Oh goodness...seeing Ella stare down at the table like that as she forced those words out made Ana's heart melt. "Girl," she said, leaning over to clap a hand on Ella's shoulder, "you have come to the right place. This time last year, I was<i>exactly</i>where you are, and believe me, if<i>I</i>can do it, it'll be easy for you. We will teach you the Way of the Hoe."<br/><br/>"Absolutely," Erin agreed, beaming. "We've got you, honey. You're a hot piece of ass, you should be getting it on the regular." She turned back to Lexi. "Speaking of privacy, though, I don't mind if you guys mention my name either. If you've got friends you want to bring and they want to know who's running this, you can tell them as much about me as you want. And personally, I don't mind if I end up in some of your pics, either," she added with a smirk.<br/><br/>"Now, while we're on personal goals," she continued, "we also thought it'd be nice to talk about what being a slut means to us all, like, why we like the word, what it makes us think of. I think for me, it's about power. Like, as women, our sexuality is powerful, it can do so much for us, and so all the time we're told by the patriarchy that we shouldn't use that or enjoy it, that it's wrong to, so they use the label to suppress it and trick us into shaming each other over it. And so for me, reclaiming being a slut is about embracing that power. Like, why shouldn't I do what I want with my body, fuck whoever I want, y'know? I like being wanted, and I like sex, and if I have the chance to enjoy it, I'm gonna take it, right? And I guess at the same time, there is a bit of a degradation thing to it, like, the idea of just being a toy for people to use, that's kinda fun for me." If Erin was in any way embarrassed to admit to the second part, nothing about her bearing showed it. She caught Ana's eye again. "Ana, how about you?"<br/><br/>"Yeah, sure." This was something Ana had thought a lot about, but now, as she turned to Ella and Lexi, she felt doubt creep in--how would she sound after the tone Erin had set? This was, after all, something they'd exchanged their share of friendly jabs over. She shook it off; she had just as much right to say her piece. "Well, I do think it's a little different for me," she admitted. "Growing up, I was...well, like, it's not like I was<i>shamed</i>for my sexuality, like, no one ever tried to convince me sex was bad or anything--y'know, aside from just society in general I guess--but, like, I was mostly raised by just my dad, and, y'know, it was kinda hard for us to talk about, so I just didn't have a lot of sex positivity in my life. And I always had a high sex drive, but I wasn't super confident when I was younger, and I guess I did develop a lot of shame about it, like, feeling like no one else wanted to deal with that part of me. So I guess to me, being a slut is, like, weirdly maybe--" A nervous giggle broke through. "--a way of loving myself--like, actively being like, 'no, I like this part of me, I think it's good, and I want to share it with people, because I think it can make them just as happy as it does me,' y'know? So that's my thing with it."<br/><br/>She turned to the others again. "How 'bout you guys?"