SLUT: A PLAY | Teens (Re)Claim Slut Status

On the cover of the book Slut: A Play and Guidebook for Combating Sexism and Sexual Violence, which was published by the Feminist Press of my alma mater, The City College of New York, Gloria Steinem opined: “SLUT is truthful, raw, and immediate! Experience this play and witness what American young women live with every day.

Playwright Katie Cappiello and Meg McInerney wrote in the book that during the sessions to develop the play at The Arts Effect All-Girl Theater Company in New York City, the word slut kept coming out of the mouths of the twenty East Coast high school students. For example: “I feel like a slut.”, “I was dressed all slutty.”, and “Haha. Oh my [G]od, you’re a dirty little slut!” 

Cappiello and McInerney wrote: “There’s an attempt being made by girls and young women across the country to reclaim the word. Being a “slut” means you’re sexy, fun, experimental, willing, popular, wanted, “fuckable” [...]”

Cappiello and McInerney shared that Slut: The Play is: “[...] authentic, nuanced, and hard-hitting.” And that: “[...] everything in this play is inspired by real events.”

(During the sessions about seven of the nymphets admitted that they had experienced sexual assault, which is probably inaccurate, because most victims of sexual assault don’t share their experiences. However, Cappiello and McInerney referenced a study that found that: “Eighty-one percent of kids and teens experience sexual harassment during middle school or high school years.”)

In the play, Joey (Winnifred Bonjean Alpart), a sixteen-year-old, was forcibly “fingered” in the back of a cab. “Luke is grabbing my other leg … Pulling my leg to the side, so my, um, legs would be more open [...] Then George all of a sudden really aggressively pulls my underwear to the side and jammed two of his fingers inside me [...] Then he (Luke) put two of his fingers in his mouth [...] and then he stuck his wet fingers in my vagina” 

However, Joey is “slut-shamed” for the incident, because an online picture of Joey suggested that she was giving George a lap dance in the back of the cab and a picture of her tasting fruit flavored condoms implied that she planned to give George and Luke “blow jobs”. Joey defended her raunchy behavior by proclaiming, “And we aren’t afraid to be sexual. If all that makes us sluts, then I guess we’re sluts.” 

Some motifs in the play, that’s set on the Upper East Side, are: cursing (e.g., “Ugh - fucking nasty.”), drinking (e.g., vodka), name-calling (e.g., “You don’t let a guy hook up with you when you have your period. Is she [thirteen-year-old Nadia Boyd] retarded? [...] Is she mentally challenged?”), raunchy teen behavior (e.g.,“[...] George once followed me into the bathroom and locked the door and wouldn’t let me out until I gave him a hand job. True story. I didn’t tell anyone. We ended up going out for, like, five months....”), rape (e.g., While visiting her brother, a college junior, Sylvie, a sixteen-year-old high school junior and virgin, shared, "The second night I was there, I was raped [...] College parties are fucking ridiculous, okay.”

SLUT Trailer 2018 from Katie Cappiello on Vimeo.

The actual text of Cappiello’s Slut: The Play wasn’t as revealing as some of the submissions in the chapter “Reality Check From Young Voices”. For example, Sonia, a fifteen-year-old sophomore from a small town in Pennsylvania shared: “We [My boyfriend and I] had been dating for a little over a month, when I asked him what he wanted for this sixteenth birthday. All he wanted from me was a blow job. [...] “Fine! I’ll give my boyfriend head because I’d rather that than him yell at me again.”

Fred, a thirteen-year-old, shared: “I started watching porn halfway through fifth grade. I had just begun middle school, and befriended a lot of kids in the seventh and eighth grade. Sometimes when I hung out with them they would make jokes about the porn they watched, referencing certain sites.”

Sixteen-year-old Clare wrote that her doorman “grabbed” her, “pulled” her into him, and “grabbed” her breast before he said, “I want a piece of this.” However, her neighbors paid his legal fees and opined that Clare was “[...] leading him on, or teasing him, or trying to ruin his life.”

And seventeen-year-old Danielle related: “I go to this typical Jewish summer camp, where promiscuous behavior is practically encouraged and cultivated [...] with no parental supervision, there are lots of sexual firsts for everyone [...] There is one girl in particular, Georgia, who is really petite and very pretty [...] Josh and another boy coerced - basically forced - Georgia to give them blow jobs, while others filmed it on their phones.”

Netflix's GRAND ARMY: Braless, Twerking, and Gagging Teens

Netflix's Grand Army (2020) was created, written, and executive produced by Katie Cappiello and is based on Cappiello's Slut: A Play. The main storyline in the play and the series is about Joey who was sexually assaulted, in the back of a New York City taxi, by her high school classmates. But to stretch the play into (9) nine streaming episodes, Cappiello added a number of (raunchy teen) scenarios. Thereby, utilizing the allure of nymphets. Let's take a look at how Cappiello stretched Slut: A Play into Grand Army.

S01E01

Joey (Odessa A'zion) helped a classmate remove a condom from her vagina. 

A "Bomb Pussy List" was created that listed the 50 Most Fuckable Females @ Grand Army High. Leila, a freshman who made the list, responded, "Oh my God! Wait. Does this mean that they wanna fuck me? [...] Like what's the criteria for an amazing pussy?' 

A high school house party included teen lipstick lesbians, cocaine, and teen sex. 

S01E02

Joey started a Grand Army High | Free the Nipple campaign: "Braless. Boundless. Blow up the patriarchy."  

Prompted by her entry on the "Bomb Pussy List" and being told, "George likes deep throating. How's your gag reflex?", Leila watched an oral sex instructional video - during class.

Ultimately, Leila gave George a hand job, but later George shared with Joey, "She couldn't make me cum. I had to finish myself off." 

Joey got her nipples pierced and proudly sexted a photo to the group chat. 

S01E03

This episode opened with twerking teen cheerleaders - in spandex shorts. 

In the sexual assault taxi scene, Cappiello added a vibrator that was gifted to Joey at the movie theater by a middle-aged man. "It's a little mini vibrator just for me." 

In what appeared to be an insensitive choice, after Joey was forcibly fingered by a classmate, "You're so wet," the episode ended with Tommy Genesis' "Play with It". Here's the pre-chorus: 

Play wit' the pussy, wanna play wit’ the pussy 

Come get a hooky, baby, come get a hooky 

I wanna fuck you, baby, I wanna fuck you 

If we not fuckin', baby, come get it poppin' 

S01E04

Here are two lines from the feminist high school play: 

"I even bought edible underwear." 

"I deserve an earth shattering full-body experience. I want the tickle. I want the explosion. I want to gasp for air. I want to scream [...]"

And Joey wasn't the only nymphet into sexting. Leila shared with a classmate, "I let him touch my boobs. I sent him nudes. I shaved my vag." 

S01E05

By episode 5, Leila finally gave George a "blow job" - in the drama department. "I gave him a blow job today in the drama department. And I swallowed, which is gross, but I didn't know what else to do." 

And speaking of teen oral sex, two nymphets demonstrated their gag reflexes via heart shaped suckers - in the library.

SPRING AWAKENING: Teen Masturbation, BDSM, Sex and Rape\Incest

Broadway's Spring Awakening musical is based on Frank Wedekind's bawdy play, but the musical is more raunchy. The musical made what the play implied more explicit, which is revealing when one realizes that the main characters, Wendla Bergman and Melchior Gabor, were fourteen-years-old.

For example, in the play Hans Rilow masturbated to a picture of Venus of Palma Vecchio which he described as having “plump, youthful breasts”. And asked, “Maiden, maiden, why dost thou press they knees together?” But his autoeroticism was implied.

Venus of Palma Vecchio

In the musical, Hanschen masturbated to Antonio da Correggio's Io. The stage directions read “[...] Slowly and steadily, Hanschen begins to masturbate – building steam as the scene continues.” And on Broadway, Jonathan B. Wright, playing an early-teen, energetically simulated masturbating first with his right then lift hand.

Antonio da Correggio's Io

In the play, fourteen-year-old Wendla asked Melchior, “Would you like to beat me with it once? […] Please---please.” But when she didn't feel Melchior's switch she said, “Oh, Lord, I don't notice it in the least! […] Then strike me on my legs!” Finally, feeling the pleasure of the pain she exclaimed, “You're stroking me! You're stroking me!”

In the musical, additional stage directions were added. “She offers him her backside. He considers, then strikes her lightly.” But Wendla said, “I don't feel it.” Melchior replied, “Maybe not, with your dress on.” Consequently, the stage direction read “Wendla hikes her skirt, offering Melchior the prospect of her somewhat more exposed backside." And that's exactly what Wendla (Lea Michele) did at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on 49th Street in Midtown Manhattan.

In the play, it was implied that Melchior raped Wendla when she pleaded, “Don't---don't, Melchior! […] Oh, Melchior!---Don't, don't---” But in the musical Wendla says, “”No […] Don't it...[...] Wait...[...] Now, there---now, that's...[..] Yes […]” After which the stage direction read “Melchior penetrates Wendla” to which she responds, “Melchior---oh...” On the stage, Melchior (Jonathan Groff) exposed Wendla's (Lea Michele) left fountain before he lowered his trousers, mooned the Broadway theater goers and simulated breaking Wendla's maidenhood up to climax.

Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff in Spring Awakening.
(Photo by Joan Marcus)

In the script's preface, Steven Sater admitted that shifts were made when he wrote the book “As others have noted, the two biggest shifts we made to the tale occur at the ends of Act One and Act Two---in the hayloft and then in the graveyard. In Wedenkind's script, Melchior “date-rapes” Wendla. We wanted to see him make love to her. More: we wanted to show how this [fourteen-year-old] young man […] first uncovers ineluctable sexual feelings; how he begins to own his sexual identity; how he helps [fourteen-year-old] Wendla awaken to hers.”

And just in case you're thinking that Sater updated the ages from Wedenkind's play, Sater shared that the characters were “adolescent”, Wendla was “a nineteenth-century [fourteen-year-old]” and Bronx native Lea Michele (Wendla) joined the company when she was fourteen.

While watching the Youtube clips of Spring Awakening, I normally skipped through the songs, but Melchior stopped me hot as he rubbed Wendla's fountains through “The Word of Your Body” and thankfully my frozen Samsung tablet forced me to listen to “The Dark I Know Well” where Martha and Ilse shared their stories of sexual abuse by their fathers.

[Martha]

You say all you want is just a kiss goodnight,
And then you hold me and you whisper,
"Child the Lord won't mind.
It's just you and me.
Child you're a beauty. "

[Ilse]

I don't scream. Though I know it's wrong.

I just play along.

I lie there and breathe.

Lie there and breathe...

I wanna be strong-

I want the world to find out

That you're dreamin' on me,

Me and my "beauty"

Martha and Ilse sing “The Dark I Know Well”

The bawdy teen musical won a number of awards including the Tony for Best Musical and Best Direction of a Musical.

Spring Awakening 2007 Tony Awards and Nominations

HORSE GIRLS: A Play | A Middle Schoolgirl Age-Gap Affair, Teen Lipstick Lesbians & More

Here's the synopsis for Jenny Rachel Weiner's play Horse Girls that I saw with a capacity crowd at The Cell in Manhattan: 

12-year-old Ashleigh rules the Lady Jean Ladies, South Florida's most exclusive horse club. News that her family's stables are being sold and their horses killed for meat throws the Ladies into crisis in this dark comedy of middle school deception and lies.

Let's start by listing the names and ages of the characters: 

Lady Jean Lady Officers

ashleigh whitford (12-years-old)

tiffany gesuvia (13-years-old)

robin gesuvia (11-years-old)

margaret flanaghan (12-years-old)

brandi marshall (12-years-old)

Lady Jean Ladies 

camille lowenstein (13-years-old) "[...] she developed boobs early."

Other

trish lowenstein (13-years-old)

Horse Girls is set in ashleigh's "pristine bedroom" where the weekly meeting of the Lady Jean Ladies is being held and where robin shared, "tiffany has her period for goodness sake [...] /Which means she's a woman!"

Ashleigh (Olivia Macklin)  & Tiffany (Angeliea Stark) in Horse Girls

Later, ashleigh, dressed in a schoolgirl uniform, attributes her success in equestrian to Titus Andronicus, her lead horse, and Jonah Stockamore, her "hot" neighbor and "[...] the most famous Olympic Equestrian [...]":

robin informed, "He was on the cover of ELITE EQUESTRIAN." 

But tiffany, also dressed in a schoolgirl uniform, asked, "and he's like twenty-two. Isn't that illegal in most states?"

ashleigh responded, "shut up, tiffany. Don't be jealous. It's ugly."

Then margaret let us know that 12-year-old ashleigh and 22-year-old Jonah kissed: "Ever since last winter break when they kissed behind the stable it's all anyone can talk about [...]"

Interestingly, Weiner wrote that ashleigh didn't think her age-gap kiss with jonah was a major event:

"you guys it's not even a big/deal" 

"you guys, for someone as mature as me, dating an older man-

"I mean in six years when I turn 18 I'll also be competing for the gold and then we'll totally be like a power couple, you know?"

But robin disagreed and opined the age-gap kiss was a big deal and that ashleigh was lucky: "you are so lucky. I've never even kissed a guy."

camille comforted robin, complimented Jonah, and informed ashleigh about Jonah's probable quest to take her virginity: 

"[robin] when you grow boobs you'll definitely get felt up don't worry"

"ash[leigh] Jonah is so hot.
"He probably wants to be your first."

Weiner related in an interview with Theater in the Now: 

"Horse Girls is a play about pre-teens: their obsessions, their insecurities, their desperate need to find a place in the world [...] I think the experiences we have in middle school shapes us in a major way [...]" 

Consequently, Weiner, taking advantage of the allure of nymphets to sell tickets to a play, added some middle-school teen lipstick lesbians:

ashleigh: "margaret is a total lesbian [...] margaret tried to kiss me once and I never told anyone, but only because I was really sad about Misty getting Cancer."  

However, margaret exclaimed that she had a boyfriend at camp: "That's not true! I had a boyfriend at church camp this summer!" 

But later in the play, before margaret kissed ashleigh again, margaret confessed to ashleigh: "I'll go with you. I'll ride away with you. I love you." ashleigh didn't kiss margaret back, but she didn't pull away either. 

13-year-old camille, the nymphet who "developed boobs early", had to pay a fine, since she didn't bring a journal excerpt to the last meeting, because she was possibly being "fingered":

camille: "...I was busy."

tiffany: "Getting fingered by Johnson behind the stable?"

camille: "Maybe..."

Once the girls hear that the stables are being sold and that their horses will be killed for meat, they "FREAK OUT!", which includes "undressing" and "making out".

After ashleigh freaks out, she comforts herself by saying: "Jonah will know exactly what to do-he'll fly home and hold me."

Thus, now we know why the play is described as a "dark comedy of middle school". The play contains, in addition to other dark themes\motifs:

• an age-gap affair between 12-year-old ashleigh and 22-year-old Jonah
• middle school lipstick lesbians (i.e., ashleigh and 12-year-old margaret), and
• 13-year-old camille, with the developed boobs, was possibly fingered by Johnson. (No word on Johnson's age.)

Lastly, Claudia La Rocco for the New York Times opined: "Horse Girls,” a 50-minute pop descent into madness [...]" 

BETCHES 'Let Me Finish': Schoolgirl Role Play Fantasy or Fetish?

On the "Is Role Play His Fantasy Or A Fetish?" episode of the Betches Let Me Finish podcast, Taylor read the last listener email of 2020, which was from a listener who had sex, repeatedly, with "this guy" whom had a schoolgirl role play fantasy or schoolgirl fetish:

Taylor: “Hey sluts: Love the show. I need help. I’m seeing this guy, and he’s really into role play. The first few times we hooked up, he kept asking me if I’d been a bad girl. And I played along. I could tell he was working up the courage to take it a step further; so, the next time we were hooking up and he asked me if I’d been bad, I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ve been a bad girl. Do you wanna punish me?’ And he’s like, ‘Well, what did you do wrong? Were you caught skipping class?'"

Abby (co-host): “Oh, he wants to do, like, principal?”

Interestingly, the guy's fantasy or fetish is that he's a private school headmaster like Headmaster Steve Muller in Cruel Intentions 2 - not a public school principal. Consequently, his fantasy or fetish includes private schoolgirl uniforms:

Taylor: “It’s at this point that I realize that he’s doing a whole role playing thing. And he wants me to pretend to be a naughty schoolgirl. I’ve never done this before; so, I was a little caught off guard. Long story short, he told me how he was the headmaster and he wanted to spank me for being so bad. Not gonna lie. It was pretty hot. My ass was so red. Fast forward to today and let’s just say this has turned into a whole thing. It’s like, everytime we have sex, it gets freakier and freakier. For the holidays he’s talked about getting me a Catholic schoolgirl uniform, and I feel like there’s no turning back.” 

Abby: “Wow.”

However, the emailer wanted some advice, because, although she liked, "[...] the role play [...] it's starting to feel a little repetitive." 

Before giving the emailer some advice, Abby was non-judgmental, “I mean, if this is what turns him on - that’s what turns him on [...] And she said it was hot.” And Sean, the Senior Director of Podcasts, and Abby opined that the guy's schoolgirl fantasy slash fetish was hot.

Sean: “I mean, I get it. It’s kinda hot.”

Abby: “Yeah, it’s hot. It’s hot.”

After giving some alternative role playing suggestions (e.g., Taskrabbit vs. Tasker), Taylor encouraged the emailer to "just lean into the role", Abby suggested the emailer "get creative girl", and Abby, Taylor and Sean suggested some headmaster\schoolgirl scenarios. 

Abby: “[...] your homework is always wrong. You always cheated. You are an F student.”

Taylor: “Honestly, just lean into the role. We can have character development here.”

Abby: “Honestly, like, get creative girl. We can create a backstory.”

Taylor: “What did you do this time?”

Abby: “What if you’re her [i.e., the schoolgirl] all the time now. He’s like, ‘Hey, wanna go to the movies?’ And you're like, ‘Oh, because I’ve been a good student?’”

Sean: “Hey, I’m gonna go to the grocery store. Do you need anything? Like, ‘I need you to get me a ruler ‘cause I lost mine, and I want you to spank me with it.’”

I have to say, despite the plethora of examples of the allure of schoolgirls in pop culture (e.g., Joshua Gaylor's Hummingbirds [novel], Rachel Weiner's Horse Girls [play], Netflix's Baby  (2019) [series], Stacey Dooley's Young Sex for Sale in Japan (2017) [documentary]), I have to say that I was surprised that Abby and Sean (openly) shared that the schoolgirl fantasy slash fetish was hot. 

THE WOLVES: A Play | "What's Up Sluts"| A Raunchy Teen Soccer Team

Sarah DeLappe's The Wolves, among other accolades, was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play was originally produced at The Duke on 42nd Street before it moved to the Lincoln Center.

Here's part of Wikipedia's synopsis:

“The Wolves” is set in an indoor soccer facility. Each scene depicts the nine teenage girls that make up the Wolves, a soccer team, warming up before their game each week.

The first scene opens with discussion of a Cambodian murderer, and conversations stem from there. Overlapping dialogue illustrates an atmosphere where each group of girls have their own, specific conversations while still chiming in on the main topic. These spin-offs include period gossip, talk of boyfriends [...]

Note: An action from the script informs the reader that the coeds are 16: "the giggle like only 16-year-olds can."

Wikipedia's reference to period gossip is referring to #7, #8, and #14 encouraging, with sexual overtones, #2 to switch to tampons:

#2. (terrified) what if like my pad falls out?

#7. you still use those?

#14. you gotta get off of those [...] you want a ? cause I can get you one

#2. no | thank you

#8. it's not so hard | you just like | pop! [...]

#7. (with the super plus)

#14. (oh my god yes)

#7. little perv

#14. hahaha | hahaha | hahaha

Wikipedia's reference to "talk of boyfriends" is in reference to when #7 and #14 met Dan, #7's boyfriend and Dan's friend, "some college guy", during Dan's Thanksgiving break from college:

#7. "I am so fucking pumped [...] we're going to my dad's ski house | and that asshole won't be there | and he has like a fully stocked bar" 

But #14 was upset after #7 left her alone with the "college guy": #14. yeah but you just like | you abandoned me | to go FUCK your stupid FUCKING boyfriend!! | so / very LOUDLY!

The cast of The Wolves from the Theatre Royal | Stratford East Production

A 16-year-old high school student having loud sex with a college student is a smaller age-gap than say a high school student's attraction to a former professional European soccer player or a middle-aged A-List actor. (Of course, IRL, unless the play was set in one of the 31 states where the age of consent is 16, that college student could have served jail time while #7 would have been counseled by a consoling counselor.)

In reference to Coach Mikhail, who played professional soccer in Croatia or Czech Republic, #14 opined: 

#14. I think he's sorta sexy

#8. he's like 45!!

#14. so's Jude Law

Interestingly, like in Slut: The Play, #7 had a preference for referring to her teammates as sluts. For example, after #14 shared that she forgot her bikini, she said, while flashing her sports bra: guess I'll just have to SKINNY DIP. #7 replied: (with love and delight) you total fucking slut. 

And in another scene, #7 greeted her teen teammates with: what's up sluts. Thus, unsurprisingly, in reference to teen oral sex, #7 opined: it was just a fucking b / lowjob.

In the end, possibly the most interesting item from the script is the Gertrude Stein quote: "We are always the same age inside."

The Wolves is a New York Times Critics' Pick and Ben Brantley wrote in his review of the teen play:

"The scary, exhilarating brightness of raw adolescence emanates from every scene of this uncannily assured first play by Sarah DeLappe...some of the most exciting and affecting ensemble work on a New York stage." [Emphasis added]

And Time Out concluded:

"Sarah DeLappe's extremely skillful debut...maps the bruising terrain of the nine teens' lives."

SLUT: A PLAY | NYC Teens (Re)Claim Slut Title

Playwright Katie Cappiello and Meg McInerney wrote in Slut: A Play and Guidebook for Combating Sexism and Sexual Violence, which was published by the Feminist Press at The City College of New York, that during the sessions to develop the play at The Arts Effect All-Girl Theater Company in New York City, the word slut kept coming out of the mouths of the twenty East Coast high school students. For example:

“I feel like a slut.”

“I was dressed all slutty.”

“Haha. Oh my [G]od, you’re a dirty little slut!”

Consequently, Cappiello and McInerney came to the conclusion that teens across the United States were reclaiming the title of slut, because being a slut meant that a girl is “fuckable”. Cappiello and McInerney wrote:

“There’s an attempt being made by girls and young women across the country to reclaim the word. Being a “slut” means you’re sexy, fun, experimental, willing, popular, wanted, “fuckable” [...]”

SLUT: A PLAY | PREGAMING

However, the play isn’t only about slut praising, it’s about slut shaming as well. As for slut praising, Jennifer Baumgardner described the PROLOGUE: PREGAMING of the play well:

The play opens with five girls [in spandex shorts and sports bras] dancing around in a locker room—teasing, frank, sweet, hilarious—and having fun as well as playing with their burgeoning sexuality.

Dancing is an understatement, because, in addition to twerking on stage, the teen girls were playing with their burgeoning sexuality by simulating girl-on-girl oral sex and all-girl threesome sex.

After Christina asked, “Okay, what’s everyone wearing to Connor’s?” Grace asked if she should wear tights. “The ones with the seam up the back so they still look really cute.” Natalie replied by sharing that Grace performed a teen “drunken striptease last weekend”; therefore, Natalie predicted that Grace would strip out of her tights at Connor’s party.

In a bit of “routine banter for these girls”, Grace went on to call Natalie the “biggest … dirtiest … sluttiest slut of, like, all time.”

JOEY (Winnifred Bonjean Alpart ). Okay, no way is she the biggest slut of the Slut Squad! I can slut it up with the sluttiest of y’all, thank you very much! Including Natalie.

CHRISTINA. Hey!

NATALIE. Ohhhh Chrissy! You know we respect your sexy slutness. (NATALIE digs though [sic] her makeup bag.)

CHRISTINA. You better. And don’t make me challenge you to a slut-off.

NATALIE. Yep. And you don’t mess with Slut Squad girls. Because we will take you down, motherfucker.

CHRISTINA. Awww, Slut Squad love!

GRACE. Slut Squad crazy love!

The Slut Squad of the Elliot Dance Team even had a chant slash team anthem.

S-L-U-T S-Q-U-A-D!

[...]

YES, THAT’S WHO WE BE.

AND, BITCHES, WE GO DOWN LIKE NO OTHER

GIRLS IN TOWN. AND WHEN WE STRUT

THROUGH THE SCHOOL

YOU KNOW WE MAKE THEM BOYS DROOL.

BECAUSE THEY ALL WANNA PIECE OF THIS.

AND YOU KNOW YOU CAN’T SLUT LIKE THIS.

[...]

In reference to the chant/anthem, the parenthetical states: ([...] It’s goofy and fun, but they kind of mean it …) Kind of?

Joey elaborated by relating that slut is a positive attribute, because, like boys, it should be “totally cool” for girls to be able to “hook up with whoever they want”. Joey said that the Slut Squad isn’t “afraid to be sexual”, and proclaimed that the Slut Squad members are confident and sexy.

JOEY. When I think of what our idea of “slut” [...] and I know it sounds stupid now but... it’s positive. We think it’s wrong that guys can hook up with whoever they want and that’s totally cool, but girls can’t. It’s an unfair double standard. So we're like, “Hey, if we act confident about sex and...”

NATALIE. (To DANIELLE.) We own our shit.

JOEY. And we aren’t afraid to be sexual. If all that makes us sluts, then I guess we’re sluts. So, Slut Squad just means we’re confident and, you know, sexy.

In addition to slut praising, there was slut shaming in the play as well. For example, after Anna was grounded for smashing her 11-year-old sister in the face, Anna referred to her sister as a “stupid little whore” whom was “becoming a real bitch, too.” However, Anna didn’t share what her little sister did to be referred to as a little whore.

Since Anna couldn’t attend the party with Joey at Connor’s, Anna decided to binge-watch Friday Night Lights starring Tim Riggins. Tim Riggins was played by Taylor Kitsch, who played Tim Riggins from the age of 25 to 30, which is why Anna referred to him as her “dream man” whom she, consequently, wanted to “do”.

JOEY. OOOOoooo. Tim Riggins!

ANNA. My dream man. I wanna do him.

(Note: The actresses who played Joey and Anna were teens. For example, Alpart was 16 when she played 16-year-old Joey. )

On the way to Connor’s party in a cab, after dancing in the back seat and making out with George, Joey was forcibly “fingered” by George and Luke, two schoolboys, as the cab sped from Columbus Circle to 78th and Lex .

JOEY. I just sort of slung my leg over George’s.

JOEY. We were kind of dancing in the back [of the cab], and George was sort of keeping the beat on my leg, you know [...] playing drums on my leg.

JOEY. And then George and I started to, like...make out [...] then he started to put his hand up my leg.

JOEY. [...] his hand actually went up my dress and sort of grazed my crotch. [...] So I said, “George, come on, stop. Just wait until we get to Connor’s.”

JOEY. So then, next thing I know, Luke is grabbing my other leg ... [...] so my, um, legs would be more open and George—[...] was on top of my leg, sort of pinning me down.

JOEY. Then George all of a sudden really aggressively pulls my underwear to the side and jammed two of his fingers inside me. (Beat.)

JOEY. I was crying at this point, but I didn’t scream.

JOEY. My vagina was pretty exposed, and I kept thinking if this guy [i.e., the cab driver] turns around [...] we’re going to get in an accident.

JOEY. George had his fingers in me... Two…[...] moving them in and out as hard as he could and as fast as he could. [...] And I’m crying. And the whole time Luke is making fun of George [...] because I’m not coming. Because I’m not having an orgasm. [...] he finally pulled his fingers out. Luke was laughing and he was bragging how he was going to show George how it was done. Then he put two of his fingers in his mouth.

JOEY. [...] then Luke laughs—and then he stuck his wet fingers in my vagina. [...] Then he did the same thing as George except he was trying to show off. I was hysterically crying, and he kept saying things like, “Come on JoJo—you know you wanna come—you know you’re wet now.” [...] And he and George laughed. Luke pulled his fingers out of me and wiped them on George’s shirt. And then they let go of me. (Beat.)

Almost everyone slut shamed Joey for being forcibly “fingered” by George and Luke whom convincingly told everyone that Joey “hooked up with all of them in the back of that cab.” Even Joey’s mother called her a “little slut”. Christina said that Joey “loses control sometimes” and that Joey had “done weird shit before”. Natalie said that Joey was “slutting herself out”. It didn’t help that there were pictures posted online of Joey tasting fruit-flavored condoms, which implied to some that Joey had planned to give George and Luke “blow jobs”. And Leila related that there were pictures from the cab that looked like Joey was giving George a lap dance.

In addition, Leila felt bad for George, because Joey’s accusations could have prevented him from getting into Harvard. Consequently, Leila referred to Joey as a slut and a liar.

LEILA. Because I feel bad for him. Are you kidding me? This whole thing is a real shit show. This type of shit can ruin someone’s whole life, and I feel bad for him. Because, you know, it’s been his dream to go to Harvard like his dad.

LEILA. Because I really like him and I know he didn’t mean anything by it. They were wasted. Whatever—it happened. She’s a slut, and she was all over his shit. Did you see those pictures? She was basically giving him a lap dance. What was he supposed to do?

LEILA. “She obviously regrets what she did Friday night, so she feels like she’s gotta make shit up.”

Interestingly, George was Joey’s first boyfriend, which was in the fourth-grade. Prior to the incident in the cab, after Leila shared with Joey that she and George had “hooked up a little bit”, Joey said, “I mean we all, like, whatever, with each other. It’s nothing. It’s just what you do.”

However, Joey wasn’t the first schoolgirl to accuse George of untoward behavior. For instance, Grace shared that, before she and George started dating, George forced her to give him a hand job in the bathroom.

GRACE. You know, George once followed me into the bathroom and locked the door and wouldn’t let me out until I gave him a hand job. True story. I didn’t tell anyone. We ended up going out for, like, five months...

In terms of the salacious behavior of (some) Manhattan’s privileged teens, the text of the guidebook is just as revealing as the text of the play. For example, Jennifer Baumgardner shared in “Why StopSlut?” that when she was in gym class, another 7th grader said, “Jenny, your sister’s a slut. She had sex at Bob’s party over the weekend.” The middle school slut shaming was in reference to Andrea, Jenny’s 14-year-old sister, because while Andrea was trying to “sober up” at Bob’s party, Andrea’s boyfriend’s best friend “decided to have sex with her.” Subsequently, schoolboys shockingly ran “their hands up her skirt as she passed by” and pulled “her into rooms at parties.” Baumgardner wrote that “literally dozens” of her friends had similar stories. (Interestingly, Jennifer wrote that it took her and Andrea “many years” to come to the conclusion that Andrea had been forced to have sex.)

In the chapter “Reality Check From Young Voices”, Sonia, a 15-year-old sophomore from a small town in Pennsylvania, shared that after she asked her boyfriend what he wanted for his 16th birthday, he replied that he wanted a “blow job”. Sonia:

We had been dating for a little over a month, when I asked him what he wanted for this sixteenth birthday. All he wanted from me was a blow job.

I’d say, “Hey, what do you want for your birthday?” and he’d say, “Head.”

Sonia typically preferred having teen sex; therefore, she reluctantly came to the conclusion: “Fine! I’ll give my boyfriend head because I’d rather that than him yell at me again [for not giving him a head].” To Sonia’s dismay, she performed oral sex for over a year, and when she was on her menses, her boyfriend dubbed it “blow job week”.

13-year-old Fred wrote that when he and Lenny were in the 6th grade, Lenny asked Fred, “You watch porn?” Lenny was on to something, because Fred started watching porn “halfway through fifth grade” (i.e., at 10 or 11-years-old). Fred wrote:

I started watching porn halfway through fifth grade. I had just begun middle school, and befriended a lot of kids in the seventh and eighth grade. Sometimes when I hung out with them they would make jokes about the porn they watched, referencing certain sites.

As for Lenny, an apparent middle-school cad, while visiting Lola, he: “took his penis and slapped it on her leg because he felt like it”.

(“In Porn Before Puberty?”, an ABC News feature, Winnifred Bonjean Alpart shared with a reporter that when she was in eighth grade: "[..] boys mostly, were watching porn during school [...] during independent reading, they would do that.")

And in “I’ve Slutted. Have You?”, 17-year-old Danielle related that she went to a Jewish summer camp in Pennsylvania where promiscuous teen behavior was encouraged and cultivated by campers and camp counselors. Consequently, during summer camp, there were “sexual firsts for everyone”. (Everyone?) Danielle wrote:

I go to this typical Jewish summer camp, where promiscuous behavior is practically encouraged and cultivated. Let’s be real, it’s literally eight weeks of teenagers breaking the counselors’ rules (who in turn egg us on!) in an isolated campsite in the middle of Milford, Pennsylvania—the middle of nowhere. In those two months, with no parental supervision, there are lots of sexual firsts for everyone.

The promiscuous behavior didn’t only happen at camp, it happened during the annual camp reunion night-before-reunion sleepover as well. For example, take Georgia, who Danielle described as “really petite and very pretty”, “the dream girl”, and who was “always hooking up with someone”. Unsurprisingly, Georgia was not a virgin. Danielle wrote:

The group of girls that I'm friendly with define themselves by their flirtatiousness and sexual interests. There is one girl in particular, Georgia, who is really petite and very pretty, and she doesn’t speak that much. She’s always hooking up with someone and she lost her virginity before many of the rest of us. She’s the dream girl for all the guys at my camp.

During the night-before-reunion sleepover, after “[e]very-one got very drunk” and while being filmed and encouraged by her best friends and fellow campers, Georgia performed oral sex on two boys in the back-yard. Danielle wrote:

[...] Every-one got very drunk. Josh and another boy coerced—basically forced—Georgia to give them blow jobs, while others filmed it on their phones. Watching the videos disgusted me. They were pressuring her to take off her clothes and give other guys in the crowd blow jobs—and all of this was going on in the back-yard of someone’s home! Initially Georgia resisted, very drunkenly, and repeatedly declined these boys’ demands. Then she ended up giving in. The scari-est part is that her best friends were doing nothing to stop it, but were laughing and encouraging the whole display.

Slut: A Play, which praised and shamed teen sluts, premiered at the Lynn Redgrave Theater in Manhattan (August 19, 2013). Cappiello and McInerney related that the play was: “[...] authentic, nuanced, and hard-hitting.” And that everything in this play was “inspired by real events,” which is revealing, because it appears that it’s not Dirty Old Men whom schoolgirls need to worry about, it's Dirty Young Boys.

Lastly, take Hunter Gaynes, who hooked up with 13-year-old Nadia “so cute” Boyd while she was on her menses. Consequently, Hunter “got everyone” to call Nadia “Bloody Beaver”, and Hunter, being “a little freshman douche”, even “put that shit all over Facebook.”