The term "Slut"

Is the term "Slut" something you find demeaning or pejorative

  • Yes, it's demeaning. Slut has a dirty connotation

    Votes: 29 26.6%
  • No, it's not demeaning at all

    Votes: 4 3.7%
  • It is demeaning, but I'd like to reclaim it, a la "Bitch" or "Queer"

    Votes: 14 12.8%
  • It can be, depends on how you use it

    Votes: 46 42.2%
  • I don't really care

    Votes: 16 14.7%

  • Total voters
    109

BonnieBlaine

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I agree with context being a major part. And of course who says it...... but mostly words don't bother me, I know who/what I am. I don't care what others think, cause most are always more willing to think the worst.
 

B_subgirrl

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^ This. For a Sir or Ma'am etc who I submit to, I'm peachy with the word slut. If some random cunt-nugget called me a slut for no reason, there would be words, you may be sure... Context, baby.. context!

Nah, this ^ because you say it so much better than me!! Only I'm more than peachy. I'm on my knees begging for more :biggrin1:
 

Enid

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I am torn between voting that I would like to reclaim it (It is demeaning, but I'd like to reclaim it, a la "Bitch" or "Queer"), and that its meaning depends on context (It can be, depends on how you use it). So I haven't voted yet or anything.

But wait, there's slut walks? I am intrigued!
 
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Slut is an anagram of Lust. So in that case most of us can be a slut at times. Like any other word, depends on how much power you give it and in what situation.
 
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molotovmuffin

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In my opinion there is absolutely no way for slut to be used in a good way, no way to reclaim it into something positive. Even the most gentle use of the word was to relay the meaning of an imperfection. Slut's penny.

More so if you look at the word slovenly...
slov·en·ly (slvn-l)
adj.
1. Untidy, as in dress or appearance.
2. Marked by negligence; slipshod. See Synonyms at sloppy.
sloven·li·ness n.
sloven·ly adv.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
slovenly [ˈslʌvənlɪ]
adj
1. frequently or habitually unclean or untidy
2. negligent and careless; slipshod slovenly manners
adv
in a negligent or slovenly manner
slovenliness n
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003
ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Adj. 1. slovenly - negligent of neatness especially in dress and person; habitually dirty and unkempt; "filled the door with her frowzy bulk"; "frowzy white hair"; "slovenly appearance"
frowsy, frowzy
untidy - not neat and tidy; "careless and untidy in her personal habits"; "an untidy living room"; "untidy and casual about money"
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2011 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
slovenly
adjective
1. untidy, disorderly, unkempt, slatternly He was gruff, slovenly, and given to brooding.

2. careless, sloppy (informal), negligent, slapdash, loose, slack, heedless, slipshod Such slovenly work is simply unacceptable.
 

B_quiet_man

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I don't call women sluts, because it can offend, so unless I'm specifically told that it's something she likes to be called (at certain times) I wouldn't take it upon myself to suddenly start calling her that.

But the word itself actually elicits a positive response in me - it's something of a turn on to say, or even read. It doesn't have a negative connotation for me, as I don't view sexually active females as a negative thing.

In my experience, it is actually women that ostracize other women by calling them sluts, much more so than men. If a man calls a woman a slut with deliberate negative intent, it is usually indicative of some hurt she has caused him; e.g. sleeping around but not with him, or cheating on him when they were supposed to be committed. But women tend to label other girls as sluts more readily, in order to demean their worth in the group.

It seems to me that it is more the case that women, not men, oppress other women's sexuality, in order to retain the value of their own sexuality. If there is one female in a group who sleeps with all the boys, the social "worth" of female sexuality is devalued in the group - as males need to work less hard to get the sex they want - and this diminishes the power that ALL the females in that group have over the males. Therefore it is in the women's interest to oppress the sexuality of other women.

This study demonstrated exactly that phenomenon. That women respond in a more hostile manner towards females that are overtly sexual, than they do to more sexually modest women.

Study: Displaying cleavage, sexiness can alienate other women
 
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Kotchanski

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I don't call women sluts, because it can offend, so unless I'm specifically told that it's something she likes to be called (at certain times) I wouldn't take it upon myself to suddenly start calling her that.

But the word itself actually elicits a positive response in me - it's something of a turn on to say, or even read. It doesn't have a negative connotation for me, as I don't view sexually active females as a negative thing.

In my experience, it is actually women that ostracize other women by calling them sluts, much more so than men. If a man calls a woman a slut with deliberate negative intent, it is usually indicative of some hurt she has caused him; e.g. sleeping around but not with him, or cheating on him when they were supposed to be committed. But women tend to label other girls as sluts more readily, in order to demean their worth in the group.

It seems to me that it is more the case that women, not men, oppress other women's sexuality, in order to retain the value of their own sexuality. If there is one female in a group who sleeps with all the boys, the social "worth" of female sexuality is devalued in the group - as males need to work less hard to get the sex they want - and this diminishes the power that ALL the females in that group have over the males. Therefore it is in the women's interest to oppress the sexuality of other women.

This study demonstrated exactly that phenomenon. That women respond in a more hostile manner towards females that are overtly sexual, than they do to more sexually modest women.

Study: Displaying cleavage, sexiness can alienate other women

I have to agree with you...

While I have been called it by both men and women, it has been most frequent from other women, and it at least appeared to be delivered with far more judgement behind it than from the men.
 

petite

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In my experience, it is actually women that ostracize other women by calling them sluts, much more so than men. If a man calls a woman a slut with deliberate negative intent, it is usually indicative of some hurt she has caused him; i.e. sleeping around but not with him. But women tend to label other girls as sluts more readily, in order to demean their worth in the group.

Sometimes I feel like people here think I've lived in some kind of protective plastic bubble my entire life...

I don't know if men or women say it more, but I do know that men use it a lot more than you just described above. For the record, I've never called a woman a slut.

When I was young, I lived in a big house with seven young men. It was the Real World if it really was the real world, by which I mean that most of us were college students and living close to abject poverty. But it was fun! There was a bisexual punk who sometimes had green or blue hair, a long haired hippy who loved Phish, one was an angry Type-A with Big Dreams, a Star Wars loving philosophy student, a quiet computer geek, etc. An eclectic group of guys, plus me and all their friends over at our house 24 hours a day. I don't think there was ever an hour of the day when someone who didn't live there wasn't sleeping off a hangover or playing video games in our living room. And you don't want to know what happened if someone managed to get a keg... Whew! At the time I also worked as a cocktail waitress in an awful club that was a stereotypical meat market. I got hit on all night long and then I came home to a living room full of stoned and/or drunk guys playing video games.

What I'm trying to say is that when I was a young woman, most of the people I spent time around were young men. I heard them use the word "slut" a lot and sometimes that caused some arguments. The most intolerable to me was if one of the guys slept with a woman and then called her a slut the next day.

One of the only times I've ever called anyone out in public was when one of our friends had slept with a woman I didn't know very well at all at a party at our house over the weekend. He was calling her a slut in front of 30 people. Well... I think he deserved it. I said, "So, if she's a slut and you slept with her, what does that make you?" I was furious and my voice was dripping with contempt. No one was laughing any more. He stormed off. He shouldn't have said it. Later when he confronted me about it, he told me that he was actually attempting to impress another woman (one I did know) and he was afraid that maybe she had heard rumors that he had slept with that other woman. The idiot actually thought that she would still be interested in him after hearing him debase another woman in front of 30 people? One thing I know very well is that sometimes young men are total idiots when it comes to women. :rolleyes:

But that was him. Now that I've known him for a few decades (almost), I can say with confidence that I really believe he's always been saddled with serious issues with women. I believe he's one of those guys who has a virgin/whore complex and it's kept him from being able to be happy.

A lot of the other guys would not use that word to talk about women like that. Some of the guys always tried to use their best manners around me, to let me know that they considered me a lady and they were treating me with respect, which included not cursing. Other guys were just their usual foul-mouthed selves, like I was "one of the boys." I haven't done a fair comparison to be able to say who uses the word more, just that I disliked it a lot when men used it to describe women back then and having seen what kind of men they all grew up to become, I'm still suspicious of men who use it.
 
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aninnymouse

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I've heard the term "Slut" used more by men towards women, and in a negative light.

However, I HAVE heard synonyms like "ho" or "bust down" used more by women/girls to describe other females that they feel are "easy."

I don't hear it that often, but it's oftentimes younger girls/women in their teens to early twenties who will use it that way.

However, it is far more common for men to use the term to demean women, at least in my experience.
 

B_quiet_man

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The most intolerable to me was if one of the guys slept with a woman and then called her a slut the next day.

In this kind of instance, my feeling is that the guy in question was obviously bragging. Why else tell people about a sexual encounter? And in the house you are describing, it is most likely that he was bragging about this to other males, to gain respect in their eyes. So it sounds to me, that having slept with a slut is a kind of victory; I very much doubt that he was expressing shame or regret that he slept with a 'slut'. Of course, I'm reading all this with my own biases in tact, and over the internet; but does any of what I've said ring any truth?

Personally, I think there is a very big difference in the way men and women use the term slut. Depending on context, and in general: for men, it is something desirable, horny and sexy; for women it is something "cheap", shameful, and to be despised.

I don't pass any judgement on that, even though many would argue that this cultural bias is clear evidence of a society that favors men; However, I don't see it that way, as I shall explain in a moment; I think it's just the situation we've inherited from our evolutionary conditioning and biologically driven past that has caused culture to reflect this bias.

As things stand, I think the term "slut" has a far greater chance of being "reclaimed" than the terms used to negatively shame male sexuality; those terms being "creep", "loser", "perv", "wanker", "weirdo" and other phrases that demean and alienate men, not for being sexually successful, but for being sexual failures.

This is the real double-standard in our cultural perception of male and female sexuality; women that are not sexually selective enough are looked down on as being "sluts" mainly by women, where as men that are not sexually selected enough are looked down on as being "losers", by both men and women.
 

petite

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In this kind of instance, my feeling is that the guy in question was obviously bragging. Why else tell people about a sexual encounter? And in the house you are describing, it is most likely that he was bragging about this to other males, to gain respect in their eyes. So it sounds to me, that having slept with a slut is a kind of victory; I very much doubt that he was expressing shame or regret that he slept with a 'slut'. Of course, I'm reading all this with my own biases in tact, and over the internet; but does any of what I've said ring any truth?

No.

Not all the guys did that. Why do you think it's acceptable for one guy to behave like a fucking asshole who treats other people terribly, but the other guys knew better not to do it?
 
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petite

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No, they had double standards. That's the definition of a double standard.

They believe that men who sleep with women are studs and women who sleep with men are sluts. Guys right here on LPSG describe and defend that belief all the time. Surely you realize that this exists.
 

Kotchanski

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No, they had double standards. That's the definition of a double standard.

They believe that men who sleep with women are studs and women who sleep with men are sluts. Guys right here on LPSG describe and defend that belief all the time. Surely you realize that this exists.

Didn't he say himself that he recognized that very double standard?

I think everyone in this thread would agree it exists, isn't nice and is far from fair. The only difference is that we have different experiences of who uses the term most frequently and how they use it!
 

petite

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Didn't he say himself that he recognized that very double standard?

I think everyone in this thread would agree it exists, isn't nice and is far from fair. The only difference is that we have different experiences of who uses the term most frequently and how they use it!

Yes, but it seemed like he was equating the man's lack of shame or regret with somehow making the word less of an insult. As if the man's pride at having slept with a woman he calls a slut should make her feel good about herself... unless I'm mistaken. When the way I've heard it used is that a woman deserves to be insulted to her face and spoken about derisively behind her back even in large groups of people if she is saddled with the label of "slut" which is the reason why it angered me when my roommates acted like such hypocrites. When I see someone being treated inhumanely like that, it makes me furious.
 
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redz_rule

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<snip> I believe he's one of those guys who has a virgin/whore complex and it's kept him from being able to be happy. <snip>

This. I have found the term used most frequently by men like this - the type who quite unashamedly admit to having women they fuck and women they date. I recently had a practically identical conversation with a guy I know after he referred to a woman he slept with as a slut. The reason he gave for her being a slut? She fucked him. Seriously. When I asked what that made him, he simply answered that he had never claimed to be an angel and that it was different for men than women. I had to walk away.

I have heard it used by women too, but not as much as I have heard it used by men.