slut
noun ˈslət
Definition of SLUT
1
chiefly British: a slovenly woman
2
a: a promiscuous woman; especially: prostitute b: a saucy girl : minx
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Before we get started, here’s a trailer for a lighthearted cautionary tale about the difference between having a reputation, and living it:
The sheen of “slutwalking” and going topless in public is beginning to fade. A cursory glance at gotopless.org and slutwalktoronto.com, or even a Google search, for both attendance at and frequency of recent and coming related events will attest to this. But the mantra of these movements — that women should feel free to cavort in public in any state of dress or undress they choose without the world drawing any particular conclusions about them based on these choices — is still strong, and maybe even gaining ground in the public consciousness.
Whatever our short term reaction to the sensationalist means of these movements, the factors behind them, both factual and emotional, deserve to be acknowledged and respected. To do otherwise plunges critics headfirst into the same murky waters of naivete’ and delusion wherein the activists are accused of frolicking. In truth, shame is the domain of all of us eventually. Or, as my father has told me many times, “Just remember, son: every time you point your finger at someone else, you have three pointing right back at you.”
The fact is, nearly one out of every five women in the United States will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. These victims of sexual assault are not nameless. They are 28,000,000 of our mothers, sisters, friends, girlfriends, fiancées, wives, daughters and granddaughters. That’s the equivalent of the combined populations of Texas and Oklahoma! They play, learn, work, shop, worship, vote, celebrate and sleep right next to us. All of them want attention, as they should. None of them want to be raped. And that is the battle cry of participants in Slutwalks and “Go Topless Day” events.
Think of it this way: if every day, every fifth woman we saw had either a missing or severely mangled arm due to a ritual and forced attempt by others, successful or unsuccessful, to hack it off with a machete, how would we react? Would we shrug our shoulders and think “that’s a shame,” and move on with our day? Would we wonder what she did to deserve that treatment? Or would we be outraged, heartbroken, and hitting the streets to demand a change in our culture?
Even more provocatively, would we be active in gathering and disseminating the information to women that would minimize their chances of being targeted as the objects of such a horrific act? And, damned be the implications, what if we, as individuals, found ourselves fitting the same demographic profile of ninety percent of the perpetrators of these violent acts of devastating personal and permanent injury? What if we could relate in some way to those perpetrators? What if we found ourselves, directly or indirectly, complicit in the cultural attitudes that encouraged this national disgrace of a statistic? Would we admit our complicity and commit to change, starting from within, whether we were victims or perpetrators, or even both at some point? This writer contends that we have all “danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight,” and that these issues are more complicated than either critics or activists would like to believe.
These are among the questions we will explore here at Intentious over the next couple of weeks. But, as the old saying goes, “faithful are the wounds of a friend.” As we attempt to speak the truth in love, we, this writer included, are bound to find out something that we saw wrong. Our self images are bound to be challenged. That happens in a healthy family, by the way. That is the nature of love.
Welcome, Beloved.
Related articles
- If your son asks “why do girls want to dress like sluts?” (bluemilk.wordpress.com)
- Tables have turned on ‘slut shamers’ (smh.com.au)
- How Slut Shaming Undermines Liberty (c4ss.org)
- We must all counter the mood music of rape culture (guardian.co.uk)
- Sluts, centaurs, and other mythical creatures (idpm.me)
- Capilano University artist sparks debate over ‘slut shaming’ (theprovince.com)
- SlutWalk Singapore sees sharp drop in number of attendees (todayonline.com)
- Agency is Agency, No Matter What It Wears (smokeandstir.org)
- Girl-On-Girl Crime: The “Did You Know” Slut-Shamers Of Tumblr (buzzfeed.com)
- The war on female sexuality: Is globalization to blame? (salon.com)
