I’ve been on Facebook since 2007 and given the volume of what I’ve posted over the years, there really is no way to keep track of it all. There is no searchable database accessible to me and manually scrolling down is too tedious to keep going beyond a couple of months or so.

That’s why I like to check out the “On This Day” feature that shows what I was blathering about n number of years ago. Some stuff is good. Some is kind of boring. This one from five years ago is one of the good ones.

It’s a slow day so maybe I’ll be a Johnny Appleseed of fucked-up shit. There are at least a dozen conference rooms on my floor alone, each one equipped with its own PC. What fun it would be to clear the auto-complete and repopulate it with some words and phrases of my choosing. My only regret is that I wouldn’t be physically present to enjoy that moment when someone types the first few letters of “analytics” only to have it expand to “anally rape the koala.”

What makes this interesting, at least to me, is that thoughts of koala rape would be filling my head 21 months later.

In my 2013 NaNoWriMo effort Golden Years, the marsupial mascot of the fictional Rancho Eucalyptus High School is abducted, sexually violated, and killed. Like most of what happened in the novel, this was played for laughs.

In real life, such a brutal and violent end would be a tragedy regardless whether the victim was human or animal. Would I chuckle about it then? Probably, but I would at least realize that my levity was inappropriate.

I wouldn’t feel too bad about it because most of my transgression would be a breach of taste. Most, that is, but not all. It can be argued that trivializing a violent act in essence blames the victim. Yes, a violent act occurred,  but I cope with my fear of it happening to me by reducing it to slapstick. All parties involved become buffoons so by extension none are entirely blameless. The victim ceases to be a victim. Prevailing wisdom says that if you bring something upon yourself, you become a de facto willing party. You are no longer just a victim to be blamed. You have become a slut to be shamed because this prudish society we live in is all about that.

This is not what I want to do. I detest slut shaming. For one thing, I admire sluts. They commit no real crime while they wipe their asses with decorum in pursuit of living life to its fullest. Of course, this description does not apply to victims cast into the role of sluts so my admiration does not apply either. You may object to victim blaming because it is punching down and punching down is wrong. On the other hand, you may have no problem with punching down because victims, being victims, should be used to it by now. I can see merit on both sides.

So if victims can be arguably considered fair game, can slut shaming also be OK? As much as I hate to admit it, the answer is yes. However, this is only true if the slut in question is dead. My reasoning is simple: The noble slut values fulfillment at the expense of reputation so demonstrable harm would be impeding this fulfillment through either word or deed. After death, all that remains is reputation, a disposable commodity.

This point was driven home to me by the dying words of my grandfather. He was lying on his deathbed, as dying grandfathers are wont to do, and he overheard me slut shaming my grandmother. I had recently found a shoebox in the attic full of old nude photos of her. After scanning them and uploading them to the internet, I decided to taunt her for her indiscretion.

“Granny whore! Loved to score. Back when she spewed monthly gore,” I chanted at my grandmother, who was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s so she just continued to stare at the wall and make spit bubbles.

I must admit my word choice was pretty childish. In my defense, this did happen a long time ago and I was not nearly so mature back then (I was 35).

“Shut the hell up, you little bastard. Don’t say things about her when she’s right there,” my grandfather hissed with all the breath his cancerous lungs could muster. After muttering some ethnic slurs that don’t merit repeating, he said “She’s right there” one more time before dying and losing bowel control. Or perhaps it was the other way around. One can never tell about these things.

But he was wrong, you see. She wasn’t right there. She wasn’t much of anywhere. Her dementia had seen to that. I had nothing to feel guilty about. I cannot tell you how relieved I felt when I realized that.