I see these articles “It’s not ‘slut-shaming’, it’s woman hating” and similar ones re slut shaming and I have to ask myself the last time in real life I have ever heard a single dating man talk about a woman’s sluttiness or sexual mores relative to her fitness as an SO because she (like him) has had multiple sexual partners. In these discussions from a feminist perspective men are generally portrayed as using slut-shaming as some kind of whip hand over women’s behavior and sexual expression.
In the real world that I live in 99% of any accusations of sluttiness or similar epithets are generated by females and are usually directed at other females in the vast majority of cases. Men are very minor players in this.
Is there someplace in this nation where adult single men are heavily involved in “slut shaming”? Is there someplace in this nation where “slut-shaming” is not an almost wholly female on female interaction?
I think we need to distinguish the use of the word “slut” if it is used to shame a woman for her dress or sexual behavior in order to control her which is what (I assume) “slut-shaming” refers to vs some angry jerk calling a woman a “slut” or a “bitch” as a scatter shot pejorative insult because she refuses to sleep with him or go out with him. They are kind of 180 degrees apart. One “slut” is to shame a woman for being sexually active the other is to insult her for being sexually inactive and discriminating against his offer to be sexual.
I’m talking specifically about accusing a women of being a “slut” because of the way she dresses or the fact that she has multiple sexual partners in order to directly or indirectly control her. I don’t hear single, adult guys doing that.
astro, this is a serious question - do you really think slut-shaming is something catty women do to each other and there’s no such thing as a persistent and historical trend of men shitting on women for enjoying their sexuality?
You start threads every five minutes, so I can’t tell if you actually believe this, or if your egg timer dinged so you needed to create another topic.
Yeah, astro if I thought you gave enough of a shit about the answer to be sincerely asking it, I’d spend the ten minutes it would take to give you five examples of you doing it yourself in similarly-ill-advised threads you’ve started.
While there is certainly a historical context for oppression or control of women’s sexuality the discussions about slut shaming I’m referencing mainly address the topic of “shut-shaming” as something that is happening here and now in American society in 2014 and is being perpetrated by men against women as a means of behavioral control through shaming.
To be frank I’m just not seeing it in my interactions with single men. No man I’ve observed talking about girls he may be interested in has referred to them as “sluts” just for having multiple sexual partners (like him) or wearing short, tight clothing. The notion of “slut-shaming” as something that American men do regularly in discussing their dating options doesn’t play out for me in terms of real world observed behavior.
I will be glad to stand or sit corrected if there is evidence to the contrary.
This strikes me as an oddly specific claim. You are excluding cases where a man might “slut shame” a woman who 1) he isn’t evaluating as a potential SO or 2) unlike him, has had multiple or (in his opinion) too many sexual partners.
A coworker of mine, who presents himself as quite the ladies man, said he would never marry a woman who had had ten or more partners. He would have sex with them, but never marry them. I felt that was slut-shaming.
Re (1) I guess (and again I will be happy to be corrected) I really don’t hear that many men talking about or evaluating the morality of women they are not evaluating a potential SO’s. It’s not something (in my experience) adult men do regularly as a part of social conversation with their buddies.
Re (2) that is a fair point and men may well take that personally into consideration in their internal musings, but the relative disparity of sexual experience in a scenario of his little / hers lots, is not something I’ve heard normally introduced as a topic of open conversation with their peers or drinking buddies.
In the context of the complaint put forward by the articles I’m talking about “slut shaming” as an open social conversation that men will purportedly have with other men or women where women are shamed for having multiple partners or dressing provocatively. It’s those conversations I’m not seeing or hearing with any frequency.
I think men and women who engage in slut shaming do so when it suits their purpose. A man gets accused of rape and suddenly the victim is a slut. The shamers are both men and women in that case. A woman is impregnated by a man who doesn’t want to be a father and suddenly she is a slut. Again, both men and women shame in that manner. It’s wrong whoever does it and neither sex has an exclusive on that kind of behavior.
Those accusations certainly occur, but that ugly name calling is in the context of a life changing events where people are throwing down with each other in a feral one on one which are not the scenarios the articles (so far as I can see) are really complaining about. I’m talking about women being discussed as “sluts” in the everyday social discussions men will have in 2014 based on their dress or number of sexual partners. That behavior is what I’m not seeing and hearing with any regularity.
I see that you have limited your claim even further, excluding adolescent boys, adult men who are not your friends, and comments made in situations other than a social conversation among adult male buddies.
The definition of “slut shaming” that you quoted in your OP doesn’t limit the term in this way. Heck, you’ve been accused of slut shaming yourself here on the SDMB, so while I assume you feel these accusations were unfair, you must be aware that when people talk about slut shaming they don’t just mean remarks made about potential romantic partners in conversations between male friends.
I agree with what you’re saying. I think the term has been diluted to include everyday chatter that isn’t about shaming at all, it’s just nonsense motivated by jealousy or frustration. I don’t take it seriously when I hear it from either men or women in those circumstances.
The notion of slut shaming in the articles I’ve seen on the topic seemed (to me) to be addressing something that adult men (not adolescents) are communicating and saying out loud on a regular basis to the extent it is culturally pervasive in 2014 and constitutes a form of patriarchal oppression. If it’s not talking socially with their male and female peers or SO’s (and I don’t have access to their private conversations with their SO’s if that’s where it’s happening) how is this control and oppression being expressed?
Ok … forget about social conversations where I’m drawing my data from. Real world in 2014 how are American men slut-shaming American women today? How are American men actively shaming and pervasively oppressing American women’s sexual freedom today?