Slut

It is the slap in the face in high school when you didn’t go all the way, but he wanted a name for himself.

It is the kick in the stomach when your best friend decides she no longer wants to be your best friend.

It is the rape that occurs after the rape.

You slut

She’s a fucking slut

That bitch is such a slut

SLUT

my new unfavourite: I’m such a slut (said with glee)

Every time I hear this word it makes me cringe. It is as demeaning as calling a black person a nigger, a Spanish person spic, a Korean person a guk, a fat person a porker….I can go on, but you get the picture.

A woman is a slut. The word is not positive. It is not a term of endearment and only a privileged idiot would ever believe that woman can reclaim it as her own.

The word is a way to show degrading feelings towards women and it is not just young girls that are using it. I have heard grown men and women use slut as if it was not harmful. Shouting out slut when a name is stated or referring to someone’s style as slutty.  There is this new movement where girls and women proudly refer to themselves as sluts (as if it is some new form of feminism).

The purpose of the word was to put women down and it still does that.  No person is considered more seedy or worthless than the slut. That’s why she gets the name. A person finds her sexual self so repulsive that she isn’t even worthy of being called loose…she’s a slut.

Given the countless lives hurt or destroyed by this term and the weight it carries slut must be retired from our vocabulary.

First off: Women should no longer be singled out because of their sexual prowess. It is not anyone’s business what they do behind doors unless it impacts you directly. 

Second: Some women being called slut were actually sexually assault and then labelled. What gives anyone the right to re-assault them rather than help them (this goes into a much larger conversation about sexual assault and its acceptability in society). 

Thirdly: If you want to reclaim your sexual prowess and prove that you are happy living an unconstrained life, then find a new fucking word.  (unless of course you are actually ashamed of yourself. In which case you should seek other help.) Why abuse yourself when you can actually be powerful?!! Something like liberated in place of slut.

I understand that we now live in a lack luster and uncreative society, but if Oxford can add new words to its vocabulary then so can you.

Educate your damn self:
Slut!: Growing up Female with a Bad Reputation--Leora Tanenbaum (2000)

Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut-- Emily White (2002)

Check out the UnSlut Project: http://www.unslutproject.com/