SLUTS: EXCERPT 2
- Frida Stavenow
- Jan 21, 2018
- 2 min read
Updated: Feb 2, 2023
FROM EPISODE ONE: "KITTY-CATS & RAZOR-WIRE FENCES"
Josie's new bass player is taking an interesting-sounding class... so the girls decide to check it out.
INT. COMMUNITY COLLEGE CLASSROOM - EVENING A FEW DAYS LATER
Women are filing into the classroom. Olivia looks around for
eye contact; ANA, 25, smiles. Olivia sits next to her.
With long brown hair and thick glasses, Ana's got a nerdy
preppy look going: v-neck and shirt, black trousers, blazer.
Emilia sees a small tattoo on her wrist: a broken heart.
YOLANDA VERACRUZ, 49, Zimbabwean/Colombian, enters the
classroom. She's wearing a fitted mandala t-shirt and blue
elephant-patterned yoga pants. Instant silence.
YOLANDA
Evening, sisters. I'm Yolanda.
She spins a finger in the air and lands on a list.
YOLANDA (CONT'D)
Olivia Wallace. When did you last
have sex?
OLIVIA
Uuuh...
Yolanda laughs.
YOLANDA
Just kidding. That's week seven.
Can you read page one of our course
pack, please?
OLIVIA
Um. Course pack?
JOANNE
I'll read it.
Emilia turns around to face JOANNE, 43. More of a second wave
feminist, Joanne's got no makeup, no tight-fitting clothes
and no time for time wasters. She starts reading:
JOANNE (CONT'D)
"Despite repeated assurances that
women aren't particularly sexual
creatures...
Ana rolls her eyes and slips her course pack into the middle
to share. As Joanne reads, we look at the class, among them:
JENNA, an avant-garde white girl in her early twenties;
ABAYOMI, a dashiki-clad West African woman in her late
forties; SUPRIYA, a prim-looking Bangladeshi woman in her
late thirties; AMANDA, a smartly dressed black girl in her
mid-twenties; KATE and CLAIRE, two stout white women in
their fifties; MARINA, a Brazilian riot grrrl in her twenties,
and SHARON, Felix's mum from the schoolyard.
Olivia and Sharon's eyes momentarily meet, and they silently
acknowledge not to acknowledge each other.
JOANNE (CONT'D)
... in cultures around the world
men have gone to extraordinary
lengths to control female libido:
"Female genital mutilation, head-to
toe chadors, medieval witch
burnings, chastity belts,
suffocating corsets, muttered
insults about "insatiable" whores,
pathologizing, paternalistic
medical diagnoses of nymphomania or
hysteria, the debilitating scorn
heaped on any female who chooses to
be generous with her sexuality...
all parts of a worldwide campaign
to keep the supposedly low-key
female libido under control."
Yolanda starts writing Joanne's words (with source, Sex at
Dawn by Chris Ryan and Cacilda Jeth‡) on the board as she
reads:
JOANNE (CONT'D)
"Why the electrified high-security
razor-wire fence to contain a kitty
cat?"
YOLANDA
Thank you, Joanne. As we shall see
over the next ten weeks, the so
called kitty-cat of female desire
might not be so tame after all. And
while attention will be paid to the
razor-wire fences as they stand -
the societal structures that serve
to subdue the expression of this
desire - most of our time will be
spent focusing on the kitty cats
themselves. Some of you may know
what you want, but do you know why
you want it? It may be fifty years
since our sisters first burned
their bras, but the personal, let
me tell you, is still very much
political.
Olivia smiles in recognition of Candy's mantra.







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