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You know what stinks? When women bring down other women for seemingly no good reason. What stinks even more is when women bring down other women because of slut-shaming. I’m talking about girls who won’t be friends with another girl because she has had sex with more than one or two dudes.

No, I’m not just talking about catty mean girls from movies like Easy A – this is a real thing. A new study called “Birds Of A Feather? Not When It Comes To Sexual Permissiveness” shows that women don’t like to see other women being “promiscuous.” In fact, women will avoid other women who they think have too much sex. This is so not cool on so many levels.

Researchers looked at 721 male and female college students and asked for info on their sexual experiences and all that. They found that nine out of ten women listed promiscuity as a negative trait in other women. What’s more, this negative attitude towards sexually active women was there even in women who also reported being sexually active. To break that down, women who have a lot of sex still judge other women who have a lot of sex. Basically, women are judging other women for something they do themselves… which makes little to no sense.

The study also found that ladies are apparently a lot more judgmental than dudes when it comes to sexual experience. Researchers found that men didn’t seem to care about the “levels of promiscuity” a women had. However, guys are guilty of judging other guys. This study found that dudes liked guys with little to no sexual experience because they “viewed other promiscuous men as potentially interested in stealing their girlfriends.”

Ugh, this stinks. I have questions: Why won’t girls be friends with a girl just because she has a lot of sex? Why are there still these heavy double standards when it comes to gender and sex in 2013? Why do so many people insist on slut-shaming? Why can’t a girl have sex with more than two people without being judged for it?

Honestly, I don’t get it. Providing that you’re being safe, there is nothing wrong with being sexual and hooking up with a lot of different people. I know we do a lot of slut-shaming rants here on Gurl, but I’m just so sick of women being afraid to have sex because they don’t want to be judged or ostracized. It sucks that so many women are willing to pass up a friendship with another woman simply because of her sexual experience.

And why do women do this? The lead researcher of the study, Zhana Vrangalova says that “they may be seeking to distance themselves from any stigma that is attached to being friends with such women.” This basically means that girls aren’t friends with a “promiscuous” girl because they don’t want other people seeing them as promiscuous in association. They’re worried about how others are seeing them and, when it comes down to it, they’re self-conscious about the amount of sex they’re having.

Hey, girls? If you do this, stop. You’re probably missing out on a lot of great friendships simply because you are judging someone based on their sexual history (which is none of your business to begin with) and also you’re just making yourself look bad. I mean, come on! You can’t accept a girl because she’s comfortable with her sexuality and she’s not afraid to express that? That’s ridiculous and so unfair.

This study just further proves that women who have a lot of sex are not treated with as much respect as women who don’t. That’s not okay. Look, I get it if you just don’t like a girl. But don’t hear gossip about how she hooked up with so-and-so and so-and-so and immediately decide not to accept her as a friend. Having sex doesn’t make a woman a bad friend. And if others are going to judge you for hanging with a girl who “gets around,” then whatever. Eff them! They’re not worth your time. Please, be bigger than this. Stop making girls feel bad about their sexual choices. Like I said, it’s none of your business and in the end, it only really speaks to who you are as a person – not her.

Do you judge girls for having sex? Would you ever forgo a friendship with a girl just because she’s a little “promiscuous?” Has this ever happened to you? Tell me in the comments.

Is virgin-shaming a thing, too?

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