I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation

OK, so I'm a flirt, an unabashed, unapologetic flirt. With everyone generally, and lately with one guy specifically, Paul.

Paul seems to be around places that I am around, although that's more happenstance than planning. Paul's smart and insightful, and to go for the full-on cliche, he's tall and handsome.

And so ... why not go for it?

A little problem called reputation.

Not mine, his.

So if I went for it, it would, of course, be mine, too.

He's a flirt (duh!), and has had trysts with many women around these parts, single and (so I hear) not. It's easy to think "player," but he says he is genuinely looking for a woman who is genuine, grounded and emotionally aware. He's not finding too many of those in Marin.

OK, fine, believe him or not, but the question begs to be asked (because, you know, I'm curious that way): If a woman has numerous trysts in her search for The One (the genuine, grounded and emotionally aware one, as he should be), does that work against her, for her or who the hell cares?

My fave blog, Annie Dennison's Smart at Love, addressed that awhile back, asking:

"ls the idea of a woman's 'bad' sexual reputation so old-fashioned in this modern world that you reject it outright?

"Or are you conscious of, and concerned about, the way men perceive you as a sexual being?"

I don't mind being looked at as a sexual being — I am one, fergoodnesssake, and blessed to be one — but I know that women are held to a different standard (which is wrong, but that's how it is, still, today, go figure).

So I flirt publicly, but I tramp privately. I don't like the judgment, and the worst offenders of that aren't necessarily men, but women (or so my experience has been). Guess it's threatening or something.

And that's how it is with Paul — it will go no further than flirting because I choose not to. Because there's The Kid to consider, and because I'm still not living in the enlightened society in which I long to be living.

Would you choose to be with a man who has a sexual "reputation"?

Do you worry about your own, or you follow Joan Jett's advice in "Bad Reputation":

I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation
You're living in the past it's a new generation
A girl can do what she wants to do and that's
What I'm gonna do
An' I don't give a damn ' bout my bad reputation

And if you both have those reputations, do they cancel each other out?