Of the two of us, I’m probably not the best person to analyze the word “slut”.  You know, seeing as I have a penis and all.  

While perusing EdenFantasys* I came across an article that suggests that, rather than embracing the word “slut” – a currently-popular movement to “take back” a piece of so-called hate speech and remove its power – women should abandon the term altogether.

I took some issue with this suggestion.  As the writer points out, there is an egregious distinction between the way society views promiscuous men versus how it views promiscuous women.  When I was single, I found it unfortunate that a woman who casually slept with me might be judged harshly for doing so.  My feelings weren’t entirely selfless; while I most certainly find society’s repressive double-standard a difficult thing to accept and my heart goes out to the unfairly-labeled fairer sex, my unwillingness to embrace such a double-standard stems partially from the fact that shaming women for their sexuality meant that they might conceivably abstain from having sex with me.  And that was simply unacceptable.

Efforts to take back the word “slut” are much like any other movement to reclaim a traditionally hateful or oppressive term.  According to Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt in their 1997 book The Ethical Slut, the word refers to “a person of any gender who has the courage to lead life according to the radical proposition that sex is nice and pleasure is good for you.”  Under this definition, a slut has sexual agency and confidence, and disregards social and religious norms regarding sexuality.

I agree completely with the writer’s suggestion that women are partially responsible for the slut-shaming that continues almost unchecked in society today.  While the neat and tidy definition of sex-negative misogyny primarily involves men, the truth is that for every Rush Limbaugh, there is an Ann Coulter.  It is often the mothers of young women who, in their efforts to define gender roles for their children, raise them in a fashion that may preclude them from enjoying sex, or even viewing it as a healthy part of life.  Additionally, while I don’t consider sex the sacred act that I’m guessing most people do, it is potentially a life-changing one.  By steering them away from sex, especially at a young age, well-meaning mothers are trying to prevent their daughters from making mistakes that can alter their entire universe in ways they can’t possibly comprehend.

It’s not entirely their fault; for generations we have been taught that behavior that is acceptable for men should not be enjoyed by women.  This isn’t surprising in the least.  Double-standards are a way of life.  Given the stigma attached to sex in American society, as well as a culture that discounts women’s issues to the extend that a female rape victim is in many cases more likely to be blamed than her male rapist – a culture that denies women their right not only to reproductive health but also to equal pay – and you have an environment that is not exactly warm and welcoming to the notion that women should be treated with dignity, much less lauded for the breadth of their sexual experience.

Granted, I don’t think that most sexually-active women really want to be lauded for having a lot of sex.  I’m guessing that most of them would settle for not being considered sluts by judgmental people who either don’t understand or prefer not to acknowledge how important sex is to the human experience.  Just because a woman knows what she wants and is unafraid to take it is no reason to call her a slut.  In a perfect world, a woman who is unafraid of her body and her sexuality, who has sex with who she wants when she wants, wouldn’t be called a slut.  She’d be called a leader.  She’d be worthy of respect and even admiration, because I believe that a person who is unafraid of sex is more likely to practice it responsibly.

The writer goes on to state that, whether deliberately or not, the mothers of boys perpetuate the “slut” label in order to keep their sons from marrying women who are damaged goods.  The fallacy of a sexually-experienced woman being somehow damaged notwithstanding, I take issue with the writer’s comparison of sexually-promiscuous women to gold-diggers.  One is in control of her own sexuality and takes what she wants.  The other is in control of her significant other’s bank account and takes what she wants.  I fail to see any real similarity.

It’s not that I necessarily feel that the word “slut” shouldn’t be unofficially abolished.  (For the record, I don’t lean toward that conclusion.)  But I don’t feel that the writer provided a sufficient case for doing so.  At the end of the article, the writer mentions “the branding of women”, and suggests that women need to change in order to allow the feminist movement to make necessary strides toward true equality.  There was a time in my life when I might have agreed with this, when I might have preached patience, or a less-militant stance, to those facing oppression.  But now I cannot in good conscience suggest that those under the thumb of mainstream society simply tolerate intolerance until their oppressors have a change of heart.

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I’m all for taking power away from judgmental, sex-negative people.  The thought of stymying the sort of individuals who would use the word “slut” to oppress by showing that their words don’t hurt you is an appealing one.  This is my main argument for co-opting the word “slut” rather than doing away with it altogether.  Just because women and sex-positives refuse to own the word doesn’t mean that those who view a woman’s sexual agency in a negative fashion are going to lay down their verbal weapons.  In fact, refraining from using the word would only give this group additional ammunition.

Once again, I am probably not the best person to analyze the word “slut” and its effects.  To the best of my knowledge I’ve never been called a slut, certainly not to my face.  But I can’t see the purpose of eradicating the word completely, at least not for the reasons suggested in this article.  Dialing back the rhetoric is no better than tacitly allowing the oppression to continue.  Rather than forcing women to rebrand, I say we force society to rebrand.