Q:I love your message and am attending your walk but I am not sure I agree with the attempt to reclaim the word Slut (or cunt, birth, whore, or anything else for that matter). I feel that a word can never truly be reclaimed. Look at the N word, some may say it has been reclaimed but no white person would ever utter it in public. Do you think you can reclaim those words? I obviously don't but I'd like to understand your logic.
Anonymous
Plenty of words can and have been reclaimed. A great list of reclaimed words can be found here. Plus, real examples of people using reclaimed words can be found all over the place. For example, I (Robin, one of the organizers) often use the word “queer” to describe my sexuality because I feel like it describes me better than “bisexual” or “lesbian,” and many other non-heterosexual people do the same thing.
Society decides how words are defined, so society can decide to change a definition. I think that just by looking at how other words have been reclaimed, it’s evident that “slut” can be reclaimed too. If enough people decide they want “slut” to be positive, it’ll eventually be positive.
However, we realize that many people who participate in SlutWalks across the globe have no interest in reclaiming the word “slut.” It’s the official stance of SlutWalk Seattle that we want to reclaim the word, but we’re not asking all individual participants to agree with us. As long as you agree with us about victim-blaming and slut-shaming, we want you to attend.
