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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you. From how Supports

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

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Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline, and welcome to slut Shaming. One oh one.

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Speaker 1: Prepared to be shocked in a probably a depressing way. Oh,

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Speaker 1: let's not make it depressing. It's good for us to

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Speaker 1: understand these kinds of things like slut shaming. It is good. No,

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Speaker 1: it is good. I don't want to frame it in

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Speaker 1: terms of like, this whole episode is going to be

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Speaker 1: full of information about shaming women, but it kind of is.

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Speaker 1: But this is a topic we want to talk about

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Speaker 1: because it is something that has come up a lot

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Speaker 1: in past episodes. It is brought up a lot in

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Speaker 1: terms of the concept of rape culture. Listeners have requested it,

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Speaker 1: and we did an episode a way back when now

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Speaker 1: on slut Walks in which we talked about the ed

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Speaker 1: mology and the possible reclamation of the word slut, and

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Speaker 1: we'll give you a brief primer on that just to

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Speaker 1: quickly revisit it. But we really wanted to focus in

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Speaker 1: on this concept of slut shaming because it is I mean,

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Speaker 1: by this point it is a word that or term

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Speaker 1: I should say that comes up so much some people

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Speaker 1: even think that it's lost its meaning. Yeah, that's right.

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Speaker 1: It actually made it into the American Dialects Society's twenty

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Speaker 1: twelve Words of the Year list in the category of

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Speaker 1: most Outrageous. Yeah. It defines slut shaming as attacking a

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Speaker 1: woman for socially stigmatized sexual activity, to which I say,

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Speaker 1: American Dialect Society, No, it's not even It's so much

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Speaker 1: more than just that. And Ben Zimmer, though, who was

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Speaker 1: writing for the American Dialect Society, traces it to two

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Speaker 1: thousand and six, so it does seem like it's it's

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Speaker 1: a millennial term for sure. Right. Well, Christen, you indicated

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Speaker 1: that that definition was a little bit limited. Yes, So

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Speaker 1: let's turn to Andrea Rubinstein at finally Feminism one oh one,

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Speaker 1: who offers a succinct definition, but I still think it's

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Speaker 1: a little more inclusive. She says. It's the idea of

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Speaker 1: shaming and or attacking a woman or girl for being sexual,

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Speaker 1: having one or more sexual partners, acknowledging sexual feelings, and

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Speaker 1: or acting on sexual feelings. Yeah, and it usually conforms

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Speaker 1: to patriarchal norms, but it's also highly subjective, especially when

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Speaker 1: it comes to things like clothing or simply expressing opinions

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Speaker 1: or acting in any kind of way out in public

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Speaker 1: that people can see. And I say this because um,

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Speaker 1: slut is a word that comes up a lot in

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Speaker 1: YouTube comments and in stuff I've never told you videos. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I talked about sex rather frequently, but it's I am

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Speaker 1: rarely called a slut because it's assumed that I have sex,

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Speaker 1: but rather just I'm a slut, a dumb slut because

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Speaker 1: I am dispensing information out of a female face and

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Speaker 1: Christian your experience, I think falls pretty in line with

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Speaker 1: what Jessica Valenti wrote about in her essay. He's a stud,

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Speaker 1: she's a slut, and she sites off. She takes off

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Speaker 1: all of these reasons why she has been called a slut.

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Speaker 1: She says, I was called a slut with my boobscrew

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Speaker 1: faster than others. I was called a slut when I

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Speaker 1: had a boyfriend even though we weren't having sex. I

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Speaker 1: was called a slut when I didn't have a boyfriend

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Speaker 1: and kissed a random boy at a party. I was

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Speaker 1: called a slut when I had the nerve to talk

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Speaker 1: about sex. I was called a slut when I wore

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Speaker 1: a bikini on a weekend trip with high school friends.

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Speaker 1: And then here's here's really the kicker, she says. It

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Speaker 1: seems the word slut can be applied to any activity

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Speaker 1: that doesn't include knitting, praying, or sitting perfectly still lest

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Speaker 1: any sudden movements be deemed horrish. Oh, but you could

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Speaker 1: even be a slut if you're sitting perfectly still, depending

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Speaker 1: on what you're wearing, or simply the shape of your body. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: how just how your face looks yeah, or how your

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Speaker 1: how your boobs and your hips and your butt look um.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a lot. It really revolves around keeping

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Speaker 1: female sexuality and normative femininity in check via forms of

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Speaker 1: overt and also subtle public and private shaming. So, of course,

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Speaker 1: the most overt example of slut shaming is just calling

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Speaker 1: a girl who has had sex with one or one

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Speaker 1: million people a slut. But then there are also these

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Speaker 1: more subtle forms of slut shaming, which is really where

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Speaker 1: this more insidious type of rape culture starts to creep

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Speaker 1: into our day to day And one of the most

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Speaker 1: egregious examples in the mass media happened a few years

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Speaker 1: ago in The New York Times was reporting on the

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Speaker 1: gang rape of an eleven year old girl in Texas,

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Speaker 1: and the article commented on how she quote dressed older

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Speaker 1: than her age and more makeup and fashion is more

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Speaker 1: appropriate to a woman in her twenties. So, now that

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Speaker 1: we've established that the slut shaming can take many different forms,

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Speaker 1: what is a slut? Where did this word come from?

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Speaker 1: And honestly, Caroline, this is an etymology that I really enjoy,

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Speaker 1: not because it's not terrible at all, but just because

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Speaker 1: it hasn't always meant what it means today, and that

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff always gets my brain really excited. So

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Speaker 1: in six we have the first use of the word

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Speaker 1: sluttish in the English language, in the Canterbury Tales, to

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Speaker 1: describe a lazily dressed guy. Yeah, why it got to

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Speaker 1: be so sluttish? Take a shower, iron your clothes. My

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Speaker 1: mother is always telling me to iron my clothes. That's

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Speaker 1: not really accurate. But by the year fourteen hundred, the

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Speaker 1: word had already come to mean a slovenly woman, usually

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Speaker 1: of a lower class, typically a kitchen maide, someone like

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Speaker 1: a kitchen maid, and we pretty much hold on to

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Speaker 1: this meaning as the primary meaning through the eighteenth century. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and This is where a yield slang terms uh sluts

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Speaker 1: wool for dust bunny and a sluts hole for a

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Speaker 1: trash can come into play. I love that. Yeah, I know,

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Speaker 1: sluts well does make me laugh. But by the time

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Speaker 1: though it takes a turn for the sexual, it's also

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Speaker 1: a white woman focused insult due to racist assumptions about

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Speaker 1: hyper sexualized black women. So from the get go, this

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Speaker 1: word has always been laden with classism and racism, right,

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Speaker 1: and because in other words, they were already pre existing

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Speaker 1: notions about black women being super sexual, so in that

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Speaker 1: in that way, calling them a slut wouldn't have been that.

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Speaker 1: He'll checking that it is for women who are supposed

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Speaker 1: to be exhibiting normative, uh white heterosexual proper femininity. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean that was in the era when legally speaking,

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Speaker 1: black women couldn't be raped, right, I mean, that's that

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Speaker 1: was the extent of this, this kind of racist hyper sexualization.

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Speaker 1: And when we move though into the twentieth century, in

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Speaker 1: the fifties, for instance, slots were just called tramps, and

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Speaker 1: slot shooting was absolutely happening, but in a confusing societal

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Speaker 1: backdrop that we still have today. But sex was just

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Speaker 1: far more repressed because you had all of these sexy

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Speaker 1: on screen sex symbols. How many times can I say

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Speaker 1: sex in one sentence? And you had you know, dating

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Speaker 1: culture is taking off, teenage culture is blossoming. Kids are

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Speaker 1: making out their necking and petting in the backs of

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Speaker 1: cars down lover's lane, but only but not too much.

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Speaker 1: You could, you could kiss a boy, but you still

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Speaker 1: couldn't go too far. But you also had, you know,

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Speaker 1: fashions with the cone shaped bras and supertight sweaters. I

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Speaker 1: mean girls, you know, bodies were definitely on display, and

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Speaker 1: you wanted to be attractive and you and you wanted

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Speaker 1: to be taken on a date, but you you couldn't

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Speaker 1: go you couldn't go too far because also the pill

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Speaker 1: didn't exist at this point, right, Yeah, and so without

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Speaker 1: accessible birth control, slut shaming did have more tangible risks

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Speaker 1: like getting pregnant. And this echoes back about to our

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Speaker 1: girls in Gangs episode, because this was also the heyday

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Speaker 1: of those girl gang movies that were which were really

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Speaker 1: all cautionary tales about sluts. Look at these women on motorcycles.

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Speaker 1: They'll end up going off a cliff, but knocked before

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Speaker 1: Johnny's knocked her up. Yeah, all the loose women. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you still see that it's such a trope

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Speaker 1: in um like horror movies that the girl who has

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Speaker 1: sex is the first day get killed. Yeah, all the time. Um.

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Speaker 1: And so today the word slut is still a pretty

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Speaker 1: confusing term because not only do you have men policing

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Speaker 1: women for sexual activity or just appearing to be a

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Speaker 1: person who exists in the world, but you also have

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Speaker 1: girls calling other girls sluts and self labeling as sluts,

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Speaker 1: using it as an in group term, Hey, slut. This

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Speaker 1: was actually something that popped up in a recent episode

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Speaker 1: of Modern Family where the oldest daughter, Haley, who is

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Speaker 1: the prototypical fashionista a little bit ditzy to say the least,

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Speaker 1: was on the phone with her friend and she was

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Speaker 1: just you know, they were calling each other slut back

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Speaker 1: and forth, over and over and over again. And it

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Speaker 1: was obviously is for comedic effect, but it was so

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Speaker 1: cringe worthy for me sitting there watching it. And of

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Speaker 1: course she's sitting next to Alex, her feminist intellectual sister,

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Speaker 1: who was squinching up her nose. But I was like,

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Speaker 1: oh wow, this is also this is happening to this

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Speaker 1: is not just on TV. Well, I think I think

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Speaker 1: I mentioned I. I feel bad for always like saying

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Speaker 1: negative things about my freshman roommate in college, but I

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Speaker 1: mentioned her in our episode on the word bitch because

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Speaker 1: I mentioned my discomfort with that word's use as a

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Speaker 1: very casual sisterly greeting, like I'm not cool with that.

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Speaker 1: I'm knocked down with that. And it was very much

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Speaker 1: the same with her and with me, and with the

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Speaker 1: words slut. She loved to greet her her BFFs by

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Speaker 1: calling them sluts, and that was just something that I

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Speaker 1: was always just like, that is that's not a positive word.

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Speaker 1: I don't care how you spin it like I'll tolerate it.

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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna, you know, yell at you for it.

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Speaker 1: Maybe I should have, but you know, I didn't like it. Well.

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Speaker 1: The interesting thing is, too, with all of this more

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Speaker 1: recent self labeling and kind of adopting it as this

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Speaker 1: in group hey girl kind of term, is that in

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Speaker 1: the old days we had good girls and tramps, but

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Speaker 1: now we have this good versus bad slut where it's like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I'm such a slut. I have sex outside of marriage.

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Speaker 1: Everybody knows it, but it's cool because I'm a good slut.

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Speaker 1: I'll still be your friend, but there's still the bad

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Speaker 1: slut that you can transgress into if you, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: do something quote unquote out of line. And it's still

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Speaker 1: all of this policing of sexuality. You know, even even

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Speaker 1: when say you're freshman, your roommate was calling her friends sluts,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't ultimately that friendly because it was still like, hey,

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Speaker 1: I know what you're doing watching. It's not just saying hey,

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Speaker 1: slut as a greeting. It's also that thing of like

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Speaker 1: if you are getting together with your friends and you're

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Speaker 1: talking about like I kissed a boy or I had

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Speaker 1: sex with a boy or whatever, you're such a slut.

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Speaker 1: Laughing meant in a positive teasing way, but that's that's

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Speaker 1: such like a little that's such a you know, telling

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Speaker 1: your dog to heal. Like I'm watching you. You're telling

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Speaker 1: me about this sexual thing, and I'm gonna joke with

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Speaker 1: you and we're gonna high five, like it's all kosher.

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Speaker 1: But I I've noticed that you're participating in sexual activity

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Speaker 1: and you better watch yourself. And speaking from experience in

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Speaker 1: my twenties in particular, that kind of joking does get

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Speaker 1: into your head. You internalize it as well, and I

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Speaker 1: just should just say me. You know, that's something that

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Speaker 1: came up at a couple of points. So this is

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Speaker 1: something though, that Leora Tannenbaum has written about now in

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Speaker 1: two books. The first one was slut Growing Up, Female

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Speaker 1: with a bad reputation, who really got this whole conversation going,

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Speaker 1: and she referred to slut shaming a slut bashing, And

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Speaker 1: she just came out with a new book, I'm Not

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Speaker 1: a Slut, slut shaming in the Age of the Internet,

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Speaker 1: and it partially inspired this episode because it has reignited

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Speaker 1: a lot of these conversations about slut shaming and this

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Speaker 1: question of what does it mean that girls are now

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Speaker 1: just calling each other sluts? And is it possible to

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Speaker 1: reclaim this? So focusing in on what Tannonbomb terms that

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Speaker 1: reciprocal slut shaming of girl on girl slut shaming, Why,

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Speaker 1: why does it happen? Why would we do that to

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Speaker 1: our lady compatriots, Caroline Well, she says that it's a

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Speaker 1: grasp for power and a patriarchal culture. She says it's

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Speaker 1: basically a cheap and easy way to feel powerful if

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Speaker 1: you feel insecure or shamed about your own sexual desires.

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Speaker 1: All you have to do is call a girl a slut,

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Speaker 1: and suddenly you're the one who is good and on

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Speaker 1: top of the social pecking order. So, I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: the idea that you know, we a lot of people

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Speaker 1: who argue to reclaim this word or words like it

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Speaker 1: are saying that it's empowering. I'm empowering myself. But then

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Speaker 1: you also have to keep in mind that you're you're

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Speaker 1: claiming this word within this patriarchal structure that exists. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: where in slut still very much and even a majority

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Speaker 1: of the time still has the negative aation of the direct,

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Speaker 1: you know, devaluing of women and girls, right where women

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Speaker 1: and girls are policing each other for their degree and

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Speaker 1: type and appropriateness of femininity. And Tannebaum takes a really

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Speaker 1: intellectual approach to digging into this question of why, especially today,

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Speaker 1: this kind of reciprocal slut shaming is happening, and at

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Speaker 1: one point she cites a French Marxist philosopher who talks

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Speaker 1: about how femininity is an ideology and quote, slut shaming

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Speaker 1: is a hailing mechanism that transforms females into both disciplinary

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Speaker 1: agents as well as feminine subjects. So she goes on

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Speaker 1: to write quote observation becomes a mechanism of discipline and coercion,

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Speaker 1: and she even gets into putting this in the framework

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Speaker 1: of Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, where essentially, now, especially with so

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Speaker 1: media and smartphones and selfies, etcetera, etcetera, we're constantly being monitored,

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Speaker 1: but we don't know we're being monitored. And yes, this

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Speaker 1: is all through the framework of slut shaming, So we're

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Speaker 1: in a slut shaming pan opticon, Caroline. That's actually that

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Speaker 1: is literally this point is where I had to stop

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Speaker 1: reading the excerpt of her book on Salon dot com

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Speaker 1: because it just was getting so intense slash depressing. Not

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Speaker 1: that I was like, this is too hard for me

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Speaker 1: to read. It was more like, this is too upsetting

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Speaker 1: for me to read because it's so true the fact

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Speaker 1: that we just in general have internalized the fact that

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Speaker 1: we're being watched, that everything we do is on Instagram

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Speaker 1: or Facebook or like creepshots dot com or whatever, which

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Speaker 1: thankfully is no more. Yeah, well, websites like that things

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Speaker 1: places where people are posting terrible pictures or places where

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Speaker 1: you're expected to post a good picture. Of yourself and

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Speaker 1: we've just internalized that this is natural and normal. But

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Speaker 1: it also leads us to least others who aren't acting

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Speaker 1: according to whatever sort of ephemeral law we think they

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Speaker 1: should be acting according to. Yeah, because when it comes

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Speaker 1: to that abiding by the rules of normative femininity in

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Speaker 1: today's rules, part of that is presenting attractive images of yourself,

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Speaker 1: these like online personas that we have. But the line

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Speaker 1: of the good slept versus the bad slut comes up

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Speaker 1: a lot, for instance with the revenge porn podcast that

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Speaker 1: we did a while back, wherein sexting is a common

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Speaker 1: part of today's dating process, and it's totally fine. If

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Speaker 1: you are in a relationship with someone and you send

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Speaker 1: him or her a naked photo of yourself, that's being

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Speaker 1: a good slut. If it ever gets weaked, though, or

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Speaker 1: if you're not in a relationship with that person, then

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Speaker 1: you're a bad slut. Then you are asking for everyone

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Speaker 1: to see you right exactly. And then I mean speaking

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Speaker 1: about you know, today's kids, kids these days, these days, well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: let's be honest. That leads us to this study that

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Speaker 1: was done by UK think tank Demos, which examine the

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Speaker 1: use of the words rape, whore, and slut in tweets,

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Speaker 1: and found that accounts with male names used one of

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Speaker 1: those words more than a hundred and sixteen thousand times,

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Speaker 1: while accounts with female names did so more than ninety

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Speaker 1: four thousand times. Yeah, this was reported on in Time

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Speaker 1: magazine basically saying, hey, okay, here is social media proof that, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: women are calling each other whores and sluts and making

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Speaker 1: rape jokes or outright rape e comments to other women. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's the norm. It's become not not just like a

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Speaker 1: rape joke or saying like oh that test raped me

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Speaker 1: or whatever, but commenting and judge, commenting on a judging

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Speaker 1: women's body bodies is the norm. Judging women's sexuality, whether

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Speaker 1: it's it exists or not, is the norm. And so

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Speaker 1: if you look at it in terms of like a

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Speaker 1: who has the power and who's within that power? If

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Speaker 1: if the people with the power are making this the norm,

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Speaker 1: the people without the power are going to go along

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Speaker 1: with it. And that's what these researchers found, which is

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Speaker 1: that women are going along with this train in terms

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Speaker 1: of calling other women sluts and horse And I would

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Speaker 1: say too that again, like slut is such a powerful

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Speaker 1: word because it is shorthand for completely and immediately devaluing

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Speaker 1: someone because of the classism and racism embedded in it,

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Speaker 1: and because of just how the worthlessness implied with it.

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Speaker 1: At least when it comes to calling someone a whore

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Speaker 1: or a prostitute, that person is is earning a wage

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Speaker 1: and money at least is wielding more economic power than

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Speaker 1: a slut. Right, But let's take a little deeper, Caroline,

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Speaker 1: because we're talking about a lot of cultural forces at work,

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Speaker 1: a lot of nurture, a lot of environment. But there

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Speaker 1: are some people to who think that, hey, maybe slut

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Speaker 1: shaming it's just science. And we will talk about that

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Speaker 1: when we come right back from a quick break and

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Speaker 1: now back to the show. Well, so before our break,

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Speaker 1: we gave you a lot to chew on in terms

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Speaker 1: of not only where the term slut came from and

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Speaker 1: what it has meant over the ages, but really how

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Speaker 1: people nowadays are using it to police others. And so

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Speaker 1: let's get into some academic work that's been done on

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Speaker 1: the theory surrounding sex, sexual power, and yes, slut shaming. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: some think, well, maybe this is just evolution at work.

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Speaker 1: Maybe females naturally, I mean females like in the the

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Speaker 1: natural world sense of the word, we slut shame each

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Speaker 1: other for a purpose. And we talked actually about some

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Speaker 1: of this research in our podcast not so long ago

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Speaker 1: on shine theory, when we referenced primatologists Sarah Hardy's research

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Speaker 1: on female competition, because, as we noted, the longstanding scientific

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Speaker 1: paradigm was that females were coy passive objects of male competition.

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Speaker 1: Men are the competitors. Women are the recipients. We're just

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Speaker 1: hanging out on chaise lounges, fainting couches. Yes, wait, it

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Speaker 1: is waiting for a for a male male to hop

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Speaker 1: our way, that's right. But it turns out that basically

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Speaker 1: the study in the nineteen forties that a lot of

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Speaker 1: that was based on was inaccurate. Yeah, poor methodology. And

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Speaker 1: it turns out that primate research has found that, surprise, surprise,

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Speaker 1: females are actually quite competitive. And Hardy actually describes the

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Speaker 1: female species at one point as quote flexible and opportunistic

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Speaker 1: individuals who confront recurring reproductive dilemmas and tradeoffs within a

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Speaker 1: world of shifting options. So ladies be crafty? Is that

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Speaker 1: what that means? I think? So? I think I think

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Speaker 1: that that's what that means. So split shaming is a

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Speaker 1: part of that. Well, we are flexible and opportunistic, and

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Speaker 1: we are dealing with reproductive dilemmas and tradeoffs, and perhaps

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Speaker 1: splut shaming is just a tradeoff to deal with the

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Speaker 1: reproductive dilemma. Interesting, okay, So yeah, speaking of that competitiveness

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Speaker 1: and that sexual power driven competition between women, we also

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Speaker 1: talked about this issue in our Shine Theory episode. And

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Speaker 1: this is coming from a study from McMaster University that

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Speaker 1: was conducted by Tracy Villancourt and Anschal Sharma where they

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Speaker 1: sent a plant into basically a a lab or a

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Speaker 1: classroom where like a human plant like they sent a

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Speaker 1: palm tree with sunglasses. Yes, okay, point taken. They sent

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Speaker 1: a woman as a plant. She was she was part

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Speaker 1: of she was in in the in the scam, she

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Speaker 1: was helping run the scam. They sent this woman into

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Speaker 1: this room where two female friends were sitting and the

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Speaker 1: female friends had been told you're here as part of

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Speaker 1: a study on friendship. What they did not tell the

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Speaker 1: women was that they would be sending in this plant,

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Speaker 1: this palm tree, this ficus, wearing a bikini, dressed either

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Speaker 1: like in a T shirt, and jeans, or in a

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Speaker 1: low cut tight blouse and a short skirt. And then

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Speaker 1: they sent this woman in and they just sat back

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Speaker 1: and watched because what happened, and you can pretty much,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's predictable. When the woman went in wearing

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Speaker 1: a T shirt and jeans and was like, hey, have

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Speaker 1: you seen professor so and so, the women were like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's down the hall didn't think twice about it. When

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Speaker 1: the woman went in, same woman where the tight clothes.

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Speaker 1: Oh boy, did the slug shaming hit the fans. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the participants turned on her so quickly, Yeah, saying saying

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Speaker 1: terrible things about her, rolling their eyes, making assumptions out

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Speaker 1: loud that she was just going to go, you know,

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Speaker 1: screw the professor or whatever. Interesting to see how that

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Speaker 1: sexual competition, which is I mean unspoken, it's it's not

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Speaker 1: like directly happening, but that issue of sexual competition enters

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Speaker 1: this situation so fast and furious. Yeah, the the participant

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Speaker 1: responses honestly read like the intro too, sir, mix a

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Speaker 1: lot's baby got back. It was a lot of oh

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Speaker 1: my god, Becky, did you see her? But I mean, again,

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Speaker 1: using this language and these reactions to essentially discount her

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Speaker 1: as a person. Yeah. And so what these researchers think

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Speaker 1: is going on is that sludge shaming is guarding against

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Speaker 1: mate poaching and ensuring access to sexual resources by limiting

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Speaker 1: men's access. So sludge shaming reciprocal sledge shaming, the girl

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Speaker 1: on girl. Sludge shaming serves possibly this horrible um by

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Speaker 1: reproductive purpose, solving that reproductive dilemma of hey, you know what,

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Speaker 1: we need to keep him away from her because she's

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Speaker 1: going to distract him away from us. Yeah, and women

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Speaker 1: do not like other women who they perceived to be

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Speaker 1: sexually permissive. Yeah. This um came out of a study

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Speaker 1: published recently in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

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Speaker 1: titled Birds of a Feather Not when it comes to

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Speaker 1: sexual permissiveness. And this was really interesting because it not

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Speaker 1: only highlighted sludge shaming, but also the sexual double standard

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Speaker 1: that is intertwined with slut shaming. Right, So, these researchers

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Speaker 1: basically presented uh potential fictional friends to study participant ends

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Speaker 1: and had them evaluate a bunch of different characteristics, and

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Speaker 1: they found that for women and for non sexually permissive men,

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Speaker 1: having sexually permissive friends was not desirable. And then they

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Speaker 1: took it a step further and had these fictional friends

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Speaker 1: evaluated on levels like competence, emotional stability, warmth, and dominance,

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Speaker 1: and across the board, the fictional sexually permissive men were

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Speaker 1: seen as more competent and emotionally stable than the sexually

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Speaker 1: permissive women. Essentially, there are lots of studies like this

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Speaker 1: that have been done examining different kinds of sexual double

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Speaker 1: standards at work, where they simply interchange the names, you know,

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Speaker 1: John or Joan for the same kinds of qualities, and

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Speaker 1: we find that we're often far less comfortable with Joan.

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Speaker 1: Joan is always being sent to the corner or Joan well,

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Speaker 1: and it's because that sexual permissiveness, which is just a

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Speaker 1: fancy way of saying like, hey, yeah, I've hooked up

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Speaker 1: with people, people who are honest, Yeah, but no, I

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Speaker 1: shouldn't just say that, people who are more open to

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Speaker 1: maybe non monogamous relationships and hookups and things like that.

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Speaker 1: That was interpreted as a form of dominance, and so

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Speaker 1: that the researchers think is what made the traits so

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Speaker 1: undesirable for these fictional women, even when being evaluated bisexually

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Speaker 1: permissive women. I think that issue of dominance is so interesting,

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Speaker 1: and I think that plays so well into that Evo

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Speaker 1: bio explanation of well, not only the evo bio explanation,

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Speaker 1: but also just our historical understanding of the words slut

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Speaker 1: and what that means to different people, because because if

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Speaker 1: you're going to judge someone for sexual permissiveness or what

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00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 1: you perceive to be sexual permissiveness, that means that he

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Speaker 1: or in this case, she is not acting according to

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Speaker 1: how you think she should be acting, and maybe whether

426
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:03,840
Speaker 1: you want to be free to make these choices. Also,

427
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:06,960
Speaker 1: you're there could be some issue of being threatened by

428
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:10,879
Speaker 1: someone's behavior being outside the norm. Perhaps, I think there's

429
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 1: maybe the threatening factor at work, and also to the

430
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:18,160
Speaker 1: fear of being associated with someone. It's like, well, if

431
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 1: I'm hanging out with quote unquote slotty Jane, then maybe

432
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:26,440
Speaker 1: they'll think that I am like they They'll think I'm

433
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 1: a Joane too, a gang of slutty Jones. No one

434
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 1: wants to be slotty Jane. But let's split the script

435
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,400
Speaker 1: and talk about slutty John for a second, because one

436
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:39,440
Speaker 1: of the more recent questions with this whole slutge shaming

437
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:45,920
Speaker 1: thing is, well, can men be slut shamed, because it's

438
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:49,879
Speaker 1: rather debatable because the entire existence of sludge shaming, in

439
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:53,959
Speaker 1: this concept of sledgehamming is based on the patriarchy, and

440
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 1: within that embedded in it to it is normative femininity

441
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 1: and heteronormativity and all of as many women's studies buzzwords

442
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 1: as you can fit into one sentence, all adding up

443
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:11,160
Speaker 1: to a sexual double standard that is permissive for John's

444
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:14,679
Speaker 1: and restrictive for Jones. Right, I mean, can men be

445
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:19,200
Speaker 1: shamed about certain behaviors or made to feel embarrassed, Yeah, sure,

446
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 1: But in terms of the very specific realm that we're

447
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: discussing right now, in terms of calling them a slut, no,

448
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:29,920
Speaker 1: men can't really be slut shamed in the same way

449
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:33,360
Speaker 1: that women are because, you, guys, the root of this

450
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 1: word is it's a female gendered insult, and man slut

451
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:43,200
Speaker 1: just arguably doesn't carry the same weight that calling a

452
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 1: woman a slut does. Because I mean, you mentioned the

453
00:28:47,080 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 1: sexual double standard, slut shaming sort of hinges on that

454
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 1: the idea that female sexuality is inherently bad and male

455
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 1: sexuality is inherently awesome. Well, and this was something that

456
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:02,400
Speaker 1: you and I, Caroline were just talking about casually before

457
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: the podcast in terms of the man slut not carrying

458
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 1: as much weight because the threat of being labeled as

459
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 1: a man slut or a man whore is that he's

460
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:17,160
Speaker 1: just probably not going to make a very good boyfriend.

461
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 1: But if you are a woman and you are called

462
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 1: a slut, then that means that your body is dirty

463
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:25,800
Speaker 1: and you're a bad person. You're a bad person, and

464
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:29,880
Speaker 1: that's someone who you probably shouldn't you shouldn't even really

465
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:33,320
Speaker 1: be interested in having sex with that person because it's

466
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 1: just you know, used goods. So there's so there's usually

467
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 1: so much more to it. And it's interesting too to

468
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: look at the gendered language of sexually promiscuous people. And

469
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that we've talked about this before on

470
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 1: the podcast. Um, but there's this often cited nineteen three

471
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:58,240
Speaker 1: study looking at the words the gendered words for promiscuous people.

472
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 1: They identified to hundred in the English language relating to

473
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 1: sexually promiscuous women and only twenty for men, just twenty.

474
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 1: And I would really love if there are any linguists listening,

475
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 1: if you know of a more recent study, or if

476
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:15,960
Speaker 1: you could just conduct an updated study. I want to

477
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 1: know there is one slightly more updated but still dated

478
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:26,800
Speaker 1: study from in Finland that identified four hundred Finnish words

479
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 1: for promiscuous women and only a hundred and twenty for

480
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: promiscuous men, which often tended to be more tolerant. And

481
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:37,800
Speaker 1: I laughed out loud when I got to the part

482
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:41,880
Speaker 1: where they were listing various terms for men and women,

483
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 1: and men had names like bore and stallion, but women

484
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 1: were called village hors, and I, from the from the

485
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:54,520
Speaker 1: sheer surprise of it, just laughed out loud because they

486
00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:56,560
Speaker 1: they don't play around. They cut right to the chase

487
00:30:56,560 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: on that one. Yeah, yeah, I mean you have men

488
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:02,440
Speaker 1: could be make be called pimps, which again it's reflective

489
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 1: of his ownership of other women players, similar thing Casanova's

490
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 1: and Don Juans. That sounds that Depp, Yes, and you're

491
00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:14,320
Speaker 1: just a Johnny Depp. I mean, at worst, you can

492
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: call a man a dog, but a lot of times

493
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:23,200
Speaker 1: to those those male pointed insults usually have some kind

494
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 1: of female ricochet effect back to say a mother or

495
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 1: a son of a or a you know whatever kind

496
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:31,880
Speaker 1: of word I can't say on the podcast, right, but

497
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 1: I mean, even the word dog, however derogatory. You mean

498
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 1: it or you intended to be. It's still more of

499
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 1: a way that he's treating other people rather than a

500
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 1: commentary on how many people he's having sex with. Yeah,

501
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 1: I mean there is no what's the word for a

502
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 1: male mistress? There is none? You know, yeah, kept man,

503
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:54,880
Speaker 1: Even that sounds like if I just envisioned pools and cabanas,

504
00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 1: So it doesn't even seem that bad. So so, even

505
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:04,400
Speaker 1: in our flut shaming language, it's still so female focus. Um.

506
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 1: Although we did find a two thousand thirteen dissertation written

507
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 1: by Michael Flood called Male and Female Sluts Shifts and

508
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 1: Stabilities in the regulation of sexual relations among young heterosexual men. Yes,

509
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:21,280
Speaker 1: there's a lot. There's a lot in that title. Um.

510
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 1: And he was focusing though on college men in Australia,

511
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 1: and his research did find concerns among those Aussie blokes

512
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 1: of being labeled a male slut. Yeah. And so he

513
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:39,560
Speaker 1: proposes that this concern itself signals a slight weakening of

514
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:43,760
Speaker 1: the sexual double standard and an increased policing of male

515
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 1: sexual behavior, which to that I say, great, But I'll

516
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 1: believe it when I see it. I mean, well, it's

517
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 1: I mean, the keywords there's a slight weakening. Um and

518
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 1: I do think hearing especially from men directly on YouTube,

519
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 1: because that's where I hear the most directly throughout the comments,

520
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 1: there is a lot of there, There is a lot

521
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 1: of concern out there. I think that men men feel

522
00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:09,720
Speaker 1: police in certain ways as well. But it's almost the reverse.

523
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:14,360
Speaker 1: It's more, uh, you're not having enough sex? Yes, yes,

524
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 1: a feeling like they need to meet up to these

525
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 1: standards of masculinity rather than you know, and being like

526
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:25,040
Speaker 1: what if I what if I don't want to well

527
00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 1: hook up all the time. But I mean there's also like,

528
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 1: if you look at all the cultural and social ideas

529
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:35,719
Speaker 1: behind calling a woman a slut policing her sexuality, if

530
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 1: you look at like Rush Limbaugh talking about Sandra Fluke

531
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 1: and her campaign for birth control, affordable birth control. I mean,

532
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 1: one writer, I can't remember if it was Valenti, but

533
00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: one writer brought up the fact of like, okay, well,

534
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 1: if men and young boys are being encouraged to go

535
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:55,200
Speaker 1: out and have all the sex, and women are being

536
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:57,280
Speaker 1: told that they're bad people if they go out and

537
00:33:57,360 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 1: have any sex or even think about it, Like, what's

538
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 1: happening in that in that interim, like who are these

539
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 1: women that men are supposed to go out and be

540
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:09,240
Speaker 1: so virile with? And like what are women? Like, who's

541
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:12,600
Speaker 1: nobody's talking, Let's let's talk about this. What's in the

542
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:14,640
Speaker 1: middle ground? Yeah, I mean, and this is where we

543
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:17,880
Speaker 1: get to the impact of sledgehaming, because I think that

544
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:23,080
Speaker 1: middle ground is a lack of sexual communication issues with

545
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:27,440
Speaker 1: consent of people not knowing what we're so often, especially

546
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: in US culture, I'll be very interested to hear from

547
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:35,080
Speaker 1: international listeners about this. We are so openly sexual and

548
00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:40,759
Speaker 1: yet so simultaneously repressed that it I mean, I think

549
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 1: it reaks so much havoc in the bedroom or the

550
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:47,959
Speaker 1: backseat or wherever sex sexual contact is happening. It leads

551
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:53,479
Speaker 1: to so many kind of nasty expectations on both sides exactly. Yeah,

552
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 1: I mean it is. It is absolutely a lose lose

553
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 1: situation for women and men alike because it is constantly

554
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 1: rein forcing the sexual double standard, and it also handicaps

555
00:35:04,120 --> 00:35:08,080
Speaker 1: healthy sexual exploration and growth in young women who are

556
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:11,879
Speaker 1: terrified of being labeled sluts to the point that they're

557
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:14,239
Speaker 1: not even going to masturbate because they feel like that's

558
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:17,799
Speaker 1: going to make them This thing, it's sturdy thing. Yeah,

559
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:20,759
Speaker 1: and that also means that you're getting a lot of

560
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 1: ill informed kids out there who are afraid of STDs,

561
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:27,839
Speaker 1: but who might end up contracting them because they don't

562
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:30,840
Speaker 1: have they're not equipped with the right info. And it

563
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 1: also is going to inhibit sexual communication and disclosure between

564
00:35:34,560 --> 00:35:38,799
Speaker 1: partners or just between friends or healthcare providers, and engaging

565
00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 1: in other kinds of sex that isn't penis in vagina

566
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 1: intercourse that would therefore constitute sluttish behavior in the modern

567
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:52,720
Speaker 1: sense of the term, and thinking that that's not sex

568
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 1: as well. So it's yeah, it just we really just

569
00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 1: have this this brimming sluts hole of garbage thanks to

570
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:05,000
Speaker 1: this thing. And of course we have to talk about

571
00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:11,400
Speaker 1: in the context of rape, because slutge shaming quickly spirals

572
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:16,240
Speaker 1: into victim blaming, right, Yeah, the thought that, oh, she's

573
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:18,719
Speaker 1: she's dressed a certain way, she's acting a certain way,

574
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 1: she looks a certain way, so you know, she deserves

575
00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 1: whatever bad thing happened to her. You know, if the

576
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:27,280
Speaker 1: girl in Steubenville who was drunk and say she's somehow

577
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:30,960
Speaker 1: deserved to be sexually attacked, exactly, women always have to

578
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:34,640
Speaker 1: not only apparently police other women's bodies, but police their

579
00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:37,719
Speaker 1: own body as well. We are constantly in charge of

580
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 1: we We are both the prisoners and the guards of

581
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 1: our own pin opticons, Caroline, that's exhausting to think about it. Well,

582
00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 1: it is, it's exhausting to live it. But also one

583
00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 1: thing that has gotten a little exhausting too for some

584
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:57,359
Speaker 1: people is the constant use of slutt shaming as sort

585
00:36:57,360 --> 00:37:01,960
Speaker 1: of the jumping off point to comment on things. And

586
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:06,360
Speaker 1: that is a really ineloquent way of this question of Okay,

587
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 1: are we not overusing this term? Is everything now flut shaming?

588
00:37:11,560 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 1: Can we ever critique female sexuality in a healthy way

589
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:20,400
Speaker 1: and it not be slut shaming? Right? I mean? A

590
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:23,960
Speaker 1: couple of writers have talked about this, including Callibuseman over

591
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:27,320
Speaker 1: at Jezebel, who wrote that all too often slut shaming

592
00:37:27,360 --> 00:37:31,839
Speaker 1: is used to police women for policing other women, which

593
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:36,080
Speaker 1: is just hypocritical abusement, and others call for a more

594
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:40,399
Speaker 1: open dialogue and an acknowledgement that Okay, you're doing one

595
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 1: thing and you think it one way, and you're doing

596
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 1: another thing and think another way, and it's okay if

597
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:48,680
Speaker 1: people disagree, it's better too. Like you said, open that

598
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:53,120
Speaker 1: dialogue and actually have a healthy critique of you know,

599
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 1: whether it's pop culture or just sexuality or whatever. It's

600
00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:59,320
Speaker 1: better to have that conversation and say, okay, well I

601
00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:01,719
Speaker 1: disagree with you, but here's why and what do you think,

602
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:04,560
Speaker 1: then to just immediately shut down the conversation with well,

603
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:07,320
Speaker 1: that's sled shaming, so your opinion doesn't matter, right because

604
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 1: it always points the finger to the woman. And I

605
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:13,880
Speaker 1: mean the the examples where this really came up big time,

606
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:17,320
Speaker 1: where after Sned O'Connor wrote that open letter to Miley

607
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:22,480
Speaker 1: Cyrus post MTV v M as with with the Twerking

608
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 1: as the kids say, and then when Rashida Jones went

609
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:29,560
Speaker 1: on a bit of a tweet fest and also wrote

610
00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 1: a Glamour essay all about how uh you know, female

611
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:37,160
Speaker 1: celebrities of pop stars essentially need to cover up and

612
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:41,239
Speaker 1: that is very much paraphrasing her, And so that was

613
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:44,800
Speaker 1: then flipped around on both Shond O'Connor and Rashida Jones

614
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 1: as saying, hey, stop being so sledge shaming and sex negative, right,

615
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 1: And I mean you could argue that certain things could

616
00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 1: have been phrased better and either one of those essays,

617
00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:01,840
Speaker 1: but I mean, the point remains that you have two women,

618
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:04,960
Speaker 1: Shenad O'Connor and Rashida gents who have very certain types

619
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:09,200
Speaker 1: of perspectives, and they're allowed to have those perspectives, um,

620
00:39:09,239 --> 00:39:13,240
Speaker 1: but certain other people definitely felt attacked when those opinions

621
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:17,239
Speaker 1: were presented. Yeah. For instance, one of Rashida Jones, the

622
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:22,239
Speaker 1: tweet really that started this whole Rashida Jones debacle involved

623
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 1: her calling referring to these women as dressing like horrors.

624
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:30,040
Speaker 1: So doing the whole like horror thing not a not

625
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: a great move, but I think that it is valid

626
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 1: for her and say Shenat O'Connor and whomever else to

627
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:41,080
Speaker 1: critique representations of women in pop culture like what is

628
00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:46,600
Speaker 1: what are we kind of collectively worshiping? Right? Because they

629
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:50,440
Speaker 1: both do, however, eloquently or ineloquently, bring up the idea

630
00:39:50,520 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 1: that you can't forget the context in which these conversations

631
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 1: are occurring, and in which these music videos or fashion

632
00:39:57,200 --> 00:40:00,239
Speaker 1: shows or whatever you're looking at are occurring, which use

633
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:04,719
Speaker 1: that same patriarchal structure. I'm just I'm picturing like a pergola, uh,

634
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:09,320
Speaker 1: patriarchal pergola uh, in which we're all having some sort

635
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:14,480
Speaker 1: of awful patriarchal cocktail party where we think that if

636
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 1: we dress a certain way or act a certain way,

637
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:20,719
Speaker 1: we are freeing ourselves and being empowered. When people like

638
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:25,240
Speaker 1: Sennt O'Connor saying, you're just playing to those puppet masters,

639
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 1: those patriarchal Pergola puppet masters, Yeah, because that's the thing too.

640
00:40:30,280 --> 00:40:32,640
Speaker 1: We we haven't even and won't have time to even

641
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:36,200
Speaker 1: get into the clothes issue. But cover up is never

642
00:40:36,239 --> 00:40:39,799
Speaker 1: the answer to any of this. I think it's it's

643
00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 1: a lot more instructive perhaps to dig into let's let's

644
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 1: remember where this words slot comes from and where the

645
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 1: problem really arises. And to me that comes up a

646
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:59,120
Speaker 1: lot with the classism and racism inherently tied up with it.

647
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:01,799
Speaker 1: And when it comes to this question of like, well,

648
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:04,440
Speaker 1: why don't we just reclaim this word, why don't we

649
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:08,239
Speaker 1: It's fine, We're we're just women on the go, we're

650
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:10,359
Speaker 1: on birth control, we have our I U D s.

651
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 1: We can be sluts do and it can be fine.

652
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, I think my feelings can can definitely

653
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:22,839
Speaker 1: be summed up about the multifaceted negative connotations of this

654
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:27,400
Speaker 1: word by Fairitanus. She's the executive director of Black Women's Blueprint,

655
00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:30,799
Speaker 1: and she wrote, if people really put their minds to it,

656
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:33,960
Speaker 1: they could probably reclaim the word slut. But for me,

657
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to because reclaiming means that it was

658
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:39,759
Speaker 1: yours in the first place. And the word slut is

659
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:42,719
Speaker 1: not something that I created for myself. It's something that

660
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:46,720
Speaker 1: was created for a particular purpose, and the purpose wasn't

661
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 1: to serve me. And I think that touches on issues

662
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:52,160
Speaker 1: of class and race, which are so inherent in the

663
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:55,479
Speaker 1: word and its use and evolution. And when it comes

664
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:58,160
Speaker 1: to that class factor too, it's very much alive and

665
00:41:58,200 --> 00:42:00,520
Speaker 1: well in its usage today. It's by actually when it

666
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:04,879
Speaker 1: comes to reciprocal slut shaming, And this was demonstrated by

667
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:09,719
Speaker 1: a pair of sociologists who essentially tracked girls on a

668
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:15,760
Speaker 1: college campus and found highly class stratified patterns of slut shaming,

669
00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:20,040
Speaker 1: where you have wealthier girls who are usually in sororities,

670
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 1: who would tend to specifically slut shame less wealthy girls

671
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:28,240
Speaker 1: who were in sororities, but then also the less wealthy

672
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 1: women doing the same thing to the wealthier women, saying

673
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:34,640
Speaker 1: they're just rich sluts whatever. But when it came to

674
00:42:34,719 --> 00:42:44,240
Speaker 1: the power dynamics, those wealthier women's slut shaming was more damaging. Yeah,

675
00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:47,799
Speaker 1: and it's it's interesting to look at the hierarchies that

676
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:52,799
Speaker 1: these sociologists reported on, because the wealthier or better off

677
00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:57,680
Speaker 1: college women considered sluts to be trashy, lower class women,

678
00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:00,480
Speaker 1: whereas if you look at the less wealthy non sorority

679
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:04,480
Speaker 1: women on campus, they considered sluts to be the rich

680
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 1: bees in sororities. Because each of them had a different

681
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:11,759
Speaker 1: definition of what was trashy and slutty that did not

682
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 1: include themselves, and so this freed them up to act. However,

683
00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:18,560
Speaker 1: they so chose to act while still being able to

684
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:21,879
Speaker 1: police the behavior of women who were different from them. Well,

685
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:24,360
Speaker 1: and then too when we I mean, you've already touched

686
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:27,320
Speaker 1: on this, but when you move into the race factor.

687
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 1: This came up big time with the slut walk movement

688
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:33,880
Speaker 1: that was really on fire a few years ago, and

689
00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:37,800
Speaker 1: we did a podcast about it, and black women really

690
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:42,719
Speaker 1: wanted nothing to do with it because of how that

691
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:46,439
Speaker 1: word has related to them historically as black women. And

692
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:50,040
Speaker 1: we cited in that podcast on slut walks Susan Britton's

693
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:55,720
Speaker 1: open letter from Black women to slut Walk organizers, which said, quote,

694
00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:58,239
Speaker 1: we do not have the privilege or space to call

695
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:03,160
Speaker 1: ourselves slut with validating the already historically entrenched ideology and

696
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 1: recurring messages about what and who the black woman is.

697
00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:10,320
Speaker 1: We don't have the privilege to play on destructive representations

698
00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:13,680
Speaker 1: burned in our collective minds, on our bodies and souls

699
00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:17,080
Speaker 1: for generations. And that's a big reason why. In a

700
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:20,080
Speaker 1: more recent article in The New York Times by Annah

701
00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 1: Holmes asking this question of can we reclaim slut, and

702
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 1: she interviews Lee or a Tannon Bomb about her new book,

703
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:29,320
Speaker 1: and the answer is still kind of shakes out to

704
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:32,560
Speaker 1: be no, for these same kinds of reasons of Hey,

705
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 1: this is this is loaded with a lot of garbage.

706
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:38,200
Speaker 1: It is letter with a lot of garbage. Just it's

707
00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:42,360
Speaker 1: it's it has never ceased to be an ugly word.

708
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:45,440
Speaker 1: And I and I understand, I absolutely understand the impetus

709
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:48,520
Speaker 1: behind wanting to reclaim it and grab it from the

710
00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:50,360
Speaker 1: hands of the people who use it to try to

711
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:53,160
Speaker 1: oppress you or check your behavior or police the way

712
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:57,120
Speaker 1: you look at, think, feel whatever. But I just don't

713
00:44:57,160 --> 00:45:01,680
Speaker 1: know that calling yourself and your friends or anyone a

714
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:04,319
Speaker 1: slut is the answer to that, and it's certainly not

715
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:09,040
Speaker 1: going to be our path to eradicating slut shaming. And

716
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:11,719
Speaker 1: this is a poor analogy, but to me, it's like

717
00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:15,120
Speaker 1: telling women that, hey, you know what's gonna cure rape culture?

718
00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:17,359
Speaker 1: I was just telling rape jokes all the time. If

719
00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:20,000
Speaker 1: we just like make it funny, then it'll be fine.

720
00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:22,160
Speaker 1: Then it'll just stop because we'll be like, it'll take

721
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:24,800
Speaker 1: the sting out of it. Like Nope, that hasn't happened

722
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 1: at all. So I I don't know the answer to

723
00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:33,080
Speaker 1: what's gonna stop slut shaming. I think that us stopping

724
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:35,200
Speaker 1: calling each other sluts as Tina Fey told us to

725
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:36,920
Speaker 1: do and mean girls a long time ago. It's a

726
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:39,200
Speaker 1: good start. Yeah, I think that's a good start. But

727
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 1: I mean, we have so much sort of digging to

728
00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:45,719
Speaker 1: do in terms of really unpacking how we feel about

729
00:45:45,920 --> 00:45:49,880
Speaker 1: sexuality of both men and women and and trying to

730
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:55,840
Speaker 1: trying to um not change how people think, although that

731
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:58,800
Speaker 1: would be nice, but but just to just to become

732
00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:03,880
Speaker 1: aware that we even have these prejudices, these these feelings,

733
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 1: these negative feelings about how women even moved through this world,

734
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:13,839
Speaker 1: and on an individual level, keeping ourselves accountable for the

735
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:19,839
Speaker 1: policing behavior that we may consciously or even subconsciously an

736
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:22,200
Speaker 1: act right because, like you said at the beginning of

737
00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:25,000
Speaker 1: the podcast, Kristen, slug shamming does not have to involve

738
00:46:25,160 --> 00:46:27,759
Speaker 1: me calling someone a slut. All it has to do

739
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:30,919
Speaker 1: is involved me criticizing someone's skirt for being too short

740
00:46:31,040 --> 00:46:34,040
Speaker 1: or something along those lines, and then I have effectively

741
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:38,480
Speaker 1: slut shamed someone and I have played into this patriarchal pergola.

742
00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:43,239
Speaker 1: Not the patriarchal pergola. Carol, Well, we definitely want to

743
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:46,200
Speaker 1: hear from listeners about this. Mom Stuff at how Stuffwork

744
00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:49,400
Speaker 1: dot com is our email address. Do you have the

745
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:52,800
Speaker 1: brilliant plan of how we can finally end slut shaming?

746
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:55,000
Speaker 1: Do you think that it's a term that can be reclaimed?

747
00:46:55,200 --> 00:46:59,840
Speaker 1: And I'm curious too for parents with kids, is this

748
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:02,600
Speaker 1: something that you think about as well, especially if you

749
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:06,840
Speaker 1: have girls like to slut shaming play any role in

750
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:10,719
Speaker 1: your at home sex education. I want to know all

751
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:13,439
Speaker 1: of your thoughts and perspectives. Mom Stuff at how stuff

752
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:15,480
Speaker 1: Works dot com again is our email address. You can

753
00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:19,520
Speaker 1: tweet us at mom stuff podcast or messages on Facebook,

754
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:21,600
Speaker 1: and we've got a couple of messages to share with

755
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:29,760
Speaker 1: you right now. Well, I've got a letter here about

756
00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:32,479
Speaker 1: our episode on lady lawyers and hal of they dress,

757
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:35,879
Speaker 1: speaking of slut shaming that definitely happens in the courtroom.

758
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 1: And this was from Monique, who is currently a law

759
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:41,799
Speaker 1: student in her third year of law school, and she said,

760
00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:43,600
Speaker 1: I was so happy to hear that you decided to

761
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:47,440
Speaker 1: tackle the lady lawyer dress issue. I too have faced

762
00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 1: the frustrations around what to wear in the courtroom and

763
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:52,880
Speaker 1: even at work. But there were a couple of issues

764
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:56,120
Speaker 1: I think you missed out on. First, the regional differences

765
00:47:56,200 --> 00:47:59,600
Speaker 1: in what is appropriate for court wear. For example, in Florida,

766
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 1: what would be appropriate in a Miami courthouse is much

767
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:06,240
Speaker 1: different than what would be appropriate in a Jacksonville courthouse

768
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:09,319
Speaker 1: or a courthouse in the Panhandle. This is also true

769
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:12,320
Speaker 1: between states. I recently went to a conference with students

770
00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:14,479
Speaker 1: from different states and found that in some areas, wearing

771
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 1: brightly colored suits or shoes is not frowned upon. The

772
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:20,319
Speaker 1: general rule of thumb is a more liberal a location,

773
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:23,239
Speaker 1: the more liberal the rule address. I was told by

774
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:26,400
Speaker 1: mentors to always, if at all possible, sit on a

775
00:48:26,440 --> 00:48:28,520
Speaker 1: court case for the judge you will be trying a

776
00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 1: case before to get the general rules of that courtroom.

777
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:33,319
Speaker 1: Every judge is a bit different, and it's best to

778
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 1: be prepared with the clothing that they will receive you

779
00:48:35,560 --> 00:48:38,360
Speaker 1: the best. In The other issue I think you missed

780
00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: on is hair. As a woman of color, I'm especially

781
00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:43,880
Speaker 1: sensitive on issues of hair in the courtroom. The general

782
00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:46,680
Speaker 1: argument I've heard is that nothing in your appearance should

783
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:49,640
Speaker 1: distracting the law you are presenting. This means that for

784
00:48:49,719 --> 00:48:52,080
Speaker 1: most women of color, you must have your hair permed.

785
00:48:52,360 --> 00:48:55,160
Speaker 1: While I've seen a few black female attorneys with natural hair,

786
00:48:55,239 --> 00:48:58,000
Speaker 1: it's few and far between. Perming my hair was a

787
00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 1: decision I made on my own early my wife, so

788
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:03,600
Speaker 1: continuing it isn't as much of a hardship as for

789
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:06,359
Speaker 1: women who come to law school and then decide they

790
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:09,320
Speaker 1: have to do it. The legal field is uniquely behind

791
00:49:09,360 --> 00:49:11,960
Speaker 1: the times, but as the influx of more females come

792
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 1: into the field, hopefully some of these issues will be fixed.

793
00:49:16,120 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 1: So thanks Monique and good luck with the rest of

794
00:49:18,560 --> 00:49:22,480
Speaker 1: law school. And I have a letter here from Rachel.

795
00:49:22,840 --> 00:49:26,040
Speaker 1: She says, I live in Morganton, West Virginia, and I'm

796
00:49:26,040 --> 00:49:28,400
Speaker 1: a regular listener and lover of your podcast. I have

797
00:49:28,520 --> 00:49:31,360
Speaker 1: so many favorites and recommend your podcast to almost everyone

798
00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:35,560
Speaker 1: I know. Thank you, Rachel. She goes on to say,

799
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:37,960
Speaker 1: this Valentine's Day, a lot of women are going to

800
00:49:37,960 --> 00:49:40,360
Speaker 1: see Fifty Shades of Gray, which got me and my

801
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:43,560
Speaker 1: gal pals chatting about the series. So I've only read

802
00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:45,839
Speaker 1: the first book. I found the story to be just

803
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:50,239
Speaker 1: as Lisa Wilkinson put it, quote, domestic violence dressed up

804
00:49:50,239 --> 00:49:53,400
Speaker 1: as erotica. I personally thought it was poorly written and

805
00:49:53,440 --> 00:49:56,600
Speaker 1: have read accounts from b D s M community members

806
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:59,680
Speaker 1: stating that it's a completely wrong portrayal of their community.

807
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:03,360
Speaker 1: The pre ticket sales for this movie are record breaking,

808
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:06,400
Speaker 1: which had us all talking about rape culture, and we

809
00:50:06,480 --> 00:50:09,000
Speaker 1: all agreed that this would be something awesome to hear

810
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 1: from you gals. Well, Rachel, you'll be happy to hear that.

811
00:50:13,600 --> 00:50:15,239
Speaker 1: Not only of Chris and I received a lot of

812
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:17,600
Speaker 1: letters about this very same topic, but we have now

813
00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:20,240
Speaker 1: put it on our two podcast lists and that episode

814
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:23,040
Speaker 1: will be coming to you very soon. That's right, Kink

815
00:50:23,080 --> 00:50:26,799
Speaker 1: Week is happening in March on Stuff Mom never told you,

816
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:30,319
Speaker 1: so tune in or maybe just now be a little

817
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 1: weird about so if you have letters or requests for

818
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:37,480
Speaker 1: us moms, Steven house Stuffworks dot com is our email

819
00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:39,680
Speaker 1: addressed and links to all of our social media as

820
00:50:39,719 --> 00:50:42,960
Speaker 1: well as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts, including

821
00:50:43,000 --> 00:50:46,040
Speaker 1: this one with our sources so you can read up

822
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:49,200
Speaker 1: as well. All about sledge shaming. Head on over to

823
00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 1: stuff mom Never Told You dot com. Little more on

824
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:58,520
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Does it house stuff

825
00:50:58,560 --> 00:51:06,840
Speaker 1: works dot com