She is the one who will go home with you, the sure bet, the kind of girl you can lie down with and then walk all over. She is ogled, envied and often ostracized. She is the slut. The word, which originated in the Middle Ages, has emerged from a schoolyard barb to become commonplace in popular culture, marketing and casual conversation. Novelty shops and Web sites sell Slut lip balm, bubble bath, soap and lotion.
A cocktail is known as the Red-Headed Slut. She did. Or is it? Beyond the word itself, cultivating an exhibitionistic, slutty appearance — donning the trappings of promiscuity as opposed to actually being promiscuous — has been a growing influence on fashion and popular culture for a decade.
Women wear T-shirts with provocative slogans. Stripping and pole dancing is an au courant way to exercise. An entrenched sexual double standard is not easily uprooted. A promiscuous single man is lauded for being a player or a stud, but a woman who sleeps around rarely is. Teenage girls get the cultural message that they should look provocative. Their social circles are small, so everyone knows who is doing what with whom.
And those who do acquire the slut label have to face up to it daily in school and endure snickers about the very thing girls at that age are most embarrassed about — their sexuality. Rubenstein said. Roxas of Gurl. They ask, Ms. Tanenbaum, who interviewed more than women between the ages of 14 and 66 who had been pigeonholed as sluts, found that the label can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading to greater promiscuity. But, she said, it can also act as a brake, leading a woman to shut down sexually.
There is no way to know if more women are being saddled with the dubious distinction now than in the past. What seems to be true, at least anecdotally, is that it is primarily girls who are pinning the label on other girls. They do it, Ms. Tanenbaum said, because of their confusion over the contradictory messages they receive about their sexuality and how to conduct themselves.
