Let’s talk about sex! And BDSM, and fetishes, and mental health, and escorts, and religious pornography.
Wait, don’t leave! I have to tell you about this amazing new show on Viceland. It’s called Slutever and is hosted by Karley Sciortino. Slutever is all about the body (female and male … but mostly female). Sciortino globe-trots to find the answers to our primal needs. Along the way, she comes into contact with some of the most bizarre yet sensual practices of the human body and mind.
Viceland is the destination for some of the weirdest shit on the internet. Viceland is particularly wonderful at displaying the beauty of weirdness that most people would shy away from. Like Bong Appétit, Balls Deep and Cyberwar, Slutever highlights a part of humanity that is usually stigmatized. According to Slutever.com, Sciortino’s personal website, Slutever first premiered in March 2012 and was made “for girls by girls.”
Originally a series on Vice, Slutever is now a separate show on Viceland that premiered on Jan. 24. In her previous show — a documentary —
Sciortino covered a broad array of topics, from male sex dolls to medically assisted sex for people with physical disabilities. According to the preview of her new show on Viceland, however, there seems to be a change in the type of journalism; in her previous series, she explored other people’s lives, and in this new show, she also explores her own.
For example, the first episode shows Sciortino on a quest for a happy massage that ends in erotic pleasure. Sciortino consults various options, and after several failures, she finally finds a man who specializes in happy massages. She gets her happy ending.
With any Slutever video, at first, you may be uncomfortable or perhaps a little grossed out — but eager for more. And that’s OK! Within just seconds of watching one of the 30-minutes-or-less episodes, you realize that Karley Sciortino maintains journalistic integrity and professionalism that so many outlets are lacking these days. Plus, her straightforward and oftentimes sexy videos center on real, normal people doing real, normal things.
And that’s just it. In a society where slut-shaming, catcalling and stigmatizing are rampant, especially toward women, Sciortino reminds us that we are who we are: women. As cheesy as that sounds, there’s no shame in being a “slut”; there’s no shame in having a happy massage every once in a while (but only by an unnamed white male in his ’40s) or masturbating to your male sex companion named Craig; there’s no shame in watching or making pornography or hiring an escort for a night out; there’s no shame in being a pleather-clad Asian dominatrix breaking down stereotypes at every whiplash. I mean, slutever!
In all seriousness, yes, we live in America, where sex education is taught in middle school and BDSM is considered some Guillermo del Toro-esque torture (though that does sound pretty cool). In reality, people who do these things are just like you and me. And the sooner we realize that, the sooner we can de-stigmatize some of the healthiest activities in our lives. If you take away the materialistic aspect of her show, you only see the sexually and morally confident people we all want to be, and I think that’s the very basis of what Sciortino strives to show viewers.
Slutever airs on Viceland, Wednesdays at 10 p.m. or on its YouTube channel.