"The most dangerous thing about the word "promiscuous" is that its use encodes a whole worldview, one which decrees that a woman ....can't be acting out of genuine choice or exercising any forms of choice or any standards....no middle ground.... doesn't allow for the possibility of women freely and happily [my emphasis] choosing to have sex... Words reflect the world we live in and this is a word that ... distorts our perceptions and reflects a warped view of women and their sexuality."

Your post resonated so deeply with me, since this was a battle i had with myself for a very long time, before coming to the same conclusion that you put here -- although, I confess, not nearly as eloquently as you.

It's something that has needed saying for a long time. Brava.

 

Good Wednesday afternoon to you, O !

Very good post. Language - and our specific choice of the words we use, either elevates or demeans.

Indicriminate use of certain words, casual, careless and irregulkar understanding of what precisely is meant and intended, is just sloppy.

But how many people care ? howmany people are thoughtful in their choices of what word to use in a sentence, and why, considering the context and the appropriateness before speaking ?

Not many.

That is why it is such a pleasure to find someone who IS careful with their speech, who carefully selects the word with the meaning that most acccurately applies to describe what is going on at that moment.

"slut" can be a noun or a verb or an adjective. It can be a term of sexual excitement, a term of derision from an uptight, narrow-minded and judgemental woman (or man), or even a laughing joke between friends who are eyeing a hot guy...

And reality is subjective. It depends on personal opinion. On personal life experience that shape you and thereby shape the way you think, feel and describe things.

Maybe that is why choosing friends carefully is so essential. So that they speak the same language that you do, with the same understanding and acceptance.

Your enemies can always attempt to destroy you by their lack of willingness or ability to see all sides of the picture, or their eagerness to simply wound rather than to comprehend and empathize...

Language is a precious gift. I think we are best surrounded by those who speak it with care.

Euphemisms do not do justice to clarity. And what good is having a brain if you cannot employ it to specify meaning - and take responsibility for what you said and why you said it...

 

This post inspired me to look up "promiscuous" in the OED to learn its roots. "Promiscere," to mix up, or the classical Latin, "promiscuus," common or shared. Many of the meanings use the word "common," another word that has acquired a pejorative edge over the years. That either of these words (which, at their heart, seem to be about inclusivity and community) have been put to such ugly uses is saddening to say the least. You do a lovely job of articulating why and how.

 

As always, very intelligent. I'm going to forward this post to my mother, who likes to use your particular euphemism to describe me. :)

One thing I might add: I don't really think there's any word which captures its intended object. No matter how carefully we may choose our terms, I think they'll always be only as empty or full as the rhetoric we assign them. That's an extra layer of danger we need to watch out for. But I'm a post-structuralist/deconstructionist, so of course that's going to be my response. I don't disagree with you, though, and I'm thrilled to have happened upon a post about language, my favorite subject! (Well ... after watersports and ass fucking.)

 

Both words, slut and promiscuous aren't anything much on their own, but like you say, they're embroiled in the social fabric, and apart from being synonymous with being indiscriminant, they're subtly synonymous with self respect, so when they're used in a derogatory way, there's also the notion of self respect, the words implying that the person doesn't have any (even if this is untrue, which is quite frequent), but in saying that there are people who don't really care, who don't respect themselves, and as such (because the English language is dry and precise) a definition is required on some level, for the sake of writing, and so on.

The only problem I have with the word 'slut' is when there are attempts to market it, even subtly, where a person is trying to convince me that it's a fantastic status, when (at the same time) it's linked or joined to pastimes that step over the line, that raise other psychological/social issues.

Aside from that, I do think that the English language overall is a poor language, and words like promiscuous and slut reflect the poverty within the language. Other languages have a variety of words that describe the same thing (a highly sexed individual), which aren't derogatory, or double for this (as does slut; a dual word, that is used positively, but more socially ingrained as a negative word).

It's hard to give an example (without sounding like Gus in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, lol), but taking the English word 'whore' or even prostitute, there's a word that serves as a standard definition of 'whore', which is 'porni' (of which 'porn' is the derivative or root of English words like pornography and so on)'. So porni is a more derogative or dry/harsh word to describe prostitute or whore, then there's another word, similar to the Spanish, but is 'putana' (which Italians use as well), and then there are more lighter, and much more affectionate terms that are completely separate from the standard words or definitions: 'poutanitsa' is one that comes to mind. It doesn't grate, as does 'promiscuous' or 'slut', it also sounds different from a phonetic aspect, and it's when I think of those things, that I wish I was more capable of writing all my compositions in Greek because English is so limited where sexual terminology is concerned. It doesn't have layers, and a lot of its terms for highly sexed women, etc, are dry, cutting and rather derogatory. Few (hardly any) are affectionate, or sound that way when said. 'Slut' 'Whore' 'Promiscuous' 'Strumpet' 'hooker' 'tart,' and they're more appropriate to literature that features harsher activities, or humiliations, and are always aligned with such literature, the Story of O being an exception to the rule, but proof that bdsm (and similar) can be done without the use of 'slut'.

It's hard to reclaim a word, because there is always going to be a group that will use the word (it can be any word that was or is used in a negative way), so the word will always exist as a negative. The first groups that come to mind are religious groups, who exist within defined realms, that need to separate their world from the 'sinful' word, using words as operant definintions, in the same way that racists use terms, and still use terms, as operant definitions to round off their manifestoes. Such is the spice of life, I guess.

 

ps: on the indiscriminant, or the definition of it/its association with the word promiscuous. It's a silly word, due to its limitations. To me, a sexually indiscriminant person (there are heaps of examples: a person engaging in a one night stand with a stranger without using condoms, and similar) is one who ignores their safety or the safety of others. A more simpler defintion for me or for myself, is 'stupid', rather than promiscuous. This word is like a thick layer of empty calories, like cake icing. A lot of fancy bullshit, without giving any context. As for the frequency of sex, it's something that frequently aligns with issues like sex before marriage, issues that religious groups rave on about, and as such, 'promiscuous' tends to be used in a subtle religious context.

 

Nicely written.

I think this might be a uniquely American thing. And I believe it's reaching the point where people are moving beyond labels. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I think the saturation point on the war of words has been reached and people are starting to think for themselves. Especially when the accusers' actions are brought into the light.

Zoe had an article worth reading too: Orgasms for the hell of it

"It may be 2007, but a sexually liberated woman is still judged a failure and labelled a slag"



-L'etranger-

 

Just came by on Friday the 21st to say hello, O, and see how you were doing --
Loving Annie

Remember, it take stime to heal. Much longer than you may expect. There are good moments and then bad hours... Be gentle with yourself... Nurture you, protect you, cherish you...

Been there/Done that/Barely survived - but did eventually.

 

I'm curious what word you feel could be used instead to refer to someone (or to oneself) as having or preferring a wide range of sexual partners? It didn't seem you were saying "slut" was necessarily a replacement word.

Interestingly, I've always seen it as the other way around from how you're coming at it. I've always gotten the impression people use "promiscuous" as a way to lessen the impact of the negative connotations of "slut"-- that they used it as a more "adult," less blame-filled word, to indicate they have no problems with someone who fits that definition (for them). Sort of like people who use "full figured" instead of "fat," because they want to negate the percieved judgment and cruelty that sometimes comes with that word.

I'm not saying this kind of euphemistic usage is better or worse, but just that I have always seen it as being used to negate a sexual being.

I guess then the discussion moves to which matters more, informal intent or formal definition? But that's a whole different thread.

And also, if the word's being used improperly, why wouldn't/couldn't there be a movement to redefine it in the public consciousness?

 

Oops, an edit I made led to a confusing typo. This sentence:

I'm not saying this kind of euphemistic usage is better or worse, but just that I have always seen it as being used to negate a sexual being.

should read:

I'm not saying this kind of euphemistic usage is better or worse, but just that I have never seen it as being used to negate a sexual being.

Sorry...

 

Wow! Well written! How can I add you to the links on my blog so I can check up on you? Cormac.

 

Juno,

I'm so glad you liked it!

I have a more personal post in the works about this issue also. There is much to be said about how it plays out in our individual lives as women. I'm very happy you in particular liked it. We'll talk about this and other things soon.

Love
O

 

Hello Annie!

Maybe that is why choosing friends carefully is so essential. So that they speak the same language that you do, with the same understanding and acceptance.
...

Language is a precious gift. I think we are best surrounded by those who speak it with care.

Sometimes I've thought that one of the ways we track the progress or failure of a relationship or friendship is by our ability to speak and be understood, and by our willingness to actually hear one another. We know something is ending when we begin to lose confidence that we'll be understood.

I'm very grateful for your comment and your friendship.

best wishes,
O

 

j,

I'm so glad you posted that! I originally had the Latin in my post but decided it was already too pedantic. It made me happy you looked it up and posted that.
best
O

 

Marcelle, I'm flattered and you'll have to let me know what your mother says. I'm curious!

I'll probably have some more posts coming up about language, but very little assfucking at present.

The issue of whether any word can ever capture its intended object is pretty loaded and it's a much broader issue and more abstract than what I'm tackling here. I suspect you and I ultimately have very different perspectives on it.

No matter how carefully we may choose our terms, I think they'll always be only as empty or full as the rhetoric we assign them. That's an extra layer of danger we need to watch out for.
That's the layer I'm interested in, and that seems to be about meaning as use: conversational implicature and conventional meaning. Naming doesn't happen in a vacuum anymore than understanding does.

best
O

 

Anastasia,

Thank you (as ever) for such a perceptive and intelligent comment. I envy you your Greek; I know almost no modern Greek and I'm sure from what I do know about Greek that it'd give you a much larger range of expression than English affords me.

I'm so pleased that you mentioned the issue of self-respect. I didn't talk about that in this post (as I mentioned to Juno I have another post sort of related to this one that is less abstract and I hope to talk about it there). That issue was very much on my mind though and I'm really gratified that you nailed it right away.

You're right; there is this whole notion of self-respect that is bound up with these words and their uses, and I think there is even a corollary to what you mentioned. There's this issue about how much women respect themselves, and a lack of self respect is implied and even sometimes present. I think a word like promiscuous or slut (used pejoratively) does carry this connotation about self-respect, and the implied corollary is that because these women (allegedly) never respect themselves, they don't deserve for anyone to respect them either. So using these words does more than say something descriptive (supposedly) about the woman being labelled; these words carry a prescription for the speaker and the hearer about how we ought to treat her (i.e., as not worthy of respect).


I also agree with what you've said about reclaiming a word. Again, that's a whole topic in itself. But I couldn't agree more with what you've said: there is a prima facie problem because so many words serve as effective 'code words', signaling inclusion in or exclusion from a group. If there's a need to 'reclaim' a word it's obviously because it's a word that has been used in the past to exclude; as you say there will always be those who continue to want to exclude those individuals, and the word will continue to have that meaning for that subgroup. Even if a word were successfully reclaimed and redefined or somehow taken over, they'd simply use some other.

Thanks you for all this, and thank you as always for making me think further (and write more.)

very best wishes,
O

 

Dear Syl,

So many good points to respond to. Thank you! I'll take the easiest first:

if the word's being used improperly, why wouldn't/couldn't there be a movement to redefine it in the public consciousness?

Because it isn't being used improperly. Look at j's post on the etymology, or at the definition I gave.
There can potentially be a movement to change or take back the original meaning of a word, or a movement to redefine a word that only has a pejorative usage (like slut). We can't reclaim or redefine 'promiscuous' because its main definition now and always has to do with an indiscriminate and far-ranging collection, something mixed and tossed together. That meaning is bred in its bone. It's the other 3 usages and the root of the word. A "promiscuous collection", a "promiscuous education", a "promiscuous assortment".

My objection is that it's improper to use this word, which always means or refers to a motley assortment, for talking about sex in the ways its currently used: more than one partner or even "too many" partners.

I've always gotten the impression people use "promiscuous" as a way to lessen the impact of the negative connotations of "slut"-- that they used it as a more "adult," less blame-filled word, to indicate they have no problems with someone who fits that definition (for them).

That's exactly what I'm pointing out. This is a word for hypocrites. It's the supposedly adult and polite way to refer to an extremely subjective judgement: how many is "too many". It sounds so respectable, doesn't it? It sounds like it refers to an objective fact, when it actually is a label the application of which is entirely dependant upon the speaker's own assessment. Some people will (and do) use it to mean any woman who has sex with more than one person.

But "promiscuous" sounds so wincingly polite and proper, right? It has many syllables after all. There's a whole fetish (which I think is peculiarly American) for choosing longer words out of a mistaken belief that they sound smarter or classier: 'utilise' for 'use', 'actualise' for 'happen' or 'make', 'custodial engineer' for 'janitor'. So we might think that saying 'promiscuous' can't possibly be as nasty as calling someone a 'whore' or a 'cunt' or a 'tramp'. It's a longer word after all and it has about the reassuring ring of the clinical.

I'm arguing that if we look at how this word is actually used in talking about sex, we see it's used to pathologise desire. It's used to condemn women. It's no better than calling someone a cumbucket. It's just the social hypocrite's way of doing doing that.

I guess then the discussion moves to which matters more, informal intent or formal definition? But that's a whole different thread.
It is, but there is a third issue here that I've gestured at in this post: it's not only informal intent or formal definition that matters, but the way in which any community uses a word that matters. There is no such thing as a word which has only a private definition.

I think the use of promiscuous I'm talking about is vile for two reasons: it is vile and misogynistic because it's used to condemn women as tramps for having sexual appetites that violate the speaker's idea of what our appetites should be, and it's vile because it does violence to the English language.

I don't know what you mean by 'not negating a sexual being', so I may have misunderstood what you were saying there. I'll write you. Thanks again for commenting and letting me clarify my thought.


Best
O

 

Q,

Thank you; I'm glad you liked it. BTW, I have seen a lot of House now--thanks for the recommendation. I've always liked Hugh Laurie (and Sherlock Holmes) and I'm mildly addicted to the show.

Thanks for the link to Zoe's article. I'm sorry to see that some of the comments on it display exactly the kind of thinking that I am attacking. It's infuriating.

Cheers,
O

Dear Cormac,
Thank you for the comment. I am looking forward to seeing more of your blog. I like it. I'll say more about it there. Thanks again for reading--be well.
Cheers
O

 

Some more here:

Syl,
I'm curious what word you feel could be used instead to refer to someone (or to oneself) as having or preferring a wide range of sexual partners?

'Promiscuous' is never used in that way. Do we really need a special name for that?
Maybe so; it's debatable. English is a wonderfully plastic and fertile language and extremely accommodating of new words. If we do need a special name to designate that category we need to invent it, and we should use the exact same word for men and women who prefer that option, and we had better use the exact same standards in applying that new word to both men and women.

Anastasia,
A more simpler defintion for me or for myself, is 'stupid', rather than promiscuous. This word is like a thick layer of empty calories, like cake icing. A lot of fancy bullshit, without giving any context

Exactly. I use 'stupid' in the way you do. I can see why these stupid choices happen. I've made them myself and I will freely use that word to describe my own actions in that way. Stupid isn't as damning a word as promiscuous is in this context. It implies an error in judgement or thought that could be corrected and it isn't used to indicate a permanent character flaw. (Anyone can make a stupid mistake, but 'promiscuous' implies something permanent and about character).
You put it so well and clearly--I love the analogy with 'cake icing' and 'thick layer of empty calories.' That's also what I was talking about when I mentioned the peculiarly American love of jargon and long words, and I think Q was possibly mentioning the same thing.

Q, I didn't say thanks before for your other comments on me. I do read them and do appreciate them although I haven't been answering any comments for a few months and I can't say if I'll continue to answer comments. In theory I always want to answer; in practice I just don't blog that much and when I do have the time and the will I would rather write than answer comments, even good comments that make me think and want to write.

If you haven't already read them I'd recommend you read Anastasia's comments and my answer because I think it ties in to some things you wrote here. Also Miss Syl's comments and my answer. I'd especially recommend their blogs to you too. I learn a lot from them here and from reading them, and from what I've seen of you here I think you'd really enjoy reading them.

Cheers
O

 

We seem to be a society obsessed with enumeration. Our language often reflects that. We assume numbers based on some language, rather than attaching a specific behavior to the language.

Personally my numbers are quite low, although I'm sure that with the label I wear it would be assumed otherwise.


Her

 

Good Saturday evening the 29th, O -- just came by to say hello, and see what was new with you.

*cyber smiles and hugs*

Loving Annie

 

May October be good to you, dear O --

Thinking of you as time passes. Hope that people are being kind, and you are seeing your goodness reflected in their eyes.

SAometimes we forget how many people care about us when we only remember the one that hurt us... Yet the people that care - they truly see you as you are.

Loving Annie (it'll be a year for me next month since Mike's abandonment, which is why I can now be so wise and full of sage advice :)

 

Well, tis Friday once more.

So you liked House eh? If you can stand it, watch him on Inside the Actors Studio on Bravo when it's replayed. His accent is naturally Brit, but you can hardly tell American English isn't his natural language. And he's an overnight success story which took twenty-plus years. ;) And wait until hear him sing. He has a band you know. Pretty hi-larious!


-L'etranger-

Ps: I know words are your church, but I really do love the corset in your avatar. ;)

 

O, thank you so very much for your wonderful comment on my last post. I can't tell you how much your input means to me -- your writing has been and continues to be such an inspiration.

I truly appreciate it. Thank you, again.

 

Came by on Thursday October 11th to see how you are doing O, and what is new with you. Hope that all is well -
Loving Annie

 

Just came by on October 16th to say hello, O -

 

so much for a steady diet.
I'm starving for words again.

 

It Saturday November 24th - how are you doing, O ?

Loving Annie

 

Wow, you have not posted in a LONG time, baby. You ok?

 

I find myself aching for the words that tumble out of your brain and into my heart.

Misery I tell you, without you.

-L

 

Most interesting. It would also be fun to see the etyomology of some terms we associate w/ sexuality.

 

Very interesting blog. I will take my time to read more of your posts. by the way, may I ask why you (or somebody else) have chosen the name of "O" for you? This name has a very special meaning for me...

Take care and have a great summer,
tina of Sweden

 

Hey sweetheart, still thinking of you now and then, and hoping you are well... Kisses!

 

So very glad to see you back Miss O!

Wonderful post! Your dislike of the misuse of the word promiscuous... when I hear it used, I have a hard time not turning to physical violence.

My personal fave, though, is cunt. I know it's been championed by many, but I still find the need to use it any time someone tries to anthropomorphize my genitalia.

Glorious to see you again! I have linked.