posted
For the record, I (and everyone I know) can be put in the "uses-those-words-for-both-geneders" camp.
Posts: 3636 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
It's rather interesting that the biggest discussion is about WHICH pejoratives to apply to her, so as not to give offense to everyone else.
I was only vaguely aware of her sexual escapades before this thread. I don't follow celebrity news much, and really don't care about who is doing what with whom, usually. I just recall seeing interviews with her and thinking she was vacuous and mean.
Other than for reasons of her access to vast wealth, I was sort of puzzled to understand how she got anyone to pay attention to her.
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quote:Now, the one and only male term I could think of has a very effeminate sound to it. Gigolo. Three syllables. It is hard to imagine a macho gigolo.
Slut is a perfectly fine word to apply to a male. In fact, I saw it used that way while watching TV last night.
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quote:I was using it as describing someone who has an unhealthy attitude in general about dating, sex, and the relationship between the two. Vague, but that's pretty much how my understanding of the word (it's slang, right?) is.
I think skanky is much more specific than that. There are a hundred ways to be weird about sex, but they are not all interchangable. If the "skanky" has any meaning at all, it isn't interchangable with "repressed". For the behavior you described, if someone actually did it, I'd say it was tacky and disrespectful and manipulative, but not skanky.
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posted
When I think of "skanky" I think of "inappropriate." Sexual behavior or dress that simply isn't right for the situation.
Obviously it's a subjective term. There isn't an equivalent term for guys, it gets summarized with "jerk" or stronger.
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quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: I've heard "man whore" bandied about a lot lately, actually.
But often "man whore" is used for comedic effect (say, Deuce Bigalow). I can't think of a film which uses the calling of a woman a whore as one of its repeating gags.
Maybe I just haven't been watching the right movies (or, more to the point, maybe I have been!)
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posted
I've never seen a movie (that I can think of) that uses the word "whore" at all, man- or otherwise O_o
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posted
the first American Gigolo is actually funny and rather touching at the same time. I didn't see the 2nd installment, but I was actually quite impressed with the first one.
"Man-ho" is the word used most frequently in that one.
come to think of it, the full word "whore" probably not since Holy Grail have I heard it used. It was during the scene with all the raving "prophets" in the market. "And the whore of Babylon...something something, 9-bladed, not 6 or three, but 9!" Anyway, something like that.
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posted
Is there a difference between "ho" and "whore"? I always thought they were pretty much the same thing, just pronounced differently.
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quote:I've never seen a movie (that I can think of) that uses the word "whore" at all, man- or otherwise O_o
So when it's used on "Firefly", was I misunderstanding and this is a word I think I know which is being used wrong, like "conjure" and "shiny"?
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posted
Hey, I have an idea. Maybe we should stop judging people solely by the number of people they sleep with, male or female?
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Nope, I think they use whore in the strict meaning - as in "whore" = "prostitute".
But often when someone uses it as an insult, it's not because they person they are insulting is actually a prostitute.
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quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: Hey, I have an idea. Maybe we should stop judging people solely by the number of people they sleep with, male or female?
Sounds good to me. Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: Hey, I have an idea. Maybe we should stop judging people solely by the number of people they sleep with, male or female?
Now you're talkin' crazy talk!
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posted
I wonder why these words arise? It seems like they appear because a society has decided that sex is one of the private behaviors that affect it as a whole, and thus create a structure intended to proscribe what behavior is appropriate in that sphere.
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posted
That's a tenable theory, for sure. I'm also struck by how societies also seem to always have words to demarcate those of the lowest caste in the social system (whatever their proclivities may be): white trash, redneck, untouchable, n-----, and so forth. Similarly, there are always colorful names for sexually transmitted infections, but they often seemed to be attributed to other cultures: syphillis as the "French pox," the "Italian disease," the "Polish disease," etc.
I think we can learn a lot about ourselves and the societies we create by the commonalities in language amongst us. I'm pretty sure this reflects our common views on the Other as well as on sex. Fascinating stuff.
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posted
I've always found it interesting the way generic terms for woman become pejorative over time. Hussy, for example, started out in 1530 meaning "housewife", came to mean "woman or girl", settled into "a woman or girl who shows casual or improper behavior" by 1650, and had become completely degogatory by the 19th century.
I had thought that "slut" had a similar history, but it looks like I was wrong.
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quote:Originally posted by ssasse: [QB] Similarly, there are always colorful names for sexually transmitted infections, but they often seemed to be attributed to other cultures: syphillis as the "French pox," the "Italian disease," the "Polish disease," etc.
Things sexual or vulgar are often attributed to other cultures, I think. Non-disease examples would include "French letter" as a euphamism for a condom, and "French" as a general term for swear words in English.
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I had never heard of condoms referred as "French [blank]s" until I read The Thorn Birds a few months ago.
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posted
Hey, I have an idea. Maybe we should stop judging people solely by the number of people they sleep with, male or female?
No problem there. Sleep with none or a thousand, and I'll judge you not. It's how you go about your affairs that will trigger my judge hat. Did you treat all of your thousands honorably? Never lying, always considering the other person/people? Good on you, and fare well.
But Hilton acted selfishly, in my view, by involving herself with a married man (who acted even more selfishly himself). There may be good and fine reasons that an affair is justifiable, but I haven't heard that any of them applied here.
Numbers don't bother me. A lack of ethical behavior does.
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posted
"French letters" is definitely an antiquated term.
Apparently during WWI "French" was a verb meaning "to perform oral sex", which was something I wasn't aware of until a few minutes ago when I looked up the word "French" in the Online Etymological Dictionary. That site refers to that definition, along with "French kissing" and "French letter" as most likely stemming from "the Anglo-Saxon equation of Gallic culture and sexual sophistication".
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quote: But Hilton acted selfishly, in my view, by involving herself with a married man (who acted even more selfishly himself). There may be good and fine reasons that an affair is justifiable, but I haven't heard that any of them applied here.
Numbers don't bother me. A lack of ethical behavior does.
I kind of agree about the marriage bit. In any case, I definitely wasn't defending Hilton with my remark, though. Thought that was clear because it seemed like the conversation had moved past her. Pardon.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Well, it's interesting, but I have much less of a problem with Hilton having an affair with 'a married man' so much as Hilton having the character of, well, a spoiled, stupid... little girl. I recognize that I am basing this off of the media's representation of her, and very brief exposure to how the media represents her, at that, since I've never actually watched any of her films or shows. So, I freely concede that I could be wrong. However, I can't help but think that a Paris Hilton/Steve-O matchup would be pretty much a match of equals, of two people who achieve fame by being and doing stupid things, and that Paris has appeared, what, three times now? in shows that pretty much potray her as a spoiled, stupid dingbat (from what I gather from commercials. Haven't watched'em) who gets by on her looks and has no interest or clue in how the world works. So she must be o.k. with that potrayal of herself in the media, right?
If Paris dedicated herself to something that required some dedication of time and effort to achieve master of, and conducted herself with some degree of poise, this would in my mind very much outweigh, in the balance of her character to arrive at a conclusion, most sexual funnies she engaged in.
I don't know why I think this. I recognize that screwing around with married people often results in at least one person having their heart torn out, but if you held a gun to my head and asked me which was worse, someone who dedicated themselves to achieving mastery of writing/acting/international finance, whatever, and just being a stable person in a relationship, but otherwise sat their ass in front of the glass teat every day and did nothing, emotionally (and from a distance) I think the greater tragedy is the person who does nothing.
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posted
I think everyone has a different line. To me, Paris had gone so far into skanky territory by sleeping with someone she wasn't married to, didn't have a relationship, for the camera, and then selling the footage that the fact that her partner was married almost doesn't register. If sex outside of marriage isn't a problem, then the line is drawn farther back, but it's still a line. Clearly sex is something we have decided to place boundries on, and the words we use to describe those who break the boundries reflect that.
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posted
People who obsess over the sexual activity of others are just as ruled by sex as people who obsess over their own sex life. Just in different ways.
Unfortunately, it's particularly difficult to pin down what a "healthy" attitude about sex would be, and that changes for different times in life as well as different life circumstances within any single culture. We live in a time and a country where cultural traditions are mixed. That just adds to the confusion.
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posted
Being young in America, you get the chance to be obsessed about sex without anyone thinking you're abnormal. That has its advantages. It also has a few downsides to it too.
But compared to really anti-sex-obsessed cultures, I think our way is preferable, if not yet ideal.
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posted
If you're asking people to stop judging others based on the amount of partners they've had, you almost have to ask them to stop judging others entirely, which I don't think is likely or possible. We judge instinctively, sometimes without even knowing.
But I think number of partners is fair game in use for judgements of others. I judge girls who've had what I might consider an excessive amount of guys for partners. If I delve into it, my judgement/opinion changes greatly depending on the nature of the partners, but the number by itself is a factor too. I judge guys too, based on the same criteria.
The number of partners you've had says something about you, it doesn't say the same thing for every person, but it does say something. It's a choice you've made, and the choices you make are used as criteria for others to form opinions about you. I don't see anything inherently wrong with that.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
If you don't know the reasons behind their choices, I don't really see how you can form opinions about it. I mean, I certainly can understand you not wanting to date someone who has had fifteen partners in the last week, but that's your choice. It might very well be mine too, because that just squicks me out. But there isn't anything you can base opinions off of, just knowing the number.
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posted
Have you EVER formed any opinion (scratch the word judged, from my previous post as well) on someone based on any part of their physical apperance? Be it their clothes or their actual bodies?
Have you ever formed an opinion on someone based on something they said?
Either of those can use the same argument, that it isn't fair to judge them without knowing the reasons behind why they are the way they are. In the cast of the second one though, I do think it is fair to use a quote from someone as a single factor in forming an opinion on them.
I might also argue that the fact that a high number "squicks" you out is part of a latent formation of an opinion of that person.
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posted
I don't like thinking that a person IS something because of things like that. I think everyone's life is filled with stories and actions from all across the spectrum and that any single area doesn't define the person, so calling someone a [blank] is unfair and not a good idea.
I'm a lot more comfortable with identifying behaviors (starring in porn and lying about it) that I don't like.
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posted
I never said it should be the ONLY factor. But that it IS one, and I don't see why it should be exempted.
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posted
*shrug* I form opinions such as "I don't think me and this person will get along" or "I don't think we will have much in common."
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posted
I think the problem a lot of people have isn't that we as a society judge people based on the number of partners they've had. It's that we judge women far more harshly than men. And whether or not you, personally, judge them equally is pretty much irrelevant to wether the society does. If the words we use to describe sexual behavior reflect the boundaries society wants to place on it, then society only thinks women having lots of sex is wrong. There have been several derogatory words for women used in this thread. I can think of a dozen more. There has been one word for men, man whore, which is based on the word whore, used for women. And incidentally, which I have never heard used in a derogatory manner. Although if people point out some instances, I'd be happy to admit I'm wrong about that. It's still telling that it's the only word to describe sexually active men, though.
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There isn't an equivalent term for guys, it gets summarized with "jerk" or stronger.
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