Patricia Hluchy shows in an article that the word “Slut” has undergone some transofmrations and taken on different and unexpected meanings even though it remains mostly pejorative. Sugary excerpt:
Marcel Danesi, an anthropologist at the University of Toronto who teaches semiotics and youth culture, observes that "slut" is now an ambiguous word whose various meanings include – in hip-hop – "my woman." Yet he was taken aback when a colleague called him a "slut" recently. "I was complaining about the inane bureaucracy at the University of Toronto, and he said, `You're a typical slut ...' It was kind of friendly – he was saying that I break the rules."
To him, "slut" still reverberates with negative connotations linked to sexual promiscuity. "I would never, absolutely never, present my wife in this way."
Among younger people, though, the friendly use of "slut" is common. Mimi Hagiepetros, a 13-year-old Toronto student, says her schoolmates mostly use it "lovingly" and "as a joke."
Grown-up women will good-naturedly call each other "slut," employing the word with all its sexual connotations in subtle, ironic rebellion against a double standard that refuses to go away.
If racism is as bad as sexism, and “slut” as bad as the N-word, why hasn’t any called for the ban of “slut?”
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