Young girls are instructed to keep their legs crossed, but their brothers are encour­aged to “get some.” Usually, that guy who hooks up with every girl he meets becomes a legend, or a role model for younger guys. But those girls? Slutty slutty sluts. A boy can lose his virginity at 13 and proceed to have sex with any number of girls, because that’s normal, but a girl whose number is higher than one is “easy.” Guys get experienced; girls get used.

So, you don’t want to be perceived as promiscuous? No problem, we have words for you too. Namely, prude, frigid or tease. If you don’t kiss on the first date, you’re prude. Same for if you dress conservatively or set boundaries of any kind. Want to make out but not go that far? Well, you’re a tease. Guys think that for every girl like you who won’t go that far, there are four or five “easy” girls who will.

Welcome to high school, where you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t. You might as well be forced to pick a card as soon as you show up: too sexual or not sexual enough. If you’ve nev­er kissed a guy, you’re bor­ing. If you flirt with too many guys, you’re loose. There seems to be no discernible middle ground.

Is it unfair that guys are never negatively labeled for their hook-up habits? Absolutely. Sure, there’s “man-whore,” but that hardly compares to the endless list of names girls can be called for doing the exact same things. Oh, and if you complain about how unfair it is? You’ll be called an an­gry feminist, and maybe a lesbian.

How far a girl wants to go sexu­ally is a difficult and personal de­cision to make, and I’d like to think that we Violets encourage each other to make decisions indepen­dent of peer pressure. There is no “right” time to start having sex, and girls should support their friends’ decisions unconditionally, as long as they are staying safe. But sadly, no matter how personal this decision is, we can’t seem to avoid pushing our own values and expectations onto our peers.

Guys call us prude when we won’t do it because we’ve wound­ed their egos, and they call us sluts when we do it with their friends because they’re jealous. We label each other because it takes the pressure and attention off of ourselves. But we as women need to stop categorizing each other. If we stop with the silly la­bels, we can finally accept that our friends are capable of making their own decisions about sexual­ity and stop worrying that every­one is judging us.

As open-minded women, we are aware that we can and should do with our bodies whatever we please. So why is it that we make snap judgments about our friends for exercising that very right? If we think we should be allowed to decide what to do with our own bodies, it’s disrespectful and disin­genuous to bad-mouth our friends for doing what they want. Even if it’s not something you would nec­essarily do, you shouldn’t call your friend a nasty word for doing it.

But it’s not like making fun of a girl for being prude is any better. Guys will call you prude to make you uncomfortable, to make you afraid that you’re a “late bloomer,” so you’ll want to shed that label by having sex with them. There’s no reason for girls to bestow that charming label on other girls.

It’s easy enough for guys to demean us when we do what we want with our bodies, but as an exercise in empathy, we as wom­en should refrain. Marlborough would be a much healthier com­munity if we made a conscious effort to accept what other girls choose to do or not do with their bodies as their own personal de­cisions. The worst thing we could do as strong, empowered women is belittle ourselves and each other with petty and insignificant sexual labels.