I am not a Virtuous Sexless Heavy Metal Virgin Goddess.

This dude wrote this article for 'That's Not Metal' which basically says that you can't ever get anywhere with a Metal chick and so what cause they're all posers anyway.

I'm not totally disagreeing with his assessment. Especially after a friend told me last week about how Metal girls think they're so unique and special that they'll make you jump through hoops just to get anywhere with them and its rarely worth all that trouble.

Meanwhile, my experiences as a perpetually single woman in the Heavy Metal scene is that guys barely talk to me and when they do it's weird and awkward. Cause they're usually totally wasted by the time they get up the nerve. I try not to be too nice or too mean, but they know they've embarrassed themselves. So next time they see me they'll pretend they don't see me or know me at all. And that's the whole of my relationship with most of the men in the Metal scene.

The vast majority of Metalheads seem to be in committed relationships. There's not a lot of hooking up going on in general. There's also not a lot of drama or cheating compared to most scenes and I like that a lot.

There's really just not enough girls to go around. So lots of the guys date women they meet somewhere else and only bring her along in the beginning part of the relationship. Till she gets that she's got nothing to worry about leaving her man to go out alone. She knows he's gonna spend the whole night talking about Metal with the guys like some sort Rock and Roll equivalent of watching sports in the man cave with his buddies, so she just skips it. 

But things weren't always like this. Metalheads used to be sexy people. So wtf happened? When did we lose our sexuality and why?

Heavy Metal was born in the 70s along with the sexual revolution. People were doing it out of wedlock. Women were on the pill. Folks were trying new things. Men had long hair. Sex and drugs and Rock n' Roll all went together. This carried on through the MTV 80's when women of all description were so hot for long haired men they were all getting laid without even trying. Metal and sex went together.

Then there was me. I was a Thrasher girl. Thrashers were silly and fun but Thrasher girls weren't generally very sexy people. Pretty much any dude with long hair could get it in the 80s so there was a lot of competition for the guys I actually had things in common with. They thought I was so cool because I was one of the guys.... while they were falling for regular girls with mall bangs who didn't even like Metal.

Don't feel too sorry for me. I made up for it later when I moved to a bigger city where there were more Thrasher boys than girls that wanted them, so that all turned out fine for me. I was not a sexless person. None of us were sexless people. Not even Thrasher girls.

It was harder for us for sure! We were rejecting that whole big-haired glammy thing entirely. And that

ubiquitous image of the Metal video girl. Those girls didn't exist. That wasn't any real life person. She didn't have thoughts or feelings or a life story. She just had a body and a silly outfit.

Glammy boys were no better. It wasn't even sexist. The boys were eye candy for the women watching the videos and buying the records. That's what sold Metal to the masses. Heavy Metal men were sex objects that sold records to a lot of shallow women.

So there was a battle going on in the 80's between real metalheads vs. weekend warriors. And there was another battle going on on the inside: Glam vs. Thrash. If you were for real, you picked a side and you stayed on it. Because we were all completely preoccupied with the idea that we had to constantly prove ourselves as real Metalheads.

Whether you were Thrash or Glam, You had to live it 24/7. You had to prove your worth constantly. Because the worst thing that could ever happen was to lose your street cred. It is the currency of Heavy Metal.

I never felt like women weren't wanted or welcomed in Heavy Metal. I never felt like women were treated badly or unequally. For sure not in Thrash even if we did have to work even harder to prove ourselves, but *everyone* had to prove themselves constantly. It's a thing Metalheads do.

All the stuff you look back at in the 80's videos now and see as "sexist" was more "sexy" at the time. Yeah there's all shades of that worthy of discussion but I'm not going there right now. Just trying to make the point that sure there were some chauvinist jerks but for the most part we were all much more concerned with how Metal a person was than who they were or weren't having sex with.

We were all sexual people. The boys and the girls. We were absolutely having sex with each other. We weren't sorry for it or ashamed of it. We liked it. It didn't have any bearing on your status as a Metalhead. Plus we all generally treated each other well.

I never was a groupie. Although people (who don't know shit about Rock music) like to put that label on me when I say I travel to see bands play in other cities. My definition of "groupie" is a girl that provides sexual favors for the band members. For me that was a line I didn't cross.

Because in the 80s there were whores. There were girls who did that. Bands played shows and the same whores showed up emulating that fake video girl and offering themselves to have sex with whoever. They thought it made them somebody to fuck someone "famous". And even worse, it was the same handful of girls screwing all the dudes in all the bands. I always just thought it was nasty.

Us "Real Metal Girls" who were in it because we actually liked the music weren't fucking anyone in the bands at all. The girls who did, for the most part, just liked long haired guys and didn't know anything else about the bands. Mostly those girls disappeared. I suppose they grew up, moved on and left the scene. Probably raised kids or found something they actually care about to do instead.

This is when Metal lost its sexuality. By the time we got deep into the 90's when Metal wasn't popular anymore, what was left of the Metal scene was a bunch of dudes who are in bands and a handful of girls who don't sleep with guys in bands.

It's awesome that everyone kept making music anyway! Our passion for Heavy Metal is so strong no one stopped doing it when the sex dried up. That's pretty awesome. What's more awesome is that it's still attracting more new people of every sex and age and description all the time.

I think its really great that a whole new generation of girls that aren't whores has come up! And I think it's even better that guys find REAL Metal girls cool and desirable. That took some time for that tide to change. 

But what's not so awesome is that the boys lost their self-confidence along the way.

Metal guys got no game.

It's not their fault. They've just spent a couple of decades hanging around only a handful of women who weren't sleeping with anyone. We rebelled against the sexist image of the 80's video whores so well that we turned ourselves into weird sexless entities. The “Virtuous Metal Woman” who loves Heavy Metal and looks hot as hell and never has sex at all with anyone unless she's deeply involved in a serious committed relationship.

Every Metal guy looks at her and instantly knows that he stands virtually zero chance of ever getting anywhere with her. No sense in bothering. It will just end up in humiliation.

The poor bastard is defeated before he starts. So he makes up a narrative about how she probably has some big bruiser boyfriend who will beat him up if he looks at her. (Because that's what all Metal chicks want. A jealous violent jerk to fall in love with, right?) She's probably a poser who doesn't even like Metal anyway.

I could tell you so many stories of guys doing weird shit to me because they cant decide if they should try to talk to me or not. Not that I think I'm the super-hottest-most-awesome-coolest Metal chick that ever lived. You just need to be a girl at a Metal show to have this problem.

I know some awesome attractive women who love Metal who've stayed single a lot longer than you'd expect. We chat amongst ourselves at shows because the boys don't talk to us. They'll talk to each other and act like we're not there. If I stand next to a guy... any guy... dudes will assume he's my boyfriend, and I probably don't even like Metal, and not talk to me at all.

I'm not saying Metal dudes should be propositioning us for random hookups, cause it probably won't work. But introducing yourself and making polite conversation would be a good thing for all of us to do more of. Get to know each other. Guys and Girls. Maybe some romance will come out of that once we start talking to each other. Maybe not. But that's okay too.

Guys in touring bands are way more likely to talk to me than local dudes I could actually potentially have something sustainable with. Because they've got merch to sell. And because they're the kind of people who enjoy the adventure of traveling and having new experiences and meeting people. And some of them are probably hoping to get lucky and maybe find a hookup even if they don't expect it.

I don't ever go to shows for the purpose of providing sexual favors for dudes in bands, but then having said that.. *Every* Metal dude in every city is in a band. A lot of them are in three or more. So who are you supposed to get with exactly if you're a girl into Metal and you can't sleep with guys in bands? I guess I'm supposed to wait until I fall in love and I'm firmly involved in a deeply committed relationship to ever have sex without ruining my Metal street cred. Because if you ever do it with any guy in any band then you're pretty much just a poser slut.

Don't think I'm hanging out by the stage door trying to screw whoever like the 80s whores did. But then sometimes you hit it off with someone who happens to be in a band. And I'm all, "When the fuck did I sign up to be 'The Sexless Metal Wonder'? How the fuck did that happen?”

It makes no sense why “REAL Metal chicks” aren't allowed to do it. Because Metal guys don't give a fuck about that. I don't know one that's on a quest for a chaste virgin to marry. It's not the guys putting any conventional double standards upon us. So why are we, the women of Heavy Metal, drawing these imaginary lines we're not allowed to cross? Why have we decided to restrict ourselves unnecessarily?

But the world of Heavy Metal is small and we all already know each other. Whatever you do, just everyone might find out about it. So you need to be careful about what you do and who you do it with. Its like a small town. People talk. The boys aren't that concerned with who you're banging but the girls'll pass all kinds of judgment on you.

There's a girl on facebook who I don't know at all who keeps popping up in my newsfeed in pictures with dudes I know going back to the early 90's. I clicked thru and looked at her page and she was complaining about how some people think shes slept with all these guys in her pics but she hasn't. She's not a slut, She's a Virtuous Heavy Metal Woman who would never do that!!

I don't doubt her. I can name you a huge list of Virtuous Heavy Metal Women who don't do that. Every one of them very proud of not having to have whored around to make friends with rock stars or to just have existed in the scene as their own person. And good for them.

But then there's me... I've done my fair share of not sleeping with guys to get where I've gotten, but I've also been perpetually single for a long time and maybe I *have* been with some of those guys she's bragging she never slept with. Which makes me the slutty one... and her the good one. She is the “Virtuous Heavy Metal Woman” who only has sex as part of a meaningful and committed relationship. I am the tarnished slut who is no longer of value in the Metal world because I have allowed a man to soil me out of wedlock.

What kind of thinking is that?!?!! I mean WTF. Are we Metalheads or are we Quakers? So I have sex with a consenting adult male. WTF is wrong with that? I can't have sex and still have street cred? Wasn't the sexual revolution decades ago? Why are the women of Heavy Metal holding ourselves to a standard that was outdated before most of us even existed? Why are we repressing ourselves?

I like to say I'm boy-crazy. Because I like all the guys. I can find something attractive about most of them. If I act on those feelings with a man who likes me too, how does that make me any less Metal?

I know there are still some girls out there who fuck dudes in bands cause they're dudes in bands. It's pretty sad if you think that who you're doing it with makes *you* anyone. But it's equally as messed up if you think who you *don't* sleep with makes you any more Metal. Or if you think who *I've* slept with makes *me* any less Metal.

I am not a Virtuous Sexless Heavy Metal Virgin Goddess.  

I'm just a fan of Heavy Metal who likes having sex sometimes.
Because I'm a human being with hormones and desires.

But it's really none of your goddamn business either way.

I've always had this weird disconnect between my sexuality and Metalness because I'd been so busy trying to be taken seriously. Somehow, the older I get, the more pointless it seems. There's a ton more stuff in there too. Like feelings, mechanics, partners and dynamics that are worthy of consideration and discussion... but it's all whatever, because I'm honestly pretty comfortable with the majority of the decisions I've made in my life about who to get naked with and who not to.

And then dudes take one look at you and decide you're just there cause your somebody's girlfriend so they should ignore you anyway.

My punk rock friend thinks Metal is totally misogynistic and that punk rock is sexually liberated because they don't care who sleeps with who or doesn't. I don't know if that's true or not but that's what he tells me. He thinks its dumb that a Metal girl's a whore if she has sex with guys outside of a relationship. I think there's degrees of "sleeping around" but hes all like, "Fuck that. Consenting adults."

I can't argue.

I know some Metal guys who are managing to get laid casually somehow in this day and age through wit or charm or good looks but most of them are doin' it with women outside the Metal scene who find them exotic and dangerous for all the tattoos.

When it comes right down to it, Metalheads just aren't getting it very much for a group of mixed-sex healthy people who hang out and drink together at bars.... because the women closed up shop years ago. 

It all warrants more discussion but it's getting late.

I'm going to bed with my cat.

Like most single Metalheads do every night.