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The evolution of "slut"
These days the word is often used as an affectionate tease among friends, especially adolescent girls. Or it has metaphorical meaning – you're a slut for something you can't resist. At first it might seem that feminism and the sexual revolution have dulled the word's power to demean: how can anyone be a slut – "a promiscuous woman," as The Canadian Oxford Dictionary puts it – if females are free to be as sexual as men? [...] But "slut" can still pack a knockout punch of contempt, even when it's aimed at someone who isn't being, well, slutty. For people lashing out against a girl or woman, the four-letter word is – like "bitch" – one of those reflex insults that leap from the tongue. Witness Barbara Amiel Black's meltdown last week in a Chicago courthouse, in which she called a female Canadian TV producer a "slut." Apparently, Black was upset by the journalist's assertiveness in trying to get into the same elevator – not exactly sluttiness in the traditional sense. [...] Among younger people, though, the friendly use of "slut" is common. Mimi Hagiepetros, a 13-year-old Toronto student, says her schoolmates mostly use it "lovingly" and "as a joke." Grown-up women will good-naturedly call each other "slut," employing the word with all its sexual connotations in subtle, ironic rebellion against a double standard that refuses to go away. Yet the word hasn't been completely defanged. A battery-operated Little Mermaid Shimmering Lights Ariel doll that supposedly says the words "You're a slut" made it to the ABC news website last December after a "shocked" mother contacted the media. Visitors can watch a 48-second video clip of the doll "speaking" to try to hear the offending words themselves (Mattel denied the accusation, and this writer was unable to detect any Exorcist-like language). Check out the shocking ABC investigative report, a classic in the "every parent's worst nightmare" genre, here: Mom: Talking Doll Called My Daughter 'a Slut'. And This is London has a detailed account of the elevator incident: "But there was very little regal hauteur on display when Lady Black of Crossharbour lost her temper . . . ."
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This Toronto Star column (for some reason classified under "science and technology") asks,