Slut (noun): a promiscuous woman
The term “slut” is casually thrown around these days. One minute you’re kissing a stranger at a party and the next minute you’re labeled a slut. Or perhaps you’re finally comfortable with expressing your sexuality, but because you’re a woman — you’re a whore.
If you want to call yourself a slut because you have redefined and reclaimed the derogatory concept behind it, then have at it. I know I constantly do it. It’s my way of celebrating my sexual freedom. But, it still irks me when I hear a man refer to a woman as a “slut” or an “easy lay”. And it’s not just men that weaponize this term. Women are capable of slut-shaming other women. In fact, I have witnessed more women doing the slut-shaming than men.
Even the most sex-positive woman can slut-shame without realizing it. Reflecting back on my past behavior, I realized that I am guilty of doing it. When we usually think of slut-shaming, we think about bluntly saying “She’s such a slut.” What we don’t think about are the many subtle ways we do it. Even if it’s not our intention to do so.
You don’t have to call someone a “slut” or a “whore” for it to be considered slut-shaming. In high school, dress codes slut-shamed us. Her skirt is above her knees — definitely a slut. I remember a female teacher stopping me in the hallway and using a ruler to measure the length of my skirt. My 17-year-old-self felt ashamed and I started wearing jeans. Then, I got to college. And slut-shaming went from being based on dress codes to being based on how many guys I “talk” to. People didn’t care about whether I was sleeping with these guys, all they saw was me talking and hanging out with them, thus I was a slut.
To be clear — having multiple sexual partners does not make someone a slut. As long as they’re happy and are being safe, it shouldn’t bother anyone. You may not “approve” of someone’s sexual lifestyle, but that doesn’t mean that you have the right to make them feel worthless because of it. Whether that’s by explicitly shaming them or subtly doing so.
In many of our cultures, it’s “normal” to try and classify behavior and people into a good side and a bad side. This is why we often don’t notice ourselves categorizing women into good girls or sluts. It’s obviously not okay. And until we start to recognize our own participation in promoting slut-shaming, it won’t cease to exist. So, here are a few subtle ways women are constantly being slut-shamed:
“Wait, you have slept with X-number of people?!”
I’ve had friends cover their faces in shame while confessing the number of people they’ve slept with. I completely understand regretting sleeping with someone, but that doesn’t translate into feeling ashamed of how many people you’ve slept with. And when you strongly express shock at the number of people someone else has slept with, you’re basically telling them it’s unusual and not generally acceptable. Just because you haven’t slept with as many people, doesn’t mean they’re “sleeping around”.
“Woah! You slept with him on your first date?!”
Every time I hear someone being cautioned to not sleep with a man until the third date, all I hear is “If you sleep with him on the first date, he’ll think you’re easy and he won’t ask you out again.” Shouldn’t that same process of thinking apply to men as well? I mean he would’ve slept with me on the first date too. So if you don’t see yourself giving a man the same cautioning, don’t give it to a woman. Sleeping with someone after a certain amount of time or under certain circumstances doesn’t define who a person is.
Calling another girl “slutty” or a “skank” just because you don’t like her or are jealous of her.
Even if you’re only using the terms “slut” or “skank” as a general insult and not as an insult towards a woman’s sexual behavior, you’re still reinforcing the idea of women being deemed “less than” based on their sex life. These insults are also used when one woman is more comfortable with being open with her sexuality than another woman. If you’re not as open, that’s fine. But, you can’t go around shaming other women’s sexual behavior based on your dislike or jealousy towards them.
Being okay with your behavior or your friends’ behavior, but when someone else behaves the same way you look down on them.
You know that meme that goes something like this “me watching my bestie do some hoe shit, but that’s none of my business cause that’s my bestie”? Yeah, same — except, it’s also none of my business when I see another woman doing the same thing. When you shame another woman for the same behavior that you and your friends participate in, you’re basically saying that there is still a problem with that specific behavior. And once again, you’re reinforcing the idea that a woman’s value and character should be based on her sexual behavior.
Blaming the woman when a guy spreads a rumor about her.
Whether the rumors are true or not, it shouldn’t matter. Often times when a guy spreads rumors that portray a woman as a slut and she denies them, you’ll hear people say “well, if she didn’t dress like” or “if she had more respect for herself.” And even if the rumors are true, the woman’s trust was betrayed. Just because a woman chose to have sex with a number of people, doesn’t mean that she made the choice for them to tell everyone about it. Instead of shaming her and blaming her, the men should be the ones looked down on. They are the ones who chose to betray her and share intimate details of their sex life.
The same thing goes for when a man shares explicit pictures that a woman sent to him. When a man makes the choice to share intimate details of his sexual acts with a woman or to share intimate pictures that she specifically sent to HIM, he is making the choice to use his privilege as a man to control her and destroy her life. So, instead of saying “she should’ve known better than to send him her nudes”, focus on the fact that he should’ve been a better human being by not betraying her trust.
“She has sex like men.”
The first time I heard of this was on Sex and the City, and my first thought was they’re referring to casual sex. If a woman chooses to have casual sex or one-night stands, then guess what — she is a woman who enjoys having sex. Men are not the only ones who can like sex.
Not speaking up when another woman is being slut-shamed.
Your silence is seeing as an agreement. When you’re sitting in a room and others are slut-shaming a woman because she hooked up with two guys in one weekend, you not saying anything is basically the same thing as saying “yes, she is a slut.” I can understand your fear of being the only one who might disagree with what they’re saying and having them turn against you. But, if we don’t speak up for other women, we can’t expect slut-shaming to stop.
Jokingly referring to your girl-friends as sluts, but not your guy friends when they exhibit the same behavior.
I noticed that when I jokingly try to refer to a guy friend as a slut while he is telling me about who he hooked up with on the weekend, I usually say “Oh so now you’re a player” or “okay fuckboy”. The term “player” doesn’t count as an equivalent to “slut”. A player is praised by other men, he’s someone who has game. And same thing for “fuckboy”. A fuckboy is basically a guy who is not settling down with anyone. These terms don’t belittle or shame men for having multiple sexual partners — this is not to promote the creation of a term that shames men’s sexual behavior.
And “manwhore” doesn’t count — it contains the word “whore”, which refers to women.
Disapproving of someone’s sexual preferences just because you think they’re weird or you haven’t tried them.
You don’t have to bluntly say that you don’t approve or that you’re judging someone based on their sex lifestyle for them to notice it. If a woman chooses to trust you to share her sex life with you and then she later on hears rumors about how she’s into some “weird stuff”, she’ll know it was you. Perhaps it was the “you actually enjoyed that?” Which was most likely followed by your, not so smooth save, “I mean, if that’s what you’re into, you go girl.” When it comes to sex, we each have our own preferences — positions, dirty talk, rough sex, soft sex etc… If you expect people not to judge you for only liking missionary, don’t judge them based on their preference for getting tied up every now and then.
Threesome/Foursome vs. She had a train ran on her.
When a man has sex with multiple women, consecutively, then he had a threesome or a foursome (maybe an orgy). But, when a woman has sex with multiple men, she had a train ran on her. The phrase “she had a train ran on her” suggests that a woman was used and now she’s damaged or broken. Why can’t we just call it a threesome or simply group sex?
Images by Johann LIBOT, Ricardo Velarde, Prateek Katyal, Dainis Graveris, and Greg Kantra from Unsplash.
