I don't like the term "slut." A lot of people seem to really go for it, either because they enjoy being verbally abused during sex or because they've taken it as a badge of honor to be referred to as a slut. I suppose that's a bit like the other slurs which have been appropriated by the slurred party, and I guess I respect that, but that doesn't make me like the term any more.
As for being verbally abused during sex, to each his or her own. I'm not into it, but there are plenty of things I'm not into that people like, and while I think one might want to examine one's needs and determine just why one needs to feel degraded during sex, hey, if it's your thing, I'm not judging. Okay, so I'm probably judging merely by saying that, but I'm not telling you to stop doing it.
I'm not sure why slut occupies this rarefied place in our linguistics: it's really the only thing that does what it does. You can't exchange it for whore or bitch, although both could easily be used to degrade. And there aren't a lot of synonyms which carry to meaning of "person who sleeps around" but don't carry the baggage of slut. When I hear the word, it seems dirty, trashy, just plain unpleasant.
I'm proud to be promiscuous. Yes, there's a judgment in that word too, but it's longer so people can't throw it around in the same way. I'm proud that I share my physical love with many people. But I don't embrace "slut" simply because it doesn't feel like me. It may mean other things to other people, and if they like the word I won't assume that they like it for the same reasons I dislike it, but I don't like it, so I don't go for it.
I hope no one is offended by any of this, except that that's a vain hope. Someone will be, no doubt. I'm just trying to explain that I, personally, don't care for it when a guy, who might be taking the lead, romantically-speaking, and I might be enjoying that, when this guy decides to start telling me to beg for it, slut, or to get on your knees slut, or just to call me a slut, even if he doesn't mean it to be particularly degrading. I'm not a fan. I don't even mind being ordered around sometimes; it can be fun in the right circumstances. But leave the names out of it. Particularly slut.
Done rambling now.
2 comments:
Well, that's good to know, and interesting.
A friend of mine admitted to me that she likes being called a whore, but not just "a" whore, but it has to be "my whore" as in the possessive case. She only allows, or likes, the normally pejorative word to be used with it's intimately used between us. Referring to her by that word, or slut, outside of that context, would get your a right cross to the jaw. When she claims it, as you mentioned, it becomes enabling, it gives her mental permission to play, to release, to act in ways otherwise forbidden to her, because, in that moment, she is mine and is free of the rest of the world.
I know that sounds very D/s and that is part of our play, but to her it's a clear distinction between reality and fantasy.
I have never called a woman by any of those names in real life but it works in cyberspace. And, just for the record, I hate the word "bitch." Thanks to rap culture that word has become, to me, an amalgamation of all the negative connotations that used to be associated with the other two.
Like I said, I don't think that women who want to be called names are letting down the side, or that men who feel the impulse to use names are necessarily anti-feminist or anything. Porn is a bad influence as far as slut is concerned. I'm not saying that people who do it in fantasy are bad people; there should be fantasy, and I'm okay with that. It's just not my particular fantasy.
I actually have no problem with "bitch" except that I use it pan-sexually; I'm just as happy to call a man a bitch as a woman. But I pretty much universally mean it as an insult, and I don't do it during sex. I've appropriated that term, but I wouldn't expect someone else to find it liberating if I called them a bitch ;)
Post a Comment