I have a quick question: What does the word "slut" mean to you? Does it mean "has a lot of sex" or "has a lot of indiscriminate sex" (for personal levels of discriminate) or something else?

Well. I think I see the second definition more widely used, definitely as a pejorative. But I also see people (mostly women, but some men) using it in the first sense, often as a re-claiming of the word.

To be totally honest about my own brain, I think of it as a pejorative, in terms of "indiscriminate" sex. I realize that's uncool; it's not up to me to decide if someone's sex is "indiscriminate." But that's how the word is lodged in my brain. I own that, but I would like to change it. I don't particularly use the word in converation, as far as I'm aware, but it still has that negative connotation when I think it.

If that makes sense.

So you see it as inherently gender-specific, Consuela?

Unrelatedly, someone is supposed to be transferring a complex project to me, and will NOT make herself accessible to actually talk to me about it. This is intensely frustrating. I can't lead any more meetings until I get more grounded in the project and she sends me the documentation, but she's been putting this off for over a week, and I just look vague in front of the users as a result. Grr.

Never mind the business user on another project who seems to be avoiding me entirely. Dude, my boss still thinks your project is important. I look bad in front of him if I can't report progress, and blaming you for being inaccessible makes me look ineffective too.

It's possible that I have a bad headache and just want to cry.

My buddy Michael just texted me to say that his house in Tuscaloosa is nothing but shambles. Presumably this includes all of his guitars and home recording equipment. But he's okay and grateful for that because he lives in that neighborhood behind the stores at the beginning of the video above.

I can't comprehend a mile-wide tornado. I had to map out in my head how far 1 mile is from my house, and I am gobsmacked to think of a tornado that huge.

That's the thing that gets me. In that video, the guy starts recording with the tornado about a mile off, presumably at the far end of Forest Lake neighborhood - my friend Michael's neighborhood, a place I lived for many years - which has nothing standing in it any more, not even the trees. It's on top of him within four minutes. Where could he go?

In other news, the tornado watch sirens just went off here.

I would say sex with a lot of people and/or indiscriminate.

In other (or related?????) news, I just accidentally started talking about abortion with coworkers. I should know that is a bad idea, even if it goes well.

serial:

Okay, that took a long time to compose.

I totally get that the term "indiscriminate" is highly loaded, and not something you should hold someone else's sex life up to, but I'm not mistaken in interpreting the term as "you're having not just a lot of sex with a lot of people, but with the wrong people"?

I'm not mistaken in interpreting the term as "you're having not just a lot of sex with a lot of people, but with the wrong people"?

I don't think so. If a cheerleader is supposed to have slept with the whole football team, she's likely going to get called a slut, but for sleeping with *so many* boys, not which ones.

Stay safe, Hayden!

So you see it as inherently gender-specific, Consuela?

I think the great majority of the use I see applies to women; when I see it used about men, it's (a) usually kind of ironic ("He's a slut for new technology,") and/or (b) not as pejorative. Men who have indiscriminate sex are perceived as men who have indiscriminate sex: there's much less moral weight on the sex of itself.

Which is not to say that a man who sleeps around a lot doesn't get a reputation, but it's as a player, right? Other men don't shame him for his activity, although they might tease him for his choice of partners. Women might think he's trouble, as well, but there isn't that sense of being dirty that is associated with women who sleep around a lot.

Because of course we must control women's sexuality, and women do that by calling other women sluts.

I'm not sure how to frame the "right" people proposition (I'm operating with seriously reduced intellectual capacity right now, so I don't know if it's my point or my brain that's the problem), but isn't it pretty clear that the whole team is never discriminate? Unless it's the bible study team, or something.

"He's a slut for new technology,"

And in this scenario, does it mean he uses a lot of new technology, or that he'll use any old new technology, and not apply much discretion to it?

I'm not mistaken in interpreting the term as "you're having not just a lot of sex with a lot of people, but with the wrong people"?

I think Amy's right: when it comes to women, the quality of the partners doesn't matter, just the number. For men, it seems like the quality of the partners comes into play, but then I'm not a man and not privy to the conversations men have amongst themselves.

I don't think a man who sleeps exclusively with beautiful women is going to be called a slut; but a woman who sleeps with a lot of attractive men? Probably, depending on the social context.