Slut-shaming is the practice of criticizing individuals, particularly but not exclusively women and girls, who violate expectations of behavior and appearance regarding issues related to sexuality. It may also be used in reference to gay men, who may face disapproval for promiscuous sexual behaviors. Gender-based violence primarily affecting women can be a result of slut-shaming. The term gained widespread prominence through the SlutWalk movement as a means of reclaiming the word slut and empowering women to have agency over their sexuality. Examples of slut-shaming include criticism or punishment for: violating dress code policies by dressing in sexually provocative ways; requesting access to birth control; having premarital, extramarital, casual, or promiscuous sex; or engaging in prostitution or other sex work. It can also include being victim-blamed for being raped or otherwise sexually assaulted.
Definitions and characteristics Slut-shaming involves criticizing women for their transgression of accepted codes of sexual conduct, i.e., admonishing them for behavior, attire or desires that are more sexual than society finds acceptable. Author Jessalynn Keller stated, "The phrase [slut-shaming] became popularized alongside the SlutWalk marches and functions similarly to the 'War on Women,' producing affective connections while additionally working to reclaim the word 'slut' as a source of power and agency for girls and women." Slut-shaming may be practiced by men and women. One study found women slut-shamed more than men. Women who slut-shame other women continuously apply unfavorable sexual double standards. The term is also used to describe victim blaming for rape and other sexual assault. This blaming is done by stating the crime was caused (either in part or in full) by the woman wearing revealing clothing or acting in a sexually provocative manner, before refusing consent to sex, thereby absolving the perpetrator of guilt. Sexually permissive individuals can be at risk of social isolation. The action of slut-shaming can be a form of social punishment, sexism, and female intrasexual competition for social status. Slut-shaming is a form of intrasexual competition because the term "slut" reduces the value of a woman. Being termed a "slut" is against a woman's gender roles. Women violating gendered dating norms have been shamed as desperate. Kennair, et al., (2023) found no signs of a sexual double standard in short-term or long-term mating contexts, nor in choosing friends, except that, contrary to expectations, women's self-stimulation was more acceptable than men's. Researchers from Cornell University found that sentiments similar to slut-shaming appeared in a nonsexual, same-sex friendship context as well. The researchers had college women read a vignette describing an imaginary female peer, "Joan", then rate their feelings about her personality. To one group of women, Joan was described as having two lifetime sexual partners; to another group, she had had 20 partners. The study found that women—even women who were more promiscuous themselves—rated the Joan with 20 partners as "less competent, emotionally stable, warm, and dominant" than the Joan with two.
History There is no documented date of origin for the term slut-shaming; nor the act of it. Rather, although the act of slut-shaming has existed for centuries, discussion of it has grown out of social and cultural relations and the trespassing of boundaries of what is considered normative and acceptable behavior. While the origin is unknown, by the late 2000s, the term was popular enough to merit usage in newspaper articles. American writer Katha Pollitt, in an article published in March 2008, used the term the following way: “the abstinence only, father-knows-best, slut-shaming crabbed misogyny of the Republican right.” Before the late 2000s, the term “slutty” was sometimes used to refer to behavior considered to be unacceptable such as the 2000s trend of showing off one’s thong underwear to create a whale tail. In 2005, Suzy Menkes, a veteran journalist covering the fashion industry, considered the act of revealing thongs above one's clothing to be “slutty chic” and hoped that the act would lose popularity. Literary characters who were punished for their sexual choices include Ophelia of Hamlet (c. 1600); Little Em'ly of David Copperfield (1850); Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter (1850); Madame Bovary (1856); Anna Karenina (1878); Daisy Miller (1878); Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891); Lily Bart of House of Mirth (1905); and Charity Royall in Summer (1917). In 1892, Canadian writer E. Pauline Johnson criticized the 1887 novel An Algonquin Maiden for killing its protagonist and having male characters posthumously label her a "squaw," a racial and sexual slur that displayed "glaring accusations against her virtue," which Johnson felt was undeserved. Beginning in the 1960s, second-wave feminism contributed significantly to the definition and act of slut-shaming. Tracing back to the Industrial Revolution and the Second World War, men made up a majority of the labor force while women were socialized and taught to embrace the cult of domesticity and homemaking. Author Emily Poole argues that the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s increased the rate of both birth control use and premarital sex. Moreover, feminist writers during the 1960s and 1970s such as Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and Kate Millett encouraged women to be more open about their sexuality in public settings. Slut-shaming has correlation to an individual's socio-economic status, which is characterized by wealth, education, and occupation. In the 18th century, "slut" was a common term used by men and upper-class women to degrade lower-class female servants. The context behind upper-class women and men calling their servants a "slut" includes when the servants were being sexually assaulted by their male employers.
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