1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.
  2. We've had very few donations over the year. I'm going to be short soon as some personal things are keeping me from putting up the money. If you have something small to contribute it's greatly appreciated. Please put your screen name as well so that I can give you credit. Click here: Donations
    Dismiss Notice

There's No Such Thing as a Slut (from The Atlantic)

Discussion in 'Tilted Life and Sexuality' started by Street Pattern, Jun 2, 2014.

  1. Street Pattern

    Street Pattern Very Tilted

    There's No Such Thing as a Slut - Olga Khazan - The Atlantic

     
    Last edited: Jun 2, 2014
    • Like Like x 1
  2. redravin

    redravin Cynical Optimist Donor

    Location:
    North
    Why am I not a bit surprised that most of this BS breaks down along class lines?
    It makes sense that women would judge each other based on their experiences and modeling.
    The cliques that develop would be the source of the worst of the name calling and shaming.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  3. snowy

    snowy so kawaii Staff Member

    Wow, that was a really interesting read. I'm also not surprised it breaks down along class lines. This is how what Annette Lareau describes in Unequal Childhoods plays out at the collegiate level, I suppose. Bear in mind that the wealthier girls are also ones that have spent years under what Lareau calls concerted cultivation: Concerted cultivation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
     
    • Like Like x 2
  4. rogue49

    rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

    Location:
    Baltimore/DC
    I've been saying I don't believe in the word for years. Hate it.
    It's a bullying tactic...like "faggot" or "gay" between men.

    Glad you found it @StreetPattern - I read it too and was planning on posting, but forgot.

    Besides, I love sluts...not the word, but the idea of them. The more the merrier, more merry for them, more merry for me.
    Sex should be as common and fun as ice cream.

    Now how do you think poorly of ice cream? ;)
     
  5. snowy

    snowy so kawaii Staff Member

    Amen, brother.
     
  6. ASU2003

    ASU2003 Very Tilted

    Location:
    Where ever I roam
    That is a study that I would read. Lifestyles of the college female...

    I know I wasn't expecting anything like that when I went to college. In my hometown, if you did get into a relationship, it would last years, maybe even lead to marriage a high percent of the time. The stakes were that high that the girl you asked out would be with you for a long, long time. I know more people who are married to the first person they went out on a date with, then who 'played the field'. I think there might be some small town vs. big city stuff going on when it comes to slut-shaming.

    And I wonder what the study would find if they followed guys around and asked them the same types of questions? I was able to make a good friend who was in the upper class, but I never really considered that much when I was a teenager/young adult.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  7. Plum

    Plum New Member

    This is sad.
     
  8. Levite

    Levite Levitical Yet Funky

    Location:
    The Windy City
    Very interesting. And actually not surprising. "Slut," "whore" (when used colloquially, rather than literally), "tramp," etc., all always struck me as suspicious labels, because no one could ever consistently define what constituted meriting them. In my experience, girls called other girls those things when they didn't like them, or when they were being catty. Guys called girls those things when they were either being generally misogynistic or when the girl in question had rejected them. Any use seldom seemed to have any perceptible connection to the actual sexual behavior of the person in question.

    One more reason I have never been one to use such terms in earnest.

    But it also doesn't surprise me that there's a connection to class. In high school I was always astounded at how a lot of upper-middle-class and wealthier students (not that we had many wealthier students at my public high school) were dicks to lower-middle-class and poor kids. There were a lot of double standards flying around, too. No surprise that sexual behavior and judgment should be one of them.
     
  9. Speed_Gibson

    Speed_Gibson Hacking the Gibson

    Location:
    Wolf 359
    I never use the term "slut" but if you are going to use it or the idea, then don't apply a double standard and use it both for male and female. The classic "she slept with 10 dudes, she is such a slut" vs "He scored with 10 chicks, he is such a stud" is ridiculous.
     
  10. Chris Noyb

    Chris Noyb Get in, buckle up, hang on, & be quiet.

    Location:
    Large City, TX
    Since slut--a term I really don't like-- is used primarily for females, here's my .02:

    What I'm saying applies to males as well.

    If a female is having frequent sex with many males (certainly not limited to just males) because she wants to and enjoys it, she has has much right to do so as any male.

    If a female is having frequent sex with many males because she is attempting to "catch" a guy, "keep" a guy, has self-esteem issues ("They have sex with me, therefore I must be attractive, right?"), then I see a problem.

    That promiscuity (a loaded word) can cause problems. If she and a guy are considering a monogamous LTR, which could include marriage, and she's honest about her sexual activities, the double standard (boys will be boys, nice girls don't sleep around) can come into play.

    I personally think that if doubts about of future fidelity areraised because of promiscuity, it should apply to both sexes. And I think that it's natural for a person, male or female, to wonder if their potential LTR partner with a very active sex life is ready to settle down.
     
  11. Plan9

    Plan9 Rock 'n Roll

    Location:
    Earth
    So, basically, "slut" is just another canned general purpose pejorative oh-no-she-didn't that everybody from the ivory tower side is getting their post-Sticks-n-Stones panties in a twist over. Again. For the xth time.

    Hell, we're running out of names to call people. "Pussy" is sexist. "Retard" is off the table. I think "shithead" is still safe but who knows?

    For the record, these kind of social meanderings are for bitch-ass dipshits.
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2015
    • Like Like x 1
  12. CinnamonGirl

    CinnamonGirl The Cheat is GROUNDED!

    I don't know. "Slut" seems like a not-cool-anymore insult that we all used in middle school, but learned how dumb it was once we all started having (and enjoying) sex. It seems weird to me that people in college are using it.

    Maybe that's just me, though.
     
  13. Lindy

    Lindy Moderator Staff Member

    Location:
    Nebraska
    First of all, I wonder if slut shaming might not just be a kind of girls version of what boys would call 'trash talking.' Like boys call each other a wuss or pussy, girls use slut. Hmmm, all of those feminine terms. Interesting.
    And of course sociologists would see things breaking down along class lines. That's what sociologists do. With everything.

    Sadly, there just isn't a complimentary or even neutral term for sexually profligate women/girls that is analogous to the term 'stud.' Especially if that profligate sexuality is precocious. Slut is the convenient default term for women/girls that engage in sex, (which women still aren't supposed to) beyond the margins of mainstream monogamy. But slut has, in my mind anyway, pejorative connotations totally unrelated to the sex act itself. Slut usually implies tight and/or revealing clothing, drugs and/or alcohol, heavy makeup, and a generally contemptuous, libertine, rebellious, bohemian lifestyle.

    I have sometimes called myself a (recovering) slut because when I was a junior and senior in high school, ages 15-17 in the early nineties, I was not only sexually available, but just so totally non-selective. I look back on it now with some disbelief, but there it is, even in my diary/journal, in my own handwriting. I'm at this point amazed that I didn't get an STD, pregnant, or gang raped.

    But other than sexually, I wasn't slutty. I didn't look the part. I dressed mostly modestly. I rarely drank, and didn't do drugs at all. I was an honor student band geek. I was highly aware of my body, and secure enough that I didn't need to flaunt. I'd get laid on Saturday, and I'd go to church on Sunday. Reference to country song, there, anybody get it?

    I really want that term for women who love the physical part of sex.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  14. Plan9

    Plan9 Rock 'n Roll

    Location:
    Earth
    Yeah, we call them "taken," because inevitably some guy gets a taste of that wild ride and doesn't wanna give it up. Something about him having (enough) money. The End.

    #RingFingerShackle
    #MyFirstMarriage
    #CrazyHotMatrix
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2015
    • Like Like x 3
  15. Shadowex3

    Shadowex3 Very Tilted

    This is in line with [previous research](Slut-shaming and class: A study on how college women decide who’s trashy and who’s classy.) on the subject. The way I see it everyone bringing up soggy knees is massively overthinking this, they're shoehorning an observed effect into their pre-existing ideological beliefs and expectations. Slutshaming is bullying. And like all bullying it's an intelligent, context sensitive, and feedback based process. Bullies (like trolls) actively seek out what they believe to be the most effective means to attack their target, to find what they believe is that person's greatest weakness.

    Right now in the west in this era of femsploitation and sexual hysteria the best way to hit anyone below the belt is with accusations of sexual impropriety. For women that's promiscuity, for a man it's deviance. If we were in a different cultural context you'd likely see different social weapons being employed.

    The behavior will continue for a long time to come, the words used will change as our culture changes.