Just a short article I wrote just now, hope you guys find it readable :)

I've been thinking about this lately so bear with me. I'm not exactly a feminist but a gender abolitionist which means I tend to sympathize with both MRA and feminism but overall believe that if we got rid of gender (roles and the complex mythology culture creates around our genitals, which we're then not so gently encouraged to live up to least we want to be seen as "freaks") that would solve most of the problems that plague both sides. For example, society ignores the existence of female abusers because it's invested in the idea that women are "natural caretakers" or biologically more empathic than men (not true, btw).

Before the whole pandemic disaster, I was thinking about grad school and had come up with some research topics. I'm a huge fan of the Sapir-Whorf theory, which says that the language and words we use day to day have an impact on our mental associations and as a result, on our worldview, so I thought I'd go with something language-related.

My first language is not English and it's very gendered. That's bad enough for someone who'd rather ignore gender altogether. But it gets worse. In Spanish, there are at least ten ways to insult a promiscuous woman. And guess what happens when you try to switch genders for these words? You end up insulting homosexual (effeminate) men! Here are two examples:

Puta (F, female whore) ---> Puto (M, gay man).

Trola (F, female slut) ---> Trolo (M, gay man).

I hadn't noticed this growing up but I felt like I was onto something. I mean, we all know there's a huge double standard when it comes to sexuality where young men are often ridiculed for not being experienced enough (in the past, it was common for teenage boys to be taken to sex workers so that they could have their first experience) while girls are warned to experiment as little as possible lest they become known as "sluts" and their reputation is doomed. Even though English is not as gendered a language and I have heard of guys be referred to as sluts, it's always been tongue in cheek and sardonic. It doesn't carry the same weight as it is not taboo for dudes to like sex (it's considered normal, as should be).

Your genitals, then, determine your ability to become a slut, or at least to be stigmatized over it. This is a very gender-specific insult. So I started thinking about how this term is used, is it always toward ladies who are objectively very promiscuous, or is it more of a word that you throw at whatever woman you're angry at in order to bring her down a peg?

I spend a lot of time doing internet searches and taking notes about where and when the term comes up the most. Then I did the same with "whore" and "thot" (the latter is so in vogue right now LoL) and what I found confirmed what I pretty much already thought, that people mostly use this insult in order to dismiss someone they're pissed at, regardless of sexual history. Even sadder was the realization that a lot of the time, the word wasn't even used in anger. It's used in casual conversation between (some) young men as a synonym of "hot girl" or "random female." This used was the most troubling to me because its purpose is to draw a dividing line between ourselves and another, lower status, group; one that we can look down our nose at while using a slur to refer to them collectively. This is a Brahman grimacing at a Dalit because the Dalit's shadow came somewhat close to his foot (some consider a Dalit's shadow to be polluting). This is caste... or the mentality of caste which is characterized by a rigid hierarchy that can never be overcome. Sex cannot be overcome, as can't color.

And what other word is used mostly to put a member of another group, a lower status group, in their place? Or to put the group collectively in its place? What other word can be used not just out of anger but also in casual conversation (thankfully it's used much less now than decades ago, but think 1950's) to signal that an individual is just not on our level... the infamous n-word.

It doesn't just get its offensiveness from a very obvious dehumanizing intent but also from a history of systematic exploitation and years of de-jure discrimination. When you say it, you're reviving a past where there were people ... and then there were the n-words.

Slut, whore, thot and their many synonyms are not so different. They're there to remind us that there are people, people who by virtue of their status as living organisms are enriched by their experiences, sexual or otherwise, and then there's property --just like black folks, women were all but considered property by governments in a not so distant past-- and unlike living things, property drops in value the more it's handled. This is why we see sellers describe their goods as "never opened" and "in sealed package" or even "single-owner."

Slut, whore, and thot remind us that ladies are still treated as if they were merchandise. This is why red-pill and red-pill-minded youth will unironically talk about having effed dozens of sluts without ever worrying about becoming one themselves. Similar to the n-word, these words take us back to a time when female-bodied people were passed from fathers to husbands, were not full citizens and were appraised by the very same criteria we appraise our purchases today: sexiness, usefulness and lack of prior handling.

Just like the n-word, these words represent dehumanization.