"Slut" Does Not Necessarily Mean Sexual
Hello everyone, I wrote a book about girls labeled "sluts" by their peers in junior high and high school, called Slut! Growing Up Female With a Bad Reputation. I did the research in the mid- to late-1990s; the book was originally published in 1999. I continue to meet and speak with girls and women who are currently experiencing slut-bashing or who have experienced it in the past. A few quick observations:
- The school "slut" is not necessarily more sexually active than any of the other girls. In many cases, she has zero sexual experience. Often what it boils down to is: if the other girls don't like her for whatever reason, she is at risk of being called a "slut." If she is an early developer and appears sexual, whether or not she is, she is at particular risk.
- If a girl is very sexually active with multiple partners but is considered popular, is well-liked, and is somewhat feared, she won't get labeled a "slut." A girl's place on the social hierarchy is key.
- It's usually (though not always) girls who engineer the slut-bashing.
- If a girl completely avoids sexual expression she may be harassed too. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
I am a man, and I have heard the word "slut" used many times. In our society most people seem to consider it a negative label. But sometimes it is applied as a compliment to women who are socially and emotionally healthy and who greatly enjoy sex.
Of course I have also heard a lot of horribly demeaning comments about women and "sluts." These comments often reveal emotional/sexual dysfunction in the commenter.
April 6, 2009 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
So you'd consider it compliment if your best male friend called your wife or girlfriend a slut?
Or if you saw your wife or girlfriend's picture posted on a website called... oh, I don't know... America's Sluttiest Sluts?
Or how about, "I'd like you to meet my wife next week. She's a real slut."
Or "Not only is my daughter a great student, she's a slut, too!"
Or "My mother is such a talented slut. And she's a great cook!"
Or your daughter tells you, "Daddy, when I grow up I want to be a slut just like Mommy!"
Or tells her teacher, "It's okay Ms. Jones, my Daddy calls my Mommy a slut all the time!"
In all my years on earth, I have never heard ANYONE use the word "slut" to describe a woman in a positive light.
To Leonora:
Boys call girls "slut" just as frequently as girls. Girls who do not "put out," "hook up" can be called slut to protect or enhance the boy's reputation. He, in turn, is called "stud."
Girls might not call a promiscuous, but popular girl a slut to her face, but they call her that when she's not around.
"Unsexy" or "sexless" girls tend to be called "prudes," "lezzies," and other terms that reflect their undesirability.
Otherwise "non-slutty" girls get goaded into "slutty" behavior to improve their popularity within certain cliques.
April 6, 2009 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
"So you'd consider it a compliment if your best male friend called your wife or girlfriend a slut?"
In the vast majority of circumstances, absolutely not. I don't like the word, and I honestly wish the word did not exist. I was just pointing out an unusual usage of the word because I thought it was relevant to the thread. It is possible to use a generally offensive word in a non-offensive way, depending on the context and the attitude/demeanor of the speaker.
April 6, 2009 7:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've never heard the word 'slut' used in a complimentary way. But what has always really bugged me is the way 'slut' was used negatively while 'stud' was something to aspire to. After all, who are the 'studs' supposed to party with if it was so bad to be a 'slut'? Our language reveals alot of how sexually screwed up our culture makes us. Don't even get me started on the word 'fag.'
"Maybe I'm the fagot America;
Not a part of a redneck agenda..."
- Green Day, "American Idiot"
April 6, 2009 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
"But what has always really bugged me is the way 'slut' was used negatively while 'stud' was something to aspire to."
Kafka, the people I heard use "slut" in a complimentary way had the genuinely egalitarian spirit to put those words on equal status.
April 6, 2009 8:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Levi Johnston is a slut.
April 6, 2009 9:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
hahahaha. A+
April 7, 2009 8:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Any woman who hooks up with a man who has more than 8% body fat, less than 50% skeletal muscle, or an income under six figures is a "slut."
Follow the guidelines and you're just doing what comes naturally.
April 6, 2009 8:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not contesting other peoples usage of the term slut, but I think it has a meaning that has changed over time. This is a term that had meaning in my era and social group that I believe is relevant to this discussion. In my town in the late 50s and early 60s (this is high school culture) the only girls that were called sluts came from very poor families. My highschool was composed of many very poor, blue collar working class and fewer middle class people. The girl's in my neighborhood who earned the classification of slut were from the poorest families. The few I knew were raised by single mothers.
For the most part they dated the 'greasers', another appellation that applied then to the boys from lumpen proletariat elements of our community. As a 14 year old or so, I was both repelled and fascinated by these girls. As I got to know a few of them I felt more sad and sympathetic about their lives.
In any case, the term slut has had very strong class implications, basically the lowest of lower class girls.
April 6, 2009 10:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
One of my first encounters with the word "slut" was in the movie To Sir, with Love. In a key early incident in the film, one of the girls in the class apparently burns a used sanitary pad in the stove in the classroom. Sidney Poitier sends the boys out of the room, and then goes into a long harangue:
I am sick of your foul language, your crude behaviour and your sluttish manner. There are certain things a decent woman keeps private, and only a filthy slut would have done this ... and those who stood by and encouraged her are just as bad. I don't care who's responsible - you're all to blame. Now, I am going to leave this room for five minutes by which time that disgusting object had better be removed and the windows opened to clear away the stench. If you must play these filthy games, do them in your homes! - and not in my classroom!
In the film, the item burning in the stove is not explicitly identified by name, and the viewer is left to draw the reasonable inference. Whenever I first saw the film, I was still fairly young, and remember being mystified and transfixed by this hideous mystery, and Poitier's strange but compelling outburst.
I went to a dictionary, and found some unhelpful synonyms whose meanings I also did not know - like "slattern" or "trollop". But the dictionary also said that a slut was a dirty, foul or slovenly woman. By jumping from near synonym to near synonym, definition to definition, one moved from "slut" to "slattern", "trollop", "strumpet", "tramp", "hussy" and finally "harlot" and 'prostitute".
Just as in the film, "slut" is still used to connote a mixture of promiscuity with lower-class vulgarity, sloppiness and ignorance. The popular "queen bee" who has multiple partners, but on her own domineering terms and in suitable dress, is not classified as a slut.
April 7, 2009 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
"As I got to know a few of them I felt more sad and sympathetic about their lives"
That's so fascinating! Their lives, were they more like "West Side Story" or more like "Grease"?
April 7, 2009 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I shouldn't talk. After I decided it was no use saving myself for the man I was going to marry, I became sort of a slut myself. I just went with any girl who wanted me. Now I feel all used. Women! What makes them so hard-hearted? They just take pleasure from a man's body and then leave, and I get called a slut into the bargain.
When I find a guy who treats me nice and will make an honest man out of me, you womens won't have Mooser to kick around anymore, believe you me!
April 7, 2009 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink