Rachel del Valle | Being too fast and loose to use 'slut'

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but if you take birth control, or would like to have access to birth control, conservative radio pundit Rush Limbaugh thinks you’re a slut.

I got to thinking about why Limbaugh thought he could use that word so lightly, on a national radio broadcast, no less. Then I realized maybe it’s because everyone else does. “Slut” has become the new “like.”

The age-old insult goes back to Shakespearean times. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded use of the word “slut” with the definition “a woman of a low or loose character” appeared in 1450.

Time has changed the denotation of the term a bit. The top definition on Urban Dictionary comes from 2003: “a woman with the morals of a man.” Pithy stuff.

I don’t know what it is about the word “slut” that bugs me so much. It’s different from “whore” which has an old-fashioned ring — it dates back to 1100 A.D. according to OED. It’s more caustic than “skank,” coined in 1964, which has an oddly jocular sound.

“Slut” has its own set of connotations. It sounds cheap and mean. And it’s used way more often than it should be.

It’s the overuse rather than the word itself that really gets me. I don’t mean overuse in the way a word like “literally” or “epic” is passed around. Repetition of words like that isn’t ill-intentioned, it’s just lazy.

Given the way people say “slut” so casually, I wonder how often there’s actually a real sense of cruelty infused in it. Maybe some are uncreative with their word choice when describing a girl they don’t like.

Most of the time, the word is used in a mildly offensive way. It’s kind of like, I dislike this girl and cannot give a substantive reason why, so I will call her a slut.

“Slut” is certainly an unkind way to describe someone, but it’s not the most disrespectful noun in the vernacular. Essentially, it’s a lazy way to offend a girl.

Using a word that’s so inherently misogynistic in a casual way might undermine its strength slightly, but it still makes its connotations part of everyday speech.

There’s the camp of re-appropriation that views the frequent use of words like “slut” as a kind of empowerment that whittles away at the sense of shame associated with them. I would support that view if there were an equally offensive label for men. But there’s just not a pejorative term for a guy that holds the same impact and meaning.

Instead, in a strange sort of way, men’s terms for sexual promiscuity have a connotation of power. “Womanizer” for example, asserts an authority over the opposite sex. Something like “manwhore” doesn’t seem as serious as its female counterpart.

The combination of such a charged word in everyday situations doesn’t make it less offensive. Especially not when it’s so commonly used by girls to describe other girls.

Tina Fey said it perfectly in the high school comedy Mean Girls with the oft-quoted line, “You’ve got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and whores.”

If bits of conversation overheard on Locust Walk are any indication, slut-shaming extends into college, too.

I’m not saying you should censor yourself or wash your mouth out with soap. That’s not it at all. Instead, I just urge you to think about how often you toss around that word, and why.

Do you really think she’s a slut? Does she represent some ideal of femininity you don’t agree with? Do you just not like her for some other, inexplicable reason? That’s fine. Just think of a better way to say it.

Rachel del Valle is a College sophomore from Newark, N.J. Her email address is rdel@sas.upenn.edu. Duly Noted appears every Monday.

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