I am so sick of that damned word, "slut" being thrown around all the time. What disgusts me is that I'll find someone to talk to who seems to be a smart person, with a good sense of what's right and what's wrong, what's fair and what's not (according to my view), and in the context of females and clothing, it's almost inevitable that I will be lost to the use of the word "slut".
What exactly is a slut?
A woman who has sex, and enjoys it? Or doesn't enjoy it? Or uses sex to reach her own ends?
A woman who dresses in a way that men find appealing?
Well excuse me, but do you think that women dress that way because they were surrounded by males who seemed to pay a whole lot of positive attention toward the women who cover up their bodies? Do you think that they do it because they were shown by example in advertising, in their schooling, and in their social sphere that dressing that way isn't going to make them feel like they have some sort of control over their lives?
And they do have control. It's just that it's only superficial. But who are you to blame them for asserting the one power that it seems that they do consistently have? Of course they aren't going to think of sex as something private when they're surrounded by men who are speaking positively - or at all - about the women who, for them, exude sexuality, while ignoring or expressing detest toward the rest? And who wouldn't feel like they had more control over their life when they felt as though they were able to choose the way they dressed, and feel the satisfaction of denying someone something that they have - the only thing that the world has shown them that they have that is of interest to anyone else?
And since when did wanting to wear very little clothing on a hot day indicate a need for other people to sexually harass a person? Why is it that there is no sexual connotation to a shirtless man, until it is given that connotation by a context, while there is no shirtless woman (outside of the art world) who does not generally excite the sexual thoughts of everyone who sees her?
Why is this double standard not apparent?
There is [i]no[/i] male equivalent to the term "slut". Yes, there are those terms that have been coined in recent years, such as "manwhore" (the one I hear most commonly) or "manslut" etc... but the very need to add the "man" to the beginning implies that it is generally females to whom one would apply that label otherwise, and there really is no manner of dress or level of flirtation or desire in men that would usually merit the term being used, while it would be used profusely to describe a woman.
The uses of the words "slut" and "whore" et al., and particularly how wide a range they span, has really opened my eyes to the depth and breadth of the misogyny and inequality and, perhaps worst of all, hypocrisy that make our culture what it is today. To untie all of the knots in which these words (and their associated thoughts) have tied themselves would be to demolish centuries upon centuries, layers upon layers of contradiction, of hypocrisy, of hatred, and of cruelty.
Anyway, that's just my two cents.
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