Walking down the halls of my school, you will pass lockers with the word slut scratched sloppily into the paint. In the girls’ bathrooms, you’ll see “So-and-so is a skank” and, chances are, you’ll later hear the words slut or whore spat from the mouths of young teens or used as casual commentary on anything deemed “whoreish”. All these things are almost guaranteed because the idea of the sinful promiscuous slut is engrained into not only high school culture, but the whole of popular society. So what is this whole concept?
Ask a young girl what a slut is, and she’ll likely say things like, “A woman that sleeps with a lot of different guys” or “A woman that shows a lot of skin” or even “A girl that flirts or leads guys on.” As girls, it’s clear from a very young age that we must walk a fine line in order to not be a slut, and it is our duty to enforce this crazy double standard, so that every woman is rightfully shamed should she display the signs of being a slut. The exact definition of a slut is very cloudy. There is no solid, clear, identifying trait of a slut. Instead, there is a myriad of impossible criteria and contradicting qualities a woman must follow to escape the label of a slut. And escaping this label is the No. 1 goal of many young girls today. Along with, of course, being sexy and desirable. As you can imagine, this mould is simply impossible to fit.
Sadly, this preposterous concept seeps its way into the major issue of rape and sexual assault. In most cases (according to SexAssault.ca, based on Canadian research, 94 out of every 100), rape goes unreported. Young girls are often afraid to report their assault because they fear being blamed. Why would a victim of rape fear being blamed? Maybe she was drunk. Maybe she was wearing a short skirt. Maybe she had “led him on” and decided she didn’t want to go through with it at the last minute. And sadly, this concern is valid, and all these reasons have been and continue to be determining factors in whether or not a rapist walks free.
The Rape, Incest, and Abuse National Network (RAINN) has found, based on American and national research, that “only three out of every 100 rapists will ever spend even a single day in prison. … The other 97 will walk free, facing no consequences for the violent felony they have committed.”
People are quick to blame the woman because of the deep-rooted idea that women are temptresses and men are helpless, sex-driven creatures, which, of course, is not true. There is a message to women that sexy is both the best and worst thing we can be. It is common knowledge to women that we must be beautiful and sexy, but that female sexuality is a sin. With this confusing double standard, many rape victims are left with the shame and self-hatred that should rightfully be on the shoulders of rapists themselves.
“Well, men get raped, too.” This argument is often used against people who advocate for the eradication of victim blaming. This fact is obvious. And although male rape is less common (over 80 per cent of sex crime victims are women, as stated by SexAssault.ca), it is equally important. However, the assault of males is most often not tied to a slut complex that leads to the blame of the victim.
While females are shamed and punished for expressing/acting upon their sexualities, men are congratulated. While a woman showing skin is seen as provocative or a sign of low morals, males showing skin goes almost unnoticed. In the media, men are portrayed as stupid creatures who simply cannot help themselves, while women are the sexy pieces of meat that tempt them. In high school, a male virgin will be teased, criticized and disapproved of while a female virgin will be praised and admired for keeping herself pure and chaste.
On the other end of the scale, a male who is very sexually active is congratulated, while a very sexually active female will be put down. Here is an example of this harmful double standard that occurs in high school hallways: Many guys have a system of keeping score of all their sexual conquests. They refer to each new girl they sleep with as a “notch”, and the more notches the better. This system may also be used among girls, although less common, but the difference is that for girls, the less notches the better. The difference is, that girls are filled with shame, and boys with pride.
The disapproving stares and harsh whispers and skewed perceptions of morality do not stop beyond high school hallways. The sloppy scrawl in chipped paint and viscous graffiti on bathroom walls doesn’t fade away as we get older. The slut shame is everywhere. In strip clubs, where the girls on the poles are judged more harshly than the men throwing money at them. Behind some church pulpits, where girls are damned for losing their sacred virginity — because that is all that defined them. In “funny” videos floating around social media that shame female sexual behaviour and trivialize sexual assault. In child pageants that sexualize young girls, and later in the school administrators and teachers that shame them for dressing sexually.
The ideal of a sexy, modest, perfect woman who expresses no sign of sexuality yet acts and looks sexy is ridiculous and impossible to fit. Even more ridiculous is the logic that girls deserve to be sexually assaulted because they acted or dressed in a sexual way. This issue affects females much more than it does males, as male sexuality is accepted and OK, while female sexuality is demonized and stigmatized.
Slut shaming is a problem that is detrimental to the freedom and self-government of women, and, therefore, the equality of men and women. Women should not be shamed or viewed as inferior human beings based on the clothes they wear or the amount of sexual partners they have. We as a society will never advance in basic human equality if we hold onto these unreasonable ideals of what women should and should not be in order to be treated equally to and with the same respect as men. We need to abandon the word slut and every bit of hateful, unreasonable, damaging garbage that it stands for.
LoRae Blackmore is in Grade 12 at Prince Charles Secondary School. The Teen Take is a column co-ordinated by Creston’s Teen Action Committee.