many lovers, you must certainly apply it to Freya, but do so with caution my friends, for the sexuality of women, and that of men, was more truly understood by our pre-Christian ancestors that those of us who live in the hate filled age that follows the people of the book placed men and women not as partners or symbiots,but predator and prey.

Freya took no husband, but loved how and where it suited her needs or her whims. Rather than being a slattern of no worth, she was desired by all those of high estate or low, and beyond the power of any to compel. The myth of the building of the wall of Asgard and the Lay of Thyrm both have as their driving force that the Jottuns risk all, and generally lose it, for the chance to lie with Freya. Were she a slut as we envision things today, a woman of no character or worth made base by her lack of husband and her having multiple lovers, it should have been easy for any to persuade her, but indeed Odin himself could not compel her. We see Freya helping Thor dress in a wedding gown in her place to retrieve his hammer rather than Freya. Why?

The answer is simple, because a woman’s worth is not lessened by her lovers, and the power of Freya was treated with respect. Equal to Odin in might and magic, she received half the slain, and first choice at that. Is this a woman cheapened and lessened by the laying with four dwarves to win her necklace? Hardly. Trifle with Freya at your peril, what she gives is by choice and is a blessing indeed, but no god or giant can compel her.

To be a man in this western age. is to have to question the definition of manhood that we inherit. I am no rapist, and to slut shame a woman is to say some important things we need to think about.

First: For a woman to be shamed by loving a man, men must by definition be unworthy of that love, for if we were worthy of the love she had shared with us, neither one of us would be lessened by it.

You see the truth of this statement? Do you see the ugliness implied in it?

If a woman can be shamed by consensual sex with a man, if her worth really is found in NOT sleeping with men then the choice of men is to be rapist or failure. To be a successful predator, or a failure. No where is there worth to be found for men in love.

Alright, lets ignore feminism altogether, this deal sucks for men. You are either a monster or a weakling. Piss on that. That is Christianity and Islam speaking.

When two people come together, reguardless of gender, in love it is a sacred thing, a beautiful thing, and a binding of not only the two people, but of two lines that stretch in both directions to the most ancient ancestors, and forward to the last of the descendants yet unborn. We speak of witnessing and solemnizing the vows, to witness before the community the covenant of union between two people that we marry. We do not wave a magic wand, or use some special licence to join these people, their love and their troth, their desire, their hard work, their commitment, their love and understanding of each other have made the magic, and we as a community, and as officiating priests are here to bear witness and recognize what two people have made together. This is a new thing forged from the love of two people, something greater than either of them alone, and more than the sum of their selves. This is not passing ownership of the bride from father to husband (or wife) like some chattel or farm animal. This is not the groom taking the worth of the bride, this is both bride and groom (two brides, or two grooms, whatever) coming together in love to plight their troth and join themselves in union forged of love and mutual dedication into something stronger. This is a sacred thing, a powerful thing, and a worthy thing. To make it ugly with violence, hatred, scorn or manipulation is to make what should have been holy profane instead, but that is true of any duty. If a duty can build worth done well, it can destroy worth done poorly.

When two people come together in passion, whether seeking to see of such a deeper relationship may one day be possible, or just because they wish to brighten each other’s lives with shared moments of joy, this too is a blessing. Not as great an offering, not as great a reward, but a powerful affirmation of life, a true exchange of joy. This too is a thing that builds rather than destroys worth, if done with mutual respect and affection. Again, you can make a bright thing foul by duplicity, violence, or manipulation, but done with honest love and joy it is a bright and blessed thing indeed.

To accept that love lessens a woman is to state that men are unworthy of love, and to know it is to be either thief or rapist. I reject this. To say a woman must either be virgin or without virtue is to take her power away, make her prize rather than person. A woman who chooses to love, or not love following her heart may earn worth based on being true to her feelings and treating her partner with the respect she expects to be treated with in return. A man who chooses to love, or not love in the same fashion likewise builds his worth by honouring those relationships.

Take back your sexuality, I don’t care if you are gay or straight, but know that if you love truly and honestly, you are building your worth. Know that the joy you bring your partner does not lessen you, rather it, like any reciprocal gifting relationship, builds your worth even as it both strengthens and sustains you.

Hail Freyr, ever rampant Hail Freya ever loving. I embrace love as a path to worth and reject utterly the language of Slut and the definition of men and women as predator and prey. This was never our way, and it is time we remembered that.