"slut" the endearment formerly known as "bff"

A while back, I ran a health seminar for a group of high school girls. Before we started I handed out a sheet with questions like: What do you want to get out of this program?  Are there any issues you think we should talk about?  What is one thing you really like about your group of friends and one thing you find challenging about them?

I asked the girls to answer the questions anonymously and then to give them to me when they were done. When I got the papers back, I kept on seeing the same thing. Girl after girl had written that something she didn't like was how everyone called each other skank, slut and ho.

"Wow,” I said to the group after glancing over the sheets. “It seems like there's a lot of name calling going on.”

"What are you talking about?” I heard from an obvious Alpha sitting front and center.

"Well," I told her, “A lot of people seem to be uncomfortable being called things like 'slut' by other girls.”

"Whatever,” Alpha told me. “We're just joking around when we say that. No one cares about it! Right Madison? Jenny? You guys don't care.”

And then, of course, Madison and Jenny and the twenty other girls in the room agreed, nope, they didn't care.

This was odd because well over half had cared a lot when they could do so anonymously.

Once everyone in the room was on the same page,  Alpha said to me with a combination of pity and disdain, “I just don't think you really get it, how we are with each other.”

No, I didn't totally get it. Who can fully understand the interactions of a social circle they aren't a part of? But what I did get was that a lot of girls were clearly feeling bad but pretending they weren't.

I know a lot of girls say calling each other these names isn't anything more than an inside joke--something they say to friends--and that they don't mean anything by it.

I'm sure that's true for some people. But do you think that can also just be an excuse to use language that puts other people down? And what about the girls who don't think it's fun to get called a skanky ho-ing slutbag? Why aren't they speaking up?  Are they worried about people thinking they're uptight if they complain?  Do they think going along with it makes it seem like they don't care what other people think of them?  Are they just insecure?

What do you think? Let me know!

Photo provided by orin optiglot

Comments

[krissy]

personally, i think it depends on your relationship with the person. cuz like with my closest friends we tease eachother and if we say something particularly mean (as a joke, && we can always tell whats a joke && whats not) well call eachother bitches. && when one of us does something kind of sexual well call each other a slut/ho. but i would never ever do that to a person i dont know well. cuz if you dont know someone well, then you dont know what offends them and you dont wanna say the wrong thing around someone you barely know

[Angie]

Between me and a few close friends we have used the term once or twice e.g "you lucky b*tch!", but it's always lighthearted, and we don't make a habit of it.

[musns]

I substitute teach in HS/MS and found this telling.

That more than 1/2 the room anonymously said they didn't like it but everyone agreed with the alpha that it wasn't a big deal.

Bet you more than 1/2 of them cry in bed at night about it too.

When I was in HS I wouldn't have handled that well (early 80's), these days I have two friends who can get away with calling me a bitch, whore or slut. Usually the bitch is a jealousy comment (my best friend got a new kitchen and I told her she was a bitch and I was jealous), another friend whom I was sharing some of my sexual antics with called me a dirty lil whore - it was intended as a compliment and I accepted it as such.

[desiray]

i say "slut" all the time.
i don't have a problem if someone says it back to me.
I've had a few people tell me they dont like it so i stopped.
i'm not going to change my whole vernacular though.

[Wendy Blackheart]

I think it's yet another way high school and middle school girls have found to subtly bully each other.

However, I do have friend with whom I've talked in that way. When I was younger, it was all in good fun. Even now, it tends to be affectionate, in the same way it is affectionate for my best friend and I to rag on each other lightly.

However, there are the few 'friends' here and there who I know sort of mean it when they joking me call me a slut. I mean, I kind of am, and we all know it, but there are times there is more to than a joke, and they really are judging me.

However, I'm old enough to just not talk to those people any more, and deal with it. High school girls generally don't have that sort of back bone yet, and I think it can really hurt if there's heat behind the words.

[Dori]

The human race in general calls each other names all the time. For instance, my friends call me, ho, slut, etc...and i return it bak. But all this name calling is to an extent.If the name-calling is persistent, then they're is sumthin wrong. People of the same ethnicity are throwin racial slurs back and forth, but if a person from another racial group were to say the same thing, it would be looked at completely different. it's just who we are.

[M]

My best friend calls me 'bitch' all the time, it was funny at first but now it's just irritating. I'm petrified of saying so though because she seems to think it's some kind of 'cute' nickname for me. Even worse I can't say anything because she's going through a real rough time. It's cowardly but true, I'm afraid of saying anything in case I loose her as a friend.

[Mads]

This became an issue with my first roommates. We were all mature young ladies, beyond the age of high school, but teasing and name calling in this light-hearted silly way drove one of the girls to tears on my shoulders, so afraid that the other women actually viewed her that way. Jokes hurt when you show no respect to the person you are teasing. In this particularly case, maybe she really was a slut, and it hurt her to acknowledge her slutty behavior and she was questioning her motives and values and if she should change her behavior. Goes to show how joking can backfire and actually bring a painful reality to your face to deal with. In the end she accepted her sexual appitite and decided not to judge herself negatively for seeking pleasure. Friends can have their opinions. If they don't love you unconditionally, they're not you're true friends. Be true to you. Say yes! I am a slut. That doesn't mean I disrespect myself!!

[ghettob1990]

Look it aint right to be calling people that shit, because tyhey maybe all cool with it in your face but really they don't like being called that at all. believe me i know i just sat there and listened to my friends calling me that type of shit and ignoreed them as much as i could and in my head i was just thinking that maybe they really thought that about me you never know and shit. well yeah thats what i think.....

[Aura]

It depends on my relationship with the individual. I have two friends who are very close to me, and I don't mind if they call me that. Even then, we rarely use those terms, and it's almost always when we're being ridiculously silly with each other. However, if anybody besides those two were to call me any of those terms, I would be very uncomfortable and wouldn't approve of it at all.

What shocks me the most was the tone I felt coming from the "Alpha"'s words. She seemed extremely disrespectful to you and appeared to scare the other girls into agreeing with her statements. Unless my assumption about her behavior is incorrect, the way she said her opinion was unacceptable.

As for the question about why girls who don't like being called "slut" or "ho" aren't speaking up, I think it's because they don't want to appear uptight, like you said. Some might be afraid that doing so will make others view them as "lame" and that they'll be rejected from that social group. They might think that putting up with the name-calling is worth it if they can hang out with certain individuals.

[dev]

now i agree with a few things said, yea sometimes its all good natured fun and i myself only say crap like that to good friends guys and girls alike. but i do think that all these girls should stop complaining that their friends and guys call them sluts, whore w/e. seriously if ur not saying anything back to send the message that its not apprieciated then u damn well deserve to get your feelings hurt. and again, if u n ur friends r in a hall at school or work and ur friend calls u a slut then 2 days later a guy who over heard u calls u so in an insulting way then u deserve it . why because your being dumb, a coward and a push over.

[noe]

i hate being called "bitch". whenever someone does, as a joke, i make it very clear i don't like it.

[sketchyblondes]

Sometimes it really is just a joke. Maybe my friends are bothered by it, if they are they don't show it. Just using myself as an example. This weekend my track coach was joking with me about all the "debachery" I get into. She warned me "no one will buy the cow if you give the milt away for free." And today my friend programed "Katie (me) is a slut" to be written on my calculator everytime I do the quadratic formula. I find this hilarious.

Name calling is really not a big deal at my school. Maybe at other people's schools, but I'm not (and my friends don't seem to be) bothered by it at all.

[Rita]

I never thought of it that way. I mean, I call my best friend bitch and I called my ex-boyfriend when we were still dating idiot, asshole and stuff like that.

I never call those things to people I don't know well. I do it to my closest friends because to me it's like saying "you know that whatever I may be calling you, I mean exactly the opposite". I don't mind being called bitch or slut by my closest friends, either, but when someone who I don't have that much of intimicy calls me that, I get offended.

[Brooke]

I have a friend co-worker that calls us bitch or rhee rhee... but she does it to girls and guys alike as long as she likes them... it's actually more of an insult for her to call you by your actual name. She got mad at me once (for stupid gossip that was going around) and called me by my name instead of bitch or rhee rhee... I realized she was ticked off then... I think it just depends on the person who is using the names... I wouldn't want to be called slut or anything like that though... I can be a bitch and I know that but I'm definitely not a slut!

[Mandi]

There are six people at school now who refuse to call me anything but "whore". One of them used to be my best friend.

[Ayries]

To be fair, as you said some of it is just as a friendly injoke- my group of friends went through a stage of calling each other 'bitch' which was quite funny. But it's really sad when a person or two forces it on them so they have an excuse to make them feel bad.

[Elizabeth]

I think girls who call other girls names "in jest" do it to make other girls feel bad and to control them (kind of like abusive boyfriends). Girls who let other girls call them names even though they don't like it, probably do it so they don't get rejected from their group, because they'd be seen as wusses and uncool.