Somehow, Lindsay Lohan is at the center of a sex list scandal that for all intents and purposes doesn't seem as scandalous as we'd expect. Sure, there's the likelihood that the list she supposedly wrote while out with her girlfriends is a fake or that it's real and more aspriational that accurate — after all, writing names on a Scattergories sheet isn't exactly a scientific process. But, seeing the narrative that a famous scandal-ridden woman wrote out 36 names and claimed they were all her past lovers without it raising cry-for-help alarm bells all over the Internet is rather telling. Perhaps, for once, the slut-shamers have heard our cry.
This assertion, of course, discounts teenagers on Twitter, who use the word "slut" in judgment every other second, and the occasional despicable dude-bro quips along the lines of "Making a sex list sounds like something a sophomore in high school would make before smoking a cigarette in the bathroom. That or what a porn star that got diagnosed with HIV would make in order to give them some bad news." There are some folks who think that women who discuss their sexual conquest lists (something we've all got in our heads, safe from In Touch magazine's prying eyes) are lesser for it, but for the most part, writers across the internet seem to celebrating Lohan's sexual escapades, even if we're not sure they're not actually real.
The Daily Beast has created a "Marry, Screw, Kill" game out of some of the more notable alleged lovers, practically patting Lohan on the back. In reference to Fifty Shades of Grey star Jamie Dornan's presence on the list, Amy Zimmerman writes, "Because the hands-down coolest thing about being Lindsay Lohan is that you get to casually have sex with the guy from Fifty Shades of Grey ... 'Christian Grey? Eh, been there, done that.'"
VICE serves up some high fives for Lohan, pointing out the benefit of Adam Levine's "FUCKING ABS" and noting that pretty much anyone would have sex with Garrett Hedlund: " if you’re ever given the chance to have sex with someone who is famous for being really, really good-looking, you have to take that shot."
Even the Mirror, a UK tabloid that's not exactly the pinnacle of feminist integrity, promotes Lohan's conquests as a victory: "...Hollywood stars which are notches on the flame haired vixen's bedpost." She sounds like a sexual superhero, with her perfect coif blowing in the wind while the men of Los Angeles bow down at her feet.
While there's certainly been some progress in the "what's your number?" discussion, allowing for more women to feel less judged by a numerical value that largely means nothing, those more liberal viewpoints don't always extend to celebrities. We'll say that women should dress how ever they want, without regard for the consideration of how others might perceive them, then every publication in America slams Mariah Carey for showing her cleavage, which is basically one of her favorite things to do. We say that women should be allowed to be sexually dominant and vocal about their sex lives, but when Miley Cyrus does it, the whole world stops. And when Beyonce does it, someone insists she'll incite a rash of teenage pregnancies.
But here's Lohan's supposed list, dropped at our feet without tomes about the moral implications of such conquests. The main concern seems to be about whether or not it's real, considering the presence of huge names like Justin Timberlake and James Franco, but thankfully, not many credible sources seem to think that Lohan's alleged proclivity for talking about who she's had sex with or the number of partners she claims to have had are all that big of a deal. The narrative seems to be that she's a sexually liberated young woman living in a city full of hot men... and that we really hope this list is real because holy shit, does it seem too good to be true.
