Religious types may see a slut as someone without morals. Some women who cannot enjoy themselves sexually may be jealous of the freedom sluts seem to have. Some women may fear the slut will steal her man. I don’t know for sure, I’m neither religious or slutty (except when I’m alone with my hunny bunny).
I’ve had my moments of “what was I thinking?” in regards to relationships with men (yes, a few one nighters in my “oat” years) but I don’t think I was a true slut. I don’t care what a woman does or doesn’t do as long as she’s careful and uses protection. Emotionally, there can be a price… but it stems from the double standard, IMHO.
Men are made into heroes for sleeping around while women are called sluts. That makes me mad, that is the same in my mind. Why aren’t women heroes and men sluts for this behavior? I don’t care who sleeps around, just get rid of the double standard.
This is not meant to be totally glib, I think some of the double standard between male and female sluts may come from that it is much easier for a woman to attract a man than it is for a man to attract a woman.
Ghanima’s friend who was called The phenomenon is in a way aptly nicknamed. I know very few men who would be able to hook up with a new woman every week.
I wouldn’t describe that as “nonpejorative”. It’s just a condensed version of “men revile sluts after they sleep with them”. Lots of men do not like women; lots of men do not, at least, like sexually active women. These same men often do, however, like sex. Liking sex does not, for them, translate over into liking the person with whom they have sex. So there is contempt and even revulsion towards the very people to whom they are sexually attracted (and, often enough, with whom they do it).
Balduran
Makes sense…except…explain why women go to so much extra trouble to attract a man than men do to attract a woman? I’ve never understood that part. If women stopped wearing makeup and dieting to the point of misery and shoving their feet into painful shoes and going to extra trouble with their hair, would men become harder to attract? I doubt it. Or maybe the problem is that men don’t feel attractive to women period, and therefore view it as a lost cause and don’t put any energy into it?
yosemitebabe:
Well, perhaps, and perhaps not. Depends on calm kiwi’s ideological orientation towards marriage itself. If I’m an atheist working in a deli, I’m under absolutely positively no moral or societal obligation to learn which of my customers is keeping kosher or halal and to refrain from selling them ham sandwiches. If kiwi thinks marriage and monogamy and the concept of “cheating” is silly to begin with, she’s not obligated to police her own behavior to keep from participating in activities that help some stupid schmuck who make a stupid promise from violating said stupid promise. If, on the other hand, she thinks it is wrong to have sex with other people if you promised someone you wouldn’t in front of the preacher man, then I agree with you that she is participating in what is to her a sin and that makes her behavior out of line.
They don’t go to “extra” trouble, they go trough a totally different type of trouble to attract a man. If make up, dieting, and wearing high heels was what attracted women thats what men would be doing. Instead we have to buy a BMW, i think its about even really. You can find this, and many more answers in my upcoming straight to video tape “generalizations gone wild”.
Yes, those men are interested in the mythical “hot virgin.” And sure, for those particular males the term “slut” is a pejorative. To them, “virgin” is good, “slut” is bad.
Even so, I don’t think the attitude exists across the board. I don’t think that most males consider sluts to be fine and dandy only up to the point when they sleep with them, and then consider them revolting. I think most males consider the so-called slut to be a battle easily won, but even after the battle’s won they won’t consider her to be a bad or lowly person, because they now know they can come back to her again at another time. It’s the benefit of familiarity.
Guys in general are interested in sluts because to them finding someone who will satisfy them is a very, very tough enterprise indeed. Males know more sexual rejection than females, from what I’ve experienced and observed. Therefore they’re very happy when they find someone who’s not rejecting them AND who’s consenting with no strings attached - the basic profile of the slut, as far as I can tell.
So what is the “attached string” for a woman who goes to bed with a guy after the second second or third date? Because unless he’s promised her something implictly or explicitly she’s a “slut” too, under your definition.
I don’t consider companionship in and of itself to be an attached string, as in the instance of the woman going to bed with a guy after the second or third date.
I think you may be misunderstanding me. I am not saying someone who offers no strings attached is an automatic slut. That’s not the case. To me, a slut is someone who does so often and with as many different people as possible, with no concern - explicit or implicit - for a long-term relationship.
A woman going to bed with a man after the third date doesn’t qualify as a slut in any sense of the word, IMO. In fact, at Date 3 there are still no strings attached, because it’s usually too early in the relationship for either party to have formulate long-term plans with the other person.
The reason I won’t call someone a slut for sleeping with a married man, cheating on her husband, is that slut puts an extra judgement on the woman that will never be there for the man and that is a totally sensless fact of life. I see people trying to be fair by calling men sluts but it doesn’t work. No man will ever be hurt by that word the way a woman would be. It’s like trying to even out a racial slur with another racial slur. It doesn’t even things out in any way.
If I were in a position to judge someone, like if I were close to them and knew the whole story, I might use words like disloyal, unethical, mean, irresponsible. Sure there are things a woman can do with sex that aren’t right but that’s not because she is a woman. Men can hurt people with sex just as badly and they do.
As for so-called slutty behaviours that only hurt the woman doing them, it’s hard to judge what’s self destructive for someone else but if I feel the need to do it, it’s not going to be with a word like slut. How would anyone know what I meant by it!?
When people are growing up, sometimes they call each other names like slut because they don’t know how to articulate their values and bond with their peers by sharing their ideas about acceptable conduct and finding consensus. They can sit around calling other people names and it’s a crude way to bond. I really don’t like it when adults do that. If you have a problem with someone’s behaviour, come out and say what it is that you don’t like and admit to the part of it that is your perception. “I don’t like Jane much because she stops talking to me every time a man walks in the room,” is something I can handle. “Jane is a slut, am I right?” makes me feel like one of the more evil people in grade 8. Jane doesn’t act like us, therefore she is not human. We can guess at all her motives, we don’t even need to say what it is we don’t like, we are of hive-mind. Maybe what they’re really saying is that they believe women should be held to a different standard of behaviour than men and that they think double standards when it comes to sex are fair and great! I have no way of knowing.
I am also a former slut and I agree with a lot of what calm kiwi said. Basically I think that once a married (or otherwise spoken for) guy makes the decision to try to sleep with another woman he’s already betrayed his SO; if I choose not to let him do so with me, that won’t repair the flaws in their relationship. Think about it Dopers - would you really be more forgiving of an SO if they tried to cheat on you but were knocked back, than you would be if they’d succeeded?
There was one time when I slept with a guy who I knew had fancied me for a while but, because of his relationship, had had no intention of doing anything about it. (I had been told this by his flatmate, one of my best friends, several times.) Until one night we ended up alone together after consuming too much alcohol. That one, I felt really guilty about, because I knew he felt really guilty about it. But he was the exception.
But when you sell someone a ham sandwich, you are not knowingly helping them betray anyone but themself, and their religious beliefs. There is no betrayed spouse in such a scenario.
But if kiwi knows that whether or not she thinks it’s a stupid promise, that the betrayed spouse will be very hurt, why would she (kiwi) do it anyway? Why get involved in all that mess, when there are plenty of single men who don’t carry around such extra baggage?
Besides, whether or not kiwi thinks it is helping the husband betray his wife (and I can’t imagine that it is anything but that) it still doesn’t prevent some of the rest of us from viewing it that way, and judging such behavior accordingly.
I’d think he was a bum. But I’d also respect the woman who knocked him back. And I’d feel contempt for any woman who helped him along. His actions are judged, and so are her’s. Just because he’s a bum and a jerk doesn’t mean that she (whoever she is) has to help him.
I also think that sometimes, even if you think someone else’s morals or standards are stupid, the wise thing to do is to back off. Just because you think they are stupid reasons does not mean that they are not very real and very profound for the other person. To willfully do something that will cause someone else pain (whether or not you think it’s a “silly” reason or not) is not exactly admirable in my book. Especially when you have a choice–there are plenty of other fish in the sea–plenty of single guys out there that would be happy to have a little fling. So why mess with the one with the “silly” contract? Why help contribute to someone else’s very real pain? Let the responsibility for that pain be on someone else’s head.
I just skimmed the thread–I would have to say that it’s a judgment call depending on the situation. However, I think that if there was a substantial chance that one of the innocent parties was at risk for an STD because of their partner’s unfaithfulness, I’d blow the whistle.
By the way, why do you ask me what I think? Being a bystander and watching two other people do something is not the same thing as actively participating in it yourself.
No, but if you’re allowing someone to get away with cheating (by ignoring it rather than blowing the whistle on them), you’re still helping the cheater along and contributing to someone else’s pain, aren’t you?
Well, if you want to split hairs, if you don’t give every homeless person a bed to sleep in, you are contributing to their pain, aren’t you? They are sleeping outside, and you could have helped them out, but you didn’t.
How many steps removed from the actual act do you want to go?
Actively doing something yourself isn’t quite the same as maybe, kinda, sort, not for sure, but maybe for sure, knowing that two other people are doing something, now is it? In the first case, you know what you have done, because you were there and you did it. In the case of other people–how much do you really know about what they are doing? That’s what that discussion on that thread is about. This thread has morphed into what you (the collective “you,” not you, ruadh) have personally chosen, or not chosen to do. There’s a difference.
See, the thing is that you see the sex as the “actual act”. I see the attempt to get sex as the actual act. When the person who is in a committed relationship initiates or attempts to initiate sex with another person, that’s the betrayal. If I respond positively to that initiation, I’m still a step away from it.
Well, no, not really–unless trying to do something and doing something are the same thing, which they are not.
Trying to do something doesn’t get you pregnant. Trying to do something doesn’t spread an STD. And that’s just for starters.
Being tempted to do something, hoping to do something, trying to do something is not the same as doing something. If that were the case, then a lot more people would be in jail for crimes that they started to try to do, but didn’t follow through with (for whatever reason).
It’s quite simple: you make a choice to have (or not have) sex with a married man. When you choose not to have sex with a married man, you are 100% guaranteed to: Not contribute to hurting his wife or helping him “betray” his wife with an actual sex act. There is zero, zero percent chance that you will be helping him do this if you don’t have sex with him. But if you go ahead and do it anyway, no matter how you may feel you are “distanced” from the situation (because he made the advance, and he’s gonna do it anyway) it will probably not lessen his wife’s hurt when she discovers that he made an advance and succeeded in having sex with someone else. Oh sure, he might have done it anyway, but he doesn’t have to do it with you.
So if you (the collective “you”) make that choice to have sex with him anyway, you do it with the knowledge that the wife very well might be hurt. That’s the choice you make. He made the choice to make the advance–you made the choice to take him up on it.
Also, when you (the collective “you”) make that choice, no matter how “distanced” you feel from the hurt the wife feels, it will not change the low opinion that many others (including me) will have about your choice. That’s the bottom line.
The difference in this type of situation is IMHO inconsequential. If I learn that a friend tried (but failed) to steal from me, he will become just as much an ex-friend as if he’d succeeded. Wouldn’t you say the same?
Last I checked, attempted murder was still a crime.
All of this also applies to the relationship I once had with a newly-single guy whose ex-girlfriend was known to still be carrying a major torch for him. She was visibly hurt when she saw us together - should I not have proceeded on that basis?
Well, that may be the bottom line for you (the collective “you” ) … the bottom line for me is obviously rather different.
) … the bottom line for me is obviously rather different.