the word "slut"

[dopediana]

disclaimer: i've been up for 2 days straight working on a paper and this is something i compiled while taking a break. if it sounds a little insane in parts it's either really true or just me being jacked up on caffeine. i tried to proofread it.

so i watched this really interesting documentary from comcast on-demand (in case you wanna find it) on the history and culture behind the word "slut." you probably already know it is a word i despise. anyway, this documentary brings up some really key points that should be considered next time you decide to use it.


--the other words in the english language that begin with "sl" are usually always of a gross connotation like "sloppy", "sludge", "slimy", "slovenly" to name a few.


--most people when asked what the male equivalent of the term "slut" is answered "stud." where's the correlation in that?


--"slut" originated as a term for a sloppy housekeeper but was only a couple of decades later used as a derrogatory sexual term.


--a whore has sex for money whereas a slut has lots of sex for no compensation. the term slut is actually worse than whore because it suggests that a woman is devaluing herself.


--"sluts" are supposedly only useful for one thing: fucking. they don't "deserve" respect or value because they put out. "sluts" don't get asked out for second dates because anyone associating themselves with one on anything other than a sexual basis is just as bad.


--it is assumed that "sluts" or women who enjoy sex have something wrong with them; they were molested, abused, or never had a father figure. seeking pleasure is somehow a manifestation of emotional and/or psychological problems.


--women are called sluts because they are supposedly sexually out of control therefore unworthy of respect, but not unworthy enough to fuck. if there weren't sluts, how would we be able to name our good girls?


--as women used to be regarded as chattle and in many places in the world still are, sex was and is in some places still considered a commodity. sexuality is one of the primary aspects of womanliness that men want to control. the word "slut" directly attacks sexuality. sexuality is a very personal part of any person's life and when you call a woman a slut it is an attack on her very person and one of the lowest, meanest methods of oppression.


--sex is very prevalent and glorified in the media yet so taboo, and the biggest fear of the institution is that real women should reject implicit sexual social constructs. words like slut are a form of social control. if a woman enjoys herself, if she has multiple partners, if she fucks on the first date, she is a slut. we don't want women degrading themselves like that because we want what's best for them, yet small-minded men and jealous women have the gall to declare the terms of what is acceptable or not as they are afraid of a world where women can fuck on their own terms.


--rich girls are less likely to be christened sluts than girls from lower-class families. girls from poorer backgrounds are assumed to have more family trouble, be morally bereft, and insecure. if one of these girls attracts the interest of a sought-after boy, she is an easy target among her peers because of her social status.


--girls are the first ones to call eachother sluts. it is the easiest way to destroy a peer's reputation and send her into social exile. this makes it alright for guys to do it too. a guy can fuck a "slut" and suffer no repercussions because she is the slut, therefore she initiated it and it is her fault making her susceptible to attack from all angles.




in conclusion, we have to eliminate sexist oppressive words like "slut" from our language. women, we need to respect and support eachother. people forget to consider that sex is a vital part of life, not just a means of filling some so-called void. words like slut are a sneaky way to oppress women and keep them on the margins of society. the language you use is your attitude and state of mind. think before you speak. the words you throw around arbitrarily can be caustic, they erode self-esteem and joie-de-vivre. instead, attack the people and institutions who attempt to deride an important facet of women's lives and personalities. don't use offensive sexist terms. WOMEN, surround yourself with people who respect you, eachother, and themselves. do what feels right. you are not a ***** if you withhold sex nor a slut if you choose to "put out". MEN, treat women with respect and caution because some of us have not yet found the strength to keep you from fucking with our heads.


so fuck freely and if anyone deigns to sincerely call you a slut, you can tell them what a hurtful, regressive word it is and explain why. don't ask if they have an unsatisfying sex life. they are obviously projecting their jealousy and sexual insecurities onto you, kidding themselves into thinking they retain the moral high ground.

[guerrillaradio]

I agree with your analysis but disagree with your conclusion. Words like "slut", "****" etc are supposed to be offensive, that's why people use them. To try and abolish them is reactionary conservatism, which the last thing women need right now. Moreover, surely women's liberation is about demystifying women and exposing all of society's hypocrisy and confusion in its attitude towards them, not creating more taboos surrounding them.

I think the best thing to be done with these words is to remove them from their context and thus neutralise them. Girls calling their friends "slut" in an affectionate way is a good example of this. I'd hope that progressive women have more pressing concerns than semantics.

[dopediana]

i hardly think that 12 y/o girls should go around calling eachother slut in an affectionate way. except for the horrible girls you see calling eachother sluts on crap tv shows like "elimidate", i tend to think that most women are capable of affectionately calling their friends names. i know i call my girlfriends ***** or ho in a loving manner every now and then. the problem is, kids don't have that kind of refined vulgar sense of humor. girls have to suffer through it before they get over it. and sometimes those scars never go away. slut and other similar words are first and foremostly introduced into girls' lives as insults, they set boundaries and restrictions on behavior and are harmful before they are funny. the trick is finding a way to eliminate the first impacts of the word on young women. and that's hard. plus, the only possible way to call eachother derrogatory terms with affection is to have experienced them from another source without as much goodwill. jokes are not jokes simply because. they have to have a history and sometimes it hurts.

[TC]

I think you've wayyyyy overthought this one. The most common use of the term slut i think is a girl labling a more sexually open girl, but not with distain hatred or disgust so much as teasing, sort of silly criticism that has a lot to do with partial envy. In fact i think if you consider how people use the term (and how often its applied jokingly to friends vs. rudely to people the speaker doesn't like), accusing someone of being a 'prude' is much more often a distainful thing to say about someone. Being a prude is pathetic, being a slut is amusing.

Lol and 'stud' is so not the 'male equivolent' to slut, have you ever actually heard anyone use the term 'stud' exept in sarcasm? I think the male equivolent is probably also just 'slut' or more humorously 'man-whore' or something like that if the speaker is friendly/joking with the guy and 'player' if the speaker considers the guy with contempt (which is really a much nastier thing to call someone as it implies exploitation/dishonesty).


I'm talking just about the term 'slut' though based on how its used...and i think going after the term is an exercise in absolutely ridiculase political correctness for its own sake (you want to what, walk up to a pair of 16 year old girls coming out of a college party, saying "wow you're such a slut! hahaha" "no, you're a bigger slut hahahaha" and scream "OMFG STOP OPPRESSING EACH OTHER!!!!" at them?). However i agree that there is a problem in that conservatives make people ashamed of their sexuality and ashamed of casual sex, but its not by calling them sluts, they do it in a lot of other ways. But its the messages in the media that sex is something very serious, dangerious, sacred, scary and disapointing, and best kept among married christian adults, that deserve criticism, not the ways that adolecents tease their friends. What you're doing i think is taking a legitimate concern, that young girls are made to feel ashamed about their sexuality, and applying it to a context where its rarely harmful...its like crusading against the term 'retarded'; no one who uses the word is really thinking of mentally handicapted people they're thinking of something they find stupid in the most detached sense and everyone around them knows they're using it that way.

[guerrillaradio]

It seems to me that we vaguely agree.

Why do you think 12 year olds use it in an insulting fashion then?? Cos they've picked it up off other people using it to insult, without really being aware of its meaning. It's an example of a signifier being used without knowing what is signifies. If you eradicate the usage of the word as an insult from adults and adolescents who know its meaning, then 12 year olds will stop too.

[Lord Testicles]

I agree with dopediana. I always knew "slut" was a vulgar, but that post has really opened my eyes to what an oppressive word it really is. I agree that words should be neutralised so to remove the impact and power of them, but some words (such as "nigger" and "slut") should be some how stripped from our social consciousness, because they are truly oppressive words.

[dopediana]

Originally posted by TragicClown@Mar 2 2006, 11:33 AM
I think you've wayyyyy overthought this one. The most common use of the term slut i think is a girl labling a more sexually open girl, but not with distain hatred or disgust so much as teasing, sort of silly criticism that has a lot to do with partial envy. In fact i think if you consider how people use the term (and how often its applied jokingly to friends vs. rudely to people the speaker doesn't like), accusing someone of being a 'prude' is much more often a distainful thing to say about someone. Being a prude is pathetic, being a slut is amusing.

Lol and 'stud' is so not the 'male equivolent' to slut, have you ever actually heard anyone use the term 'stud' exept in sarcasm? I think the male equivolent is probably also just 'slut' or more humorously 'man-whore' or something like that if the speaker is friendly/joking with the guy and 'player' if the speaker considers the guy with contempt (which is really a much nastier thing to call someone as it implies exploitation/dishonesty).


I'm talking just about the term 'slut' though based on how its used...and i think going after the term is an exercise in absolutely ridiculase political correctness for its own sake (you want to what, walk up to a pair of 16 year old girls coming out of a college party, saying "wow you're such a slut! hahaha" "no, you're a bigger slut hahahaha" and scream "OMFG STOP OPPRESSING EACH OTHER!!!!" at them?). However i agree that there is a problem in that conservatives make people ashamed of their sexuality and ashamed of casual sex, but its not by calling them sluts, they do it in a lot of other ways. But its the messages in the media that sex is something very serious, dangerious, sacred, scary and disapointing, and best kept among married christian adults, that deserve criticism, not the ways that adolecents tease their friends. What you're doing i think is taking a legitimate concern, that young girls are made to feel ashamed about their sexuality, and applying it to a context where its rarely harmful...its like crusading against the term 'retarded'; no one who uses the word is really thinking of mentally handicapted people they're thinking of something they find stupid in the most detached sense and everyone around them knows they're using it that way.

oh, please, accuse me of overthinking. first of all, i was outlining points a documentary made. second of all, language and its use is definitive of the culture and society we are raised in. being a prude is pathetic? only when we're trying to pressure girls to do something outside their comfort zone. being a slut is amusing? not if everyone hates you cos you kissed someone's ex-boyfriend.

obviously stud is not the male equivalent to slut. i can't believe i have to explain this. according to the people they interviewed, "stud" was the most common word given as an equivalent to slut. the point is the two are hardly comparable in their connotation. i think you're from france so there are probably different terms for all this. please tell me how "player" is a contemptuous word. "play" is not a vicious word, it does not sound venomous, not the way "slut" does.

how is disliking the word slut being overly PC? and why do most 16 y/os go to college parties? so they can pretend to be grown up. as for slut, all jokes have some root in truth or absolute falsehood. word-slinging is a form of competition as much as it is playful banter. your profile says you were born in '68, i don't know if that's true or not but is it possible you've forgotten how tormenting adolescence can be?

[guerrillaradio]

Tragic Clown - I dunno where you live and who you associate with, but pretty much everywhere I've been "slut" has been used as an offensive term. I mean, that's the root from which its ironic usage between girl friends has sprung. Hopefully one day we'll be in a situation where posts like yours are true, but it's definitely not today.

Skinz - are you advocating a hierarchy of oppression?? How is "slut" any less offensive than "fag"?? Don't you see how terms like these are tied to linguistic social convention, which is a living, breathing entity and thus constantly evolving?? So whereas a word like "queer" may have been offensive in (say) 1955, today it's a specific term used to mean non-straight (not necessarily gay). I'd seriously suggest that before you arbitrarily decide which words are and are not acceptable, you understand this point, cos it's absolutely crucial to a discussion about language.

[Lord Testicles]

Originally posted by guerrillaradio@Mar 2 2006, 11:56 AM
Skinz - are you advocating a hierarchy of oppression?? How is "slut" any less offensive than "fag"?? Don't you see how terms like these are tied to linguistic social convention, which is a living, breathing entity and thus constantly evolving?? So whereas a word like "queer" may have been offensive in (say) 1955, today it's a specific term used to mean non-straight (not necessarily gay). I'd seriously suggest that before you arbitrarily decide which words are and are not acceptable, you understand this point, cos it's absolutely crucial to a discussion about language.

I wasn't suggesting that we violently stamp it out, i was suggestiong that it should be tryed to be forgotten, if no-one usess it it will eventually fade from our volcabulary.

[dopediana]

these words aren't going to go away if we simply ban them. we have to teach people the origins of these sorts of words, discuss how they affect us in order to get an understanding of how they should be used if at all.

[Lord Testicles]

Originally posted by dopediana@Mar 2 2006, 12:17 PM
these words aren't going to go away if we simply ban them. we have to teach people the origins of these sorts of words, discuss how they affect us in order to get an understanding of how they should be used if at all.

Banning a word is impossable anyway so the only way to get these words to dissapear is through mutual cooperation.

[Seong]

You aren't going to be able to make words just disappear. Guerillaradio is right. Language is based on trends and the connotations of certain words take many years to alter. The best example that I can think of is a word starting with 'n' that was once used as a derogatory term for people of African descent. Fast foward to today and it is used by those same people as an expression of brotherhood.

Reclamation of words is the best way to go. I and some of my close friends call each other slut in an affectionate/joking way - it's the only way to alter its meaning.

[bird brain]

Originally posted by dopediana@Mar 2 2006, 11:25 AM
i hardly think that 12 y/o girls should go around calling eachother slut in an affectionate way. except for the horrible girls you see calling eachother sluts on crap tv shows like "elimidate", i tend to think that most women are capable of affectionately calling their friends names. i know i call my girlfriends ***** or ho in a loving manner every now and then. the problem is, kids don't have that kind of refined vulgar sense of humor. girls have to suffer through it before they get over it. and sometimes those scars never go away. slut and other similar words are first and foremostly introduced into girls' lives as insults, they set boundaries and restrictions on behavior and are harmful before they are funny. the trick is finding a way to eliminate the first impacts of the word on young women. and that's hard. plus, the only possible way to call eachother derrogatory terms with affection is to have experienced them from another source without as much goodwill. jokes are not jokes simply because. they have to have a history and sometimes it hurts.

shut up you slut

[Atlas Swallowed]

The difference between a slut and a *****.

A slut will fuck anyone.

A ***** will fuck anyone but you.

[Iroquois Xavier]

Originally posted by bird brain+Mar 6 2006, 02:24 PM--> (bird brain @ Mar 6 2006, 02:24 PM)

dopediana

@Mar 2 2006, 11:25 AM
i hardly think that 12 y/o girls should go around calling eachother slut in an affectionate way. except for the horrible girls you see calling eachother sluts on crap tv shows like "elimidate", i tend to think that most women are capable of affectionately calling their friends names. i know i call my girlfriends ***** or ho in a loving manner every now and then. the problem is, kids don't have that kind of refined vulgar sense of humor. girls have to suffer through it before they get over it. and sometimes those scars never go away. slut and other similar words are first and foremostly introduced into girls' lives as insults, they set boundaries and restrictions on behavior and are harmful before they are funny. the trick is finding a way to eliminate the first impacts of the word on young women. and that's hard. plus, the only possible way to call eachother derrogatory terms with affection is to have experienced them from another source without as much goodwill. jokes are not jokes simply because. they have to have a history and sometimes it hurts.

shut up you slut [/b]

how on eatrh are they gettin away with this?

[Sentinel]

Slut is a derogating term for emancipated women.

I cant see any justification for the usage of it. It's sole purpose is to oppress women, it's message is: women who have sex with who they like are dirty.

Using it jokingly might be harmless between two friends, but I still see no reason to do it. After all, using it is giving your approval to the rules of patriarchal sexism.

When it comes to the term queer, I've now started using it when speaking english. Although I don't like it's literal meaning, there is no equally inclusive term for gay, lesbian and transgender persons. It has a positive purpose. Slut doesn't.

Originally posted by Iroquois Xavier
how on eatrh are they gettin away with this?

He didn't. And no one will if I'm in the room.

[Monty Cantsin]

Originally posted by Atlas Swallowed@Mar 6 2006, 03:10 PM
The difference between a slut and a *****.

A slut will fuck anyone.

A ***** will fuck anyone but you.

What the hell is that?

[Black Dagger]

I think he's attempting to parody a male perspective of female sexuality... or perhaps just making a 'bad' joke?

[Monty Cantsin]

Originally posted by Black Dagger@Mar 8 2006, 09:21 AM
I think he's attempting to parody a male perspective of female sexuality... or perhaps just making a 'bad' joke?

I think it’s a very bad joke…

[Iroquois Xavier]

Yeah it is, i didnt laugh at it and i'll laugh at anything. (including my own jokes&#33well if no one else does at least someone thinks they're good!