Reclaiming our sexuality. Thoughts on the word slut.

When people run scared from a label, from a social construction, it can further stigmatize it. When people run scared from a word because they believe it cannot be ours, ever, that it is that powerful, then they further perpetuate that it isthat powerful, that it isa bad thing to be.

It seems harmful to state unequivocally that we can never claim slut for ourselves, we can never subvert it, we can never take away its power, we can never use it to challenge the status quo. That very sentiment is taking our voices away. Saying we cannot define it, cannot claim it as our own takes away our power. We realise slut was never ours to begin with, but in claiming it as our own, I see that we are reclaiming our sexuality. Reclaiming the fact that a promiscuous woman is not a bad thing. Reclaiming that a woman who decides how many partners she sleeps with is not a bad thing. Reclaiming that a woman is not defined solely by how many sexual partners she has. It’s a direct challenge to the social construction, to a word that has been used to silence us, shame us and blame us. It’s not labelling ourselves something to further perpetuate it - but to break it completely apart.

It’s about reclaiming our voices. Saying that a label does not define us, cannot hurt us. Slut is entrenched with abuse as it is - but it is a construction. It’s a word designed to silence us - and by using the SlutWalk name we’re saying we will no longer let it silence our voices.