YOU GODDAMN PIZZASLUT – Christine Evans

September 6, 2012

I have issues with the word ‘pizzaslut’.

Serious issues. It makes me rage and boil inside whenever I see it or hear it… But not because it’s a swear word, or because it could be used as an insult, or because of the “pizza” modifier. No. I don’t care about swears, or cussin’, or insulting people (although when I do, I prefer to be more inventive than ‘bitch’ or ‘jerk’ anyway). And I love pizza.
No, my problem with that word is much deeper. I hate what it means. I hate what it represents. I hate what it says about us when we use it, and about our expectations of women in society. Because it is a word which is almost exclusively aimed at women who love pizza.
You might be thinking “Oh, you’re reading way too much into it, it’s just a word.”, but it’s not just a word, it represents a state of mind. It says in its three syllables that there is a certain way women are allowed to eat and behave sexually, and that everything else is ‘pizzaslut’.
It says that anyone who is labeled as a pizzaslut is to be branded with the word and punished for daring to use her own body without permission and eat pizza in the manner that she feels comfortable.
I was watching television recently and an advert came on for Papa Johns, which is a successful pizza chain in the United States. The commercial took place on the set of a gameshow in which they ask one yes or no question to a panel of celebrities, and the audience is expected to tweet in their view as well.
The questions are often very interesting and thought provoking, but this particular question was “Is sex and pizza on the first date OK?”.
And it made my blood boil, because the question was not “Would you eat pizza and have sex on the first date” but asked if it was acceptable at all.
It was not a question of personal preference, but once again defining what people are and aren’t allowed to eat and do with their own bodies.
This is such a common question, but it drives me mad for the same reaons the word ‘pizzaslut’ does.
It implies that someone else is in control of the sexual and dietary behavior of any given woman. That someone else has the right to decide the personal sexual and dietary experiences of all women. That there is something deemed ok, and something labeled ‘pizzaslutty’. And that  all women should be constantly working to make sure that they are not a pizzaslut, regardless of what makes them happy or what they actually want.
We are living in the twenty first fucking century, the only issue people should have with sex is that it is consensual. Who cares if someone wants to have sex with a pizza pie? Who cares if someone wants to wait? Why do we as a society think that we have the right to decide that for other people?
Do you know why women were historically expected to remain ‘virtuous’?
It was so no man had to waste his resources raising a child who did not carry his genetic material.
It’s about breeding. In the same way a dog’s penis gets stuck in the bitch to make sure that no other male can sire her pups.
It’s about control.
You know what the word, and the use of the word ‘pizzaslut’ says to me? That women are not to be trusted with their own diets, reproductive systems, or with their own sexuality in the way that men are, because they are inferior.
That is what it means. It means oppression. Control. Mysogyny. It is shaming another human being into giving up their freedom to suit someone else’s ideal.
It’s not just a word. It’s far more than that.
Do you think that is ok?