What is slut shaming?
Before I get into this topic, I first want to define the term. Slut shaming is a social stigma applied to people (primarily women) who have a lot of sex or are thought to do so. They don't really even have an active sex life, but as long as they 'look' like they do then they can be subject to it as well. Policing how many sexual partners someone show have or how to wear clothes so not to look "trampy" or "whorish" is a the most common form of slut shaming.
Why is this a problem?
The notion that women have to dress and act a certain way is controlling and problematic as it says that a woman is only worthy when they are decently covered and with a 'reasonable' amount of sexual partners. What a woman does in her spare time has little, if not nothing, to do with her as a person in general and shouldn't be a reason to treat her with little respect. Not to mention that this stereotype is rarely attached to men who, more often than not, are expected to engage in promiscuous activities (that's another problem for another article , though). But's what's wrong with having a lot of sex? As long, as I'm being safe having fun, who am I hurting? You? No. Me? If I didn't want to have sex I wouldn't have it. Women can be sexual beings if we want to. (We wouldn't have a G-spot if we couldn't)
The stigma of slut shaming can also hurt women who have no control over they way their bodies have developed( i.e. big breasts, large hips, big butt). This is telling them that no matter how many sexual encounters you do or don't have, as long as you look like a slut, you must be one. This goes along with the policing of women's clothing as well. Certain clothes and they way they fit on a woman's body can and probably will get them some attention, wanted or unwanted. But since they have chosen to dress that way then it's (wrongfully) thought that the attention that they got must have been wanted. Why would you dress like that if you DIDN'T want people to catcall and sexually harass you?
With that thought, slut shaming can easily turn into victim blaming. Which is the acting of devaluing someone by saying, that the bad thing that happened to them was their vault. In this case it would be rape or sexual assault. Apparently since, the woman, was dressed a certain way or was known to have a lot of sex, then she was inviting the assault to happen. That's not true because as long as she doesn't explicitly tell them that she wants that specific type of attention then its always safe to assume that she doesn't want it. Just because she's a "slut" or whatever, doesn't mean she doesn't have the right to say no when she doesn't want it. And, anyway, with those types of crime it doesn't matter what you are wearing, if they want to assault you and have a chance to, then they will. But when you have this type of social stigma flying around women that has been ingrained in people's heads, it's hard for victims of rape and sexual assault to be taken serious when reporting the crime. They're just subjected to more ridicule and it makes it hard for future crimes to be reported and solved. Instead of shaming people for getting raped, we should shame the person that's doing the raping. Also, instead of shaming people for having sex or looking "too sexy", we should mind our own business and let them be.
