What Makes You a Slut

Oftener than not my need to feel superior

I’ve never been one for labels. Unless, they’re Prada, of course. But I mean labels from the sociological viewpoint. Part of the reason is my eternal confusion. I’m far too fickle to belong to any one ideology, to identify with any one particular group. But the word that has been bothering me most recently is that four-letter word that would raise the hackles of most women in my generation—slut.

A couple of days ago, I was called one. It wasn’t the first time, either. As usual, I brushed it off like the imaginary piece of lint I brush off his lapel every time a girl gets too close for my comfort—instinctively and without pausing to think about it. I was in a place I knew well, with people who knew me well. As soon as Whisky-breath sidled next to me in the unwelcome manner typical to all pervs, I saw a bouncer close in on us discreetly. The S-word had barely left his mouth, and the un-gentleman was already being escorted off the dance floor in a manner compliant with his behaviour. The partying resumed and eventually we staggered back home, well past Dhoble’s witching hour.

Later that night, as I waited for the dude to return from his boys’ night out, I couldn’t help thinking about the S-word. Invariably Google search led me to the
infamous Rush Limbaugh incident earlier this year. And a trip down memory lane brought back images of the various ‘sluts’ I’ve encountered. There were those so anointed because they wore fishnet stockings and a short skirt to the Sunday market, those who went partying on Friday night and had a problem with the hand creeping down their blouses and those who were buying condoms at the supermarket.

If that’s what being a slut is about, I have no problem being one. Because I will wear what I damn well want to; no one can keep me in on a Friday night, and you can bet my Capoeira ass on the fact that any wayward hand on my body runs a very real risk of ending up in a four- to six-week cast; and I remember the kinds and makes of condoms available in India better than the past 12 Presidents of this country. (In my defence, I only get the chronology wrong, not the names). Right from the strumpet who first put on pants and smoked a cigarette in public to Sandra Fluke who was called a slut in front of a stunned world for demanding that health insurance companies cover contraceptives, everyone can and will be a slut at some point. At varying points, as the media chronicles public political incorrectness, we’ve all been enraged. How could an upstanding law student presenting to the US Congress be called a slut on national television? The question in my mind is, if she’s not a slut, who is?

I think ‘slut’ is a weak person’s word. It’s our last form of self-defence. Every time we come across an idea that’s too radical to handle, or an ideology that challenges our own, we burrow within the deepest sewers of our psyche and come up with a variant of ‘slut’. A few weeks ago, I was going through his photography portfolio. All the women who were too hot for me to handle looked like sluts. Someone’s lipstick was too scarlet, somebody’s body language was too ‘hookerish’. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I do use the term loosely to make myself feel better. Every time I call someone a slut, the implication is she is one and I am not. So in some warped way, I must be better. We’ve all called some woman a slut at some point in time. Just so we can feel superior. How are we any different from Rush and all our CMs who want us to dress ‘properly’ and return home before men get drunk and horny? Or the drunkard who claims she was ‘asking for it’? In varying degrees, aren’t we all using the label to put to rest our own insecurities while shaming someone into thinking they are lesser people?

Right now, I hate the word ‘slut’. Because it’s turned women’s bodies into battlegrounds. The war starts in school itself. I remember we were in Class IX when a ‘slut’ emerged from within the ranks. She was the good girl gone bad: a 15-year-old with a 24-year-old boyfriend. In the two years leading up to the dreaded boards, she was the principal source of our entertainment and the butt of some very ribald jokes. Not one of us thought about reporting the very real danger of paedophilia that she was exposed to. We were too busy questioning and analysing her moral fibre. The battle hasn’t ended yet. It intensifies every time a woman is friends with her male boss. The battle is lost every time a worthless, talentless flunky thinks it is okay to snigger self-righteously behind their female boss’ back. At what point during our growing-up years did we decide that men are just men, but women are sluts?

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