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Slut-shaming is the practice of criticizing people who violate expectations of behavior and appearance regarding issues related to sexuality.[1][2][3] The term is commonly used to reclaim the word slut and empower women and girls to have agency over their own sexuality.[3] Gender-based violence can be a result of slut-shaming primarily affecting women.[4] It may also be used in reference to gay men, who may face disapproval for promiscuous sexual behaviors.[1][5] Slut-shaming rarely happens to heterosexual men.[1]
Examples of slut-shaming include criticism or punishment for: violating dress code policies by dressing in sexually provocative ways; requesting access to birth control;[6][7][8] having premarital, extramarital, casual, or promiscuous sex; or engaging in prostitution or other sex work.[9][10] It can also include being victim-blamed for being raped or otherwise sexually assaulted.[11][12]
As we explored in chapter 2, 'slut-shaming' is an umbrella term for all kinds of language and behaviors that are intended to make women and girls feel bad about being sexual.
The phrase [slut-shaming] became popularized alongside the SlutWalk marches and functions similarly to the 'War on Women,' producing affective connections while additionally working to reclaim the word 'slut' as a source of power and agency for girls and women.
In Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk About Sexuality (Harvard University Press, 2002), Deborah L. Tolman complained that we've 'desexualized girls' sexuality, substituting the desire for relationship and emotional connection for sexual feelings in their bodies.' Recognizing that fact, theorists have used the concept of desire as a way to undo the double standard that applauds a guy for his lust, calling him a player, and shames a girl for hers, calling her a slut.
Certainly the individualizing admonishment to 'think again' offers no sense of the broader legal and political environment in which sexting might occur, or any critique of a culture that requires young women to preserve their 'reputations' by avoiding overt demonstrations of sexual knowingness and desire. Further, by trading on the propensity of teenagers to feel embarrassment about their bodies and commingling it with the anxiety of mobiles being ever present, the ad becomes a potent mix of technology fear and body shame.
limbaugh
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).It encouraged women to be angry about whore stigma and slut-shaming for pursuing sexual pleasure or trading sex for money
asking
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Slut-shaming implies that victims of sex violence "asked for it" because they were sexually promiscuous or dressed provocatively.