Up Front: That's Inappropriate!
368 Responses
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Ahh... my first year was 1992, so I didn't know the origional context of the term. Ta for that. Thanks for explaining it properly.
And I just wasn't making assumptions.
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Coincidentally I walked past this movie poster on my way home from work. Possibly relevant, although we can't see the length of her skirt.
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"Slut" is a word that has changed both emphasis & meaning - orig. "a dirty slovenly woman" (14thc) unto slut 'loose woman, hussy' 15thc.)"Greasy Joan" was, in one sense, a kitchen slut because she worked with dirty materials (thanks Will S!)
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Robert Urquhart, in reply to
Tour de First Year is a KAOS award – part of the jokey End of Year Awards. I’ve no idea if it’s still given, but I do know its origin.
Nope, it's one of those occasional historical mentions now. The gender mix is rather more even as well. (And thanks for the tip on its ultimate origin [adds to collection of lore].)
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Tess, it’s quaint how you think it’s a school’s job to socially reproduce *your* particular religious conception of sexuality and morality. Thankfully it’s a dying one and we have a secular public education system.
Education about sexuality must encompass more than diseases. Helping equip young people to make good decisions and enjoy themselves needs to transcend religious strictures or intellectual discomfort, so no one is left out. There’s a fair bit of diversity in our country now. Or you can always put your children in a private church school if you insist on keeping them in the dark or throttling their human urges.
I see no evidence in what you say here that you’re applying any attention at all to men, only young women. I have no intention of continuing to discuss this topic within your old-fashioned framing with concepts like ‘promiscuity’ being the province only of women – if I wanted that I’d go to a church. Perhaps one infused with guilt and whose ideas about what makes a good relationship are decreed by supposedly celibate old men with a historical inability to keep their mitts off the altarboys.
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Or you can put your children in a private church school if you insist on keeping them in the dark or throttling their human urges.
Yes, because that works. Ahem.
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Emma Hart, in reply to
(And thanks for the tip on its ultimate origin [adds to collection of lore].)
Looking back here (he's the one in the chair) I may be wrong about the year, it might have been 1988. But... I don't think it was. It was still fresh enough for plenty of people to want to tell me about it when I started going out with him.
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"decreed by supposedly celibate old men with a historical inability to keep their mitts off the altarboys."
BLAM! Priestly scandal!! I knew it, I just knew it :) LOL.
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Sacha, in reply to
Yes, because that works. Ahem.
It brings them closer to the fold where they can benefit from the wisdom and.. love of religious elders
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Sacha, in reply to
BLAM! Priestly scandal!! I knew it, I just knew it
You bring the Catholic slut-shaming and guilt, Tess, what do you really expect?
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My mum used the slut word on me when I was 16 (or was it 17) and I'm pretty sure she was referring to my lazing around the house, not doing homework, and general lack of tidying up after myself, and not my (non existent at the time) promiscuity.
I'm with Jackie,, 18 years of marvelous monogamous marriage has followed several years of busy promiscuity, which followed five years of faithful teenage coupledom.
I've worn short skirts, and low necklines, and tight clothing ever since I got a clothing allowance when I was 13 (over 30 years ago) and then realised I had legs and boobs worth showing. Age and wobblyness has given me some thought but get me back in the pool and my legs shaped up (down) and the short skirts will be back (especially the ones that go with those lovely long black boots with the buttons up the side and a neat little heel, or the equally lovely red ones with tassels).
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This is may favorite photo :)
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" what do you really expect?"
No I totally expected it. I even said so earlier in the thread.
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I don't recall seeing anyone else posting this in this thread, so why not.
Avenue D, "Do I look like a slut?"
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B Jones, in reply to
I walked past this movie poster
I've been seeing that from the bus and quietly fuming at its implications (no idea whether the movie lives down to my expectations or not). It kind of primed the motor of outrage that got started up by the Newlands thing.
One of the things that gets me about the whole business is that I had, especially at school, a sort of slut-resistant coating. I don't think I've ever been called one, even in my black anklezip jeans phase. It was partly luck and discretion, but mainly a total goody two shoes swot persona. It's the persona, not the behaviour, that people are judged on. Being cocky, obstreperous, a bit working class and female fits so closely to the slut persona that what you actually get up to with the opposite sex is barely relevant.
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Sacha, in reply to
It often seems pure social control of stroppy women, yes.
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
Yes, B. That is exactly it. Because no-one can ever imagine you being a bit naughty, you just aren't. Ha! Mind you, I've been smoking for 25 years, and there are still people who are surprised when I light up.
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Tess, I think one of the things that's getting on my tits about your whole argument is that having been a bit generous with your bounty, as it were, at university (well, that's the impression I have gotten from what you have said about it), you are now saying that we should curb teenage sexuality (which by the way, as others have said, repeatedly, is a very long way from a bit of a short skirt). I'm afraid it just doesn't wash. You cannot expect to be taken seriously with your pronouncements around young women and sexuality when you were once the very sort of person you are having a go at. It's like reformed smokers. It also sounds to me like you have regret around your first sexual experiences. Those are your experiences, not anyone else's. And I don't think it's fair to judge others by standards that may have been acquired by you in the last couple of decades.
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One of the remanants of 'slut' actually meaning dirty or disordered is the phrase 'slut wool' or 'slut fluff' - the fluffy grey stuff that can accumulate under beds, in darker corners....anyone wanna bale 'a the stuff?
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Jacqui Dunn, in reply to
Ooh, Jackie, I take it you were asking me that question: no, absolutely not. And from what I remember of Marsden, it wasn’t a Catholic college. I was a St Mary’s Hill St student.
EDIT: You'll never remember the question from that long ago. Sorry, I've been away for a few seconds, and while I was, one hundred and ninety odd comments seem to have been added. Anyway, Jackie, what is scary about my possibly being a Marsden girl, or is this a case of mistaken identity?
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"You cannot expect to be taken seriously with your pronouncements around young women and sexuality when you were once the very sort of person you are having a go at."
I had boyfriends yes, but I didn't do one night stands, I was always emotionally involved in the men I slept with. I doubt people would take me _more_ seriously if I had been all pure and innocent when I was younger. Basically we're at an impasse as to how we see sexual morality for a variety of reasons and I doubt they will be overcome.
What we can agree on is that girls (or boys, although it seems to be a female word) shouldn't ever be called sluts, no matter their sexual habits. And that teachers have to be professional. We also agree that no one is responsible for rape or sexual assault except the rapist.
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Pete,
Jacki C with the smackdown!
Pwned
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What gets on my tits about Tess's arguments is that they are dishonest. They are couched in terms of concerns, but they turn out to be about pushing her own brand of morality. When people don't buy them, she tries questioning people, demanding explanations for things that they have neither said nor implied. She refuses to admit that they are not her own arguments at all, but simply a rehash of the tired misogyny of her church.
As it turns out, Tess, plenty of us think that an institution that thinks that its perfectly okay for priests to rape children, as long as they don't get caught, is not an institution that speaks with any authority when it comes to sexual morality. That's not an attack, unless you think that it is wrong to hold the Catholic church responsible for its concerted efforts to conceal the crimes of its employees.
WE are not at an impasse at all when it comes to sexual morality. You are. The great majority of people here have no interest in slut shaming women and girls for being sexual beings, or for being interested in sex. YOU are the person who wants to do this. Oh yes, you couch it in terms of concern, of wanting to talk about the sexual signals that girls send. But behind the pretty words, it's just plain old slut shaming. The dishonesty in the way you put your arguments is staggering.
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Deborah, that is a lot of bile your putting on one person who just doesn't deserve it.
Tess holds more conservative views than most here & her greatest sin seems to be being overly familiar with the inner workings of KAOS.
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
Tess holds more conservative views than most here & her greatest sin seems to be being overly familiar with the inner workings of KAOS.
I think Deborah's expressing some understandable frustration at having gone round the merry-go-round several times with the same tactics on display.
We've gone nine pages here and Tess's argument still boils down to "short skirts lead to sex, teenagers having sex is bad, therefore short skirts are bad" without any actual attempt to prove either of the first two assertions, though a nice side-order of "and I had sex as a teenager and I regret it, so everyone else will, too!". It still comes down, in the end, to a wish to judge women on their sexual behaviour, and an assumption that their dress says something about that behaviour: but this is labeled "concern". Hence the frustration.
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