What does a man confess about himself when he wants a ‘slut’?

When I first heard the words, I thought it had to be a joke.

“I’m such a good slut for my daddy,” the woman purred in a sensual tone.

I looked over and saw the woman lean in toward a man at the table in a seductive way. Surely this is some kind of strange joke. But I quickly realized it was no joke.

I was in a fast food place near my office Monday night, somewhere I almost never go. The place is large, but it was quiet because there were only two tables in use. I was alone with my MacBook. Another nearby table was taken by three men and a woman.

The men were dressed in what I’d call business casual. The woman looked as though she was trying to be as sexually provocative as possible while still wearing expensive clothes. I’d say they were all in their early to mid 30s.

They talked a lot about sex, but what made it noteworthy was something more than that. They seemed to casually talk about sex as dirty — and they all seemed to agree that the more nasty and filthy and “slutty” a woman could be, the more attractive she was.

I’ve heard a lot of conversations among men about their attraction to “slutty” women, but those have mostly been the braggadocio of immature males trying to impress one another by telling lies about their personal lives — based on what they assumed would impress other immature little boys.

But what I’m seeing today — exemplified by the conversation I heard tonight — is that a lot of women have bought into this odd new societal expectation. And it’s not a matter of simply being “sex positive.” It’s very specifically the notion that it’s arousing and appealing for men and women to engage in behavior that they themselves define as “bad” or “slutty.”

I can only assume this is driven by the pervasive use of porn and the drive to remove the stigma from it. These people have been exposed to so much sexual gymnastics that they can’t be aroused anymore by seeing one another as good and decent people who love each other. Instead, they’ve been taught that they should pursue the most depraved things they can think of.

It’s not that they’ve been taught there’s nothing dirty about sex. That was once a positive thing that a lot of people needed to learn, but it’s gotten to the point of, “You can’t be really hot now unless you are completely dirty and disgusting.”

As I listened to the conversation Monday evening, I thought about something that a woman told me a few years back about how her husband wanted her to dress for a party of some sort. I don’t recall whether it was Halloween or something else, but it was something for which it was appropriate to dress in costumes of your choice.

The woman’s husband wanted her to dress as a sexually provocative beer maid, which would have required the woman to dress in something a bit like the women in the photo above. It would have required her to dress in a way that showed off her cleavage to others — as though her husband wanted to show her off as some sort of cheap floozy.

They’re educated upper middle class people, but something in the man’s mind made him think this is the way he wanted the world to see his wife. I was appalled then — because of what it said about the way he sees his wife — and I was just as appalled when I listened to these four people talk tonight.

I can’t say for sure what would drive a woman to want to become such a cheap creature as “daddy’s little slut,” but I can imagine the sort of lack of self-respect that would be involved. I can tell you something about the mindset of the men attracted to such thinking, though.

Every time I’ve listened to a man who was attracted to that way of thinking, I’ve found certain dysfunctional patterns that show up time and again, at least in the cases in which I could learn enough about the guys.

A man who wants a “bad girl” or a “slut” — or whatever devaluing term he wants to use — is confessing that he doesn’t think much of himself on the inside. The man who wants that sort of woman (and who wants other men to see his partner in this way) sees himself as defective or broken in some fundamental way.

A man who sees himself as decent wants a woman who he perceives as decent — and he wants others to see her in the same high way that he does. A man wants a woman to match the best in himself, and a man who wants the world to see a “slut” is confessing that he thinks that’s what he deserves.

A man who sees himself as good doesn’t see a committed sexual relationship as a place for something filthy and dirty. He sees such a relationship as a place for connecting with the highest and best in his partner, not with her lowest and dirtiest.

I feel sorry for people who were taught that sex is a dirty thing, but I feel even sorrier for those who believe they are dirty people — and that sex must be dirty for them to enjoy it.

Our culture is becoming more and more dysfunctional — and many millions have taught themselves to pursue something “dirty,” simply because their culture has programmed them to see themselves as filthy and worthless on the inside.