Sunday Candy #1: Why I Use the Term “Sex Shaming” Instead of “Slut-Shaming” (from Patreon|thotscholar)
I first saw the term sex shaming on Facebook in a Black feminist group a few years ago. It immediately caught my eye. I commented this to the person who typed it, and they told me it was their preferred way of describing this issue. Their reasons were slightly different than mine, but they made sense. Since that day I have gradually eased “slut-shaming” out of my vocabulary. Here’s why:
Slut is a racialized (and classed, and gendered) term.
Yup, that’s right. Just like “hoe,” “jezebel,” “cock,” and “thot,” slut is a racialized term. Slut-shaming was coined by a white feminist, which makes total sense because slut refers to a certain kind of white girl. This is why it’s so strange that so many white (and nonblack) women are rushing to (re)claim terms that never applied to them, specifically “hoe” and “heaux.” Strange but not surprising, since Black culture is “for everybody.” Slut being a racialized term is not something that is widely discussed in the sex worker ‘community’ though, and that’s because whiteness/white is the default in Western American culture. Because white is the default, white sex workers and women likely don’t feel the need to interrogate racialization on the same level that Black and Brown sex workers have and do. However white people feel a level of ownership of just about everything and that leads them to believe that they can (re)claim terms that never applied to them.
Because slut is both a classed and racialized term, the term “slut-shaming” is also classed and racialized. Sex shaming presents us with a more accurate and widely-applicable term. Sex is what we are being shamed for. Sexuality is what is being controlled, for all genders. Rather than individualizing, and even gendering (tbh), this practice of prohibiting and demonizing certain sexual expressions and identities, sex shaming is a race- and gender-neutral term that can be used to describe anything from expressing anti-sex worker sentiments to believing in the existence of “fast girls.” This isn’t to say that there’s never a situation in which the terms “slut-shaming” or “hoe shaming” are applicable. However, I find sex shaming to be the most accurate term for the issues we are facing.
