Do I just need to accept that I was a Slut?

[cheekymonk]

Evening All! I am happily married with one ds now but back in my uni days I was very promiscuous and did sleep with over 100 men roughly. I used to have to get really pissed to have the confidence to approach anyone (mainly due to being fat). I was lonely and although I had made some friends, I wanted a boyfriend too and in my warped mind sleeping with someone and being wanted for all of 30 mins or if I was lucky, the whole night was the next best thing.
I lived with 6 male housemates at the time who were appalled my behaviour. I did have threesomes/forsomes (and a fivesome too I think!) which was what pushed them into really despising me. One night I brought someone back, he went then I went back out and brought someone else back. It is shocking and I was out of control but those housemates were so vile.
I ended up recently sending a message to one of them on facebook. I wanted an apology but have today come home to this
"It has been a long time - 13 years in fact, which i why suddenly recieving this from you scares me that you have gone to the lengths to find me. Obviously some deep seated resentment there that you probably need to get off your chest/deal with through professional help. Either way - yes behaviour to you may not have been entirely appropriate, but my did you deserve it. Hoping to find brother figures? WHy on earth? I cannot imagine why you, a second year, felt the need to take a room with six male 4th year students. Most 2nd years got digs with friends they made in the 1st year...!!!! To refute some of your allegations about us. 2 of us had girlfriends, neither of them cheated on them. The rest of us, me included, enjoyed a significantly lower level of "single life" than you did - as you said it's what people do at uni...mainly with students met at the Student's Union", though, not with sailors they pick up in Joanna's night club. While I am all for enjoying the single life, both for men and women - you took it to such an extreme. 2 guys in one night I recall...one at about 1030 and then you going back out to bring another one back! Another stealing my bike from the hall! I hope my thoughts about the way YOU behaved are clear. I may have been a little immature back then and yes, 13 years is a long time. But do I have any regrets/would I behave differently to such a prolific enjoyment of the single life as yours now - I doubt it. I trust that I will not hear form you again."

I feel so gutted and worthless, just like I did then. I sincerely regret raking up the past. I am trying to understand now WHY I behaved so badly and try and reconcile the past but am having trouble.
Any thoughts? Do I just need to accept that i was a total slut back then??

No, the double standard doesn't exist in everyone Dittany.

cheeky I thoink perhaps you should seek councelling actually, having read your last post.

Cheekymonk - I think what you need to accept is that this is all in the past. Regardless of any rights or wrongs, it has absolutely no relevance to your life today.

FWIW, despite the fact that your original message to this bloke was a bit ill advised, he has shown that he still cannot be the better person because he wrote you that nasty response. He should have either ignored your message or written back something along the lines of "I'd rather not rake up the past".

Could you explain why you are thinking about the past so much and why you need to reconcile it? It is done, it is gone and you have a lovely new life now. It really doesn't matter what happened at uni and plenty of us are ashamed of lots of happenings at uni (me included!).

Charming drloves8. I take real offense to the accusation of finding married life boring. Its anything but as my dh comes and goes. My happiest times are the 3 of us cuddling together on a settee not having wild sex on a rollercoaster or whatever. I do think I am seen as boring at work and yes I sometimes have the urge to say well actually i did this/that but not in relation to my dh.

Cheekymonk that just convinces me even more that you've only posted on here for attention. Did this email even happen?

If this was someone's first post, we'd all be shouting troll.

You wanted to get something off your chest by sending this e-mail and you didn't get the reply you'd hoped for. But the e-mail you sent was rude and accusatory.

Why would he apologise?

It seems to me that there is a part of you that feels that women who have a lot of casual sex are "sluts" - however much you protest that you should be able to act like the men who might get congratulated for this. I've had a lot of partners in my time and it wouldn't occur to me to think of myself as a slut because I was brought up to think that sex was not a big deal, I was taught, if you wanted it and you enjoyed it then do it (thanks to parents who were young and part of the "Summer of Love" generation). So firstly there seems to be a battle within yourself and partly you are fighting with your own internal beliefs I think.

You say that you want to understand why you did what you did - I'm sure you can come to that knowledge if you are really honest with yourself. It sounds like any sort of self-harm in a way, blotting out painful emotions but with the added complication of wanting to be wanted by your chosen method of self-harm which wouldn't have happened with a bottle, a needle or a razor blade.

That time was clearly very painful for you and hard to bear - which is sad and you were looking for a brother/father figure such as you mention in your message perhaps to help you (what of those figures in your own family?) but instead those young men were shocked and alienated and reacted by attacking back. I can't help thinking that there is more to the kicking down the door story than you have told us for instance. Your sadness and the shame that you feel seem to rise the anger in you, hence that attacking message you sent to the old flatmate.

You say that you have had counselling but you never mentioned your sexual past - why is that? Were you scared that you would feel judged? You wouldn't have been but posting on here is certainly a way to end up feeling judged in the same way that sending an accusatory email out of the blue is setting yourself up to be insulted once more.

I'm sorry that you went through such a bad time but you came out it seems healthy physically, able to have a baby and settle into a loving, stable relationship. These are great positives to focus on.

it was a question cheekymonk , not an accusation .
If you are happy , why are you re-living the past? why e-mail the bloke from uni?

unless you did want a shock reaction .

I think like alot of people, I am trying to be the best I can be. I hate confrontation so took a job that is mainly around confrontation day in and day out and I have become better at it. I am losing weight and am always trying to improve myself. I give Motherhood as much time, energy and thought as I can. I think I have trouble reconciling who I was then to who I am now because they are so different.
I just believe in facing things and knowing yourself and those around you inside out almost to have a stable, happy and healthy family life.
I do need to accept that the level of my behaviour then but I don't have to accept the judgement of others I think I have worked out!

I don't actually think his response was that nasty, more like maybe a few home truths. Given what the OP wrote in her message to him I think his response was fair enough. It is rather odd to hunt someone down you don't even like and who you have not stayed in touch with just to demand an apology for something which happened years ago in another lifetime.

If you don't want judgement, don't ask for it on a forum visited by millions of people, in a thread asking if you are a slut, and then become aggrieved when you are judged!

FWIW, I don't mind people, male or female, who have sex with lots of people. It's completely their choice. But I do mind people who alienate people in their own homes by treating the place like a brothel, letting strangers in without a clue whether they're a doctor or an axe murderer, and shagging someone on the sofa of a shared house, and then complain that they were treated badly by their housemates. That, I judge.

Yes the double standard certainly still exist, and a lot of the problems people have around sex are due to the lingering cultural myth that it's bad and wrong to have lots of sex with lots of people.
Having sex is not bad and wrong in itself. Cheeky, it sounds as though you sometimes had sex for the wrong reasons and made some mistakes (and probably were hard to live with ) BUT your behaviour certainly wasn't motivated by malice, or a wish to have and wield power over other people, so it honestly wasn't all that wicked.
Has something happened to you recently that has triggered off this urge to revisit the past? If it is, as someone else suggested, some buckethead of a therapist who suggested it, bin the therapist and find one with a couple more braincells: contacting people you were on bad terms with in the past is never going to be helpful - even if you contact a former acquaintance to apologise to them, they may react with aggression, rudeness or condescension.

My Mum is very black and white about things so I'm not sure if there is her voice in my head. I also believe that if you have shown someone all your faults and they still love you then it really is a love to hold on to. My Dad was a distant figure in my life really, always working and impossible to get approval from (classic psychoanalysis stuff here!). I had a major crush at school at 15 and almost sang it from the rooftops. Everyone knew I loved this teacher 9or thought I did). I even took the A level so he would still be my teacher!
The email was sent and received. I am not a troll!

The behaviour I find strange in you Cheeky, if you don't mind me saying, is not so much what you did 13 years ago when you were a little wild and immature, but the behaviour that drove you to confront and accuse someone such a long time after the fact. That, tbh, is just as questionable as what you did or didn't do all those years ago.

I didn't say you were a troll cheekymonk, I've seen your name around a few times. But be honest - if this was someone's first post and you saw them pour out all their deepest darkest secrets over six pages to complete strangers, and then say that they seek approval of other people and have issues with attention, what would you think?

I really don't know what prompted my sending the email. My DH was bemused at my sending of it as was a frind at work. I just did it really. It was a very spur of the moment thing. I had bumped into the brother of my best mate from Uni (we are no longer friends now) so maybe subconsciously that started something off. I did start to write an autobiography a while back but I found it depressing rather than cathartic so left it.

you took a job that is mainly around confrontation day on and day out , because you hate confrontation? WHY?
I think you may have an addiction to adrenaline ... do you get a buzz out of being scared ?
An adrenaline high , if continued long term , can bugger up the chemicals in your brain and may cause you to become depressed in the future.(many women who escape abusive relationships will experience euphoria and then depression when the "addrenaline rush" caused by the fear of abuse comes to an end. (when they escape the abuse).
Please go back to your councellor.

but I don't now any of you Mrs L123 do I? There is no real comeback is there? I love the anonymonity of it on here and find it liberating. In my life I tend to be listening all the time its only with my Dh that I am doing the talking and he is away!
I didn't ssay i have issues with attention. I don't feel i am attention seeking. I don't want to be ignored but don't have to be the centre of the party either. I just want to be acknowledged and acepted by some, not necessarily all.

Writing an autobiography? Oh dear, that's tipped me too far over the edge I'm afraid, so I'm getting off this loony train now.

Cheekymonk your life is obviously filled with a lot of drama, you must be very tired all the time. I hope you get things sorted, really I do. But I don't think posting on here is the way to do it. You're not coming across very well to be honest.

btw , i dont think you are a slut .
just a very young and confused girl.

the sexual encounter at 17 was consensual dittany, sorry.
no i am not addicted to adrenaline drloves8, i am too lazy for that but I do like to push myself. If you are always comfortable, you will never grow as a person imo.

Wow.

I posted on this thread following your first post but before your second, Cheeky.

You attacked this man, many years down the line and out of the blue, you didn't approach him in a reasonable manner by any stretch of the imagination. In light of your message to him, his pales into civil!

I really don't understand why you might have thought his reaction would have been anything other than defensive and I really can't process what you were trying to achieve?

Cheeky - I don't think this is a very safe place for your mental health for you to be posting. You've been through some really sad times and this being an open net forum you are going to get some replies that will feed into the side of you that is deeply upset by people not giving you approval.