The S-word

This is starting to look like VLF's feminist dictionary!

In the comments of my post on the C-word, the Evil Slut Clique asked me about my feelings on the word slut. Oy...

First of all I believe that the word slut is used by most people as a way to shame women for their sexuality. The stud:slut dichotomy has been discussed by feminists for years. That means that women need to either new to create a new word for positive women sexuality or reclaim a word. Should that word be slut?

As a sassy teen, I tried to reclaim it by using it to label myself. My best friend & I would call each other "slut" and "whore" as an attempt to throw it back into the faces of our classmates who called us that. It was our way of saying, "Go ahead & call us that, we don't care." But we did. At least I did and I still do. But I don't believe it is the word as much as the hypocrisy that went into the labeling. Getting called a slut was punishment for much more than just sex. It was appearing to have or like sex, public kissing, not dating the same dork for 4 years, short skirts, low-cut shirts, see-thru shirts, etc.

Despite the hurt that the word holds for me and I'm sure many women out there, I do think that if you want to reclaim it, go for it. I've tried to stop using that word to label myself because a dear friend asked me to. I could see that it was hurting her to see me use that label and perhaps it was also because I was using it to cut myself down instead of empower myself.

It's all a bit crazy for me, but if you are strong enough to use slut in a positive way, more power to you.

Other thoughts?