On September 3, 2020, a polarizing Utah-based club peddling the sanctimonious benefits of celibacy quietly crystallized on Instagram.
The BYU Virgin Club, whose questionable legitimacy inspired several journalistic investigations, called upon teens to embrace their “Pious Girl Summer,” denouncing the sexual deviance of those college-aged infidels who dare to engage in consensual sex before marriage or — worse yet — the godless Hot Girl Summer. Having sex was “an affront to God,” the page claimed, and BYU students should, instead, “sing God’s holy hymns” and embrace the viral abstinence challenge No Nut November (except, like … year round). Like a sinister hooded figure in the dark, the hegemonic voice offered advice on “how to remain pure coming into the new school year,” prompting a waterfall of perplexed users to ask, “… Is this real?” (Slate’s investigation says the page is most likely not a real student group, but real Mormon juvies are still interacting with it.)
But in July of this year, following in the footsteps of the moral-panic-inducing Virginity account, the mysterious BYU Slut Club blossomed onto the internet not even a year later. The similarly Utah-based club, which is not officially affiliated with BYU and appears to be a parody account, is promoting a message of sexual freedom and attempting to reclaim the word “slut,” encouraging heretics of all genders across college campuses nationwide to shamelessly spread their legs a little wider.
The page plays off the religious overtones within BYU Virgin’s posts, invoking such mottos as “All sluts go to heaven!,” “just say YES to Satan’s cocktail of sex and drugs,” and, a personal favorite, “There is no shame in letting loose and acting out like a wild heathen before marriage.” Come on, heathens! Unlike the lordly tone that looms over BYU Virgin’s content, the anonymous voice running the account is light, playful and warm, encouraging Sluts of all genders and ages to engage in slutty activities like traveling, chasing your dreams or having safe, consensual sex with as many partners as you’d like.
InsideHook recently caught up with one of the Gen Z founding members of the Slut Club over Zoom, who agreed to speak with us on the condition of anonymity, so they can freely “spread the word that it’s okay to be a Slut” without pressure or shame.
But the identity of the Club’s founders is beside the point. Considering the collegiate environment I grew up in, which spread vile sexual rumors about female coeds while hailing their male counterparts as “legends,” the Slut Club’s message is urgently needed for a culture that promotes puritanical viewpoints, lacks real sex education, refuses to normalize kink or fetish, and continues to slut-shame young people for expressing themselves sexually or otherwise. The Slut Club, on the other hand, is truly a happy place (they even gassed me up in my DMs before I reached out to interview them, thanking me for being such a loyal little slut). And they want you to live your best slutty life, too.
Get in, sluts. We’re interviewing the BYU Slut Club.
InsideHook: Can you explain what events led up to the creation of the BYU Slut Club?
BYU Slut Club: One of our friends attends BYU, and they DM’ed a group of us about this BYU Virginity Club back in July of 2021. It just made us laugh and cringe and also made us sleuth around to figure out … is this real or not? Because it definitely seemed like a parody account. So we looked at all the posts that they’ve put up on their page and we decided that we wanted to make an account that’s the opposite of them — one that promotes the destigmatization of sexual exploration, that supports safe sex and embraces a word that is commonly used to hurt others.
The BYU Slut Club was created on July 26, 2021, when we uploaded our first post. What’s important for us is that while we are poking fun and parodying the BYU Virgin Club, we are not making fun of sluts. Sluts are usually the ones being bashed and slammed and slandered not only on that page but also in the real world. So we decided to change the narrative. We wanted to stand for something that’s more powerful than an insult. We are sluts, and that’s something that we are proud of.
How would you define the word “slut?”
To us, being a slut means living the life you want to live. Ask that person out, post that sexy pic, have sex, travel and don’t listen to people who tell you how to dress. Do what makes you happy. Being a slut isn’t just about sex. And I know it’s a cliché, but life is really too short. So why should we waste it on what other people think of us and living to appease their expectations?
After following your page, I’ve found myself starting to use that word more. I’ll call myself a dirty slut now, but I mean it in a positive way. It’s been fun working it back into my daily lexicon. If anyone’s gonna call me a slut, it’s gonna be me.
You’re taking that power back! And we love that because we’re a club that has zero tolerance for slut-shaming, racism, sexism, ableism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia or any kind of bigotry. This club is a safe place with welcoming arms for everyone who holds those values true. At the end of the day, it’s about love: love yourself and love others. There’s nothing simpler than that.
The branding and design of your posts is very similar to the Virgin Club. Was that intentional?
Our colors are almost exactly the same as theirs, and the posts themselves are inspired by the Virgin Club content. But we take their language and make it our own. The prompt or the question of the post might be the same as theirs, and we follow their format of how they’re posting — mostly text slideshows in a Q&A format. We wanted to make it abundantly clear that we are parodying them while uplifting and praising sluts at the same time.
What has your community been like?
We were nervous, to be honest, because of the connotation of the word slut. We weren’t sure what the response was going to be or if we were going to get hate messages. And to be honest, this experience has been full of support and love from almost everybody. It wasn’t until recently that some people have commented negatively about it. But for the most part, people message us saying, “Thank you so much for following me” or “whoever runs this account is going to heaven.” And we’re like, “Welcome to the club, slut. We’re happy you’re here. We love you. We’re honored that you want to follow us and support this message.”
Are you able to tell me how many founders there are?
Unfortunately, I can’t. But essentially, we refer to anyone who’s part of the club or any of the members that follow us as part of this movement.
You keep mentioning your “members,” but there’s not an official membership, right?
There’s not an actual membership or anything you have to do to be part of it. It’s just whoever says, “Hey, I like what you’re doing.” And we say, “We like you as well. So welcome to the club.”
Any messages that stand out to you?
Yes, actually someone messaged us saying, “Can I still be a member if I haven’t had sex?” In response, we made a post about it saying, “You don’t have to have sex to be a slut.” That was really sweet, and we hope we made a difference in that young person’s life.
In the “Fave Slut” highlight on your Instagram, you asked your followers who their favorite sluts were. They responded: “Miley Cyrus, Daddy Worthen, my mom, Halsey, Brigham Young himself (man’s had 55 wives) and myself.” In your book, can literally anyone be a slut if they’re living freely?
Exactly. The first definition of a “slut” was from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales in 1387, and it had nothing to do with sex at all. The line was, “Why is thy Lord so sluttish,” and it’s actually just referencing a man’s untidy appearance. Then in 1402, the Oxford English Dictionary changed the definition to “a woman of dirty, slovenly or untidy habits or appearance of foul slattern.” We’ve yet to find research pointing to when or why the definition changed from “filthy or dirty” to “a promiscuous woman who sleeps with many sexual partners.” But even that aspect is wrong: the idea that you are unworthy, unfavored or unwanted just because you’ve slept with a lot of people has nothing to do with you as a person, in our opinion.
Who do you think is responsible for our culture of slut-shaming, then?
The patriarchy! It’s horrendous how the patriarchy has held its grasp on women’s bodies — barking out commands on how to dress, how to talk, how to act and how to live. According to Crossing the Line: Sexual Harassment at School from the American Association of University Women by Catherine Hill and Holly Kearl, slut-shaming is experienced by 50% of girls, compared to 20% of boys. But according to journalist Megan Gibson of Time.com, women slut-shame each other on Twitter as much as men do. There’s a quote in that story from Cheryl Dellasega, a professor at the Pennsylvania State University and author of the book Mean Girls Grown Up, who says that “women and men often adopt the dominant attitude and language that’s used around them in order to fit in.” In other words, “You have to comply with the norm … even if it’s a norm you don’t like,” Dellasega says.
Meaning that women slut-shame other women because slut-shaming, in general, is the norm, no matter how horrific?
Exactly. For us, what she’s saying comes back to the patriarchy and societal rules that men have put in place. There is no equivalent of the word slut that refers to men in a derogatory way. Men can sleep with as many partners as they like, which is great for them, but when a woman does the same thing, she’s looked down upon as dirty or unfavored. But, like we said, we love sluts of all genders. And there are definitely some good men out there who we believe can help change the culture around slut-shaming.
Totally. When I was in school, people used to refer to particularly sexually active frat stars by calling them “man sluts.” But it didn’t have the same negative connotation.
Right. Unfortunately, that word has typically been used as a weapon, but only towards women.
Does your community also reject kink-shaming?
Big time. No kink-shaming, except for soaking.
Oh god, what is soaking?
Don’t look it up, or you’ll have to throw your work computer in a river. Soaking was invented by the Mormons, because the Mormon community, including BYU, doesn’t believe in sex before marriage. Soaking, then, is a loophole in which a man inserts his penis into a woman, and they both just sit there with no friction or movement.
That sounds terrible.
And then it gets worse because there’s another Mormon loophole called jump-humping, when a friend at the party jumps on your bed to create friction. Somehow, in their minds, that’s not having sex. But everything else, we won’t judge you!
Ah, sort of like the poophole loophole. Why do you think the vagina is this sacred place that men can only enter once they’re married?
This all stems from religion. With the vagina, it’s this sacred body part. And young men have been told, “Don’t go near it, don’t touch it or you’re gonna burn in hell.” It’s very harmful to young girls and the way they see their bodies. Sex is always talked about in terms of, “How can I please a man?” And that starts with sex education in schools; the realities of sex are avoided because it’s uncomfortable or inappropriate for young people within many religious communities, not just Mormonism. But then you’re not giving young people the tools that they need to understand their own bodies, understand their partners’ bodies or understand how to respect women.
For the male readers of InsideHook, who have perhaps already gone through their college phase in a time when there wasn’t as much sexual freedom on college campuses as there is today, what would you say to them?
We would invite them to join our community. You can be a slut, and it’s okay. Men, women, anybody, any gender can be a slut. I would encourage them to spread love and kindness and peace. This is a beautiful time to experience life, especially if they didn’t have that freedom back in the day.
You heard ‘em. Now go live your best life, Sluts.
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