A recent NY Times article about the state of the word “slut” caught my eye, naturally.
“The Taming of the Slur” was penned by Times staffer Stephanie Rosenbloom who covers American social trends for The Gray Lady. Her piece examines how the nature of the “slur” has changed over the years as teens claim it for their own use and meaning. Writes Rosenbloom:
“Slut’’ is tossed around so often and so casually that many teenagers use it affectionately and in jest among their friends, even incorporating it into their instant messenger screen names.
Like “queer” and “pimp” before it, the word slut seems to be moving away from its meaning as a slur. Or is it?
The piece goes on to discuss the even more fascinating issue of how women today navigate the contradiction between the need to be liberated, sexual beings and the desire to be respectable, married women desired by a set of men who would date but not marry a slut. One man Rosenbloom interviewed said exactly that:
“When I think of the word slut,” wrote Don Reisinger, a student doing accounting and law work in Albany, in an e-mail message, “I think of a woman who has been around the block more times than my dad’s Chevy. I might date a slut, but I certainly wouldn’t marry one.”
It reminded me of
a post I wrote over two years ago about what it really means to be a “slut” today. Mine was a technical analysis of how many sex partners means you’ve crossed the line into “slut” territory – if the parameters are even about sex partners. As I re-read it I tried to think about the last time I’d referred to someone at a “slut” – even jokingly – but I couldn’t remember.
Sadly, I think the truest part of Rosenbloom’s piece is this quote from Susan Schultz editor in chief of Cosmogirl! Magazine:
“Once you get into your 20’s and 30’s, you just have better things to do.”
And apparently better things to talk about.
That said, the reclaiming (or not?) of the word remains an interesting issue, as does our perception of what it means to be a “slut” and how we behave in the context of the male/female sexual dynamic. Give a read and leave a thought in comments!
I think that it is almost pointless to try and “reclaim” a word that has so many negative connotations attached to it. No matter how you try to change the meaning or attitude toward the word, people will still associate it with the original meaning and derogatory nature. It’s a similar situation with the “N” word. The black community has tried to reclaim it and use it with one another as a casual reference, but to me, it sounds just as ignorant coming from a black person’s mouth as it does from a white person’s. No matter who says it or what context they are trying to say it in, it doesn’t make the word any less awful.
Also, I think that when we try to reclaim these kinds of words and change the meaning, we are trying to erase the history behind them, and perhaps we NEED to remember all of the horrible things surrounding the word slut. We need to remember that it’s a derogatory term that objectifies women. If we forget the mistakes we made in the past, we are bound to repeat them. Women don’t need to reclaim an epithet to empower themselves; they need to continue progressing and fighting for change and establishing a better status quo.