Last week I saw Grease, my second- favorite childhood movie (my No. 1 favorite being Bad Ronald), for approximately the 50th time. And for the first time in 25 or so years, I saw it surrounded by a bunch of other people. Normally I just rent the video and watch it in the privacy of my own home. By myself. (And yes, I’m aware how pathetic that might sound, and I don’t care.)
Grease is a flick that pretty much demands one sing along with it, so I was beyond excited to hear that the showing I was to attend was an officially sanctioned sing-along! Knowing what a fellow big dork my friend Susan is, I phoned her right away, and she immediately cleared her calendar so she could howl alongside me.
The message behind Grease (sluts are go!) is one you don’t see in many movies nowadays. Perhaps it’s AIDS, maybe it’s the puritanical fever that’s infected our country, but today’s slutty movie broads inevitably wind up either dead or reformed. But not so in Grease. Trampy Rizzo is the leader of the pack, and Sandy isn’t remotely hot until she slides into spandex and offers to let Zuko “feel” his way. I think it goes without saying that this was a very influential movie for me.
My mom called me a slut for the first time when I was 17. She routinely searched my room while I was at school and one day hit the jackpot by locating my birth control pills. Never mind that I was in a completely monogamous relationship with a fellow former (’til me) virgin and was responsibly taking measures to make sure I wouldn’t end up a knocked-up teen; in Mom’s lexicon, “Ortho-Novum” translated to “unrepentant knob-gobbling ho-bag.”
Another search-and-destroy mission had netted her a business card from a tattoo parlor I’d visited but never patronized. Always (wrongly) convinced that I was hiding ink somewhere on my body, she’d sometimes mix it up a bit by proclaiming me a “tattooed whore.” As her own mom had called her “cocksucker” from the time she was 3 (my granny wasn’t like the kind, smiley grannies you see on TV), I found it rather disconcerting that she chose to carry on that particular tradition.
Surprisingly my mom eventually came around to my way of thinking. I have to cop to being vaguely horrified when she finally confessed that she felt my sisters and I had done the right thing by trying out a few different men before settling down. What this might say about my dad in the sack is a thought I do not care to entertain.
Over the years I’ve had my promiscuous periods, and I can’t say I regret much of it at all. Sure, there were guys that probably would’ve been better left unfucked, but everything (and everyone) you’ve done contributes to who you areand I’m pretty OK with who I am (in case anyone was wondering). Just like it says in Rizzo’s brilliant tramp anthem, “There are worse things I could do/Than go with a boy or two.”
I don’t really have the stomach for sleeping around like I used to, but I think that’s a function of age more than anything else. Some would label it maturity, but really, there’s nothing “mature” about having your most sexually fulfilling relationship be with a battery-operated appliance.
Over the years, “slut” has been co- opted as sort of a maladjusted term of endearment between me and my friends. We use it the way hip-hop dudes toss around “nigger.” However, as with the N-word, it only works if you can own it yourself. And own it we do. So it was with great enthusiasm that Susan and I belted along with Stockard Channing that enchanted evening.
Whenever I sing at home (which is often), Mabel, my cat, tries to crawl into my mouth. I like to think it’s because I’m the best singer in the entire universe and she wants to get as close as possible so she can hear better. But if my fellow audience members’ reaction was any indicationdirty looks; pointed, exasperated sighs; getting up and moving awayshe’s probably trying to get in there to muffle the sound.
Knob-gobbling ho-bag?Write Dategirl at dategirl@ seattleweekly.com or c/o Seattle Weekly, 1008 Western, Ste. 300, Seattle, WA 98104.
