This Week in Sex: Porn for Prisoners
Plus, some new gay-marriage news, and a case for the word “slut.”
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Can we reclaim slut?
Ed Schultz was suspended over saying it, teens use it as a term of endearment — and if you’ve ever been called one, you surely have an opinion about it. Slut. There’s something about that word that can get even the most laid-back person riled up. And, some people are suggesting, we don't even know what it means.
A recent think piece in Salon has posited that the word has no concrete definition, and that the lack of specificity is exactly what's so scary. A whore is someone who accepts money for sex. A bitch is a jerk, or a female dog. Slut, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is a "slovenly or prosmiscuous woman." Vague, OED, vague. How promiscuous is promiscuous? Is it about the number, or how and when your hookups happened? And slovenly really throws a wrench in things. Can you be slutty just by skipping a shower? If you have sex and then don’t comb your hair, are you officially a double slut?
It’s interesting, since this comes in a time when a bunch of people seem interested in reclaiming traditionally misogynistic words. Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times Magazine wrote a whole article about “cunt,” both refusing to write it out, and yet suggesting it has a place. (The author supposedly calls her male partner “a loopy cunt” with affection.) And, hosts of women around the country are organizing Slutwalks — women’s rights parades trying to embrace the word.
Personally, I don’t like any of those words. They make female sexuality a negative, and that’s not okay, in my book. Moreover, whenever anyone says they're “reclaiming” a hateful word, I’m skeptical. The biggest “reclamation” success story, after all, is the n-word — and I’m really not sure it’s a success. After all, I can’t even write it. And while it might be okay in hip-hop, I’d hardly call it empowering. If we say "slut" a bunch, can we reclaim it? Probably. But do we really want to?
Commentarium (13 Comments)
coverage for sexual reassignment is complicated for me not on moral grounds, but in terms of precedent and scope. that is, when does it stop? if a small-busted woman feels that, deep down, she is a large-busted woman and must have surgery to achieve the appearance that she feels most truly conveys her identity, then why shouldn't she be covered as well? what about penis enlargement? what about permanent cosmetics? it's an interesting proposition, but they "why" of it (beyond improving morale) needs to be more clearly defined.
I agree that reclaiming the n-word is dubious. It's co-option attempts to take away it's power to hurt from the outsiders who use it, but it's just such a powerful, nasty word that is too connected to slavery and cultural genocide. I would say that the biggest success story in these realms has to be embracing the word queer.
I think that Lady Chatterly's Lover or some of Henry Miller's works probably "angry up the blood" just as much, if not more, than garden-variety porno.
Me you sex
oddly enough the Chicago Tribune reported that the proper verb for Civil Unions is to certify. So people have been "certified"....which just sounds so technical and unfeeling.
Hmmm... shortage of men in Russia, (scarier) shortage of women in India and China... I think we need to hook that up.
I don't want to sound judgemental, but how do you not know that your wife was a man?
She spent tens of thousands of dollars chaning jnto a woman her penis isnt there and she pronablt didnt look like a man at all thats how he didnt know his wide was a man
No kidding, well I figured she had had surgery, it just seems like you would be able to tell the difference between a biological vagina and one that was constructed, especially if you're married and presumably putting fingers or penises inside of it.
Hey, that post leaves me feeling floiosh. Kudos to you!
It would appear that you have never heard of a book called The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Catherine Liszt. The subject matter of which you speak is hardly new or even really that profound anymore, as it's been around and discussed in feminist circles of academia for well over a decade.
Stay with this guys, you're helping a lot of peolpe.
Yeah, it'll only cost $32,000 extra per year... We have problems with cuts in education and unemployment but we can afford to pay for people to get a sex change? My tax dollars will NOT support this. This is absurd. If they think they were born the wrong sex let them pay for it to be corrected from their own pockets.
Now you say something