Today is all about SEX in a small town.

It ain't no Sex and The City that's for dern sure.

So, the topic in the family lately (yep, we're like THE family as in THE mafia as in "we have an opinion and you better pay attention or swim with the fishes) is SEX. Mostly because my teenage cousins (that would be including but not limited to Cousin Who Can't Pick Boyfriends, Cousin Who Dates Guys That Think She Should Quit College, and Cousin Who Likes Sex) are all having sex and everyone seems to know about it.

This is SEX in a small town. You have sex with someone (no matter who it is) and they tell everyone (because boys can't keep their damn mouths shut) and then EVERYONE is talking about what a town bicycle you are (as in the sluttiest of the sluts to ever slut a slut). This ultimately dissapoints your family.

Cousin Who Can't Pick Boyfriends likes to bring her boyfriends she can't pick to her house, which means for everyone she brings, everybody knows they are (probably) doing it. SLUT.

Cousin Who Dates Guys That Think She Should Quit College dated this guy who thought she should... ahem... quit college and when she didn't and instead broke up with him and started dating ANOTHER guy so her original guy showed up at her parents house to tattle that she was with SOME OTHER GUY. SLUT.

And finally Cousin Who Like to Have Sex... well, speaks for itself now doesn't it.

The point is, sex in a small town means people know. And then people talk. And the more people talk the crazier they become and then all of a sudden some innocent girl who is NOT ONLY getting the best grades, going to Ivy League Schools, and is a positive contributor to her community becomes, that girl who slept with so and so (this is not the same thing for the guys. It's a double standard beyond all double standards. The STUD vs. the SLUT, girls always lose).

I never slept with anyone in my small town. In fact looking back there was probably only one guy I would have actually slept with and good thing I didn't considering I occasionally see him out and about with his three kids and wife. Anyway, as per my mother's advice I kept all that stuff "away" from our small town. AWAY as in, the big city means a certain amount of anomynity coupled with the largely slutty population of a big city any way. In New York you can "date around" and then quickly dump that date and move on to the next one, and it's EXPECTED. In "The City" everybody's a little bit of a slut (except for Husband, Husband was a damn eunich) so they don't particularly care to go throwing around the label.

And so, for as many people as I've slept with (no I'm NOT going to tell you a number, it's none of your business) according to the people in my small town I've slept with two. That would be the first serious boyfriend I brought home and my husband. They only KNOW that I've slept with my Husband because we had a baby, and they are guessing on my ex boyfriend because my parents let us sleep in the same room (oooo, and we weren't even married) when we came to visit.

My point is, kept far away from the prying eyes of those paying attention. So I'm the saint (to my sinful ways).

Part of me wants to stand in solidarity with my poor cousins and let them know that 1. They aren't nearly as slutty as me and 2. Eventually it doesn't exactly matter because the number or the people aren't really adding up to anything, you find that person you want to stick it out with (or you don't) and you just go on, making decisions for yourself and not what people are saying. I want to scream from the rooftops my number and I want to tell them "that's just SEX in a small town."

And so my mother asks me to define "slut" for her, as everyone's definitions are different and I say "someone who has a lot of sex with people and feels bad about it afterwards but keeps doing it over and over again."

Then I went "actually, that's more crazy slut because isn't the definition of crazy doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?"

I digress.

Have decided that slut really has something to do with a girl who has lots of sex for the pleasure of the guy she's with rather than caring about getting off, one who doesn't get off but still acts like she does and then doesn't care about her pleasure... something like that.

But, discussing that, would be a whole different can of worms.