slut v. -n. sluts
( derogatory)
frivolous woman”
Swedish Academy word list – 2006
– Does this make me look slutty?
It’s a quiet day in the big store. In the background pop-music can be heard while a salesman straightens a garment on a hanger. A woman pushes a pram slowly. My friend E is standing in a tight booth covered by a heavy velvet curtain. She wears a black party dress which reaches down to her knees. It fits tightly on her tall, slender body. On the back of the dress, by the shoulders, there is a floral pattern with laces.
– Absolutely not. You look gorgeous in it, I reply.
Right then I didn’t think about it. It struck me later. She asks how other people will see her and her sexuality. I can sort of understand how she thinks, because we always worry about how other people think we look. That is so wrong.
I can’t help myself. Some people say it’s like beating a dead horse. I say it’s a current issue. Because it’s partially a matter of male and female. Would a man dressed in an unbuttoned shirt ask his friend if he looked slutty in the same booth? No.
Men on the other hand, can’t be slutty since slut is a “frivolous woman”, according to society. He can’t ask that because he’s a man.
But E asks. She doesn’t want others to look down on her or think she’s “easy”. Clothes are about expressing yourself. They can express sexuality but they don’t show anything about a person’s sex-life. Is someone more slutty in a dress if she has an active sex-life as opposed to being abstinent? And how can you tell how sexually active someone is judging only by the way they dress?
A gorgeous, black, tight dress doesn’t divulge anything about E’s sexuality.
Elizabeth Granqvist for RealStars