Slut is such a nasty word. In our view, "sluts" are just fun people who like sex and sometimes have a lot of it — but humanity has instead decided that they are evil monsters/easy targets for Satanic possession. Now, we've never believed the hype, and are firmly against slut-shaming of any kind. Science, however, thinks we still have a long way to go.
According to a study of the attitudes of 751 college students published in the
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
, women viewed other early-twenties women with more than 20 sexual partners as unsuitable for friendship. The same standard did not apply to men with the same number of partners, who were seen as having accomplished something positive. The results also suggested that men viewed these "slutty" women as unsuitable for long-term romantic partnerships.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
"The effect is that these women are really isolated," said the study's lead author, Zhana Vrangalova. If you're wondering about the methodology, students were asked to describe their own sexual behaviors and attitudes towards casual sex, then read two vignettes about a male or female, identical except for the difference in sexual partners (two or twenty). Across the board, women — regardless of their own self-described sexual behaviors — viewed the characters with 20 partners in a negative light when asked to rate them on ten "friendship attributes."
Well, shoot. There's not much to say here other than that, while this is not surprising, it sucks. The woman-on-woman hatred has got to stop, especially in a case like this when it's basically something that has been imposed on our gender for years by a patriarchal system which values women for marriage and nothing more. The only thing you can do stop it, really, is to check yourself. When you have a negative opinion about someone — "slutty" or not — think twice about your real reasons. As we all know, when you assume, you make an...oh, whatever. (Science Daily via Bullett Media)
Image: Via Bullett.