Short answer: Slut-shaming, also known as slut-bashing, is the idea of shaming and/or attacking a woman or a girl for being sexual, having one or more sexual partners, acknowledging sexual feelings, and/or acting on sexual feelings. Furthermore, it’s “about the implication that if a woman has sex that traditional society disapproves of, she should feel guilty and inferior” (Alon Levy, Slut Shaming). It is damaging not only to the girls and women targeted, but to women in general an society as a whole. It should be noted that slut-shaming can occur even if the term “slut” itself is not used.

What constitutes “slut-shaming”

Put in the most simple terms, slut-shaming happens when a person “publicly or privately [insults] a woman because she expressed her sexuality in a way that does not conform with patriarchal expectations for women” (Kat, Slut-Shaming vs. Rape Jokes). It is enabled by the idea that a woman who carries the stigma of being a slut — ie. an “out-of-control, trampy female” — is “not worth knowing or caring about” (Tanenbaum, p. 240).

If all negative connotations are removed from the word, a “slut” is simply a person, most often a woman, who has had sex with multiple partners. In societies where the only acceptable expression of female sexuality is within a marriage (usually for the purpose of having children), engaging in sex with more than one partner is enough to justify the label of “slut” and the slut-shaming that comes with it. In societies such as the United States where it is not uncommon for people to have several relationships throughout their lives, for the most part it is no longer considered a requirement for a woman to wait until marriage before engaging in sex. However, this shift in sexual mores has simply shifted the goal posts for “proper” female sexuality from marriage to “the attitude of the girl, her emotional feeling for the boy she’s with and her feelings about sex as an expression of love” (Taunenbaum, p. 67).

Policing women via what’s considered “normal” and “acceptable” boundaries for female sexuality is not limited to sex and sexual activity. For instance, women who wear “provocative clothing” (or just photographed while having breasts) are subjected to slut-shaming. As are women who are sexually aggressive and/or unabashedly lay claim to their own sexuality.

As illustrated above, any woman who has had sex can be a victim of slut-shaming. A virgin can be a victim of slut-shaming. Indeed, as long as gendered slurs like “slut” continue to be weapons casually wielded against girls and women by both people from all walks of life, any female who acts in a way that another person doesn’t like is at risk for being slut-shamed.

The sexual double standard

When it comes to how and to whom sexual slurs are applied, there has been and continues to be a clear sexual double standard — meaning “that there is one set of sexual rules for men and boys, and another, unequal one for women and girls” (Tanenbaum, p. xvii). In terms of slut-shaming, the “transitional double standard” (a term coined by sociologist Ira Reiss) applies: “men are allowed to engage in coitus for any reason–women only if in love or engaged” (Tanenbaum, p. 58).

Linguistically, the slut-shaming double standard can be seen in a variety of ways. One telling way is the frequency of sexual slurs aimed at women versus those aimed at men:

In a study of North American English, Stanley (1977, cited by Graddol & Swann, 1989, p. 110) identified 220 words for a sexually promiscuous woman but only 20 for a sexually promiscuous man.

[Sandra McKay and Nancy H. Hornberger (Cambridge University Press, 1995.): Sociolingüistics and language teaching, p. 226]

Although the exact number of words for women versus men have undoubtedly changed since the above study, the ratio most likely remains about the same. In addition, the imbalance comes not only from frequency, but also content:

[Terms for women who “sleep around” include] fast woman, hussy, doll, inamorata, siren, gypsy, minx, vamp, wench, trollop, coquette, bint, crumpet, floozy, scrubber, slag, groupie, nympho, and slut.

[...]

The comparatively small field devoted to male promiscuity reinforces the notion of the double standard alluded to previously. The tenor of the terms is also entirely different: Casanova, Romeo, Lothario, and Don Juan derive status from their literary and historical pedigrees, while ladies’ man, lady-killer, gigolo, stud, and sugar daddy obviously do not have the same condemnatory overtones as most of the female terms. They embody machismo notions of power and conquest. The sole exception is roué. The invocation of great lovers of the past, real and fictional, serves to provide role models suggesting respectability.

It is also worth noting that the above article contains the only positive reference to a sexually active woman I could find while researching this piece: sex-kitten.

On “Male Sluts”

There is undeniably a growing trend, which in which men and boys may also be labeled “sluts” which is often cited as proof that the term “slut” is not gendered, and therefore not sexist. However, when examined within the framework of cultural context and the sexual double standard, it is clear that the usage of the term when applied to men is different than than when it’s applied to women.

First and foremost, the term “slut” was originally term that applied exclusively to women and only later was the definition encompassed to allow for the inclusion of men. Because of that, “slut” without any qualifiers or context implies a woman or girl. Indeed, in order to specify that it is a man (not a woman) who is being referenced, “male” will often be appended for clarity.

Also worthy of note are the differing definitions of a “slut” (note: the vast majority of the definitions on Urban Dictionary specify female) versus a “male slut”, which according to Urban Dictionary, “is one who prowls a regular bar route to lure coyote-ugly women home for selfish reasons.”

However, even in instances where the person in question takes care to use “slut” in a gender neutral way and apply it evenly across genders, the cultural and social weight behind the word means that its impact is not, and cannot, be equivalent:

The problem is that when we use the word “slut” to describe men, even if we’re using it as a term meaning they’re not appropriately careful with who they do the deed with, we’re still not using it consistently with how the word is used in regards to women.

When we “reclaim”1 the word slut to use it against men, it tends to get used to criticise a habit. But when we use the word slut to describe a woman, it’s almost always understood as a dismissal of what she’s saying, what she’s doing, or even of her worth to the speaker as a person. There is no such undertone for men- if men have “bad” sexual habits, that’s mostly viewed as some private failing. (Unless you’re a politician and you get caught at it)

For reasons such as those given above, the application of “slut” to men does not negate the sexual double standard, nor does it take away the ability of the term to slut-shame, and therefore harm, women.

Why women slut-shame

As with many sexist phenomenon, women aren’t just the targets of slut-shaming, they are often the perpetrators as well. Not to mention that many times women will slut-shame in one moment and go on to revel in their “sluttiness” in the next. This, especially when compared to male behavior regarding sexuality, can be seen as confusing and contradictory:

So is that what women slut-shaming other women is about? Do they worry they themselves might be labeled sluts? Do they want to appear less slutty? I don’t know. That may be part of it, but I don’t think it’s quite the same. After all, rarely do het men parade around in “gay” outfits and say “Look how gay I look” to other het men unless they want to get beat up. And yet a woman could wear what she considers herself to be a “slutty” outfit and say “Look how slutty I look” to her fellow non-slutty friends and get a couple of laughs and that’s it.

The first thing to realize when talking about women slut-shaming each other is that infighting among oppressed groups is a necessary part for keeping those groups oppressed; ergo women are encouraged, through internalized sexism, to distrust each other and fight for male approval. In other words:

Slut-shaming is one of the chief ways that women attempt to compete with each other for male approval in a patriarchy that defines women’s worth by their physical attractiveness and limits their ability to distinguish themselves by other means.

It is also important to keep in mind that, in a patriarchal society, “male approval” translates into a form of power (albeit a limited one). Even in societies where women have access to other ways in which to attain power, girls are still encouraged from a young age to seek out and maintain male approval as a way to secure their own power in the world.

Tanenbaum looks at this phenomenon as it relates to slut-shaming:

Slut-bashing is a cheap and easy way to feel powerful. If you feel insecure or ashamed about your own sexual desires, all you have to do is call a girl a “slut” and suddenly you’re the one who is “good” and on top of the social pecking order.

[Leora Tanenbaum (Harper Paperbacks, 2000.): Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation, p. 238.]

So, if slut-shaming other women is so rewarding, why would a woman want to be “slutty” and/or call someone else “slutty” as a compliment? While the phenomenon are ostensibly in direct conflict with each other, the reasons behind reveling in one’s sluttiness are the same as the reasons for slut-shaming other women: garnering male approval and raising yourself up in the hierarchy. When a culture simultaneously glorifies both “modesty” and “raunch” — hailing both as a way to be a “proper” woman — the women who live in said culture are going to internalize the contradictory messages. So it should come as no surprise that many women both attack the “slut” while trying to be one.

The effects of slut-shaming and what we can do about it

Calling someone a slut may seem harmless. Slut-shaming may also seem to be useful as a kind of cautionary tale — helping “good” girls from making sexual “mistakes”, or even being sexually assaulted and/or raped, by making an example out of the “bad” girls. But, in fact, the very opposite is true:

A reputation acquired in adolescence can damage a young woman’s self-perception for years. She may become a target for other forms of harassment and even rape, since her peers see her as “easy” and therefore not entitled to say “no”. She may become sexually active with a large number of partners (even if she had not been sexually active before her reputation). Or she may shut down her sexual side completely, wearing baggy clothes and being unable to allow a boyfriend to even kiss her.

[Leora Tanenbaum (Harper Paperbacks, 2000.): Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation, p. 229.]

The consequences of slut-shaming go beyond the personal, shaping societal discourses on rape, abuse, and harassment:

How many times has rape been discounted because a woman was deemed a slut? How many times are women called whores while their partners beat them? How often are women’s sexual histories used against them in workplace harassment cases? The sexual double standard is a lot more dangerous than we’d like to think.

A brief Google search on the above questions turned up: Alleged Victim Slut-Shamed, Rape Case Thrown Out, False Rape Accusations and Rape Culture, Georgia rape case dismissed because of victim’s sexual history?, 13-Year-Old Girl Commits Suicide After Classmates Spread Nude Photos, and Fighting back: workplace sexual harassment and the case of North Country *.

And, finally, here are some suggestions to help stop and prevent slut-shaming:

Boys will treat girls with respect… when we have one standard for both sexes–that is, when we have sexual equality.

[Leora Tanenbaum (Harper Paperbacks, 2000.): Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation, p. 234.]

Parents should be open about sexuality with their kids–and that means being open about female sexuality as well as male sexuality. They should teach their daughters and sons that girls as well as boys have sexual feelings, and that sexual feelings are entirely normal. That way they won’t have to pin their sexual anxieties on a scapegoat and then distance themselves from her.

Teachers must recognize that slut-bashing is a serious problem. Too often, they dismiss it as part of the normal fabric of adolescent life. But slut-bashing is a form of sexual harassment, and it is illegal under Title IX, which entitles students to a harassment-free education. If a teacher witnesses slut-bashing, she must make sure that it stops. [...] [Teachers and school administrators] must create and publicize awareness through sexual harassment policies for their schools.

Schools and youth programs have an obligation to talk to kids about the harm in sexual labeling. [...]

But the most important thing that all of us need to work on is this: to stop calling or thinking of women as “sluts.” Face it: At one time or another, many of us have called a woman a “slut.” We see a woman who’s getting away with something we wish we could get away with. What do we call her? A “slut.”

We see a woman who dresses provocatively, and maybe we wish we had the guts to dress that way ourselves. What do we call her? A “slut.” [...]

Most of us recognize that this stigma is unjust and unwarranted. Yet we have used the “slut” insult anyway: Our social conditioning runs too deep. We must will ourselves to be aware of the sexual double standard and of how we lapse into slut-bashing on an everyday level. If we become aware of our behavior, then we will have the power to stop.

[Leora Tanenbaum (Harper Paperbacks, 2000.): Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation, pp. 238-240.]

First and foremost, stop calling other women sluts! It doesn’t behoove us to bash each other, gals. And speak out when you hear men do the same. I’ll never forget in college overhearing a conversation that my boyfriend’s roommates were having. They both had slept with the same girl over the course of the year — they called her a whore and made a joke about her vagina being “loose.” I asked them why she was the bad person in this scenario — after all, they had had casual sex with her, too. They couldn’t provide an answer, but that didn’t stop them from continuing to laugh. I always regretted not saying anything more. Outside of calling ourselves and others out on perpetuating the double standard, it’s a hard battle. But I think if we recognize the hypocrisy of the slut/stud nonsense when we see it — whether it’s an anti-choice law or a movie that makes women who have sex look like deviants — we’re on the right road.

Related Reading:

Introductory:

Clarifying Concepts:

• On the term “Slut” and its effect on girls:
  

  Slut-bashing– as I call it–is one issue that affects every single female who grows up in this country because any preteen or teenage girl can become a target. “Slut” is a pervasive insult applied to a broad spectrum of American adolescent girls, from the girl who brags about her one-night stands to the girl who has never even kissed a boy to the girl who has been raped. Some girls are made fun of because they appear to have a casual attitude about sex (even if, in reality, they are no more sexual than their peers). Many others are picked on because they stand out in some way–being an early developer, new in school, an ethnic or class minority, overweight, or just considered “weird” for whatever reason. Some are called “sluts” because other girls dislike over envy them, and spread a sexual rumor as a form of revenge. While a girl can almost instantly acquire a “slut” reputation as a result of one well-placed rumor, it takes months, if not years, for the reputation to evaporate–if it does at all.

  [Leora Tanenbaum (Harper Paperbacks, 2000.): Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation, p. xv.]

• More on slut-shaming and the sexual double standard:
  

  Slut-bashing shows us that sexism is still alive and that as boys and girls grow up, different sexual expectations and identities are applied to them. Slut-bashing is evidence of a sexual double standard that should have been eliminated decades ago… Slut-bashing sends the message to all girls, no matter how “pure” their reputations, that men and boys are free to express themselves sexually, but women and girls are not.

  [Leora Tanenbaum (Harper Paperbacks, 2000.): Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation, p. xix.]

• On some of the damages slut-shaming causes:
  

  Slut-bashing is uniquely damaging–and not only to teenage girls but to all women. Fearful of being considered a “slut,” many girls and women don’t carry or use contraception, leading to unplanned and unwanted pregnancies and life-threatening diseases. Worried about seeming sexually aggressive, many girls and women remain silent in ambivalence rather than say yes or no, which leads to murky sexual scenarios that are neither completely consensual nor completely coerced but somewhere in between. The cultural assumptions behind slut-bashing implicate us all: Knowing that being sexually promiscuous stigmatizes a girl, many of us assume that a girl who reports that she was raped is lying in order to cover up a regretted sexual encounter.

  [Leora Tanenbaum (Harper Paperbacks, 2000.): Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation, p. xix.]

• A sociolinguistic approach to slut-shaming:
  

  Schulz (1990), reviewing the history of the many terms used to refer to women, argues that the “analysis of the language used by men to discuss and describe women reveals something about male attributes, fears, and prejudices concerning the female sex” (p. 135). Words which began with either neutral or positive connotations over time acquired negative implications and finally ended up as “sexual slurs” (p. 135)… Although Schulz’s study found no similar derogatory meanings of terms used to refer to men, Risch’s (1987, cited by Graddol & Swann, 1989) study of North American college students found a wide variety of “dirty” words to refer to men, including bitch, whore, and slug, which have traditionally been used to refer to women. It may, however, be misleading to look at slurs against men which work in the same way as those against women.

  [Sandra McKay and Nancy H. Hornberger (Cambridge University Press, 1995.): Sociolingüistics and language teaching, pp. 226-227]

• Intersections – slut-shaming, clothing choices, and fat activism:
  

  And this is also why, when someone tells me that my clothes are “too tight” and that “you don’t have to wear tight clothes to be sexy,” I feel rage. I wonder if they know how hard I had to work just to feel like I was even allowed to wear those clothes, much less feel confident and beautiful in them. I wonder if they’ve ever been slut bashed, and wonder if they’re policing my fashion because they’ve been slut bashed. But I especially don’t understand it when those criticisms come from other supposedly fat-positive people, because in my world, letting the outline of your belly show in a dress, or wearing something sleeveless that doesn’t hide your arm fat isn’t just ok, it’s appreciated. Tight clothes on fat bodies are inherently political, and I would even say moreso when those tight clothes look damn good and are worn with pride.

  I don’t need everyone to like the clothes that I wear, but I am also attuned to the undercurrent of slut shaming that is so often levied against people who wear revealing clothes. I would ask those people who feel discomfort and/or disgust to think about what it is that’s behind those feelings.

Ed,

I thank you for the awesome advice on cleaning
the inside of my oven with baking soda. I hate
the toxic fumes that are left behind from store
bought cleaners.

I do have another problem, though. The vent holes
at the top of the door on my double oven are an
unsightly mess. I have tried toothpicks and
tweezers to remove the residue, but most of the
accumulation is greasy and sticky.

Any suggestions on what I can do to clean this
area?

Ruth

In browsing the web, I find several sites recommend
ammonia as a natural degreaser. It seems that ammonia
cuts grease.

My best understanding is that both ammonia and water
evaporate. I'm going to speculate that that is why
ammonia and water are frequently used to clean glass.
Glass is not really clean if there is any cleaning
residue left.

Since ammonia and water eventually evaporate into the air,
I'm guessing that this is why ammonia and water make a
good combination for cleaning glass. Since the cleaner
itself evaporates, there is nothing left to stick to your
glass and streak your glass.

The reason I'm leaning towards ammonia and water is
because the person who wrote to me describes their
oven vents as being greasy and sticky. It
sounds to me like her problem is largely a problem
of grease accumulation.

If this were my problem, I might gather the following
things to clean the vents:

1. Gloves to protect my hands
2. Ammonia purchased at the grocery store
3. An empty dish soap bottle
4. A cleaning sponge

I would then put on my gloves and take the
empty bottle and pour ammonia into it. I
might only fill the bottle half full in
order to make it easy to work with.

I would then pour small amounts of ammonia on
my sponge and start cleaning the grease around
my oven vents. I would be careful not to do this
to a gas oven (natural gas, for example) as ammonia
can be explosive if it is heated to too high a
termperature.

I suppose I might feel at liberty to try cleaning
with ammonia if the oven's pilot light were off.
However, if I was not absolutely certain it was
off, I'd probably be better off skipping the use
of ammonia altogether.

In any case, I'd use as little ammonia as possible
to clean the vents. I'd probably make frequent trips
to the kitchen sink to wring out the sponge and get
the grease out of it.

The whole strategy here is to clean around the vents
without allowing foreign materials to enter the
vents. Since both ammonia and water are said to
evaporate, having a little bit of ammonia and water
enter the vents might not be as disastrous as having
other substances, including baking soda, enter the
vents.

A special concern I have with oven vents is that
they can be the gateway to the air layer that
sometimes lies between two layers of oven glass.
You don't want to clean your vents only to see
streaking on the inside layer of your oven glass.

The inside layer of oven glass is unreachable
from both the interior of the oven and the
exterior of the oven. The last thing you
want to do is to preserve streaks of cleaning
fluid forever between layers of glass.

All of this is speculation on my part. I've
not personally ever tried to clean my oven using
ammonia.

I would think you'd want to be especially cautious
if you have a breathing condition, such as asthma.
I've read that ammonia is quite irritating to both
the eyes and to the lungs. It is for this reason
that I'm suggesting that you use as little ammonia
as possible.

That, in part, is why I'm suggesting using an empty
dish soap bottle. Just as you use a dish soap bottle
to control how much dish soap you use, so you can use
it to control how much ammonia you use.

One more note of caution. Never mix ammonia and chlorine
together. If I understand correctly, the two together
form chlorine gas.

When I was in high school, my friend Charlie did this very
thing. He was mopping the kitchen floor at the restaurant
where he worked. He wanted to improve the ammonia formula
that he was using by also adding chlorine to his mop bucket.

If I recall right, his boss stopped him from doing this just
in the nick of time. Charlie telling me this story in high
school was the first time I learned that ammonia and chlorine
together form chlorine gas --- the stuff used to kill soldiers
in the trenches in World War I.

So don't do that. Don't try to improve your cleaning formula
with chlorine.

All of the above is pure speculation on my part. In searching
the Internet for solutions, I found no solution that addressed
oven vents only. It seems that oven vents are a very special
problem.

I would be disinclined to use baking soda on or around oven
vents. There is a danger of getting baking soda between layers
of oven glass. After this happens, it seems the only solution
is to disassemble the entire oven door to clean between the
two layers of glass.

Please be cautious if you try any of the above suggestions. This
is all uncharted territory for me. There's a big difference between
trying something that has never been tried before and trying something
that is tried and true. Consider the above suggestions as suggestions
only and as something that has not been tried before.

Ed Abbott