There's this term now -- "slut-shaming" -- that the sexpoz crowd trundles out every time anyone criticizes a woman for participating in her own sexual objectification. I think it must have come out of that whole "reclaiming the word slut" thing a while back, which explains why I want to throw up every time I hear it. For the record, "reclaiming" slurs only works on terms that point at something intrinsic about their subjects. I link to the dictionary definition of intrinsic because it's essential to understanding this -- if I am black, I can't not be black, and therefore reclaiming the n-word is an act of reclaiming something essential about who I am. Same for "queer," "heeb," "gimp," etc. -- calling myself any of those things doesn't demean me as long as I do it, because it turns the whole idea that I should be embarrassed about an essential part of who I am on its head.
"Sluttiness," on the other hand, is not an intrinsic quality of women, it's a behavior defined by the exterior culture. Calling myself a "slut" does nothing to reclaim some intrinsic part of who I am, it simply communicates to other people that it's OK to evaluate my essential worth using their own fucked-up scale of currency. The term "slut-shaming" is patently ridiculous in much the same way, especially when people claim that it's a feminist concept. The only way I have ever seen it used is as a way to defend a woman's "right" to perform publicly as a sexual object. (An important fine point here: when I say public, I'm referring to behavior that is originally meant to be public, not private behavior that's brought into the public eye by some series of unfortunate events, like having your email hacked and finding the sexy pictures you sent to your boyfriend posted on the internet.) I'm not saying that individual women don't have the right to act out sexually in public -- we all have the right to behave like self-destructive idiots -- I'm saying that calling me a "slut-shamer" when I point out that they're shooting themselves in the foot is not a feminist act, no matter how you slice it.
"Sluttiness," on the other hand, is not an intrinsic quality of women, it's a behavior defined by the exterior culture. Calling myself a "slut" does nothing to reclaim some intrinsic part of who I am, it simply communicates to other people that it's OK to evaluate my essential worth using their own fucked-up scale of currency. The term "slut-shaming" is patently ridiculous in much the same way, especially when people claim that it's a feminist concept. The only way I have ever seen it used is as a way to defend a woman's "right" to perform publicly as a sexual object. (An important fine point here: when I say public, I'm referring to behavior that is originally meant to be public, not private behavior that's brought into the public eye by some series of unfortunate events, like having your email hacked and finding the sexy pictures you sent to your boyfriend posted on the internet.) I'm not saying that individual women don't have the right to act out sexually in public -- we all have the right to behave like self-destructive idiots -- I'm saying that calling me a "slut-shamer" when I point out that they're shooting themselves in the foot is not a feminist act, no matter how you slice it.
No comments:
Post a Comment