[lbo-talk] Language of Contempt

[Gar Lipow]

Carrol
>
>
> When I was still teaching, I would occasionally ask my students to
> propose a male equivalent of "slut" -- i.e., a word that had all the
> polemical force of "slut" but that clearly and unambiguously applied to
> males only. No one  ever came up with a really persuasive candidate. The
> brighter women in the class would often fall back on "asshole,"
> acknowledging that while it wasn't specific to males, it was the best
> epithet that didn't focus on females. It is really amazing how much of
> the available language of contempt is gendered, in origin and usually in
> current usage. "Son of a bitch" is classic: aimed at men, but focusing
> on their mother, as though the worst thing you can say about a man is
> that he has a sexually erring mother.
>
> Carrol
>
> ^^^^
>

As others have pointed out, slut is now used to some extent for men -
though not to the same  extent. There is also the term "himbo" .