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Shlutt, slata, slodder, slut- does it really matter?

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Simon King
WVoN co-editor

Tomorrow, SlutWalk London will hit the streets, with (hopefully) thousands of women and men telling the world what they think about sluts.

Over the last few months, the debate as to whether we should or should not reclaim the word “slut” has become a tedious refrain. The argument just won’t go away.

Here’s what I think.

The word slut might be a part of victim blaming culture, but it’s a pretty insignificant one when compared to the thoughts behind it.

Slut is a cipher that acts to limit, degrade and humiliate women.

If you take away the power of slut, another word will take its place. Slag, slapper, whore, hoe bag, cum dumpster, fuck doll, cunt.

Bullies have never been short of a vicious word.

“The word “slut” comes from Europe – arguably from the German shlutt, the Swedish slata or the Dutch slodder. Essentially there is no congruent meaning for the word slut historically.”

That’s from the blog of Slutwalk Hamilton but I doubt if anyone who’s ever used “slut” maliciously has cared about its etymology. I don’t think its lack of “congruent meaning” is a reassurance to those branded with it either.

Even if victim blaming could be stopped through repossessing “slut”, it is such a flexible, poisonous and mutating word that its application will never be controlled.

In a contemporary setting, Google will not let you search for the word “slut” if you have safe-search enabled.

Take safe-search off and today’s top result is “Slutload.Com, “[The] Worlds Largest Adult Video Sharing Community. Upload porn for free. Best Porn Tube.”

Of the pages that appear on Google’s front page:

Three are porn sites.

Three are definitions.

One is a fashion site called slut.co.uk for a “partying, surfing, hedonism and havoc wreaking inspired, premium menswear brand from Cornwall in the UK”.

One is a YouTube video on how to look like a slut.

One is the MySpace page for a band called slut.

One is a website called Satanic Slut where: “over time, 666 of the world’s most beautiful, depraved, attitudinal and creative women will place their images for your delectation and their Satanic grandeur.”

At the time of writing, Facebook has an almost endless list of groups and pages that incorporate “slut”.

To all sluts: it’s not because you’re hot, it’s because you’re easy (; – 100,079 likes

Calling inanimate objects “sluts” when they are not co-operating – 44,778 likes

Setting sluts on fire- 2,987 likes

Headbutting sluts- 1,681 likes

Killing sluts- 841 likes

The anonymous supporters of these pages are unlikely to care about shlutt, slata or slodder. Their usage seems entrenched in the idea that a slut is an “inanimate object”.

They are dehumanising women to the point where women have no rights, and no crimes can be committed against them.

Words can define identities. And slut is a very powerful and very effective word when it comes to crippling young women’s identities.

For instance, the following is from about.com’s teen advice forum, on which breakaleg512 asks:

“After my long-time boyfriend and I broke up…I became a completely different person. I went from being a good girl to the town slut…

“I have been sleeping around, I think it started so that I could get over my boyfriend…but now I can’t stop it.

“I feel like I have already established myself as that type of girl and that is all anyone thinks of me. I don’t want to say no because I don’t want my guy friends to get mad at me or be awkward in front of me…because I want to keep them as friends.

“But I don’t want to have sex with them.

“I feel like I can never get a new boyfriend whom I love because good guys don’t like me anymore…cause I’m a slut.

“I miss having a boyfriend because that was a good excuse to not have to get involved sexually with any guy. I was proud to say no…I have a boyfriend.

“What do I do?? How do I stop being such a slut??”

PuppyWuv75 replies:

“Very sorry u have to go through that.. I know how it feels to be used.

“Sometimes I just want to kill myself over it. I try soooo hard to not give in to this temptation but it’s the HARDEST temptation to overcome.

“In fact, I just slept with a guy on a second day & now I feel like we r not going to work out cause he prolly thinks Imma slut…

“and Im not exactly a slut I just struggle with waiting part cause it feels sooo good. Althought a vibrator has been my friend lately but its still a struggle. Good luck!!!”

I’m not entirely sure how reclaiming slut is going to help these young women.

If the people who want to degrade them can’t use slut, they’ll use something else. That’s how bullying, humiliation and victimisation work. When one weapon stops being effective, another one comes into play.

The word “slut” is going to be a big part of tomorrow, feminism probably won’t be.

As a word “feminism” has a bad reputation, it gets a lot of slurs thrown at it. One of the ways of escaping those words has been to use “The F-Word” instead.

Teaching children to be embarrassed at feminism is not going to empower them, chasing after a word like slut that can just as easily be substituted for “cum dumpster” isn’t going to empower them either.

Tomorrow we have an opportunity to reclaim something. But why don’t we forget the cipher and try to reclaim empowerment instead?

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