A preceding warning about this article, I am going to use a “bad” word numerous times (37 to be exact) and both explain its meaning and its subsequent lack of meaning. By the end, I hope you will see it as an outdated insult used to target women and it will lose some of its power. The word I’m referencing here is “slut.”
At 16 years old I remember crying over the idea of someone even thinking of me as a slut, let alone ever actually calling me one. At 20, after this word has been used against me on several occasions over the years, I wish I could roll my eyes and even smile at the thought. It is true that sometimes I can, but then there are moments where I see myself cower at something as small as a four letter word. Even now I sit here and think about if I have ever done anything worthy of that word. By its sexist definition, I’m not even sure. The word is so subjective that I couldn’t even determine if I had ever acted like one. In any case where I could have been or was called a slut, I was not the sole participant and I highly doubt the same word would be applied to a man. Instead, he would probably be praised. It’s funny how double standards work. An action committed by a woman can be determined as slutty whereas the same action by a man could earn him a high five.
What does “slut” actually mean?
Slut has had many meanings over the years, but presently, I would define a slut as someone, almost always a woman, who acts promiscuous in nature. Like most things, what is considered “slutty” is relative and depends entirely on what one would deem overly sexual in nature. Some people would define a slut as someone who participates in anything sexual at all. Another person could define a slut as someone having tons of casual sex. Recently, the word has been taken back as a term of endearment between women. I have definitely called my friends and myself a slut in a joking tone. Slut can even be used to describe one’s love for something in abundance. For example, “I’m a slut for chocolate.” There are even historical accounts of the term slut being used to describe men.
So, what does slut mean? Absolutely nothing.
On a linguistic note, it is odd that so many of our curse words have a female connotation to them. By odd, I mean completely explained by societal sexism. Think of the worst words you could ever call someone. Why is it that most of these words are comparing someone to a woman or a part of a woman’s body? A special word ending in “nt” strikes me the most there. If you disagree with this, think about how if you were going to call a man sexually promiscuous, you wouldn’t just call him a whore, you would have to say “man-whore.” That is because we assume that anyone being called a slut or a whore is automatically a woman.
Why do we call women sluts?
There is no simple explanation to why this insult is used so much. It’s short, easy and fun to say? Probably not why but maybe. Ultimately, this insult stems from the belief that someone who engages in sex is somehow less than another. Why we as a society believe that is a far more complicated question stemming from religious beliefs, cultural practices, the importance of reproduction to our continuous as a species, etc. It’s easy to believe that we have come a long way in terms of breaking down the stigmas of purity culture, but if that were the case, slut would no longer be considered an insult. It would just be another word instead of one of the worst things you can call a woman.
It has also been common to refer to survivors of sexual misconduct as “sluts.” Whether it be sexual harassment, assault or any other situation it almost always comes back to, “Well if you weren’t dressed like a slut, it wouldn’t have happened,” or the perpetrator will use the victim’s rumored slut status as an excuse. Putting the horrible act of victim-blaming aside, rapists assault women, not the clothes that they are wearing. When there are historical instances of rape during a time when women regularly wore several layers of dresses and showed little skin, it’s clear that clothing has nothing to do with rape. No matter what a woman was or was not wearing, or how she was acting, she is never in any way “asking for it.” To put the crime on the victim rather than the perpetrator is absolutely disgusting, and to anyone who has experienced this, I am so sorry.
Calling Other Women Sluts
“Slut” can sometimes be used as a term of endearment among women, almost like it has been reclaimed from its sexist meaning. This playful use of the word is not what I want to focus on in this section. Instead, I want to focus on women calling other women sluts to tear them down. Why is it that “slut¨ is almost always the first insult utilized by one woman to hurt another? Most of the times that I have been called a slut in my life, it was from another woman. For some reason, a woman calling another woman a slut strikes me on a higher level. It seems crueler, more malicious. It’s a word women use because they know how much power it holds. It feels like a punch in the gut, especially when you consider that the one using the word has probably been called a slut before. I am well aware that there are instances where it is helpful to tack malicious words onto others, and sometimes those words are well deserved. I just argue that none of those words should ever be slut.
Prude: The Antithesis of a Slut
To be a prude is to be the opposite of a slut. Maybe it’s someone who is celibate, or someone who doesn’t like to kiss on the first date, or as it is used most commonly: someone who doesn’t give a man what he wants. Just like its contrasting insult, the word’s subjectivity means that it actually means little to nothing. The venn diagram of people who have been called both a slut and a prude would almost be a circle. I was once called both in the same sentence. It’s simply another word used because we as a society think the promiscuity of a woman, or lack thereof, is our business when in fact it is no one’s business but the individual woman.
I wonder if there is anyone that I believe is deserving of the term “slut.” Easy targets pop into my mind. But as I said earlier, what is determined to be slutty is completely subjective. One person’s slut is another’s prude. Because of this I don’t think that anyone is deserving of the title unless they choose to claim it for themselves. I also believe that when women are called sluts, they should respond the way I hope to from now on, just smile and say “okay.” That is because if your so-called promiscuity is taking up space in the brain of someone it affects in no way, then it says significantly more about them than it does you.