I have asked my panda-eyed reflection this many times, and the answer is always different. Sometimes I say no, of course I’m not. Other times I nod my head, yawn and rub more mascara from my lashes.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not think that the word ‘slut’ should mean a bad thing, and promiscuous women have every right to explore their sexuality as frequently as they wish. I also do not hold ill will or judgement over sex workers, so that’s my little disclaimer about the word ‘slut’ before I delve into this blog post.
So, the first time I was called a slut I was about thirteen and in middle school. At this point I had kissed one, maybe two boys, and that was about it. The person who first called me a slut was not nice to me normally, but this one slur that he called me has stuck with me for many years, even though I am loathe to admit he ever impacted me. I came to school with black fishnet knee-high stockings on under my school-regulated just-above-the-knee skirt and plain black K-Mart canvas shoes, and because of the stockings he called me a slut. I would understand him calling me out on my poor fashion choice because those stockings did not match the skirt, and knowing me I probably needed to iron the school shirt, but being called a slut made me feel dirty and silly.
I remember telling my mum about it, and she snorted derisively and said he probably had a crush on me and that the girls who had copied him throughout the day were just jealous. Classic Mum response.
My dad told me that the original meaning of slut was ‘someone who slept with everyone except them,’ which I have never fact checked. It didn’t really make me feel any better, and I didn’t wear the stockings again or if I did it was just once for defiance.
I was called a slut many times after.
The night I wore a pirate costume to the school dance which was ‘Letter P’ themed, I was called a slut because I dance with my hips and I wasn’t wearing shorts under the buccaneer dress. I didn’t kiss anyone that night, and I didn’t slow dance with anyone either. I just wore this dress, and low and behold, I was coined a slut.
I was sixteen years old.
When I was seventeen, I was called a slut again because I came to school with a really large and painful hickey on my neck. It was the beginning of year twelve, I had been running late because I had spent the morning throwing up outside the train station and shivering violently with shame on my way to school. The hickeys were a badge, my scarlet A, and they were a reminder of what had been done to me the night before. Being called a slut that day was the first time someone called me a slut because I had actually had sex. Nobody at school knew this of course, and they certainly didn’t know that I had not wanted to have sex. It just didn’t matter, and I don’t think it would have mattered even if they did know. I wore the badge, even though I had tried to hide it, so everyone was allowed to call me what they wanted.
Another time that I was called a slut in high school was when my friend said ‘you’re the group slut’. I had been taken aback, what on earth did that mean? Turns out it meant that I’d had sex with, kissed, crushed on and been crushed on, by more people in the friend group than anyone else. Keeping in mind, I had only had sex with two, and kissed another of the eight girls in the group.
Excuse me? That made me ‘The Group Slut’?
I remember taking the label and owning it because I didn’t really know what else to do with it. We’d been seventeen at this point, and even though I thought the term slut was disgusting and had been haunting me for four years, I had rolled with the label until it turned sour in my mouth. I’m not friends with anyone I went to high school with anymore.
I have had the word hurled at me in clubs, forced down my throat by the media, whispered behind my back in classes, chase me down the street from the windows of cars, and left behind by people who walked away.
The word ‘slut’ has bruised me, choked me, tailed me and angered me.
When I hear the word ‘slut’ I now think of a thirteen year old girl walking between classes with her head down so that no one would look at her.
I think of a sixteen year old girl who had started the night feeling comfortable in her skin for the first time in her life, ending the night running to her dad’s car with her face red with shame.
I think of a seventeen year old who already felt saddened by the fallout of friendships and relationships, choking on a label that made her feel guilty. The same girl who had to wear the label after a night she didn’t want to be reminded of.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that any of those girls are a slut.
Even now, as a young woman who does enjoy consensual sex and isn’t ashamed of how I dress, I don’t deserve to be called a slut. No one deserves to be stigmatised and labelled for how they act or what they do.
Women can like sex.
And no one- especially not young teenagers- should be called a slut.
Rae's Rambles 