No, Everyone Doesn’t NEED A ‘Hoe Phase’

“Everyone needs to hoe out at some point in their life. How else do you figure out what you like and gain more experience?”

I was 20 when a good friend of mine made the above statement. While everyone else was busy hooking up, I was nose deep in my books and holding out for a quality relationship. I’m not going to sit here and pretend like I was Mother Teresa, but my bed for damn sure wasn’t getting as much action as my homies. I was too afraid to venture out and be part of the “hoe nation,” so to speak, but more importantly, I was  never really interested.

If you’re at least 30, then you’ve either had a hoe phase, know folks who have “hoed out” (for lack of a better term) or have heard people brag and praise the so-called necessary wildin’ out period of adulthood.

The “hoe phase” is relative, but for the sake of this article let’s define it as:

A period in which someone engages in carefree, no strings attached interactions of a sexual nature with one or more people with absolutely no obligation or emotional commitment to said individual(s). 

When people reflect on the stage where they were their most “carefree” and “sexually liberated” selves, many laugh, joke and joyously reminisce on the period dubbed as, “a free and fruitful learning experience.”

Last week I took a poll on social media to access whether a period where you hook up with folks for the hell of it with no strings attached was still necessary:

 Indeed. How does one become a great lover without experience?

True… I don’t even wanna say “hoe” but free as f*ck phase.

The hoe phase is great! Can’t be intentionally a hoe but open enough to understand what could happen emotionally. Sometimes things just don’t work out….my philosophy is don’t put anything in your mouth and use protection.

Absolutely TRUE! After this “phase” you KNOW more than you did before and you’ve become much more WISE about life…..that is, if you ADMIT that you went through it! Ha Ha

True, as long as it is a “phase”

Only if it’s in your system…everyone ain’t got no “hoe” in them, but if you have a curious cat, gone ahead and let her out before she has to be “confined” bc 50 and f*cking 10 men is not sexual liberation…that’s an old hoe who didn’t let that cat out in her 20s 😂

Fast-forward almost thirteen years and I can honestly say the majority of my peers are still advocates of the “hoe phase.”

Lordt.

Not gonna lie. The overwhelming amount of folks who said the “hoe phase” was a requirement shocked the hell out of me. But their reasoning did not. Almost everyone who found such a phase to be necessary in life said the same thing: “it helps you figure out what you want and to gain experience.”

Let’s kick it right here for a second.

Experience. 

Having sex with multiple partners doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be a great lover. It just guarantees that you’ll come with high mileage. I know a bunch of “hoes” (once again, for lack of a better term) who are terrible in bed. Some folks just suck. You can be with a woman who is an utter pillow princess and a man who simply sticks and moves around in the sac as if he has ants crawling all over his body. The number of people doesn’t determine your skill set, paying attention to your lover does.

One guy might like a cough drop with his fellatio. That doesn’t mean that the man you’re going to end up with will. The lady who you’re seeking to get intimate with might not be so keen on hair pulling, despite the fact that the last three women you slept with loved it.

Sex isn’t necessarily a buffet. You do not have to sample all of the cheesecakes in the world to determine if you like it or not. Just sayin.’

The idea that someone’s a quality lover based on the number of sex partners they’ve had is just plain whack. I’ve been with “hoes” who were horrible in bed and more selective beings who I’d easily give 5 stars to.

I believe in people defining the life they wish to live. That includes making their own choices regarding sex and any other aspects of their lives. If you wish to embrace your inner hoe, great. If you wish not to, great. Just don’t feel obligated to do so because you’ve been convinced that sleeping around is what you “should” be doing.