Are you a slut?
It’s a loaded question. What makes a woman a slut? Is the word simply defined as a woman who has casual sex? Does a woman have to have sex with a certain number of partners to be a slut? Does a slut have to be a woman at all?
Controversies about ‘sluttiness’ have been raging for years, and there’s no sign they’re slowing down anytime soon. A recent study found that women tend to reject the friendship of other women who are perceived as promiscuous. On the television show Nashville, Connie Britton’s character, Rayna James, recently worried that she was a slut just for “going to second base” with a guy. Amanda Knox, the American accused of a bizarre murder in Italy, was presumed guilty largely on the premise that she’s a slut, so of course she did it.
Much of the power of slut-shaming, it seems, lies in the word itself. ‘Slut’ can pack a pretty powerful and damning punch. Is it time we reclaim the word and hope that we can stop it from being used as a weapon against female sexuality? It’s a tough and complicated call.
The definition of ‘slut’ I find most useful is “a woman who’s having more sex than you are.” I like it because it gets to the heart of the problem: ‘slut’ is what we call woman who’s acting in a way we disapprove of. It’s a judgmental word. In fact, before it had sexual connotations, ‘slut’ meant “an untidy woman.” In the present day, it still does: a slut is a woman who’s dirty and and out of control.
