I was thinking about the town slut last night; not in an erotic way, but in more of a historical interest, as in, “What happened to her? Is she all right? Did her life end up okay? Is she still a slut?”

I will pause now to give you a chance to picture her face, or, if you can remember it, her name.

Oh, come on.

Everyone knew a town slut. You weren’t really a town until you had a town slut and a McDonald’s. Maybe she was you. If so, congratulations! And on behalf of all geeky, lonely boys, thank you. Thank you for being the town slut.

My parents’ generation sometimes longed for the “good old days” before TV when, apparently, everyone sat still for long periods of time, eating dinner together and partaking in actual face-to-face conversations involving no telephones of any kind. Times were simpler. Now that I am the age they were when making such proclamations, I find that I, too, long for the good old days before smartphone porn and half-naked twelve year old girls posing in magazine underwear ads. I long for the times when the only real chance a boy had of getting laid was by paying a visit to the town slut.

That’s how it was where I grew up.

She was a woman who liked sex for whatever reason, be it pleasure, money or the slight fame having a “bad reputation” lent. After a liaison or twelve, an appearance or five at wild parties, word spread that she spread and life suddenly did not seem so hopeless for those of us who spent Friday nights alone.

Even if we never met her (I did not) or ever had relations with her (I did not) the fact that she existed at all proved to each and every one of us boys who grew up on the banks of the Ohio River that, if worse came to worse, there was somewhere we could turn to end our long, torturous virginity. Even if things did not go well at the school dance, there was always the town slut.

I apologize for being sexist. I’ve learned there are sluts of both sexes, but the simple fact is that every boy I knew growing up in our town was a slut, or wished to be. All someone had to do was ask. The number of girls who were ready, willing and able to show they were ready, willing and able was fewer. Additionally, I do not know how long the reign of “Town Slut” lasted. Certainly, I’ve known girls who were more sexually active earlier in life and while they experimented more than most and exited their teen years a little more “choosy” than others when it came to sexual partners. Some of them, driven by guilt, may have shut down their sexual drives forever.

Some got married.

Some raised children.

Some found the Lord.

I’m hoping that one if not all of those situations happened for our town slut. If she did not find her way out of the situation through love, guilt or sudden change of locale, she’s probably pretty lonely right about now.

I fear the days of the town slut are dead, like stag night at the Elks or quarter movie booths or Playboy magazines, the idea of a town slut has been usurped by an entire generation of teens, who by all appearances, are much more sexually active then I was at a similar age. Statistical studies show that some are more sexually active than I am at my present age.

Or maybe it’s all myth.

I remember when I was a teenager. The adults all talked in hushed tones about how “loose” modern girls were and about the world was “going to Hell in a hand basket”. I distinctly remember wondering where, exactly, all those loose and fast girls were hiding. Who were these girls that adults were whispering about and, more importantly, did the adults have phone numbers?

I don’t worry about the current crop of teenagers at all. What they wear, what they listen to, what they read (if they read) does not concern me. It’s all fashion on the outside. It’s what’s inside that counts, that which will never be revealed to any of us looking on in judgment. I do worry, however, that there might not be that special person they can turn to in their time of need, as we had.

Do they have a town slut?

If such a thing still exists, do they have her digits?

If not, I believe I can help. I still remember her name and where she lived. I bet we could drive there tonight. You stay in the car, son. I’ll walk up to the door and when the middle-aged woman in the sweat pants and curlers answers, I’ll do the talking.

Hello!

How have you been?

Is life treating you well?

And by the way… are you still the town slut?

You’re the what?!

The Mayor?!