Featured

“Raise your hand if you’ve ever been called a slut”

This famous phrase said by Miss Norbury is from every teenage girl’s favourite film, Mean Girls. If you haven’t seen it, what’s wrong with you?

If asked the title question, I’m sure there would be a tiny majority of girls who wouldn’t raise their hands. The word ‘slut’ has become part of our everyday vocabulary, and has almost lost its effectiveness as it’s used so often. Nonetheless it’s still a demeaning term, with a technical definition of a ‘sexually promiscuous woman’, or sometimes relating to a prostitute.

Slut shaming is the sadly common self explanatory act of calling girls sluts. The negative stigma attached to the word is always associated with women and girls in a sexual manner. The phrase ‘man slut’ is almost always used in a light-hearted manner, being considered almost a compliment to most guys.

I admit it. I have been guilty of slut shaming. As well as every girl being able to say they’ve been called a slut, I bet the same girls won’t be able to deny they’ve called someone a slut in return. Ironic really, that we should support each other and unite against the discrimination of female sexuality, but we are often the ones guilty of the name calling.

Apparently we live in a society where the amount of sexual activity you have is judged by everyone else apart from you. God forbid you’re a single woman who has sex. But don’t worry guys, as long as you’ve got a penis you’re safe from any discrimination, go get ‘em tiger.

Girls are being made to feel guilty and ashamed of having, or wanting to have sex. No matter what the situation is, as long as it’s your decision and your own free will, why should anyone have the right to judge you and degrade you in front of others for something you want to do?

As an online community, nothing brings us together more than hatred. The most talked about hate-craze to hit us recently was Miley Cyrus’ foam finger fiasco. Ok so she gyrated on a stage in front of millions of people wearing minimal clothing, made some strange tongue movements and might of done a bit too much twerking, but wasn’t this more of an extremely successful publicity stunt than a cry for male attention?

Funny that the married Beetlejuice tribute act didn’t receive the same amount of hate as Miley did, despite the fact that he grinded on a girl half his age, despite having already faced speculation about the controversial Blurred Lines video.

The amount of slut shaming that occurred here is phenomenal; you only need to look at the YouTube comments to notice. “Miley Cyrus is white trash” and “girls are going to grow up into little sluts just like her”. She is not the first celebrity to use her body to gain publicity. Singers like Nicki Minaj and Rihanna use much more distasteful, provocative lyrics and dance moves than anything Miley Cyrus has ever produced, and yet have received nowhere near the amount of hate that Miley has.

Because she grew up in the public eye as a child Disney star, her new image is even more shocking to society, how dare a young girl grow up and become sexually active?

American journalist Emily Bazelon warns: “slut shaming is retrograde, the opposite of feminist. Calling a girl a slut warns her that there’s a line: she can be sexual but not too sexual”.

It often seems that the only card dealt to young women in society is the possession of sexual power, which can be played in many ways but all of them end up in judgement dealt out by the rest of us. It seems there are only two extreme sides of the scale, where you are labelled as either ‘frigid’ or a ‘slut’. People in society need to understand that it is your choice what you do with your body. It really won’t affect anyone else.

The honest truth is that everyone loves to have a gossip. It’s not just teenage girls; everyone likes to know things about people that aren’t necessarily important. We may pretend we don’t care but if a secret is being whispered about, it’s only natural to be curious.

If you heard about a girl your friend’s brothers girlfriends sisters cousin once slept with, and you were told she also slept with your friends brother and someone else you know, you and your friends would laugh and point out how much of a slut she is, and how could she sleep with people like that etc etc, but you don’t find out how much it affects people and how much it actually hurts until it happens to you.

Recently, I’ve had personal experience of ‘slut shaming’, where a girl I didn’t even know came up to me on a night out and said rather loudly ’oh my god, you’re the girl that slept with this guy’. I genuinely had no idea who this girl was or how she knew who I was, but I then later overheard her talking to her friends, saying ‘that slag in the black dress slept with him’ more than obviously talking about me.

Initially, I felt so ashamed, embarrassed and guilty about what I’d done and that people I didn’t even know knew details about my personal life. I was also surprised that people found it so fascinating that they had to talk about it with people who don’t even know who I am. I didn’t want anyone else to find out – but I was struggling to work out why. Obviously I didn’t want my personal life on show, but I generally didn’t want people to judge me because I had slept with someone.

This is ridiculous. I had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, it was completely my own choice, I wasn’t (that) drunk and knew exactly what I was doing. Women are constantly made to feel bad when they do something that doesn’t adhere to out dated stereotypical female values. Drinking alcohol and having casual sex are typical ‘laddish’ behaviours that are often rewarded with respect and ‘legend’ statuses for males, and ‘unladylike’ and ‘slaggish’ titles for women.

Reality check lads, we don’t have sex with you just for the hope that you’ll fall in love with us and dote on us romantically, like every man assumes women dream about them in that way. Seriously, you’re really not all that.

Living in an age where sex has become so unimportant to a generation that are so carefree and possess new attitudes and values, double standards shouldn’t have a place here anymore.  Every girl has been called a slut. Even for something that was completely irrelevant, the word is thrown around so freely and carelessly, you forget the impact it has. Call a girl a slut and she won’t forget it, I never will.

 

1 Comment
To Top