Hi, I’m a slut. But what does that mean?

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March 11, 2016 by Cláudia

 

I, as I would argue, every girl that interacts with society, have been called a slut. I am also not proud to say I have called other girls sluts. So by this I will assume each and every girl in the world will or has been called that word. How can a word apply to a whole gender?

And what exactly does it mean? We don’t know its exact definition, but we associate it with a feeling of discomfort, a kind of embarrassment or feeling of dirtiness. It is hurtful because it makes you feel diminished, guilty of having done something wrong to make you disreputable, to make you less worthy of something. It also feels like an intrusion to your personal space, as if the other person feels entitled to walk right in your privacy and make remarks.

The imediate and most obvious meaning of slut is related to sex. Traditionally, girls are seen as non sexual beings and when they do want sex, people assume they must be sluts. First meaning: to be a sexual being. While men have a free pass for having sex, feel ashamed about their virginity and the pressure to lose it quickly, a woman that is a virgin is considered more desirable and a woman that has had multiple partners is somehow dirtier, less valuable and should be ashamed of that. This may seem and outdated perspective but while most women would be discouraged from having sex with an older than usual virgin man, men would reject a woman if she had multiple partners. This is because we associate virginity with being pure and being sexually active as being somewhat dirty (originally, slut actually meant literally dirty). As if everytime a woman has sex she became less of something, lost some of her value.

But that’s just a tiny part of the issue. Most of the times it has nothing to do with sex itself, but is used because of an attitude, the clothes a girl is wearing, showing her body, being confident, expressing opinions etc. For example, all of the women that make videos on Youtube have comments about being sluts – why? Female politicians have been called sluts, confident successful women have been called sluts. If a girl is feeling jealous or insecure in a relationship because of another girl – she’s a slut. If a girl likes a guy that has a girlfriend – the girlfriend’s a slut.

Slut seems like a way to insult each and every one that doesn’t fit in a certain arquetype, which is impossible to fit in because no one does. It is a way to denigrate a woman, making her feel less worthy – and a damn efective one!

Basically, it is a term used to put women in their place when someone feels uncomfortable with a woman’s behaviour, making her feel less worthy because of her attire, attitude, personal choices etc. 

From this, I can conclude two things: first, every woman is a slut. Second, I recognize no meaning to that word whatsoever.